Alby & Max (Part 5) (Patreon)

“Fucking hell,” Max said again, looking at his pants and the underside of his forearm. The high he’d experienced moments ago from playing out a personal fantasy- both revenge as well as something else- dwindled down to nothing.  Things had gotten way too real.

He grabbed a hand towel and scrubbed his forearm in the sink fast and hard to the point where bits of fur fell out into the sink.  “Goddamn it.” This wasn’t going to do the job.

He  used the towel to pat down the legs of his pants, just so he’d feel less dirty, and then exited the downstairs bathroom.

Alby was still in the corner with his pajama pants down and his thumb in his mouth.  The dog’s ears pricked up, reflexively, but otherwise he hadn’t moved.  Max had admittedly mixed feelings about that.  “Be right back,” Max said as neutrally as possible.

He loudly stomped up the stairs to make it clear where he was.  He was stripping out of his clothes as soon as his foot landed at the top of the stairs.  

Gross gross gross!  He could handle leaky diapers, blow outs, and drool. Sometimes vomit and blood. Cum was a different matter.  It wasn’t that he objected to people blowing their wads- if he could make someone orgasm from spanking it was a mark of accomplishment-it was more of the unpredictable circumstance and context.  Having an unplanned lap full of jizz was a real buzzkill and something of a headspace destroyer.

That and it was Alby’s.

The wolf tossed his clothes onto the bathroom floor and jumped into the shower before the water was hot. “What the fuck?” he asked himself again and again and again.  He was planning on ending this office politics and B&E nonsense one way or the other.  Max had planned to give the doberman a taste of what he thought he wanted.  Based on how Alby had reacted, he was fully in the camp of ‘other’.

“Fucking hell”.

It wasn’t a long shower. Less than five minutes. Just enough for Max to feel like he’d cleaned and not have his skin crawl if he thought too hard about what had just happened.  He shut off the water, shook dry in the shower, stepped out, and toweled off.

“Fucking hell.”

A fun fact about language is that not every word means the same thing depending on the context.  In the middle of a dungeon scene, red becomes more than just a color. In the here and now, ‘Fucking hell’, to Max’s mind meant ‘What do I do?’.

“Fucking goddamn hell.”

He redressed himself.  Just jeans and a t-shirt this time. Nothing fancy. He picked up the soiled clothes and packed them into a tight ball.  The sooner he could throw these into the washer and drown them in detergent, the better.

Too many complex emotions were swirling around in Max’s head. And unlike Alby, none of them were particularly horny. “Fucking hell,” he whispered again.  

What to do?  Max knew of several things he could do.  Gaslighting, bullying. intimidating. beating, and breaking all came to mind. All were options that would likely result in his little trespasser becoming quietly stunted and traumatized. He could think of several things he’d like to do, but most of them were somehow even worse and catered to the darkest, most fearful part of the wolf’s psyche.  What was the right thing to do?

The right thing to do would have been calling Alby’s dad to pick him up on New Year’s Eve. The right thing to do would have been to call the cops, an ambulance, or both when he found the idiot half-concussed in the snow.  Max’s own vindictive choices had pushed things far far back across the line of ‘right’.  

Max tossed the bundle of his old clothes into the washing machine, threw a laundry pod in, and switched it on.  “I did not sign up for this,” he mumbled to himself.  The thing is, he admitted a heartbeat later, he kind of did.  

As things stood now, Max had kind of broken Alby. So it only stood to reason that he should help fix the kid. Whatever dysfunctional seeds that had been sewn, Max might not have planted them, but he’d probably just added a whole lot of water to them.

There were multiple right ways to handle this, but they all started with the same first step.

“Alby,” he said, once he’d returned..  “We need to talk.”

“Can I-?” The dog stammered around his thumb. “Can I turn around…Daddy?”

Max cringed at that, but he suspected he brought that on himself. “Listen to me very carefully,” he intoned.  “Right now, I want you to call me Max. Do you understand?”

Not talking, the dog nodded slightly.

 It was important, Max decided, to be extremely delicate. Max didn’t consider himself an expert, but Alby seemed deep, deep, in headspace. A rush of endorphins had combined with what Max guessed was a whole host of emotional, psychological, and general personality issues. Throw in the feeling of being in a relatively new and unfamiliar scenario as well as lack of sleep, and Alby was undoubtedly riding a kind of high.

He was extremely vulnerable right now.  Were Max a cult leader, Alby would be a prime target. Some praise and some love bombing would result in the poor thing getting hooked.  Even without their personal friction, Max wouldn’t have wanted to follow through with that thought.  His snout wrinkled up in disgust.  Not even Alby merited that kind of abuse.

“I would appreciate it very much if you took your thumb out of your mouth,” Max said, doing his best to keep his tone neutral but not robotic.  “Will you please tell me you understand?”

Alby nodded again, but said “Yes, Max.  Do you want me to turn around?”

The wolf was about to agree, but thought better of it.  “I think it would be a good idea if we talked.  Person to person.  What do you think?”  Every word was being chosen with care. He needed this to be a conversation as equals, authority wise. That meant making sure that as little as possible was being done strictly for Max’s sake.   He’d taken the power away from Alby.  It was time to give it back.

There was a pause.  Alby fidgeted in the corner, struggling with himself.  “Okay.”

“How are you comfortable talking to me?” Max asked. “If you want to do it here like this without looking at me, that’s fine.  If you want to get back into your regular clothes, that’s fine.”

Alby’s response came more quickly.  “I’d like to pull my pants back up,” Alby replied with a sniffle.  “If that’s okay…”

Almost there.  He was still afraid and uncertain.  “It’s okay with me if it’s okay with you.”

The doberman bent down and tugged the childish pajama bottoms back up over his hips.  Max looked the other way while Alby fiddled getting his tail through the back hole.  “Okay,” Alby said, still not facing.  “I’m ready. Let’s talk.’  

**********************************************************************************************
Hypnosis as it’s depicted in movies and television doesn’t exist.  There is no spinning spiral that takes away free will. No amount of fancy dangling watches will make someone forget that they’re a foreign operative out to sabotage the government the second someone utters a special code phrase.  Flashing imperceptible pictures on a television screen won’t force you to go out and kill someone.  That’s just not how it works.

Real hypnosis is closer to a state of intense suspension of disbelief.  It’s about gently disorienting your consciousness enough so that you cease to be self-conscious and become willing to play pretend again just like when you were a small child. In the broadest strokes, it’s a form of temporary regression, even if one does not act like a small child while being influenced.

Likewise, just like pretend, it is impossible to make someone do or say something they don’t actually want to do.  You can’t kill if you’re not a killer. You can’t steal if you’re not a thief. It is impossible to act against your core beliefs and personality.  It’s just that hypnosis helps to lift and strip away all the layers and facades that years of socialization and self-consciousness will put on a person.

No watch had been dangled in front of Alby, but he’d been put in a kind of hypnotic trance too. Pain, pleasure, guilt, and release had all been run through a blender and then fed into his brain via an over the knee spanking. The combination of everything had burst into an explosion of cognitive dissonance that lifted the weight from Alby’s shoulders.
There was no being trapped in the middle. No having to impress the people above him while dealing with the people below him and trying to juggle the right attitude for both. There was no expectation that he should do anything to contribute beyond simple obedience. No expectations beyond standing in the corner until Daddy got back.

And Alby would meet that expectation.  He couldn’t remember the last time his life had felt this simple. This black and white.

He was wonderfully powerless in this place. Daddy decided everything. Alby was no stronger or assertive than a naughty child. Daddy told Alby to stand in the corner, and so he did.  He’d stay there, too. He had no choice. He couldn’t move even if he wanted to.  He was just a little boy.

No. Correction.  A little girl.  Alby was just a helpless little girl who had been spanked and sent to timeout. Even when Daddy went away, she didn’t move because if she did, Daddy would know, and that would get her another spanking.  Alby didn’t want another spanking, so she stayed put like a good girl.

When Daddy got back, he’d tell her that she was good for staying still and was proud of her.

Alby had sucked her thumb, soothing herself, helping her be patient while waiting for him to come back.  It was okay for her to suck her thumb because Daddy hadn’t told her not to.  As the stinging on her bottom went down, she hoped that he’d give her something nice to wear, like a pretty dress with lots of ruffles. That’s what she would have picked. But that wasn’t her choice; and she loved that it wasn’t.

A stray thought. Daddy would come back, right?

Of course he would.  Good Daddies kept their promises.

Alby thought all this, while at the same time knowing that he was actually a twenty-five year old doberman who was an upjumped office manager at an education, textbook, and test prep corporation.  It was pretend.  Just as the four year old sees no contradiction between being in pre-school and also being a dragon slaying princess; there was no contradiction between Alby being a would-be burglar and a little girl who got spanked and put in the corner.

Same with who Daddy really was.  Actually, it was kind of like being drunk, but the buzz was much cleaner. Listen to the little voice that is also your voice and don’t care.  This was just a very powerful non-alcoholic drunkenness.  It was playing pretend and letting the rational mind take a backseat to the imaginative one.

Alby, as it turned out, was very good at pretending. So good that it didn’t quite feel like pretend. .

It was hard coming back from that.  Alby hadn’t wanted to.  He hadn’t wanted to make decisions.  Making decisions was all about making decisions that other people would like. Alby wasn’t ready for that.

The dog sobered up quickly when Daddy came back and asked to be addressed as his real name.  That made Alby unusually sad. It was like he was being woken up from a dream and being told it was time to go to school.  Fighting full consciousness and rolling over, Alby had delayed popping his thumb out of his mouth.

Damn it. He wasn’t a little girl anymore.  Just plain old whipped Alby. In trouble. About to get the business.

Sobriety had returned in after Alby had been forced to hear his own voice. The final nail had been driven in when Max gently offered to let him get his regular clothes back.  There would be no coming back to this once he got his regular clothes on.  Alby opted to pull his panties and pj’s up.

Given the choice, he’d opted to keep his eyes averted and towards the corner. There was guilt and embarrassment as a factor.  Not looking directly at Max also helped him keep the fantasy that maybe this wasn’t over yet.

“I’m ready,” he sighed. “Let’s talk.”

“Are you sure you want to do it over there?” Max asked. “Do you want to stand in the corner?  You can come sit here on the couch if you like.”


Ugh! Another choice and he’s chosen wrong.  “Mhm,” Alby nodded again.”I’m sure.”

“Fair enough,” Max said. There was a pause. Alby thought he heard the wolf growl, but it was just him clearing his throat.  “Alby. I’m sorry.”

Alby tensed up. There was supposed to be a ‘but’ followed by some kind of restriction or punishment.  None game.  “You’re…sorry?” Alby echoed, confused.

“Yes, sir. I am.” Max said evenly.  “I lost my temper. I lost my temper and I disciplined you without your consent. That was wrong of me, and I apologize.”

“I tried to break into your house,” Alby said.  “A spanking is light punishment.”  He let his head droop.  “I deserve worse.”

“Yup,” Max said simply.  That stung more than Alby thought it would.  “That’s not my point. We should have talked about it. I should have warned you. I should have received your consent. I didn’t, and that was wrong.  I’m sorry.”

The office manager bristled and looked back over your shoulder.. “The hell are you talking about?  Why warn me? Get your revenge.  You had every right to beat my ass.”

Max was staring down at the floor and shaking his head.  “Nope. It was against the rules. I broke those rules. You didn’t even know them.”

“What are you talking about?”  Alby turned around from the corner.  

“I’m talking about consent.  I’m talking about negotiation.”  Yikes, why was the dude sounding so annoyed?

“This isn’t a contract negotiation!” Alby almost laughed. “It’s punishment!”

“It’s both,” Max said flatly.  “If you want to do this again.”

Alby’s heart fluttered into overdrive. Again? Really?! “Yes,” he said before the full thought had formed.  “Yes. Please.”  His tail was lightly wagging, even though it kind of hurt his backside. Now if only Max would make him beg for it.

“Then you need to understand the rules,” Max repeated. “Even if it’s just the basics.”

“Like what?”  Alby didn’t consciously recognize it, but he was stepping out of the corner.

“Consent,” Max said. “I need to have your consent.  I need to know from you that it’s okay for me to put my hands on you like that.”

That didn’t sound very fun.  “You want me to ask you to spank me?” Alby smirked.

“No, I want you to tell me it’s something that I’m allowed to do,” Max rubbed his temples. “In kink, anything that I do to you has to be something you gave permission for me to do ahead of time. It’s real basic.”

Kink? Ugh! How he hated that word. It sounded so perverse!  He knew what it meant, obviously. Lots of leather and whips and chains and such.  “What does kink have to do with it?”

Max looked at Alby like he wasn’t sure if Alby was serious or not. “This is kink we’re talking about, dumbass.”

Images of naked men in gimp costumes burned themselves behind Alby’s allies.  “Uh…no it’s not.”

Max looked him dead in the eye. “You came in my lap, dude.”

The skin underneath Alby’s fur burned bright red.  “I did?”

Max folded his arms over his chest. “Yup.”

Alby looked down at his pants. That explained so much.  He’d been so out of it, lost in the haze of intense sensations and emotions, that he hadn’t realized the nigh orgasmic rush was the result of an actual factual orgasm!   Even now, he was still sporting something of a chubby. “I…I….oh wow. So sorry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…d-d-...I’m sorry Max. That’s never happened before! I swear!”  

“I know.”

Alby sat down on the couch. He didn’t even realize he’d wandered over and sat down until he felt the pain on his backside flare up again.  Sitting was going to be slow going for a couple of days.  “I’m…sorry…I’m so..”

Fingers snapped right in front of him, breaking him out of a repeating loop.  “Hey hey. Focus. I forgive you.  I’m guessing this is a lot to take in. But I forgive you. Just wanting to get that out of the way.”

Alby leaned back away from the fingers.. “I forgive you too,” he said automatically.  Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do when someone said that?  

“You don’t have to.”

“I don’t?”

It was like they were speaking two different languages, and both of them were getting more and more exasperated.

“Okay,” Max tried again. “Here’s the deal.  Forget everything you think you know.”  He gestured out the nearest window.  “All the rules and manners and stuff you think you know out there, don’t apply to this situation.  We’re going by different rules right now.”

The doberman cocked his head to the side. “Like a game?”

Max looked insulted. “This is more serious than a-”

“No, no, no,” Alby interrupted. “I just mean like games have rules that don’t always seem like common sense.  In real life I can’t go jumping on things to get cold coins to pop out.”  Max’s eyes glazed over slightly.  Okay…he wasn’t a gamer. Time for a different metaphor. “In real life you don’t have bounce a ball everytime you walk. You can just hold it. But you bounce it in basket ball to give people a chance to steal and play.”

The wolf’s eyes cleared up. “Okay,” Max said. “Now we’re on the same page.  Yes. In that respect this is a game.  Except this game can potentially have no time limit, no out of bounds, and if two or more people do it right, everybody wins.”

“Like a LARP?”  Alby half-asked half-wondered aloud.  It kind of made sense. There was a dress up component.  Thinking of this is a kind of cosplay made him feel better; less guilty for liking the idea.

“Honestly?” Max said. “I have no clue, so I’m just going to tell you the rules.”

Alby did his best to hide his disappointment.  “Okay.”

“It’s really simple,” Max stood up from the couch and circled around so that he was facing Alby.   “Whatever it is that you or anybody else do together, both of you have to agree on.”

“If I want you to…” Alby licked his chops. “...do that again…” he waited for Max to nod. Max did.  “If I want that again, I have to give you permission to do it? And you can do it…any time you want?”

“No,” Max said.  “Only under circumstances we agree on.”

“So what if I don’t want it?”

“Then I don’t do it.”

It couldn’t be this simple…

“Then what if I never want it?”

Max shrugged. “Then I guess we’re not doing it.”

“So I’m in control?”

“No….” Max said, showing a hint of irritation.  “I’ve got a say in this too.  This has to be something we both agree on. You get permission to do the things you want to do. If the other person doesn’t agree, you don’t do it.”

“It’s that simple?”

“It’s that simple. Right now, we’re just making up a game that works for both of us.  Like rule one: No breaking into my house again. Ever. You come over here with permission like everybody else or you don’t come over at all.”

That didn’t sound like much fun. “But what if I don’t like your rules?”  

“If we can’t agree on a rule, we stop playing and we do what anybody else would do.”
“So…if I break a rule, you call the cops.”

Max almost laughed. “If it’s breaking into my damn house in the middle of the night, yeah.” Almost.  Not quite but almost.

“What do I do to get you to…do the other thing?” Alby blushed.

“We can talk about that later,” Max said. “We can set up times and places and limits”

Without realizing it, Alby started to whine. He wanted to talk about it now! It was literally the only thing he wanted to talk about.  

“Okay, okay” Max rolled his eyes. “What exactly is…this?”

Alby lowered his eyes.  All of it. Everything. The rush. The humiliation. The wardrobe.  “Spanking…?”  It felt like the safest answer. “Punishment?”

Max stared at him, measuring him up.  Could the wolf read minds? Did he know Alby wanted more?  More than he had words for?  To be called ‘Princess’?  To wear adorable clothes with frills and bright colors?  Lap bounces and snuggles, and bottle feedings, and cheek pinches and being put on a toddler leash and lead around?  Oh gosh, how long had he been keeping some of those desires a secret even to himself?!

“Alright,” Max said. “This is irregular, but how about this as a general baseline rule? If I tell you to do something, you do it. If you want to get punished, you tell me ‘no’.  It’ll be a signal. I might not do it right then and there, but we’ll find time.”

The thrill of disobeying without actual disobedience. That…sounded kind of cool to Alby, actually. “What if I mean no for real? Like I don’t want to do the thing you’re telling me to do? What if it’s too much?”

Max untensed a bit. Alby felt like he was starting to get it.  “Then say ‘No, thank you.’  That’ll tell me you’re not up for it.”

“What if I do want to do the thing you tell me to do?” Alby asked.

Max blinked. “You…just do it…?”

That made sense. Alby was already beginning to make neural maps and flowcharts in his brain.  “What about…?” he took a deep breath “What if you want me to do something and I want to get punished so I say no but you actually need something done and we aren’t playing a game?”

Max scratched his chin. “Shit,” he said. “I guess I’ll just let you know by saying ‘please’.”

“Okay. Fair enough.”  He offered out his paw. They shook.  Game on.  “What’s next.”

Max held onto the handshake and tugged Alby to his feet.. “First. Some breakfast. I’ll cook.”

Alby’s stomach growled with unexpected hunger.  He’d emptied everything out and enough time and shock had passed so that it wanted to be filled up.  “Okay.  Yes.”

“Then you can take a shower,” Max went on.

“No thank you,” Alby said, testing his new powers.

Max stopped and stared for as second. “Oooookay,” Max said. “Either way, I think it would be best for you get back into regular clothes.”

Alby sucked on his teeth.  “No…?”

A stifled growl.  “Please.”

The doberman’s shoulders slumped. Oh. They weren’t playing yet. “Can I have that shower then?”

“Sure, Alby,” Max smiled slightly. “Sure.”

“Why do I need to put on my old clothes?” Alby asked.

“Because after breakfast I want to go to your house. Please.”

Despite not having any saliva due to mild dehydration, Alby swallowed hard.  “What can I say to that?”

“You can always say ‘No, thank you’.”  Max prompted him.

“Question,” Alby asked. “Are we…dating…or something?”

“No.”  The response was immediate.

“Then what are we doing?”

“I’m trying to teach you how to not be an asshole and to get the things that you need.”

“Oh…” Alby said.  “So what’s for breakfast?”

***************************************************************************************************

They took Max’s car back into town to Alby’s apartment. Alby hadn’t thought to ask why. If he had, Max would have been honest, and if he had safed out with a ‘no thank you’ he would have respected it.  It was more convenient that Alby hadn’t thought to. Might make the sale a little easier.

On the way there, it was hard getting Alby to shut up.  There was still something of an impulsive little weasel in the brat that was constantly looking for traps to be sprung on him or loopholes to exploit.  It was like the concept of basic mutual consent was completely foreign to him.

That wasn’t fair. Max knew plenty of weasels and they weren’t like Alby at all.

“Why are there these rules?” Alby needled him. “Who invented them?”

“I don’t know,” Max said, pulling into the driveway. “Kinky people, I guess.”

“Why?”

Jesus, he really could be like a toddler. And from the glint in his eyes, he knew he was pressing buttons.  “Do you want the mean answer or the nice answer?”

Alby seemed to seriously consider.  “Both, I guess.”

Max parked the car.  “Because most people don’t get off on getting spanked and being made to wear little girl clothes, Alby.  So getting consent is a CYA thing. That and you should generally only do things to people if they agree to it.  Try reading a philosophy book besides The Prince or The Art of War.”

They got out of the car, and despite living there, Alby was the one following Max. “Which one is that?”

“You’ve never actually looked on the bookshelf in your dad’s office have you?” Max quipped.

“No,” Alby said, “I mean was that the nice answer or the mean answer you just gave?”

The wolf chuckled. “That was both, kind of.”

With Alby’s prompts and keys they went up to his apartment.  Alby opened the door.  “Ta-da…” he said.  “Sorry for the mess.”

“What mess?” Max said, looking around.  The place was immaculate; eerily so. Everything put away, nothing out of place. It was anal to the max. It was pretty much a show model.  Except for…”What’s in there?”

Alby sucked on his teeth and jogged in front of Max as if he were bracing himself against an inevitable charge.  “No thank you!”

“Whoah,” Max yelped. “Easy there, killer.  I was just asking.” That was a sore spot that didn’t need poking right now.  If he was going to teach this kid how to be vulnerable without getting blind stinking drunk and how to respect boundaries, Max was going to have to respect boundaries right back.  “I’m not going anywhere you don’t allow me to be.”

“Promise?” the dog asked.

“Cross my heart.”  

“Then why are we here?” Alby wondered.

The open kitchen was easy to see. “I’m here for the liquor.”  Max started power walking towards the liquor cabinet.  

“A drink?” Alby said. “Why did you want to come all the way over here for a drink?”

Max opened it and took out two bottles of scotch. It was good stuff too. This might hurt him almost as much as it hurt Alby.  “New rule. No more drinking for you.”

“What?” Alby gasped. “NO! I mean no thank you!”  

Max paused and calmly stared at Alby.  “Please.”

“No thank you!”  

Oh this guy needed a program.  “This is a limit of mine, Alby. You’re an asshole when you’re drunk. You’re literally two for two with doing stupid shit around me while drunk.”  A thought.  “Were you drinking the night you started surfing around to cyber stalk me?”

Alby tucked his tail and broke off eye contact.  “Yeah.”

“Three for three, then.” Max said. “So you have a choice.  I dump this booze down the sink and you don’t buy any more or…”

Alby stopped being curious about what his feet looked like.  “Or…?”

Time to spell it out for him. “Or I take you back to my house, give you your car keys and I’ll see you at work in a couple of days. We won’t talk about this. We’ll just be working. This goes no further.”

The doberman’s eyes began to get all shifty.  “What if I tell people what you did to me?  You broke my consent, right?”

This old chestnut. “That’s your right.  I fucked up.  I don’t know how things would play out in court, but I’m not gonna lie. If you want, you know enough about me where you could tell people and I won’t deny it.  You could probably ruin my reputation in my circles. .” Honesty was the best policy going forward.

Whatever answer Alby was expecting, it wasn’t it.  Blackmail only worked when one party was afraid of the secrets getting out. “Oh…okay…” he seemed disappointed. “Go ahead and pour them down.”

“All of them?” Max asked.

“Yeah. All of them.”

Alby looked away while Max poured the bottles down the drain one after the other.  Ten bottles of various spirits and a couple cans of beer from the refrigerator glugged down later, and the task was done.  

“Okay,” Max said. “Good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome…Max.”  Alby looked close to tearing up in a way.  “What now?”

Max braced himself. This next part might be a harder sell.  Liquor was easy enough to replace. “I’m going to take my car, drive back home, and see you on Monday.”

“WHAT?!” Alby shrieked. “What about my car?!”

“This is punishment,” Max stated in a calm level voice. “Restorative justice. You got drunk. Drove your car all the way over to my place, and tried to break in.  Now you can’t do either.” To hammer the point home, Max slipped in.  “You’re grounded, little girl.”

Alby whined a long mournful,  “Noooooooooo…..!”  Max waited. No ‘thank you’ came.  This was fine. It was going to happen. “How am I supposed to get to work?”

“I’ll come pick you up,” Max replied. “You can’t be responsible for yourself, so I’m making you my responsibility.  From now until I say so, you’re not going anywhere unless I drive you there.  Is that understood.”

The dog shoved his hands into his pockets, possibly to stop himself from sucking on his thumb.  “Yes…” he sulked.

“Good,” Max said.  Time to give the brat a slight reward.  “Now you have a choice. You can show me out, or you can go to your room and I’ll leave on my own.”
No sooner were the words out of Max’s mouth that Alby was angrily huffing his way towards the door closed, loudly grumbling so that Max could hear.  “No fair, no fucking fair, stupid fucking Max! Big dumb asshole wolf!”   Alby wouldn’t admit it, but Max suspected he was enjoying this.

Max wouldn’t admit it either, but he was starting to, too.  Gotta do something about that potty mouth, he thought before he realized it.  Max was about to verbalize it, but cut himself off when Alby opened the door to his room and slipped in.  

Whoah!

The dog opened the door, just enough to slip in and slammed it shut, but Max caught more than just a tiny bit of pink on those bedroom walls! Maybe Alby would fit in in the nursery…

Max banished the thought from his mind.  Best to ease him, both of them, into this.