JanuARy bonus exclusive | Spoony | Part 2

It’s only a few minutes later when Seren comes into the bedroom to find Paul curled up in the big cardboard box, Debbie tucking the blanket around him.

“Nap time for puppies,” Debbie says brightly but also authoritatively, in the tone of a little girl putting her doll to bed.

Paul giggles – the box is a tight fit but he’s been able to squeeze inside – and then he looks up to see Seren peering down at them and the laughter dies in his throat.

Seren smiles at both of them. “How’s my two puppies getting on?”

Debbie points at Paul. "Puppy takin’ a nap.”

“I can see that.” She crouches down and says to Paul, “You asleep?”

Paul feels his face radiate with heat. “I wasn’t sleeping.” The last few minutes, which had seemed so reasonable at the time, now strike him as baffling. Wasn’t he supposed to be looking after Debbie, not the other way around? Worse than that, when he looks at Seren, why does he feel so guilty?

“We were just playing,” he mumbles.

Seren laughs gently. “I can see that.” She tousles Paul’s hair and says, “What a good puppy, in your box! You can take a nap if you want to. I know puppies get sleepy after all that playing.”

And there’s something about the way Seren looks down at him – like a mother having caught her silly little boy in the act – that Paul can’t tolerate. He squirms his way out of the box, still shamefaced and still confused. “No,” he begins. “I don’t need a nap.” He gets to his feet, as if to prove he doesn’t live on four legs, and rubs his hands together. There had been a funny feeling, he remembers that now. A tingling sensation in his fingers, and then on his face. At the beginning of the game, when he was going to put Debbie in the box…and then somehow, Debbie had turned the activity around.

How had she done that? And why had Paul agreed? He looks at her now, the grown woman in the dress-up onesie, looking just as dim and innocent as she had before.

“Sure you’re not tired?” says Seren, looking at him with an indulgent expression. There’s something in her voice, a teasing quality that Paul can’t decipher. He rubs at his eyes, and then says sulkily, “I was only pretending.”

Debbie nods with enthusiasm. “Uh-huh! He’s a good pretender!”

And there’s something in that compliment, even coming from a woman with such reduced intelligence, that Paul can hang onto.

“Like you told me to,” he says to Seren. Building his case. Chipping away at that sense of guilt that’s hanging over him.

The beautiful woman in the red dress raises an eyebrow. “Did I tell you to pretend?”

Paul looks down at his feet as he tries to remember. "Well...” And then his face brightens. “You were on the phone, you had to fix your…” His nose wrinkles and then he says, “They wanted you to babysit someone else.” He looks at Seren. “So do you have to?”

The question feels big in Paul’s mind, because wasn’t he going to leave if the answer was yes. Wasn’t he just going to get into his car and go? He pats his pockets reflexively for his keys and comes up empty. He does the same for his phone and gets nothing. He frowns more deeply; where is all his stuff?

“Actually,” Seren says, “I told them no, I couldn’t.” She takes Debbie’s hand and swings it back and forth. “I told them, I could only look after two little puppies.”

Debbie giggles, looking at Seren with a devoted expression.

But Paul shakes his head. “You’ve only got one…one puppy.” He glares at both women. “I’m not a puppy, I was only pretending.”

Seren gives him a confused look. “Of course you were pretending, sweetie, that’s the game. Debbie’s pretending as well. That’s why she’s all dressed up.”

Paul feels his jaw harden. He knows that. Does Seren think he’s stupid?

“I can dress you up as well, if that helps.” Seren goes to the closet. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got a onesie in your size.”

Paul watches as the woman looks through the outfits hanging up and neat folded on shelves. And he feels a hardening between his legs as he imagines being dressed up like the blonde.

He swallows. What’s that about? Because he didn’t come all this way to play pretend, he didn’t come here to bark like a dog and go to sleep in a cardboard box. He wants to do grown-up things, and he wants to do them with Seren.

“Here it is,” says Seren. She unfolds a fuzzy onesie - this one is white with black spots – and it’s obbvous to Paul that this outfit will fit him.

“Marshall!” Debbie exclaims delightedly. Mah-thul!

Seren smiles. “That’s right, Marshall is a Dalmatian puppy, he has black spots!” She nods approvingly at Debbie. “Such a clever girl.”

Debbie beams as though she’s just passed the most complex of intelligence tests, while Paul looks at them both and wonders what they’re talking about. Who’s Marshall?

And then he looks back at the cardboard box with the blanket inside. As well as Skye, there are other puppies on the blanket, including a Dalmatian.

Seren offers the onesie to Paul. “There,” she says, “now you can be just like Debbie.”

Paul stares at the outfit and then at his blind date.

Just like Debbie.

What exactly is that supposed to mean?

He thinks back to a few minutes before. His memories are muddled, as fuzzy as the blanket he’d been holding at the start of the puppy game, but he can remember a fancy, bittersweet cocktail, he can remember the slinky, sexy music.

And he can remember a promise.

I’ve got other things, if you need something sweeter.

He swallows, his mouth feeling dry.

Is this the sweeter thing? To be dressed up like a toddler, to be treated like a simpleton?

He frowns at the black and white onesie. That’s surely the last thing he wants. And then he remembers about his time alone with Debbie in the bedroom. He remember the beginning of the game, taking the puppy blanket and layering the bottom of the box…

And then he had become confused.

Tingly in his fingers, giggly in his head. And suddenly, within a few seconds at most, hadn’t everything Debbie suggested seem like such a good idea. That Paul should be on his hands and knees, just like Debbie, that he should woof and bark, just like Debbie? So they could both be puppies? So they could both play pretend?

Paul had stroked the fuzzy blanket with an increasingly vacant feeling in his mind, and then he had gotten down on all fours, laughing at the absurdity of the game, and then losing himself in it, shuffling and racing around the bedroom, barking and giggling, until he had collided with Debbie and they had ended up together in a heap, limbs entwined, and Debbie had insisted on him petting her, that he should pet the puppy, and that she could pet him too.

And wasn’t she soft and fuzzy, just like the blanket, and hadn’t Paul done just as he was told, even though he knew it was silly, because it had somehow felt so good. Paul had felt the tingling grow in his fingers but also between his ears, and then the blood had rushed to his groin and he had pushed against Debbie as they lay against each other. He had pushed gently at first, the slightest of nudges, but then more enthusiastically, panting, giggling, and all the more aroused.

And then Debbie had squirmed away, calling Paul a silly puppy, calling him spoony.

Lying on his back, his hands and feet in the air, Paul had whined pathetically, just a silly, spoony, puppy, and begged Debbie to come back, because it was her turn to pet him, and she had to pet him between his legs where he felt the greatest of all the tingles.

And Debbie had looked down and given her pigtails a firm shake. In that moment, she had been the more mature one, and she took the authoritative role with ease. Ordered him to go to his kennel, that it was time for spoony puppies to take their nap.

And Paul had curled up in the box, squirming excitedly, knowing that he should be good, that he should do whatever the girls says, because he’s just a silly puppy. And it had felt like the most exciting, most confusing turn-on he had ever experienced.

“Well?” asks Seren, bringing Paul back to the present with a jolt. holding out the onesie. “Going to get dressed up like Debbie?” She smiles at Paul. “Good puppy?”

“No,” Paul croaks. “No thank you.”

Seren looks surprised. “But you’ve been having such fun.” She holds up her phone. “I was just telling my friend, I’ve got two sweet little puppies to look after.”

Paul feels his penis twitch in agreement, but then he shakes his head. Because to continue playing the game, to make it even more exciting by wearing the fuzzy outfit, just like Debbie…he wouldn’t be able to control himself. And then Seren would know the truth.

Paul grimaces with the mental effort of understanding what the truth is, and then he sighs. The truth is that he was turned on by Debbie, not Seren. That the infantile puppy game gave him the biggest of hard-ons. And isn’t that shameful? To be aroused by a woman who is clearly incapable of returning such feelings? Who is mentally a child?

“I don’t want to play puppy,” says Paul quietly.

Seren tilts her head at him. “Why not?”

He shrugs, miserable. And then he says, “Because I’m not…” He points at Debbie. “Not like her.”

Seren looks cooly at him. “If you’re not here for me to look after, Paul, what are you here for?”

It must be a challenge. For him to speak up, to assert himself.

Paul takes a deep breath. He looks down at his feet. “For a date,” he whispers.

“Pardon?”

He looks up, looks Seren in the eyes. “For a date.” Louder this time.

And Seren will surely laugh, because hadn’t she caught Paul a few moments before, curled up in a cardboard box, being ordered around by Debbie, who surely is incapable of tying her own shoelaces without supervision?

Seren doesn’t laugh. “You don’t like playing puppy,” she says, and returns the onesie to the closet. “That’s okay.” She smiles at him. “I didn’t even mean for you to play like that anyway.” She laughs. “This is all rather being made up on the spot, to be honest.” She strokes Debbie’s back and kisses her cheek. “But I think you’ve got yourself a playdate, honey, and now we have to make the most of it.”

She turns to Paul. “If you don’t want to play pretend puppy, what do you want to do?”

Paul looks back down at his feet. “Want a cocktail.”

Seren sniffs. “I think you’ve already had quite enough of that. You’ve been acting a little silly, don’t you think?” When Paul doesn’t respond, Seren goes over to him and puts her arms around his waist. She looks him in the eye, smiles and says sweetly, “I know you’re not silly like Debbie, I know you’re not spoony.” She narrows her eyes for a moment and asks, “You’re not spoony, are you? You don’t need me to look after you like Debbie?” She runs her fingers up and down his neck, and softly strokes his hair.

“No,” Paul says, his breathing getting heavy. He should kiss the woman, prove that he’s here for a real date, not a playdate. But it’s all he can do to not melt right here, to curl back up and be a mindless, servile puppy.

“Tell me you’re not spoony.”
“What?”

“I need to hear it, Paul,” says Seren. “Otherwise I’ll give you your keys, and you can fetch your phone from the couch, and you can go back home.” She gives him the lightest of kisses, her lips on his, and Paul can smell the jasmine and vanilla notes of her perfume. “But I need to know, are you here to play with Debbie, or are you here to play with me?”

Paul gasps. It’s as if Seren can read his mind.

“You,” he says, and he can hear the whine in his voice. “I’m not spoony, I promise!”

Seren rewards him with another of those light kisses. “Good.” And then she goes back over to the closet. “I think, because Debbie wants to play pretend but Paul doesn’t want to be a puppy…”

Paul stands to attention, wondering what Seren is going to come up with. He looks at Debbie, who clearly isn’t close to following the conversation, twirling a pigtail between her fingers with a vacant expression.

Seren picks out three items of clothing and hands the bundle to Paul. “If you don’t want to pretend puppy, how about you pretend brother?”

Paul looks down at the clothes. It’s not a onesie. It’s three things, all white and light. And then he frowns. “Huh?”

Seren looks at him indulgently. “You can be the brother,” she says slowly, as if explaining something to an idiot. “The big brother.” She smiles at Debbie. “And you can be the little sister.”

“Because I’m bigger,” Paul says, nodding. This already sounds like a much better game, but the idea of being siblings also feels reassuring. Because brothers don’t rub themselves against sisters. And big brothers don’t act spoony.

Debbie giggles and points at Seren. “You’re the mummy!” She waves at Seren’s outfit. “You got the mummy dress.”

Seren looks as though she’s surprised by the suggestion, and then she shrugs and nods. “All right, I’ll be the mummy. Deb can wear her puppy costume as her jammies, I’m all dressed up as well. I know you like my red dress, Paul. You told me already, remember what you said?

Paul shakes his head, the most blatant of lies.

“You said I looked beautiful.”

Paul nods. That’s exactly what he said.

“And I like your shirt and trousers, but you should wear something special, like Debbie and me. Once you’re dressed up to, we’ll be ready to play.” She winks at Paul. “That okay with you?”

And there’s something in that wink that reminds Paul that this is just a game, just pretend, and that the real conversation is between him and Seren, leaving Debbie a distant, senseless third. Because she’ll be in bed soon enough, and then Seren and Paul can really play.

She won’t be any trouble, I’ll feed her and put her to bed, we’ll have plenty of time, just you and me.

Seren holds Paul’s face between her hands. “Okay?”

“Big brother,” says Paul.

Seren giggles. “Big as you like.” And she winks again. “Go on then, get changed.” For a moment, Paul is convinced that Seren will offer to help – and would he really refused? – but then she takes Debbie’s hand and leads her out of the bedroom. “Don’t be long,” says Seren brightly, “I can’t wait to play with you!”

The door closed, Paul quickly strips off and then examines the outfit.

There’s a chunky pair of underwear, white with blue piping, and a picture of the black and white Dalmation on the front.

Paul shakes his head. No way! He discards the underwear and pulls on the bottoms, which are soft and blue - baby blue, Paul thinks fleetingly. They fit well, and feel just as soft and comfortable as the puppy blanket, but he doesn’t feel any tingles in his fingers.

The top comes next – white with matching blue sleeves, and all of the Paw Patrol dogs on the chest. Underneath the characters, Paul squints to read, his finger tracing the letters, Kind…and he…hero…heroic.

Kind and heroic.

He puffs out his chest. He’s not a silly puppy, he’s kind and heroic! Seren is right about the outfit, it’s definitely for the big brother. Paul imagines how delighted Debbie will be that he’s wearing something from her favourite cartoon, and how please Seren will be with his mature, brotherly behaviour.

Win-win.

He prepares to leave the bedroom.

There’s just one problem.

His erection is tenting the pajama bottoms.

Where did that come from? Just because he’s been thinking about the game, about Debbie going to bed and then he will have lone time with Seren, who has already kissed him…twice! And she’ll want to do all kinds of things later. Because Paul is so good. He’s such a good big brother. And he’s definitely not spoony, even though just thinking the word makes him want to giggle, and his penis gets stiffer.

But he can’t go back to the women looking like this.

And so he pulls off the bottoms, huffing impatiently and then puts on the underwear.

Oh. That’s much better. It’s better, because the undies are so thick, pushing his penis back,, and with the addition of his pajama bottoms, means the erection surely isn’t noticeable. The women, and Seren in particular, surely won’t notice how turned-on Paul is.

And better also, because the underwear is so soft, creating a delicious friction for his penis, every step making him groan with delight.

He pauses at the door, looks down at himself. No more silly puppies, only a big boy in his blue pajamas.

Kind and heroic. That’s only for big boys.

Seren is going to be so pleased with him! And then she’ll give him special kisses.

Paul sighs. Yes, that’s so much better. The tingles are back in his fingers but especially between his ears, making him want to laugh and run around, making him want to run into Seren’s arms, or even Debbie’s, so that someone will take charge, someone will take care of him, because his mind is full of wonderful but so distracting tingles.

But it’s okay. Paul understands the game. Be a big brother, play along until silly, spoony Debbie is fast asleep. And then he can have his very special fun with Seren.

To be continued...