Child Labour - Chapter Two
Sassafras was a good fluffy. She was a very good fluffy. That was why she was so confused by the way her daddy’s expression fell into one of confoundedness and disappointment. Except, to her, it just looked like her daddy was having saddies now that she had announced her big surprise. Tim only stared down at the pink fluffy in his arm.
Minutes passed with nothing said between them. Sassafras frowned and looked away from him. She dodged his gaze, averting her dark eyes. Her front hoofsie was pulled defensively toward her chest as if she just wanted to make herself smaller. Maybe surprising Daddeh with babbehs had been a mistake. But everybody loved babbehs…
“Fine.”
The fluffy instantly snapped her head back to look at her human daddy and it was as though the very possibility that daddy might have been displeased had totally vanished from her mind. He said ‘Fine!’ That was the same thing Daddeh had said those two times that he didn’t lose his temper at her for bad poopies on the couch! Sassafras loved when things were fine!
“Yay! Daddeh!” Once more her single front hoofsie was thrown happily into the air. Her eyes were scrunched closed in a fit of jubilant laughter so she didn’t notice the resentful glare her daddy was aiming her way. He groaned quietly in the back of his throat and thought about how to proceed. “Sassa-fass suu ‘cited fow hab bestest pwetty babbehs! Sassa-fass gon’ gib miwkies to babbehs, an’-an’-an’ teach aww babbehs to make gud poopies in da witta box!” Tim stayed silent. “An Sassa-fass wiww teww stowies to babbehs, an’ show babbehs da bestest moo-bees on TeeBee, an shawe toysies wiff babbehs, an’ gib dem da bestest huggies and wuv!”
Sassafras droned on and on like that for the entire walk back to the house. Tim entered through the back storm door directly into his small kitchen. He placed his pregnant pet down on the cold linoleum. He tucked the skateboard into the linen closet and closed the door calmly. She watched him put her skateboard away and kept her gaze on him as he strode across the kitchen.
Her daddy took out a tin from a cabinet under the counter. She recognized that can! The cute and stylized portrait of a smiling green fluffy on the side told her that this was the vegetable-flavoured kind. It wasn’t exactly her favourite. Tim placed the can by the little magic tool that stayed up on the counter and it buzzed loudly as it spun the can around and tore it open with its teeth. Daddeh was friends with a lot of magic things he called tools, and they had important jobs. All of his magical tools were so talented!
The tired handyman hadn’t had any new work in a few weeks. They weren’t in any immediate danger but the idea of having even one more mouth to feed in his home filled him with frustration. He turned the opened tin upside down over the fluffy dish. A distinctly can-shaped brown cylinder of gelatinized plant matter fell like a lead turd out of the metal container and landed with a splat into the bowl. He pressed the prongs of a fork deep into the squelching mass several times until it became loose and goopy. This shit always disgusted him. It broke apart like clumps of wet soil.
Sassafras frowned when presented the plant pate. She did like these nummies more than she liked kibble, or as Daddeh called it, “fluffy cereal.” But these nummies always smelled bad. They smelled like sickie wawas mixed with dirt. If she could read she would see that the can claimed its contents were comprised of water, corn, soybeans, spinach, and red dye #2. She begrudgingly took some of the fibrous slop into her mouth and swallowed it down.
“Daddeh,” Sassafras began, “Dees nummies am… otay. Tank yuu. Buh… Meb-bee now dat Sassa-fass am soon-mummah, Sassah-fass can hab sketties instead ob stinky jelly?” She furrowed her brow and smiled expectantly up at her daddy. He just stared back down at her and then rolled his eyes and exhaled. She continued in her childish language, “It jus’ dat umm… Soon-mummah nee’ bestest nummies fo shawe wif bestest tummy-babbehs. O-otay?” She was still smiling and was almost sure that her daddy would see her point. But Daddeh’s lack of a response made it seem to Sassafras like maybe her daddy wasn’t really getting it. “Sassa-fass finish stinky jelly nummies dis time, but pwease sketties nex’ time. Tank yuu.” The hungry fluffy finished her point, and then her dinner.
My, she was demanding.
When her bowl was empty Tim picked it up and placed it into the sink. He then picked up Sassafras and carried her down the hallway in the direction of the saferoom. That saferoom was an absolute paradise for a spoiled fluffy. Perhaps those fun ramps, toys, tunnels, and platforms were a tad less fun for a half-pillowed fluffy. But at one point it felt like they would have hours of fun together in that saferoom. Little Sassafras would giggle and shake her tail to-and-fro with excitement. She’d encourage her daddy to chase after her, and Tim would pretend he couldn’t find where she was hiding. He had been so excited when he got his first fluffy foal. Yet over time, he internally pondered, he had certainly come to resent her. She ate more, shat more, got in the way more, talked more. She was a lot less cute.
He worked hard. And she gave him nothing that was really worthwhile in return. She was always getting in his way, trying to “help.” The hard-working Tim had come to see his fluffy as annoying, and stupid, and uncoordinated. All she did for him anymore was give him more work to do. Part of him knew that none of that was necessarily her fault. She was just a fluffy. She was too simple to even comprehend what a burden she was. What a burden her entire species really was.
She was blissfully ignorant. And yet he just wanted to take out the unpleasant feelings she planted in his mind. She was too stupid and naïve to deserve his resentment, but (like all of her kind) she was just enough of a facsimile for the shallow and frustrating traits of human beings that it was actually getting easy to feel all of this negativity toward her.
“Sassafras,” he spoke sternly while lowering her onto her bed for the night. “I am disappointed in you that you would decide to have babies all on your own like that, without even asking me first.”
Sassafras’s head was bowed in shame and her small floppy ears hung low. Big indigo eyes were locked on Tim’s face. She had no words. She thought everything was going to be okay. Daddeh had told her it was fine!
“Babies are a lot of work, Sassafras. I work very hard to take care of you every single day. Now, I will have to work even harder to take care of your babies. I’m tired, Sassafras.”
“Buh Daddeh, babbehs am da bestest ting in da whowe ebewyting! Dey soft, an’ smeww gud, an’ am su widdew an’ cute to hug and wuv. Sassa-fass wiww take cawe ob babbehs an’ Daddeh onwy stiww hab take cawe ob Sassa-fass…”
“It doesn’t work that way. You can’t take care of babies all by yourself. I’m going to have to help you. I don’t have time for taking care of babies and I already break my back every day.”
“Daddeh back am huwties? Daddeh nee’ huggies fwum Sassa-fass?”
Tim closed his eyes. Regardless of how much resentment he felt toward Sassafras, she still knew how to get to him sometimes. He couldn’t deny that it felt good to be wanted. It did feel good that her first reaction to him was always positive and accepting.
“No, you dummy. It’s just a phrase. It means that I work until I’m too tired to run or play anymore. Every day. So I think that from here on out, anyone who’s going to stay in this house is going to have to work.”
“Buh Daddeh, dat am jus’ yuu an Sassa-fass.”
“Oh, it’s more than just you and me. Your babies aren’t going to be a bunch of little freeloaders. If they are going to live in this home, they are going to work.”
“Daddeh, dey onwy widdew babbehs. Dey am tiny an’ need huggies and wuv…”
“That’s nice. If they want to have ‘huggies and wuv,’ while warm and dry under my roof, then what I say goes. If you don’t want your babies to pitch in around here then you and your babies can live free of charge, outside.” Her daddy pointed his finger toward the big wide window that took up a large portion of the safe room’s east-facing wall. Raindrops were splashing gently on the outside of the glass. The bright ball wasn’t out anymore and the big dark sky didn’t even have any twinklies visible in it through the clouds.
Outside without her daddy?
“Otay. Babbehs wiww wowk hawd wike Daddeh. Sassa-fass wan’ stay in housie wif Daddeh. Sassa-fass an’ babbehs do whatebah bestest Daddeh need.”
Good. He was going to enjoy teaching Sassafras this lesson.
It had been a few forevers since Sassfras had had her fateful encounter with Blackrock the feral stallion. So much time had passed that Daddeh had even turned the page in his calendar over one whole time since then! Sassafras had begun to worry on more than one occasion that maybe her babies were never going to come out. Every day she grew more bloated and rotund, and likewise it became harder with each passing day for her to maintain any semblance of mobility. The skateboard was of no use to her like this. Her expanded form pooled over its sides uncomfortably and her tender, swollen milkie places got hurties from rubbing against the rough surface while she rode. She never left the saferoom anymore except to eat her meals.
Thunder roared in the sky outside the big window and raindrops splashed against the glass just like on the night she made a deal with her Daddeh. She was laying awake that night and stared out through the glass. For the past however-many bright times and dark times, she had been able to feel the tiny delicate flutters of her babies as they grew more and more active in her tummy. She would sing to them. She would talk to them.
She would open up a big cardboard book when beddy-bye time approached each dark time and would pretend to read to her tummy babies while making up simple-minded little stories. Just like how Daddeh used to read stories to her!
“Wain, wain, go a-wee, babbehs comin’ any day~!"
She sang the simple rainy-day song to no one in particular while titling her head from one side to the other with the tune. She was so uncomfortably bloated at this point, though, that it was hard just to stay asleep at night. The loud storm outside didn’t help.
Then, she froze.
An all-encompassing twisted pain shot through Sassafras’s fat body. It culminated in her special place and sent her reeling in agony. It felt like she was going to pop! She started frantically flailing her leggies in panic and yelling for her daddy to come help her.
“Daddeh! Daddeh, pwease hewp! Biggest poopies! Tummy hab owies! Special pwace hab wowstest huwties! Biggest poopies, Daddeh!! Screee!”
Tim came bounding down the hallway and stepped over the baby gate that separated the saferoom from the rest of his house. He had had a clean towel at the ready for just this moment and placed it down on the floor by the crying fluffy. He went to the sink and retrieved a bowl of warm water.
“Daddeh, sabe Sassa-fass! Biggest poopies huwting soon-mummah…! Soon-mummah nu mean tu make bad poopies on da fwoo-ah!” Sassafras sobbed and squealed. Big sloppy tears fell rapidly from her clenched eyes.
“Listen, Sassy. You aren’t making bad poopies. Your babies are ready to come out of your tummy! They need you to help them come out. You’re going to have to push hard. Push like you’re actually making the biggest poopies ever!”
At the mention of her babies, Sassafras tensed up and it seemed like everything just stopped. For a moment in that saferoom, time stood still. She looked up at her daddy and couldn’t even hear the rumble of the thunder or the pounding rain beating on her saferoom window anymore. The mare gritted her teeth and braced her entire broken body. She had to be the strongest mummah now, for her babies!
“Sassa-fass am pushin’ su hawd!” Her voice was ragged and laboured. “Babbehs, pwease come out… Pwease come out and be wiff Mummah…”
A slight and temporary feeling of release swept over the mare for the briefest of moments. Her ears picked up on the sound of chirps coming from behind her right before her entire body quaked with another contraction. Tim was squatting behind her, ready to receive the emerging infant fluffies.
As that first one slipped free from Sassafras’s special place and out into his warm palm, Tim worked diligently to wipe the afterbirth from its velvet-covered form with a warm wet cloth. First one, then another, then another. This process was repeated until all but one newborn had been cleaned and gently placed into the writhing pile that now occupied Sassafras’s plush bed. They peeped and chirped to alert their mother that their unfed bellies needed milkies.
“Here, Sassafras. You can do this last one. You did it…” Tim took the last baby gently in his hands, still slick with dark clumps of tissue and boo-boo juice coating its thin coat of fuzz. He placed it onto her chest. The two-legged fluffy’s exhausted body was now being propped upright in a reclined sitting position against a sturdy pillow. Sassafras swiftly began the important mission of giving her youngest baby her much-needed licky-cleanies. With each stroke of the mare’s soft pink tongue, the new baby peeped and cooed to express her heart happies. Daddeh placed two chirping foals against Sassafras’s teats. They each latched onto one nipple and began to rapidly knead at their mother’s soft flesh with their tiny delicate hoofsies. Mummah’s milkies filled their tummies with soothing warmth and the glowing feeling of her love.
“Daddeh… Babbehs am suu pwetty…” Sassafras stared at the pile of squirming little things that she now shared her bed with. She had seven. To Sassafras, that meant that she had five and two babbehs. She was a very smart fluffy, so she could count all the way to five! After the first two babies had been nourished by her sweet life-giving milk, Sassafras let Daddeh switch them for two other hungry babies. This went until her lastest-born foal had had her fill. “Sassa-fass wuv aww babbehs… Nu can bewieb babbehs am finawwy hewe wiff Mummah…”
Sassafras felt her eyelids getting heavy. Having babies was so much hard work. Maybe it was even as hard as the hard work that kept her daddy so busy all day long. Tim let out a sigh and carefully placed Sassafras first into the plush bed, followed by each of her foals. Those babies were sleeping like rocks. Their tiny chests heaved just slightly with each barely-audible peep that signaled their respirations. He scooped each fragile baby fluffy up according to proper technique. The mare watched him to make sure that he didn’t give her new babies bad upsies. He placed each foal gingerly in bed beside their tired mother.
The broad-shouldered, gruff man looked down at the small babies. He saw a light red one, an orange-cream one (almost the colour of Sassafras herself), a white one with black splotches, and a powder-blue one. Those were the males. The females included one lavender, one grey, and (most-interestingly) a white one with peach-pink splotches almost matching those covering her monochrome brother.
One rough hand glided up toward the light switch next to the doorway, ready to flick it off. Just before he could, a tiny voice called out to him.
“Daddeh… Tank yuu, fow hewp Sassa-fas hab hew babbehs… Sassa-fass wuv yuu, bestest Daddeh…”
“Good girl,” was all he responded with before shutting off the light. He stepped back over the gate and into the inky darkness of the hallway.
And just like that, it was over. Sassafras wasn’t a soon-mummah anymore. Now she was a real, actual mummah. She looked down at her chirping brood one more time. The soft blue-lilac glow of a smiling star-shaped night light on the nearby wall was the only thing Sassafras had to illuminate their perfect faces.
“Tank yuu, babbehs… Fow be bown, and fow taking away Daddeh’s heawt huwties… But mos’ ob aww, tank yuu babbehs fow sabe Mummah fwom wowstest saddies and biggest wonewies… Wuv yuu, fowebah an’ awways…”
Sassafras closed her eyes and lowered her head down to sleep. Her fluff and her long silky tail wrapped protectively around her litter. Their relaxed peeping soon faded away into the darkness around her as she slipped into a deep and contented sleep.
← Chapter One : Chapter Three →
Okay! I was too excited to get to the next part so two parts in one day. I really hope that this isn’t lame so far. I normally appreciate buildup in a story so I’m really trying not to rush into anything too good too quickly.
