Tale #11: Animal Instincts

Tale #11: Animal Instincts (Content tags: Furry-adjacent, diapers, messing, wetting, humiliation, bullying, racism? Or at least species based bigotry, childish antics, slight worldbuilding, contemporary fantasy) "Look at the little kitty-cat! You gonna meow for us, kitty? Gonna start purring? Maybe he needs a saucer of milk." Came the immature taunts of the boys in the market. Binks blushed and tugged down on his hood, where two triangular protrusions poked up; the ears had very quickly made him a thing of mockery amongst this juvenile rabble. Even in his most human-passing of forms, his clothing gave him away; it was a hard habit to break, to dress in a way that gave him comfort. Beastlings like him were always second-class curiosities to the human folk; it was only within the last century that equal rights had been even approached. The beastlings themselves appeared similarly to humans, but they always had animalistic tells that outed their true nature; they had the capacity to shift between forms on a gradient, from fully fuzzy to nearly fully human, and most picked a between state, to have the best of both worlds. The merging of cultures being a relatively new development, there was still a great deal of friction. Depending on the variety, a beastling might be feared, or in his case, they might be teased. The more powerful of the species, such as tigers, lions, wolves, and bears, they were ostensibly respected through their fearsome appearance and reputation. The humans ultimately referred to the animals for which beastlings were based upon as a means to iron out their opinion. Cute animals, cool animals, scary animals, gross animals... Those attributes, those traits, were used to label people like Binks. Dogs are loyal, rabbits are skittish, bears are sleepy, skunks are stinky, and cats? Well, Binks was always discovering new stereotypes to both be embarrassed and upset about. Many of those cliches were admittedly true, but Binks was still a person, so he didn't want to be reduced to such basal checkmarks on a list. His family was new to the area. After living in a beastling community for so long, his father had become infatuated by human culture, and with a job opportunity rearing itself, it had been decided that the little clan of cats would set up shop in Bourbon. Binks himself was the second youngest of the litter, but also the most adventurous; the idea of exploring a new city had been a delightful one. Catfolk like him weren't hated or feared, nor did they have the same negative stereotypes about intelligence put upon them, like so many other beastlings, but they were seen as either snobbish, lazy, or immature. Binks had found out pretty quickly what the humans thought of him, and how discrimination might impact his enjoyment of his new surroundings. The humans were dismissive of him, they were apt to want to pet him or offer him treats, as if he was just a larger version of the house pets they kept. Binks was polite for the most part, since he didn't want to cause any trouble, but he would have been lying if he said he wasn't frustrated by the condescending way they interacted with him. He spent most of his public time in the most human-like state he could muster, but it was hard to suppress his own feline instincts and urges. Besides that, it appeared as though the humans often had a sixth sense about who was actually a member of their species or not. So he would ultimately spend a lot of his time with other beastlings of the community, where he didn't have to work so hard for so little respect. The city's population of beastlings probably made up only ten to fifteen percent of the total, but it was enough. School was more troublesome. There did exist a school only for beastlings, but his father had been adamant about cultural immersion and acclimation, so Binks ended up enrolled in a school with a very small beastling population. Now, this was where things became more difficult for the boy. Beastlings had similarities to both humans and animals, and in a few particular aspects, this sometimes meant an area where they weren't very successful as either category. For many young beastlings, Binks included, this manifested in toilet training. The average human child was out of diapers by three, and the average beastling child was out of them by five, give or take depending on their subspecies. For maybe thirty percent of beastlings, most often boys, this number ratcheted up a few years; there was a genetic component, where the concept of toileting at all was still a relatively recent aspect to their evolution, at least in the grand scheme of thousands of years. So Binks, and his younger brother Taffy, were still rocking diapers, while the rest of their family used less juvenile means to void their bodily waste. This didn't bother Binks at all, or at least it hadn't in their old community; there had been some teasing, sure, but it had never outweighed Binks' personal affinity for the simplicity of the garment. Here though, since he ostensibly appeared as a child several years beyond the average age of pottytraining, mockery and infantilizing pity were a sharper bite. His first week at the school had been evidence of that. The first day that Binks had shown up in class, he'd already noticed a clear divide between him and the other students. Beastlings were generally of human size and shape, but depending on their type, they ran bigger or smaller than the human average; the 'cute' animals, like catfolk, generally ran smaller. Binks was almost the smallest kid in his class, only beat out by another beastling who happened to be a mouse-boy. He looked decidedly younger than his peers too, which obviously didn't help. His original hope for that first day was to quietly observe, so that he understood better the customs and demeanor that he should strive toward, much like his father had advised. To that end, he hadn't planned on letting anyone know he was a beastling until absolutely necessary. The unfortunate reality would instead be that his teacher immediately informed the class of their new classmate's background. "Everyone welcome Binks, he's a new student for our class. He's a beastling from Fennel Valley, so make sure to help him settle in." There hadn't been malice in her voice, no cruel intentions, but she'd lodged a wrench in his plans all the same. The boy had taken great care that morning to even dress in a less conspicuous way than he was accustomed, all to the end of hoping to stay incognito, and that plan had immediately blown up in his face. Still, he smiled weakly at his new classmates and gave a sheepish wave. "H-hey, I'm Binks Carmichael. Umm, I'm still learning about Bourbon, so I hope you guys can teach me some stuff." He heard some snickering from the back row, and some curious whispers throughout the class, but everything had seemed alright enough. Binks would end up sitting at the desk next to the brown-haired mouse-boy, who himself took less precautions in hiding his heritage. His natural instinct was admittedly to harass the rodent, to find him a plaything of sorts, but he'd gotten good at suppressing those urges. The dynamic of predators and prey had a small still existing role in beastling behavior; they obviously didn't hunt and eat one another, nor did they even get any more violent than humans, but there were small inclinations that existed in the psyche to treat prey differently. Binks himself had been victim to that in the past, whenever it came to dogfolk, who maybe played a little too excitedly. He got some looks during lunch, whenever he took out his tuna sandwich and his bottle of milk, but it wouldn't be until recess that the other kids felt emboldened enough to approach him. Binks wasn't confident enough himself to ask to be included, so he had instead been getting some of his energy out on the playground equipment, for which his nimble form was perfectly attuned. A few human boys from his class would come up to him, and he recognized them as the back row that had been snickering during his introduction that morning. "Hey, fuzzbutt! What kinda animal are you? Donovan said you're probably a bunny boy, but I said that you have to be a ferret or something." Naively, Binks mistook their smirks for smiles, and their teasing for genuine curiosity. He glanced down from his perch atop the slide at the trio: a blond haired boy missing a tooth was the one making the inquiry, a dark-haired boy with darker skin was beside him, and a brown-haired boy with a runny nose was behind. Binks squinted, trying to memorize ways to distinguish them, as humans tended to look the same to him. "Umm, my family are all catfolk." He answered, deciding that since they already knew he was a beastling, there was no harm in being more specific. "A kitty cat, huh? Where are your ears? Or your tail? It's rude to walk around trying to look like us." The blond explained, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. Was that true? Binks couldn't be sure. He would have thought that the humans would be more at ease if he looked more like them, but maybe it was an affront to the cultural norms here? The mouse boy hadn't been hiding his features, after all. Binks relaxed his muscles and allowed his body to shift. It was something all beastlings learned to do early on, and while it was difficult to master at first, it felt a lot more natural as they grew older. Two fuzzy ears popped up atop his orange mop of hair, his green eyes became more catlike, and then from behind him, his tail poked out from his shorts. "Is that better?" He tilted his head with a smile, feeling more natural this way. One of the boys giggled, "He really is a kitty cat!" "Poor Jerry, he's gonna hate that." "That explains the tuna..." The blond stroked his chin, "New kid, you want to come over after school? We're gonna play some video games." That was some quick acceptance, wasn't it? His papa would be so proud! Binks beamed and leapt down from atop the slide, with the same agility as the animal he resembled. "Umm, sure! I'm Binks, by the way, if you forgot from this morning..." The ringleader gave him a gap toothed grin, "Mason. And this is Donovan and Hugo. I live in the Southside apartments, by the market. Feel free to drop by." Binks would spend the rest of his day at school with a delightful positivity to him, so much so that he neglected to go to the nurse's office for a change before the end of class. Luckily he'd only become soggy thus far, so it was a change he could manage himself in the boy's room once the bell rang. As he ripped the tabs in the stall, with his shorts neatly hung on the door, he heard the pitter-patter of tiny steps outside on the tile. "H-hey, umm...Binks?" The voice was soft and unfamiliar, but the cat caught a familiar scent of the boy he'd been sitting next to in class all day. His nose might not be as powerful as dogfolk had, but it was still far more effective than that of a human. "Jerry?" "I saw you talking to Mason at recess. Are you okay?" It sounded like a strange question to hear. Binks let the soggy diaper plop with a squish onto the bathroom floor, and he took a wipe out of his backpack. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?" There was an awkward pause of silence, "...Are you changing your, umm, diaper?" Binks felt a small amount of heat glow on his cheeks, but he realized he wasn't exactly being subtle. "Yeah...I was about to leak. I forgot to ask teacher to go to the nurse. Do you...?" More silence, and then the sound of fidgeting fingers. "...Y-yeah. A lot of beastlings here do. There are actually rules about...Well, I guess that doesn't matter, if you already wear them. Sorry if I'm bugging you..." The solidarity made Binks feel more at ease, enough that he glossed over whatever his classmate had meant by 'rules', so he continued on with the change. "You're not bugging me, Jerry. I thought you might not like me, since you were so quiet in class." There was a nervous chuckle outside the stall, "O-oh...Sorry. I guess I'm just...I well...Shy, maybe. Also, you smelled like catfolk, and...Well..." The anxiety was pretty reasonable in that case; it was just a matter of animal instinct. Binks politely listened, but he also proceeded with unfurling a fresh diaper from his bag. "Anyway...Umm...What d-did Mason say to you? Was he m-mean?" Binks blinked, a little confused by the question. He was starting to carefully position the diaper between his thighs, threading his tail, and pulling out the tapes. "Mean? Not really. He was just curious. He invited me to come play with him and his friends." "...I...I don't think you should go. Mason is...Well...Him and his friends aren't very nice to beastlings." Binks finished fastening the diaper and he pulled his shorts back on over it. He picked up the soggy diaper from the ground and balled it up, before opening the door to the stall and finally looking down at the small mouse boy that been talking to him throughout the process. "He seemed nice to me. It's not mean to invite someone to play." Binks tilted his head. Jerry was fidgeting his fingers over the straps of his suspenders, and as he saw Binks in a more brazenly catlike state, instinct would take over for a brief moment. Eyes widened, pupils became like pins, and an eruptive yet muffled thump came from behind him; the suddenness of the pantload caused the straps of the suspenders to strain in their heaving of the heavy mass, the backside of the shorts bulging in a blatantly soiled state. Binks smiled playfully at the sight, flashing a pair of sharpened fangs that would add a delayed hissing to the cacophony emitting from the mouse's padding. "...I think maybe you're the one who needs to change now, Jerry. Sorry about that... I'd give you a hand, but I gotta get going!" Binks would saunter past the smelly lad, ignoring whatever advice that Jerry had desperately tried to impart upon him. The cat didn't yet understand his place here among the humans, and how little a beastling's dignity might be worth to them. The apartment wasn't hard to find, least of all to someone like Binks. Mason would welcome him inside and lead him to the living room, where the other two boys were already playing a cart-racing game on console. Binks would join in for a bit, his already loose guard becoming looser. After a few rounds, Mason would put his controller down. "Hey Binks, I have someone I want you to meet. I think you would get along with him real well; you two have a lot in common." Binks had figured that Mason must have a sibling, so he didn't suspect a thing as the boys led him away from the living room and toward the laundry room. His confusion would compound once he saw no other person, but instead... "Binks, meet Bandit!" “Mrow!” It was... a cat. Not a catfolk, but a literal pet cat. Binks felt his face get hot with shame, "I-I don't...I don't understand..." Mason picked the cat up and stretched out his arms until it was face-to-face with Binks. "What's wrong? You're practically cousins! You both eat tuna, you both nap in the sun, and you both do your business in the litter box, right?" "Nya...N-no! I don't...I'm not...T-that's not..." Binks stammered, mortified that he was being directly compared to a literal pet. Mason raised an eyebrow, "Oh, that's right...You're a beastling. Little beast brats aren't all litter-trained, are they? Maybe we should find out if you are." Before Binks could turn to leave, Hugo squatted and pulled down his shorts, revealing the bulky diaper he'd changed into before coming here. "Ding, ding, ding! He's got a diapee!" Mason's smirk became more devious, "I should've guessed. What else would a dumb baby animal be wearing? But since you're an itty-bitty kitty, I think it might be missing something..." Hugo and Donovan grabbed a hold of Binks by each arm, to stop him from fleeing. The cat watched in horror as Mason went over to a plastic container and picked up a scoop. He motioned for his friends to turn Binks around, and once he was positioned, Mason pulled back the waistband of the diaper. "Must be convenient to have your litterbox wherever you go, whisker boy." He cackled, "But it looks like you're missing the most important part!" Binks cringed as be felt something cool and gritty being dumped down the back of the diaper; one scoop, two scoops, three... The fresh litter rustled like sand as it was shoveled in, and the diaper started to take on a fuller appearance, as though it was well-filled. "S-stop! I-I don't...I'm not a c-cat like that! I don't need..." Animal instinct took over as he felt the litter smothering his bottom and shifting into the front of the diaper too. His tail flagged up like an alert of what was to come. "N-nya...meow..." He helplessly mewled like the kitten he was being treated as, his knees bending a little bit as the gears went into motion. There was some muffled gas, but it was only a precursor to the parade of steamers that came marching out obediently into the litterbox that his diaper had become. The already hefty diaper bulged further, the droppings crackling noisily during their expedient deposit, and his bladder picking this time to cut loose as well. The litter clumped appropriately, and the trio of bullies sounded like they were about to bust a gut laughing. "That's what I thought! Just a kitty-boy with a dumb kitty-brain. We might just have to get you a collar and a bell!" As the last of the turds tumbled out into the makeshift sand, and Binks felt animalistic relief, his instinct betrayed him one more time, and he started to kick his feet on the floor, as if he'd been squatting over a litterbox for real. The sagging garment rustled and squelched, swaying and bouncing with his exaggerated motions. Mason rubbed at his tufts of hair, between where his ears jutted out, and Binks in his post-pantload bliss, could only gently purr and let his tail swish around, a slave to his hardwired impulses. Hugo snickered, “That’s one box I wouldn’t want to shovel!” Donovan pinched his nose, “I guess you don’t really have to; you can just dump the whole thing!” Life among the humans in Bourbon was going to be harder than he expected.