Chapter 1

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The sound of the clock, a circular analog piece with a baby blue rim and an ever-grinning, happily diapered teddy bear set behind the rotating hands, cut through the relative quiet of the playroom. James could hear other faint noises from his position on the soft foam playmat – the click-clack of daddy making himself breakfast all the way in the kitchen, a dog barking in the yard across the street, the buzzy hum of a fan making futile attempts to blow away the summer heat – but they all may as well not have existed in comparison to the infernal timepiece.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Looking about himself in frustration, James nursed irritably on his pacifier and took in the small, odd-shaped piece of floor that had become his world as of late. Chunky plastic walls surrounded him, brightly colored in primary blue, red, and yellow. They came up just a bit shorter than his sitting height. Somewhere buried into the carpet were short peg stands that kept the walls upright and in place, ensuring the occupant was penned inside. Thin, long slits in the plastic slats allowed him a view of the world outside, while dutifully preventing him from ever actually reaching it.

Admittedly there wasn’t much else to look at. Just his tall, sturdy changing table on the room’s opposite end, well-stocked with columns of colorfully printed disposable diapers, bulky white cloth diapers, piles of colorful plastic pants, and rows of baby powder and wipes. He spent enough time up on the table’s cheerfully printed foam changing mat that looking at it had long-since ceased holding his interest. Nearby was the room’s door, brown and boring, barely cracked to let daddy hear him whining if he needed a snack, baba, or change. Last came the naughty chair, with the black-dyed leather instrument, better known to him as Mr. Paddle, hanging off of a corner of the backrest with a loop of rope. James shuddered as he did his best to avoid looking at the chair, failing miserably and staring with resentment at the place daddy took him to receive his spankings.

Forcing his gaze away, trying to bury the memories associated with that place of punishment, he stared down at his diaper. Baby animals grinned back up at him, the padding already bulging and squishy from the morning’s round of wet and messy accidents. James blinked in shock as he noticed the dirty yellow coloring that stained the diaper’s previously white padding was, in fact, actively spreading out. The faint sensation of a growing warmth inside the diaper reached his brain and he flushed red in humiliation as pee mixed with poop inside his infantile underwear. Of all other things besides his boredom, the last thing he wanted to consider at the moment was his ever-increasing incontinence.

Instead, James shifted his focus to the colorful playmat that his increasingly soggy diaper was resting on. The soft and springy pad depicted various simple and blocky animals with their names underneath, providing his crinkly bottom even further cushy protection while in the pen. The squishy material made sure his knees, hands, and butt never ached or got tired while playing. If only he could say the same about his enthusiasm, he thought ruefully as he sat back and surveyed the rest of the enclosure.

Toys littered the playpen, seemingly abandoned in various states of play. A coloring book opened to a half-finished page. Action figures lined up, entrenched in an apparently unending battle. A ring-stacker with only the smallest ring on the peg, the rest somehow having been scattered to all corners of the enclosure. Several stuffed animals were strewn about as well, the big, beige teddy bear cuddled tightly to the adult baby’s chest included. James briefly considered finishing the coloring page, but the thought of filling in the lines of what must have been his hundredth sunny cartoon animal picture just wasn’t doing it for him.

Normally, or at least in the normal that existed before daddy introduced the playpen, seeing all these toys in one place for him to play with would have sent his heart aflutter. After several weeks of being guided through the chubby plastic gate, secured behind him with a resounding clunk of the plastic lock, and made to sit down to play every day, things were wearing thin. The dumb clock with its dumb, goofy teddy bear wasn’t helping things either. It was just a reminder that he’d been set down to play only an hour ago and, in all likelihood, wouldn’t be let out for another few hours. Released so he could crawl behind his caregiver’s patient legs into the kitchen where a highchair lunch of daddy’s “messy baby specialty”, spaghetti-o’s and mashed peas with a bottle of formula, would be waiting for him. Fortunately, once he’d been spoon-fed his numnums and gotten all cleaned up, he’d be allowed time to do what he wanted after that. Until dinner, at least.

But lunch seemed like forever away right now. Dinner? An eternity. James felt frustration building inside at how helpless he’d become, not helped in the least by the squish and stink of his used diaper. The playpen walls were barely a couple feet tall. He could just stand up and step right over them! Unfortunately even something as simple as standing up wasn’t an action he was allowed right now, at least not without permission. Doing so would inevitably result in another date with Mr. Paddle and several days stuck in his punishment booties.

The booties were nasty things. All cutesy and innocent to an outside observer, but with dull spikes set into the soles and magnetic locks at the ankles to ensure that any attempt to stand would result in a painful lesson. Most importantly to daddy, they certainly left no choice in leaving his playpen. The diaperboy shifted uncomfortably in his infantile prison, almost able to feel the sting of the paddle and the faint bite of the spikes digging into his heels despite his “correction” from daddy having been almost a week past.

In short, James ruminated, he was stuck where he was. A fully-grown man in his early 30’s with a pacifier plugging his mouth, thickly layered diapers taped securely around his waist that he’d been progressively filling with piddle and mush, and afraid to leave a playpen for fear of punishment from his daddy. Not just his daddy, but his husband, who fully expected him to entertain himself with the simple toddler toys each day. He flushed red as he realized his peepee had somehow grown hard and twitchy at this particular thought, pulling his bear in for a closer cuddle and nursing a bit more intently on the baby blue pacifier in his mouth. Everything about the situation was so hot in concept! If only it were as engaging in real life, too.

To his credit, he had managed to keep himself entertained for quite a while. Two weeks went by after daddy had brought the playpen into the house and for two weeks James had managed to enjoy himself for four hours of every day. He reveled in the infantile headspace brought about by the wealth of toys and plushies, not to mention knowing he was being “kept somewhere safe while daddy works”, as daddy enjoyed putting it. The third week had proved to be his downfall, however.

It was just last Thursday when James had finally grown tired of all the brightly colored toys and decided to make some additions to the playpen to try to keep it feeling fresh and fun. He had stood up, stepped over the playpen wall, and toddled through the house, gathering and depositing an old TV, his game console, and his giant stuffed bear, Bearnard, who had become a welcome addition since then for both nice and naughty sorts of snuggles. James realized he had caught daddy’s attention about half-way through, but his partner hadn’t said a word, simply observing and letting him proceed.

When James had finished and was feeling a bit satisfied with himself, daddy had silently taken his hand and tugged him over to the straight-backed and rigid wood chair in the room’s corner where his dates with Mr. Paddle occurred. The naughty chair. Immediately knowing what was coming, but too strongly conditioned in accepting his punishments to resist, he let himself be pulled across daddy’s lap. The soaked, droopy diaper between his legs was tugged down to expose his smooth-shaven cheeks and thighs beneath. Tears had already begun welling up in his eyes in anticipation of the impending spanking.

“James,” his husband had rumbled in that soft and firm daddy voice, one hand gently patting and massaging his bottom, “First I want you to know that I’m proud of you. You were such a big boy, finding all that fun stuff and getting it set up so nicely in your playpen. You did very good work and daddy is happy to let you keep it all in there. However,” the rubbing stopped, “I think you know what you did wrong. Do you know what you did wrong, little boy?”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

From the nearby wall the teddy bear clock ticked away, the only sound in the tense and quiet playroom for several moments. James had been reluctant to admit to being naughty. He knew from the day the playpen had been set up that he wasn’t allowed out without daddy’s permission once he’d been put in. It was the one rule his grownup had stipulated regarding the new addition. Still, was he really being that naughty by taking it upon himself to alleviate his boredom instead of bothering daddy during work? At the time he hadn’t thought so and so he remained silent. Defiant, he now knew, to his own detriment.

“Ah, so that’s how it is,” daddy let out a brief chuckle, “Fine, have it your way, fussypants. Let’s see if a tiny warm-up helps little Jamie find his voice.”

SMACK! THWACK! CRACK!

Without any further warning, daddy’s palm began slowly and steadily raining down blows on little Jamie’s butt. By ten spanks he was letting out whimpers. By twenty he was squirming and struggling, his preemptive tears having already streaked down his face, with more joining them each second. By thirty he’d started sobbing, loudly begging daddy to stop. That didn’t happen until the fortieth smack had landed and his sobs had turned into a full-on cry.

“So. Are you feeling like speaking up now that we’ve gotten your tush all nice and warm?”

“Yuh-yuh-yes daddy,” James had choked out past his tearful sobs.

“I’ll ask again, then. What did you do wrong, little boy?”

“I...I got out of my pwaypen wifout asking duh-daddy first. I’m sowwy daddy, I’m so sowwy!” He hadn’t even bothered trying to cover the pacifier-induced lisp by that point.

“Good boy! That’s right, you got out of your playpen without daddy to help you. Babies like you need to be kept safe and sound somewhere that grownups know they won’t get in trouble, don’t they?”

“Yes daddy!”

“Good, I’m glad you understand. Now we can get your punishment for it out of the way. Remember, binky stays in or Mr. Paddle gets to have another visit.”

The feel of the leather paddle being placed firmly across both cheeks had brought about a fresh wave of tears from the adult baby and his daddy wasted no time in putting it to use. Smack after razor-sharp smack sounded out as the paddle assaulted his poor tush, which was quickly turning a shade of deep crimson that bordered on purple. James had flailed at first, kicking his legs and wildly pumping his arms up and down with his hands balled up into weak fists. All this, despite knowing from past experience that any attempts to block the paddle or stand up would just make things worse.

The impotent struggles rendered his wriggling movements as futile expressions of his infantile helplessness, at best. There was no other option. No escape. All he could do was accept, truly accept on a deep and emotional level, that he had been a bad baby boy and, as a result, he now needed a spanking to properly learn his lesson.

Finally, after his world had shrunk down to nothing more than the stinging bite of the paddle and the spot of tear-soaked carpet inches away from his face - after his struggles had died down to feeble twitches and recalcitrant sobs - after he’d thoroughly resolved to never be naughty, ever again, the paddling stopped. Daddy had set the paddle aside and gently rubbed the adult toddler’s sore and burning bottom with his palm, leaning over to whisper firmly and intently about how James could be a good boy in the future. How babies belong in playpens when grownups aren’t there to watch over them and how James needed to be kept safe. That he wasn’t big enough to be allowed to wander around alone just yet. About how daddy only spanked because he wanted James to be his good baby boy. That this had been for his own good.

They stayed like that for several minutes as James fought to stop crying, nodding along to daddy’s instructions and doing his best to internalize them like a good boy. As with the end of every spanking, a handful of cool, soothing lotion was soon applied to each cheek and his wet diaper was tugged back up to its rightful place on his bottom. They spent a long time afterwards in a close hug, with his legs straddling daddy’s waist and splayed to the sides of the naughty chair’s backrest, diaper drooping slightly between his husband’s thighs.

James apologized more formally once he’d regained his composure, but daddy just shushed him, rubbing his back and telling him how much daddy loved his baby boy. That he’d already taken his punishment and apologized as much as he needed to. Now he just needed to behave.

James simply nodded in response to this, burying his face into daddy’s shoulder and listening to the only sound in the otherwise silent room, a teddy bear clock dutifully ticking away the seconds.

And behave he had, he reflected as his mind came back to the present. Every time he started getting bored of coloring books, stuffies, and toy trains, the stinging memory of the session with Mr. Paddle set him straight. The television and game console had to remain unplugged for a week as a reminder of his transgression, but he was due to get TV-privileges in a couple days. He almost wasn’t ashamed to admit that he was eagerly looking forward to watching toddler shows and playing children’s games.

For the time being, however…

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.