“This is Customs, you are being stopped for a routine search, please accompany us to the Interplanetary Alliance Space Station where your ship will be inspected. Thank you for your cooperation in making the galaxy a safer place.”
Basil wanted to bang his head on the console, but knew better than to risk pressing random buttons. He followed the ship and maneuvered into the docking bay. He laughed out loud when he saw that it was bay number nineteen.
“Isn’t this where your ship was last time?” Laila asked. Basil nodded.
The three of them disembarked, Basil reluctantly handed his documents over to the man on duty, who was still trying to cover his bald patch with shoe polish.
“Please return by seventeen hundred, or we will impound your vehicle—”
“For abandonment, yeah, I got it. I was here before, remember?” Basil grumbled, signing the forms in quadruplicate before walking out. “At least this time I can get that hot dog.”
Striding to the hot dog stand, Basil was followed by Laila and Flin. He sidestepped to avoid an alien in an atmo-suit, and stopped in surprise.
“Looks like you’re not getting a hot dog, Basil,” Flin said.
“Closed for health code vi-o-lat-ions,” Laila read aloud.
“Well done!” Flin patted her on the back. Basil merely glared at the hot dog stand.
“You’ve won this round, hot dog stand, but I shall return, and when I do… I will get my hot dog,” he said in his best action hero voice. Laila burst out laughing.
“So, what’s there to do on a space station for four hours with no hot dog stand?” Flin asked.
Chapter Eighteen
“Wake up, little one,” Basil said. Laila opened her eyes foggily and tried to rub the sleep out of them.
“What’s the time?” she mumbled. They were in a new hotel on Minos Kerala, and Laila was glad to have a room of her own again, with her own bathroom, even if Basil had a spare access card.
“It’s nine o’clock. Did you have good dreams?”
“Yeah, I was playing in a bouncy castle with fairy princesses.” Laila smiled at the memory, then her face fell. “It’s the day of my punishment, isn’t it?”
Basil nodded, and Laila sighed.
“I’ve been waiting to get this day over with for so long, that I thought waiting for it was the worst. But now it’s here, I’m really scared, Daddy.”
Basil put a hand on Laila’s arm. The warmth in his palm made her lean into it slightly.
“It’s all right, Laila. You’re in big trouble, you know that, but you also know that I love you and care about you, and I’d never do anything to hurt you, right?”
Laila looked at him, thinking about this. Gar-Kon had constantly told her he’d never do anything to hurt her; usually about five minutes after he’d given her a new bruise. Basil, on the other hand, was her daddy. He always had her best interests at heart.
“C’mon, princess, let’s get you changed. Lie down on your back, on the floor for me.”
Hesitantly, Laila lay on the floor, and let Basil unfasten the poppers on her snuggly bunny pajamas. Even when he was punishing her, he made her feel so cared for and loved. He pulled her arms out, then her feet, until she was lying naked on the carpet. He turned to pick something up and she heard a rustling sound. Straining, she saw that it was a big… white… diaper.
“Oh, no,” Laila said, shaking her head. “Please don’t.”
“You are being punished, young lady, and this is part of it. You proved you’re not responsible enough to be a big girl, so you’re getting punished like a little girl, and little girls wear their diapers.”
She didn’t want to wear a diaper; it was too much, and she tried to wriggle away but he grabbed both her ankles in one hand and before Laila knew it, he’d put the awful diaper under her and was fastening its tabs.
“How does that feel, sweetheart?”
Laila thought about this before answering. Her first response had been that it was horrible and she wanted it off. Now that it was on, it actually felt sort of cozy, and she liked how it fitted snugly around her.
“It feels… bulky.” She didn’t want to admit that it wasn’t so bad. Maybe he’d just leave it on for an hour then let her off the rest of his punishment. He sat her up and put a thin vest over her head.
“Sockie-socks next.” He held up a pair of white ankle socks with a pattern of pale pink spots on them, then put one on each foot. To her surprise, next he put shoes on her.
“What about clothing?” she asked.
“You’re dressed fine for what we’re doing.”
Laila suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Shoes meant leaving the hotel room. Where was he taking her? She opened her mouth to ask and found something ice-cold being put in it. It tasted sour, like vinegar. She made a face and tried to spit it out, but Basil quickly tied a ribbon around the back of her head so she couldn’t spit it out to get rid of the nasty taste.
“Bad girls don’t get to talk, and that pacifier is staying in your mouth.” Basil clipped something around her shoulders and across her chest, then took her hand and walked her to the elevator.
Laila wanted to demand to know where Basil was taking her, but before she could unfasten the pacifier’s ribbon, Flin appeared in the corridor.
“Hello, Basil, Laila, fancy meeting you two here,” he said, in a way that made it obvious that this wasn’t a coincidence. “Laila, you look adorable.” She glared at him. “Aww, who’s a little princess?” He pinched her cheek gently, as if her face wasn’t red enough from the humiliation of Flin seeing her like this, and then he let go. “Catch you later; I have to get to the antigravity chamber before they close it for maintenance.” He opened the door to the staircase and left them alone just as the elevator arrived.
To Laila’s horror, Basil pressed for the street level and led her out onto the pavement. She stared wildly. There were people and vehicles in every direction, the sun was shining, and lots of tourists were out with cameras. Basil started walking toward a crosswalk. Seizing the opportunity, Laila turned and tried to run back into the hotel while Basil wasn’t holding her hand, but to her astonishment something seemed to stop her, like an invisible barrier. She flailed her arms and tried to run again but she couldn’t take another step. A hand landed on her shoulder gently.
“This is exactly why you’re wearing reins.” Basil showed her the length of harness that was wrapped around his hand. When she looked down, she saw the harness around her shoulders and across her chest was the same fabric. She glared at him, unable to say anything because of the horrible-tasting pacifier in her mouth.
“This way, please, Laila.” To her intense embarrassment, he pulled her down the street, but she dug her heels in. “Don’t worry, no one here will be offended. You must have noticed by now, that this is pretty normal on Minos Kerala. Not everyone would do it, I guess, but it’s certainly not unusual,” Basil said.
Laila refused to be reassured, even as she saw a humanoid puppy in a black muzzle being walked down the smooth glassy street by a tall, curvaceous woman clad in shiny Syntex. That was clearly different, she thought, but she knew she was being contrary. She hated being exposed like this in front of all these people. It was just embarrassing, and everyone seeing her must know she was being punished for something, she was sure.
The tentacle monster they’d met, what seemed like months ago now, before Laila had been kidnapped, was gliding down the street beside a young lady in a school uniform that showed off her womanly curves. Laila couldn’t help staring.
“Hey! Basil! Laila!” the tentacle monster shouted, waving one of his appendages. He must have been over ten feet tall.
“Skarg, how’s it going?” Basil greeted them as they approached.
“Got myself a new schoolgirl,” Skarg replied, wrapping his long tentacles around the hapless young lady. As Skarg and Basil had a conversation about the pitfalls of online dating, Laila could hear the shrieks and chirps of his own language coming from
him, even though the Speakeasy chip translated what he was saying. She briefly wondered what it would be like to go out to dinner with all those tentacles. Laila honestly didn’t know the polite thing to say when meeting a tentacle monster on the sidewalk, so it was a good thing she was wearing a pacifier.
“I’m Melia.” The woman wrapped in Skarg’s tentacles strained to hold out a hand toward Laila, who shook it.
Laila couldn’t say her name so she just pointed at the pacifier in her mouth. Melia smiled and nodded. Basil and Skarg seemed to be going their separate ways. Laila waved at Melia, who waved back as Skarg deposited her on the ground gently, and they walked on. Tentacle monsters, like other non-humanoid aliens, tended to stick to their own planets for convenience of having the right-sized doorways and vehicles that they could confidently operate, having such a different body shape, but Laila had found out that a few of the non-humanoids came to planets like Minos Kerala for a selection of reasons. Perhaps going out on the street in a diaper and pacifier wasn’t the most unusual thing people on Minos Kerala would see today, although it was still pretty humiliating. Laila held up her hand to Basil, who took it, and they walked to a shop not too far from the hotel.
Inside the shop, Laila gazed around with eyes like saucers. There were huge adult-sized beds with rails along the edges, and other beds with some colorless hard material around the sides, so there was nowhere to hide. Giant cribs rocking in midair were somehow being held in place by their metal bases on the floor. A store assistant in a suit was talking to a man and a woman beside the floating cribs.
“And this one’s got the latest technology, you’ll see the Perspex sides change at the touch of a button…” The assistant pressed a button and the clear sides of one of the floating adult-sized cribs suddenly lit up with the gently scrolling image of an undersea environment, while a lullaby began to play. He pressed again, and the sides of the crib turned an opaque black color.
“To keep the distractions out when baby is trying to sleep,” he explained. Laila was fascinated, but Basil pulled her toward the aisles of smaller items.
“Would you like any assistance, sir and madam?” Another assistant in a suit had appeared next to Basil.
“Yes, I’d like a lightweight pop-up playpen, if you have one,” Basil said. The assistant nodded.
“Right this way, sir.” He waved a hand expansively toward the back of the store.
A moment later, a self-propelled trolley followed them, and Basil was deciding between a pink playpen and a green one.
“I think we’ll take the pink one.”
“Excellent choice, sir. Was there anything else I can help you with?”
“Yes, your enema kits…”
Laila tuned out. She had no idea what an enema kit was, and there was a display of cuddly toys in view, so she took a couple of steps in that direction.
“Whoa, hold your horses, young lady.” Basil pulled her back to him with the reins, and Laila had no choice but to follow.
“I’ll take two of those, please,” Basil was saying, as they moved down the aisle. The assistant put two bags of liquid in the trolley and Laila saw there was also a box with… a picture of a hose that someone seemed to be lying down on top of, at a very strange angle. She couldn’t quite make sense of what she was seeing.
“I’d also like some nutritional formula, if you’ve got any,” Basil said.
“Sir, we have over thirty different types of nutritional formula. Which sub-species of humanoid is she?”
“She’s from Pombos.”
“Ah, Pombossian. We don’t have a formula calculated to her exact nutritional intake, because I’ve never actually had a Pombossian in my store before, but I’ll just look on the chart.”
Beside a big aisle of tubs labeled nutritional formula, there was a chart with pictures of various humanoids and some words on it, which Laila couldn’t read.
“The nearest match is Homo sapiens; Earth humans. I may have some formula for those… yes, here you go. We are experiencing a shortage at the moment, so we simply have plain milk flavor for humans on the shelves. We have plenty of Earth descendants on Minos Kerala, of course, and many of them seem to enjoy our adult nutritional formula, so I regret to tell you that the strawberry and chocolate flavors sell rather quickly. Will that do, sir?” The salesperson looked embarrassed as he handed Basil a tub with a picture of a bottle on the front. Basil seemed happy about something; his lilac eyes sparkled as he grinned.
“Sure, that’s perfect, thanks. Now show me your range of sippy cups, please.”
“Over here, sir. The most popular ones are still these.” He held up something that looked like an egg with a spout at the top. When Basil pushed at it, the cup wobbled, but it did not fall over, it just kept righting itself. Laila had never seen anything similar. She wanted to ask how it worked, but she still had the pacifier in her mouth. Basil shook his head and looked at the others instead; apparently he didn’t approve of the egg-shaped cups for some reason.
Laila was starting to feel a bit like a ragdoll as she had no choice but to follow Basil around the store, while he chose a sippy cup and another pacifier for her. Laila was worried about that picture of the person lying on top of the hose. She could read the words ‘enema kit’ on the box—the same words Basil had spoken—but she didn’t know what that meant. She found herself getting a little excited about some of the other stuff, though, particularly the playpen.
* * *
Back in their hotel room, Basil thought Laila looked adorable. She was perched on the end of the bed and sucking on her pacifier. Basil decided the shopping expedition had been successful, as he removed her shoes and socks, while her feet dangled from the bed. He’d already put the reins away.
“How’s that diaper doing? Let me look.” Basil lifted Laila’s vest and checked the tabs of the diaper. They were currently pink, but they would turn blue when it was wet. Laila glared at him.
“I have to check, princess,” Basil told her. “You’re all dry. Let’s get you some formula to drink.”
He busied himself in a corner of the room with the water-heating device and mixed up a bottle of formula, which he tested on the inside of his arm. It was the perfect temperature for his baby girl. He lifted Laila from the edge of the bed and carried her over to a large, squishy beanbag, where he sat her on his knee.
“Are you comfortable?” he checked. She nodded. “Then it’s time to have some formula.” Unfastening the ribbon from behind her head, he gently removed her pacifier. The face she made when her mouth became empty was priceless. She’d been so resistant to the pacifier, and now, here she was, looking sad that it was being taken away. Some of that was probably because the bad flavor would have long gone—using the icer in the minibar, he’d frozen the teat in some vinegar to make it taste bad when he first gave it to her that morning. He lifted the bottle and put it to her mouth. She shook her head and reached for the pacifier. Basil tried again, but she shook her head more adamantly this time, kicking her legs at him.
“You need to drink your formula.”
“No!” Laila said, trying to wriggle free.
Basil sighed. It was going to be the hard way, then. He put her bottle down, unfastened the diaper, and flipped her over his knee. A few well-placed swats got her to stop kicking, and a few more got her attention. He decided to keep going until her bottom was a nice dark pink color. Laila started to make sobbing noises, but Basil knew she had a long way to go before she’d actually cry, regardless of how much she wanted to. He kept going until the noises she made changed, and the first tears dropped onto the floor under her face.
“Will you take your formula now, like a good girl?” Basil asked.
Laila nodded, her hair trailing on the floor in two bunches.
He stopped spanking her and laid her out on the floor, then refastened the diaper back around her. Once she was diapered again, he pulled her onto his knee and put the bottle into her mouth. She looked more content again now, as she snuggled i
nto him, and he tilted the bottle for her so she could suck at it and drink the formula. Her little gurgling noises told him she was happy.
Basil’s heart overflowed as he fed his princess, gently holding her as he made sure she was comfortable. He hoped that what he had planned wouldn’t be too hard for her, but he knew that she needed to be taught a lesson after what happened at Parathos.
* * *
When Laila had drunk half the bottle, her tummy felt full and she tried to push it away with her hands. Basil took the bottle out of her mouth.
“What’s the matter, princess?”
“Tummy ache,” she replied, putting her hand to her stomach to show the problem to Daddy.
“Let’s get you burped then, sweetheart.” He picked her up and patted her on the back. The pressure in Laila’s tummy got worse, then it all came out in a loud, embarrassing burp. Would he shout at her for being so rude?
“Sorry.” She hoped he would forgive her for burping like that.
“Don’t apologize for that, princess; it was supposed to happen. Now finish your bottle so you’ve had all your nutrients.” He put the bottle back into her mouth and Laila snuggled into him in a reverie, as the warm liquid spurted into her mouth and warmed her tummy. It didn’t taste all that bad, she conceded, and it would be easy to stay like this all day.
Soon, though, the bottle was empty and Laila let Basil put it aside as he sat her on the floor. She watched him unbox the pop-up playpen. It was true to its name, and sat in the middle of the room, fully popped up and about six feet square, with its squishy mat inflated. Basil put some pillows inside, and Laila’s blankie, along with Mr. Unicorn, much to Laila’s delight. She knew that this was supposed to be a punishment, but seeing Mr. Unicorn always made her feel safe and snuggled. Basil lifted her into the playpen and popped her down.
Her Daddy and Her Master Page 26
