“What did you say to me, you little asshole?”
Jellybean curled into a ball and covered her see-places with her hoofsies. Mummah was mad. Mummah was mad, mad-mad. All Jellybean could do was pull her pretty confetti-colored tail close and wait for the impact.
She’d hurried to the litterbox as soon as Mummah got home. Jellybean knew what it meant when Mummah came home and slammed the door like that, when Mummah didn’t say hello and walked past Jellybean into the house like she wasn’t even there. Mummah didn’t like mess, and Jellybean didn’t want to make bad-poopies or bad-peepees and make Mummah even madder.
Jellybean heaved with the next impact, the sound of an open palm striking its target all too familiar and oh-so-loud in the quiet time between Mummah’s meanie words and labored breathing. Even when she pushed her ears down all the way it didn’t keep the noise out. The noise hurt, too.
Everything hurt when Mummah got mad like this.
Jellybean didn’t understand why Mummah was so mad. Jellybean never knew what made Mummah so mad. It gave her the worst heart-hurties to know that Mummah would do this instead of letting Jellybean help. Instead of letting Jellybean give her the bestest huggies and all of her attention and even let Mummah take Mister Bunbun to snuggle if she wanted!
Jellybean loved Mister Bunbun! And he always helped her feel better no matter what! So he could make Mummah feel better, too! But Mummah didn’t want to feel better that way. She wanted to-
Smack!
Jellybean couldn’t help making bad-peepees on her tail. She tried to keep it in, but it came out all on its own! Oh, now Mummah was going to be even madder! Jellybean rocked gently, tears flowing freely down her muzzle to the hardwood floor. “Jewwybean sowwy, Mummah! Jewwy-hic-bean sowwy!”
“Not gonna answer, huh? We’ll see about that, bitch.”
Jellybean sniffled, removing one hoof from over her face. Mummah asked a question, that meant she wanted an answer. Jellybean took a breath as deep as she could bear and opened her mouth to answer.
Whap!
Jellybean wailed as the hit came, wringing out more urine and soaking her tail through to the floor. Mummah wasn’t going to like that either. “Jewwybean sowwy, Mummah! Jewwybean say-hic! Jewwybean say Jewwybean sowwy! Sowwy, sowwy, sowwy!”
“Sorry isn’t good enough, you dumb shit!
“Pwease, Mummah-!”
Thwap!
Jellybean couldn’t take it. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t! It was too much!
She needed help, huggies, anything! She let one eye slip open, searching the room for anything to ease her pain, anything to help. She gasped when she saw him: Mister Bunbun was in her bed, arms open and ready to give her his best huggies to make all the hurties go away.
It took all her strength to shakily get to her hooves, every strike pushing her back down to the ground with a shriek. Every few steps she fell to the ground, but Mister Bunbun promising some reprieve kept her moving even after each hit. She made it all the way to her bed even though it took so many forevers, and she finally fell into Mister Bunbun’s arms! She clutched him tight, burying her face into his chest and weeping.
But his huggies did nothing.
They didn’t stop the hurties, and they didn’t keep Mummah from hitting, and they didn’t make Mummah less mad, and they didn’t make Jellybean feel much better, and Mummah please stop, please stop, please, Mummah, please, Jellybean is a good fluffy, please, Jellybean doesn’t know what Jellybean did, please, please, please!
⌯
Miranda huffed and pulled her headphones out, wiping her brow with the back of one hand. Sweat ran down her back. Her palms and knuckles were red from misuse. Worst of all, she’d probably broken her punching bag.
At least she felt better after her shit day at work.
She bent down to grab her water bottle off the floor, taking a long, deep drink before pulling away. After taking a deep breath, she let it out in a sigh. She was going to be sore tomorrow. She hadn’t even put on her gloves, she’d been so pissed.
She made her way to the bathroom, leaving her soiled clothes on the tile to take to the hamper later and hopping into the shower to get the worst of the grime and sweat off. She stepped out feeling refreshed, toweling off quickly before pulling on a robe and heading back to her training room.
After a cursory glance to the tear in her training dummy, she knew it was nothing to concern herself about. Probably just a factory defect that exposed itself after a couple solid hits, and it wasn’t like a little cosmetic blemish hindered its use, right?
“Good work today,” Miranda snickered, cupping the dummy’s face. She picked up her water and her clothes before heading for the door. She glanced back before turning off the light and shutting the door, giving a quick, “G’night, BOB,” before closing off the rest of the house to the boxing dummy.
The house was quiet as she made her way upstairs to her room to change into some loungewear. It wasn’t until she saw the digital clock atop her dresser that she realized she’d spent an entire hour in her training room. “Shit, Jellybean!”
Miranda pulled her shirt on as she hurried down the hall, fully opening the cracked door to her fluffy’s saferoom to see the poor thing sobbing in her bed. Her shoulders slumped as she moved into the room, immediately picking up the pink lump and cradling her close to her chest. “It’s okay, Jellybean. It’s okay. Momma’s home, sweetheart. Momma’s home.”
Jellybean wailed, stretching her leggies up to reach her Mummah’s shoulders and cry into her shirt. Mummah wasn’t mad anymore. Mummah wasn’t mad.
“I’m sorry, Jellybean. I should’ve come said hello as soon as I got home. I’m sorry, sweetie. You’re okay.” Miranda smoothed back Jellybean’s mane to give her a peck on the forehead.
Jellybean wept harder. Mummah was okay again. She was nice and smelled pretty and loved her again! She wasn’t saying any meanie words or punching the no-talkie no-leggy no-armed mister in her room with all the padded mats. She was happy and good again!
“Tell you what, we’ll have sketty tonight, yeah? Think that’ll cheer you up? I’ll get up and get right on making it right… after a bath.” Miranda supposed that was enough to soothe the worst of Jellybean’s concerns. It was enough to get her to stop crying anyway.
As she headed for the bathroom with Jellybean in her arms, she made a note to ask the professor about anxiety meds for fluffies. With all these late nights in the lab, it seemed her separation anxiety was just getting worse.