Alby & Max (Part 6) (Patreon)

(Part 6)

Alone.

Alby was alone.  He was used to being alone. He generally liked being alone, or so he told himself. Not true, actually, but generally being above everyone else made solitude an unfortunate necessity.  If you’re going to have to push a boulder up the hill for all eternity, Alby reasoned, might as well enjoy it.

Just like dad said, it was all about expectations and managing them.  Alby didn’t really need personal connections because he didn’t expect to have any.  He was a Madden.  He was going to run an entire company one day.  He’d run it for a couple of years as an office manager, real boots on the ground experience, and work his way up from there.  That was the plan.  That was the expectation.

The computer screen read “GAME OVER!”   Another over the top body horror monster demolished Alby’s life points and sent his character down to the ground in several chunks.  It wasn’t even the hardest boss.  His game was just totally off tonight.

Alby growled and logged out of the game. “I need a drink…” he muttered to himself.  But there was nothing to drink save for tap water.  “Fuck…” he’d already allowed himself to forget his current predicament.  That had been the point of playing video games.  He wanted to forget the crazy predicament he’d landed himself in.  Worse, the crazy predicament he’d agreed to.

“What was I thinking?”  he moaned.

It had all seemed so interesting, so compelling, so refreshing from the tedium that was life.  A new way to distract from pushing that boulder up the corporate hill. A new fantasy to explore. A new game.  Mere hours later, the only thing it felt like was ‘real’.  And real was very, very bad.  Alby wanted to escape from ‘real’.  ‘Real’ was why he drank.  ‘Real’ was why he slipped on silk panties when no one was looking.  ‘Real’ was why waking up in a little girl jammies had seemed like a bizarre but wonderful dream; why even getting that spanking had been a kind of heaven.

When he was drunk, Alby didn’t have to meticulously analyze everything or look for weaknesses; his or others. He didn’t have to relive every potential variation of a hypothetical conversation or wonder what others knew about him or what he was giving away. He didn’t have to be in charge or climbing or organizing or dignified.  He could just be in the moment.  

And when he was being humiliated or punished he was allowed to be less than.  Alby didn’t have to be proud. Or the best. Or stoic.  He’d been expected to be humiliated and undignified. He could take that mask off and feel things.  God had that been a relief.

And the way he’d been called ‘little girl’.  That did all sorts of things to Alby’s psyche. So many things.  Being a little girl meant that Alby could be delicate. Fragile even.  Alby could be emotional, and pretty and soft.  If Alby was a little girl, that meant that he wouldn’t have to be…himself.

Alby wiped away the tears that came with that thought.  Men didn’t cry. They just didn’t.  They didn’t like pink. Or watch cartoons. Or wear outfits that were skimpy or flowing or elegant.  Clothes on a man weren’t supposed to make them seem attractive or stunning.  

They dressed in functional, plain button up, gray flannel suits. Nothing below the neck, or past the wrist or ankles should be visible. And the fit should be enough to conceal one’s physique without being too baggy or too tight.  To be truly elegant, one should be unnoticed. That was what it meant to be a man; a successful one anyways.

Men could, Alby had reasoned, play video games as long as they were suitably difficult and or violent.  That wasn’t childish…or not too childish. More like a mental competition, like chess mixed with sports.

“God I need a drink,” he said yet again.  Why?  Because men drank, that’s why.

Men also had control.  Alby didn’t. Not anymore.  He’d given all of that away to Max.  Starting first thing at work, he’d be Max’s slave.  Told what to do; no longer fully in charge of himself.  If Max told him to do something, he’d have to do it. He’d have to.  He could back out, of course, but that would be like losing the game.  And if it was one thing Albert Madden, Jr didn’t like more than not having control, it was losing.

But not by much.

What was going to happen?  Would Max insist he humiliate himself?  Pull his pants down and spank him again?  Make him hold hands? Call him ‘Daddy’ again?

Oh god, what would Dad have to say about that?  About any of this?  He’d broken the law, and instead of facing up to it or bribing it away, he was letting himself be controlled by…an employee!

Alby wanted to run, to leave his apartment and get some fresh air. He wanted to drive around just feel like he was going somewhere, even if he was driving around the same block over and over.  But he couldn’t drive.  His car was still over at Max’s.

The wolf had left with his keys, too.  How would he get back in? He couldn’t even go for a jog. If he left he wouldn’t be able to get back in.  Max had taken his keys!  How would he get back inside once he left?  There were ways, sure, but…at this hour? In the middle of the night?

Too many unknowns. Not enough control.  Alby was worse than alone. He was trapped. Trapped!  He was imprisoned in his own apartment, even more so than usual, and his own brain had become a vise.

This was wrong! He was wrong!  He was confused!  Desperate!  He didn’t know which way was up anymore!  He was an addict and he was going deeper down the fucking hole instead of climbing out of it!

“GRAAAAAAAH!” He howled in mental anguish. He burst out of his room; his haven. No his drug den.  Out of the pink, fluffy mess that he hated that he loved, and into the orderly, simple, masculine domain of the rest of his apartment.  His hands reached up to the top of his head and violently tugged on his ears, fantasizing about ripping them off.  “Enough is enough!”

The doberman ran to the kitchenette. There was no more liquor there, but there was one more thing he could use; something that Max hadn’t thought to take.  He reached beneath the kitchen sink and took out the thing that would get him out of this.  

Garbage bags.  Big. Black. Baggy things. He took the first one and flapped it open, passing air inflating it to its full and enormous size. Bag in hand, Alby marched back into his room and slammed the door behind him. Up and in went the stuffies on his bed.  Down and in went the posters. In went every last pair of panties from his drawer. Additional bags were needed for the robot action figures, the anime dvd’s, the mangas and comic books, but he got every stupid ugly childish thing in there. He didn’t NEED this. He shouldn’t WANT this!

More stupid tears dripped down his muzzle.  He ignored them and started making a plan.

The solution was simple. Cortez burned his ships so that he’d have no option but to be strong.  Alby only had to apply the same principle.  He’d stop feeling bad once he’d gotten rid of everything. Bag everything up and toss it in the dumpster tomorrow after work.  He’d sleep on the couch tonight, and then re-paint his room after he disposed of all of this…weakness.

No more kid stuff. No more girly stuff. No more weakness.  Then by the time Max came back, Alby would have no weaknesses left to exploit or play too. Max would take him to work. He’d get through the day like any other, say he was carpooling or something. Then Daddy would take him to his farmhouse, Alby would get his car back, they’d shake hands and..and..and…

Daddy…?

Alby’s knees buckled and he fell to the floor.  “The fuck am I doing?” he sobbed.  He looked at the now bulbous black bag that was filled with so many of the things he’d loved.  “The fuck is wrong with me?!”  He kicked himself backwards across the carpet, as if the hefty bag were diseased.

The dog crawled on all fours to the door and pulled himself up to his feet by the door handle. He rushed out of his shameful secret room as though its contents might drag him back in…and he’d love it if they did.

He rushed to the coffee table in the seldom used living room,  and picked up his cell.  “Come on,” he whimpered, punching in a number. “Pick up…please…please pick up!” and like a prayer, he mouthed a final word…”Daddy”

Daddy!

Alby hung up before even a single ring went through.

He spent the rest of the night on the couch sobbing himself to sleep.

************************************************************************************************
A salesman has the same skill set as an interrogator, a psychologist, and a con artist. It’s not the skill set most people suspect it is, either. It’s not about the delivery, or making the best pitch, or presenting some kind of front as much as it is about being able to read other people and predict how they’ll react.  It’s not about presentation as much as it is about analysis.  

It didn’t matter how good of an actor you were, or how good your pitch was if you couldn’t read people. Max’s life was living Jazz.  It was the notes that weren’t played just as much as what was.  It was reading his customers and figuring out what they wanted to hear and carefully measuring their reaction to see if telling them what they wanted or what they feared would lure them in or repel them.  Some people’s fear made them run into a sale, or run away if an offer sounds too good to be true.  But if you couldn’t read a person, you might as well just be reading from a script.  Anybody could read from a script; but if you did your customer might as well be a brick wall or a cardboard cutout with a coin flip tied to the outcome.

Max wasn’t a fan of trusting in luck. That’s why he was having trouble sleeping that night. He tossed and turned in his bed, not quite sleeping, and listing everything that had gone sideways.

He had been winging it and acting on impulse with Alby thus far; reading from a script made of the worst and most fantastical slash fics from the net. Alby’s impulsiveness had been met and countered with desires Max barely knew how to express, and the separation had been necessary for both parties cooling down.

That still didn’t feel right. He was still treating Alby as an enemy; obstacle and not a customer.  Customers were sort of like obstacles, too, but they were still people; intricate puzzles to solve and understand.  More importantly, they were deserving of respect. If Max was going to set things right, and the wolf always did, he’d have to change his way of thinking and look past all of his previous biases against the doberman.

After the third or fortieth time rolling over in bed and staring at the alarm clock, Max gave up on sleep.  Time to figure out Alby.  If he was going to help the doberman, he had to reach an understanding of the dog beyond how obviously repressed he was and  how annoying he could be.

Like a medium or a detective, Max decided to return to the scene of the crime. Max snatched the special key to his private nursery, walked down the hallway and opened it up. The hinges opened up silently, but the old floorboards groaned with his passing.  His hand went for the lightswitch as a muscle memory, but he stopped himself.

This is how Alby had seen the room on New Year’s Eve.  Or didn’t see it.  Whatever. He’d been drunk, charged forward, tripped, and hit his head on the changing table, and pissed himself. Possibly not in that order, but it was the end result that mattered.

Okay. So Alby was a drunk.  Might as well start there.  What did Max know about that?

He lived in an expensive and well maintained apartment complex.  With a (formerly) well stocked liquor cabinet. That in of itself wasn’t a tell.  To Max, liking booze was no different than having a sweet tooth or a thing for really greasy cheeseburgers.  It was only a problem in excess.  Beyond the scotch, there wasn’t a lot of excess in that apartment. It had been eerily clean; just sort of spartan. Dollars to donuts that if the kid had anything to hide, it was behind his bedroom door.

“No,” Max reminded himself. “Focus. Back to the booze.”

As far as Max knew, Alby had never shown up drunk to work. If he had, someone would have noticed or said something. Alby didn’t have near enough friends to have something like that not make the gossip rounds.  

So maaaaaaybe Alby didn’t get drunk very often.  But when he did, hoooo boy. He was an ass.  Not mean, not an angry drunk; just an ass.  No filter. No foresight. No inhibitions. He basically turned into all the worst parts of an unpotty trained toddler left unsupervised.

That wasn’t fair. If Max hadn’t known Alby,  some of the young doberman’s behavior would be kind of cute. Not so much the breaking down Max’s doors, or trying to climb onto his roof, but the stupidly sincere mindset, that breakdown in cause and effect and reverting to a more childish headspace was something Max normally encouraged in people who needed it, and delighted in seeing.

One of the things Max loved about being a Daddy Dom was the opportunity to get people to come out of their shells and explore themselves. To earn someone’s trust with managing the most tender part of themselves and to reward that trust with what they wanted and needed but were too afraid to express without him.  It was like being a teacher, except instead of English, Math, Science and Social Studies it was teaching one how to let their guard down and be vulnerable; literally letting one’s inner child out.

Briefly, without meaning to, he pictured Alby in a schoolgirl outfit; a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a plaid jumper dress just barely covering her diaper. He huffed and expelled the image from his conscious thought.  

Max flicked on the lightswitch, and beheld the nursery he’d invested far too much money into over the years.  So many toys and pieces of furniture, barely used except when he had company. Any little could little by themselves. It was so hard to be a caregiver when no one was around to care for.

“This isn’t about me…” Max chided himself.

Vulnerability.  That was not a word Max would normally associate with his co-worker. At work, Alby was constantly on the attack, so to speak.  Often it was him looking for someone’s weakness or faults to exploit. Bully and tattle. Bully and tattle.  More recently that energy had been put into a positive direction. When he focused on work, the place ran like a Swiss pocket watch.

What did that energy say about Alby? That inability to relax? That need to always be moving and searching, mentally, if not physically?  The answer was obvious.  “The best defense is a good offense.”  Max said to himself, striding to the changing table and resting his hand on the top.  Alby thought that if he was proactive enough, either in finding others’ flaws or pushing his own strengths that no one would have time to attack him.


This made far too much sense.  The little doberman (and he was a little doberman, Max was sure) was so tightly wound that he only knew how to relax through chemical means.

What had him wound up so tight didn’t take any great leap in logic.  Albert Madden Sr. was a good boss in the sense that he knew when to keep his mouth shut and let his employees do their job.  He was the kind of boss that didn’t care about much of anything short of results.  Failure got you reamed at best, fired at worst.  Success got you paid.  Simple as that.  

Max could vibe with that.  But Max wasn’t Madden’s kid.  Assuming Mr. Madden’s parenting style was similar to his management style, there was a lot to be desired.

Max rubbed the top of the changing table, lightly, remembering what Alby looked like on top of it, sucking his thumb and mumbling about ‘Daddy’. There had been a reason why Alby had gotten into headspace so quickly. That ‘Daddy’ hadn’t been a slip. Neither was the thumbsucking. Poor kid had probably still been a thumbsucker the last time his old man expressed anything resembling affection.

Alby paced over to the dresser drawer and started digging out PJs. He carefully unfolded and folded them again. The mindless activity helped him collect his thoughts.  “So we have a smart kid with daddy issues.”  He chuckled ruefully and thought of his last couple of littles.  “Damn. I really do have a type.”

He folded the pajamas and put them back in the drawer. “Old money. Upper middle class to rich.” He turned off the lights and closed the door. “Queer as hell, but knows next to nothing. Possible willful ignorance.  Self-medicates.  Dips his toe in by wearing panties…”  He didn’t say as much out loud, but Max suspected part of it came from the risk of being caught. He might have been in it  for the thrill of someone finding out.  He might have been so brazen because on some level, he wanted to get caught; the liquor just brought it to the surface.  “...massive cry for help.”

The wolf trudged downstairs and headed to the kitchen.  It was closer to dawn than dusk. Might as well put some coffee on.  “I’ve got a cub that has all these needs, doesn’t know how to ask for them, and can barely acknowledge them as needs.” This. This was a new one.  He’d never been anyone’s legitimate gateway into the lifestyle before. If he was going to ‘corrupt’ anybody, he always figured it’d be someone he was actively dating.

Max yawned and turned the coffee maker on.  “Well Max, old kid, you certainly stepped in it this time.”

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

PING!

Alby didn’t dream that night.

PING!

His rest was like the dead.

PING!

There wasn’t reprieve as much as it was a total lack of consciousness.

PING!

Not true sleep as much as a very very prolonged blink.

PING!

Funnily enough, Alby normally only slept like that when he was blind stinking drunk.  

PING!

Ironic, considering the circumstances.

PING!

Alby’s ears perked up before his eyes opened, just as the doorknob was turning to the outside.  He sat up from the couch and planted his feet back on the floor.  Adrenaline surged. In an instant he was awake.  Hurting but awake.

“Hey, Alby!” Max called out as the door opened.  “Are you in here?”  Alby sat up a little straighter, striking a pose of readiness.  “I’ve been texting…”  he stopped when he saw Alby on the couch a few steps in. “...you.”

“Hey…” Alby waved sheepishly.  

The wolf looked him up and down.  “Are you still in your clothes from yesterday?”

It wasn’t accusatory, but Alby heard it as such.  “No…” the fib came out of him.

“Really?” Max cocked an eyebrow. “Cause it looks like it.”

He looked down at himself. The clothes were wrinkled and smelly from wear.  “I might have fallen asleep.”

The wolf looked at his phone.  “Okay. We’ve still got time. Hop in the shower, hose off, and get dressed kiddo.”

A command!  By the rules they’d established, Alby had to obey! Had to give up that control over himself.  Oh how he wanted to, but.

“N-n-no….!” He yelped.  It sounded as if someone had crushed his paw.

Max rolled his eyes and sighed. “Okay. Please go shower and get dressed.”

Fuck fuck fuck! He thought Alby was playing and wanted to get spanked!
“Please no!” he said, scrambling back on the couch. Wait, was that the right word? What were the rules again?  Alby hadn’t even started playing but already he was ready to quit.  “No! No thank you! No thank you!”

His coworker’s expression changed from relaxed if slightly annoyed to one of deep concern. “Alby?  Alby, are you alright, kid?”

“I’M NOT A LITTLE GIRL!” Alby screamed, stomping her foot. “I’M NOT!  DON’T TREAT ME LIKE IT!”  Max’s eyes went wide with shock and his ears went back in fear.  Alby couldn’t see that though because of how she’d slammed her eyes shut.  “DON’T MAKE ME DO IT! PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO IT!”

Alby felt Max’s paws rest gently on her shoulders.  “Shhhhhh,” he said. “Shhh-shh-shh-shh-shh.”

That made Alby’s eyes open again.  Something was wrong! Something was off!  No matter how she tried to wrap her mind around it, she couldn’t control herself; couldn’t quiet herself down.  Couldn’t even ‘sh’.  Her eyes darted around, refusing to make contact with the wolf.

“I’m not gonna make you do anything,” Max said, his voice a gentle and steady breeze compared to the erratic and rapid beating from Alby’s chest.  “I’m not gonna make you do anything.  That’s not how this works. Not at all.”

Alby tipped her head back and howled. “NOOOOOOOOOOO!”  Yet she did not try to shake Max’s paper thin grip on her.

“I’m going to sit down,” Max said. “Would you like to keep me company?”

“B-B-B-BUT,” Alby sobbed, “WE G-g-gotta go to woooork.” The doberman’s voice started out booming and ended as a raspy tea kettle.  

“No,” Max said simply. “No we don’t. That’s a choice we can make. I’m choosing to sit down.”  While still holding Alby’s hand, Max did so.  “Would you like to choose to join me?”

Alby nodded, silently, and wiped her nose on her sleeve.  

Max patted his lap. “Then sit down with me.”  Alby tried to sit down beside Max; honestly;  but it was so easy to just let her body be guided into the big wolf’s lap. “Good girl.”  Hearing those words come from outside her head made her shiver.  “I'm very proud of you for making that choice.”

Another shiver. No, a shudder.  Meekly, Alby’s tale started to gently wag.  Her thumb started to travel up to her muzzle.  She paused and looked down at it, guiltily.

“It’s okay,” Max said.  “Go ahead.  You can suck your thumb.  You can make that choice.”

So Alby did.  In went the thumb. Almost immediately, down went her heart rate.

“Good girl.  I’m proud of you.”  

“Thanks Da-...Max.” Alby slipped before correcting herself.

“No, no.”  Max said. “You’re okay.  You can call me Daddy right now.  Daddy’s here.”

“Daddy’s…here?”  It was the first time that Max had referred to himself as that.  Now Alby wanted to cry again, but for a completely different reason.

“Yup.” He wrapped his arms around Alby’s waist. “I’m here for as long as you need me, little girl.  We’re gonna sit here and wait things out.”  His hands traveled upwards to the pup’s chest and pulled her closer to him.  “Just breathe. Suck your thumb. And breathe.”  Alby could feel Max’s heartbeat through her back.  Strong. Powerful. Slow. Calm.  Just like his breathing.

The pair sat there, in what passed for Alby’s living room, for the longest five minutes of Alby’s entire life.  The only sound in Alby’s ears was the sound of her own thumb being sucked while bit by bit the panic and anxiety went back down. It didn’t go away, it never went fully away, but it was getting to a spot where it could be ignored.  Like packing down and reloading an airbag.

“Okay,” Alby sighed, back in a calmer mind.

“Do you want to stand up?” Max asked.

“Yes, please.”

The wolf released him, but made no move to shove the dog off his lap.  Alby did that himself and felt better for it.  “We need to talk.” Alby said.

“Yeah,” Max nodded.  “I suspect we do.”

There was no easy way to say this, so it was best to just rip the proverbial band-aid off.  “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Do what?” Max asked, his face a mask.  “Take a shower? Are you having trouble functioning?”

“Take orders from you,” Alby admitted. “Or anybody. Give up that much control.”

“Do you want to?”

A bit of panic reared up. “It doesn’t matter what I-!” Alby stopped himself.  “I don’t think I can do my job if I’m constantly worrying about games and rules and what you’re going to tell me to do.”
Max nodded, still placid. “I agree.”

“So we’re calling this off?”  Alby didn’t know if he was disappointed or not.  He’d kind of hoped Max would fight this more.

“I didn’t say that.” Max said, and just like that Alby felt something close to hope. Hope adjacent?  “I said that you can’t do your job if you’re worried about me embarrassing you all the time or telling you what to do.”  He scooted away on the couch and stood up so that he wasn’t directly in the little dog’s face.  “So how about we put an extra rule?  Until you say so, when we’re at work, you’re Alby and I’m Max.  Game off.  When we’re not at work, I’m Daddy and you’re my little girl?”

“But…” Alby’s mind went into straight analysis. “What if I…need…Daddy?”  It sounded so weird and foreign on his tongue just then.  

“We still have the please and no thank you system.” Max suggested. “It’s subtle, and no one will know.”

“But…but…” he nervously scratched back behind his ears. “That gets so confusing. So many people already say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.  I don’t want to be constantly listening and having to think about what you’re saying and wondering if it’s some kind of code.”

“Ooof,” Max said. “Yeah. Fair point. We need to go back to beginner beginner for you.”  He dug a finger into his ear and twisted it around.  “Um…how about ‘cloudburst’?”

“Cloudburst?”  Alby said. “What does that mean?”

“It’s just a word. If you need help with something, you say ‘cloudburst’ and I’ll take over.”

“Won’t…won’t…” Alby started to stammer again. “Won’t that be kind of obvious? Get us caught?”

Max shrugged. “Not really. It’s two random words smashed together.  Won’t come up in conversation naturally.  And no one will think anything of it if you just come up to me and say it as long as you don’t scream or whatever.”

“Okay…” Alby agreed. “Okay…yeah. You’re right. I’m overthinking it.” He often overthought things, he realized. That’s why it would be nice to have someone else to make the decisions..  “So…go to work?”

Max smirked. “After you shower and get dressed, little girl.”

“Oh yeah.” Without meaning to, he started smiling back.  “Yes, Daddy.”

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

What. A .Day.

All through work that day, it was Max whose head was a swivel.  He kept looking out for Alby, worried that he’d have to deal with another panic attack or something like this morning. Or maybe another slip and call him ‘Daddy’ in front of the wrong person and end up complicating matters more.  Max wasn’t worried about being shunned in the same way that Alby clearly was, but some things were just too much of a pain in the ass.

 Thankfully, Alby made it through okay, but no wonder parents didn’t bring their kids to work! Who could live with all that worry?

After work, he took Alby out to eat.  It wasn’t anywhere special,  just a burger joint; but the look on Alby’s face when Max got him a kid’s toy?  Priceless.  Max was finally feeling like he was starting to figure Alby out.  With some patience and luck, maybe Alby could figure some stuff out too.

It was almost half past nine when Max came back up to Alby’s apartment.  He’d dropped the doberman off and seen him in.  Alby started looking nervous again, and Max promised that he wouldn’t leave him alone for long.  Then he went back to his house, packed a suitcase, and drove all the way back.  A pound of prevention was worth a ton of cure.

“Okay, little girl,” he huffed, letting himself in the doorway. “Daddy’s….here.”

Alby was back on the couch, curled up and fidgeting without a blanket.  Still in the clothes he’d worn to work that day, too.  Poor Alby. If it was one thing he was, it was consistent.  He probably thought he had to wait there for Max, or wanted Max to find him in roughly the same position as he’d been this morning.

He rolled his suitcase over to the couch and gently nudged Alby. “Hey,” Max said. “Hey, Alby.”  Alby didn’t respond.  He jostled the young doberman again. “Alby. Wake up, little girl.”

Alby opened his eyes and stared up at Max, sleepily.  “Oh.  Hi.  What are you doing here Ma…? Daddy?”

“I said I’d come back.” Max replied, with a smile. “I just had to get some clothes.  I”m spending the night.”

“Oh,” Alby yawned. “Okay.”  His head fell back down to the couch cushion.  He was snoring immediately.

“Hey,” Max said again, smiling despite himself. “Wake up.  Wake up, it’s time to go to bed.”

“Oh. Hi. What are you doin’ Daddy?”  The previous exchange had already been completely forgotten.

“Don’t tell me you sleep out here on the couch?”  Max chuckled.

“Hm?”  Down Alby’s head went.  Max mentally filed away that Alby was something of a sleep talker.  Though that made sense, based on their past interactions.  He took Alby’s forepaw and guided it to his muzzle.  The dog started sucking his thumb immediately.

“Might as well make myself at home,” Max said to himself.  He looked around the pristine apartment.  “But where?”

A pang of guilt found its way into the back of Max’s brain.  He’d seen every other room in this place, except for the bedroom; the one room which Alby hadn’t wanted him to see. “Well…” Max muttered and grumbled. “I’m going to have to see it eventually.” He walked to the door and put his hand on the door handle.  “How bad can it be?”

Max had no idea.

The walls were light pink. The furniture was brighter. The bed was made up in a Erosebridal Rainbow Bedding set with a neon color palette.  An anime body pillow had been tossed to the floor, and there was sticky tack on the walls. It kind of reminded him of his niece’s bedroom.  Kind of…barren though.

Barren except for the three amorphous trash bags piled in the middle of the carpet.  Max grabbed one and opened it up.  It wasn’t garbage, but stuffed toys and anime posters. By the bed was a anime body pillow that had been tossed on the floor.

“Oh jeez,” Max said. “Poor kid is going through a purge.”  He’d been so ashamed he’d started trashing his stuff.  Something came over Max.  He set his jaw and ripped open the bag. “Nope. No he ain’t.”

It took Max almost half an hour resetting up the bedroom that Alby had trashed.  It wasn’t that it was hard to move anything, but Max spent more time agonizing on what went where.  The posters were the hardest. They wrinkled and crumpled too easily, but he was able to guess the layout based on sticky tack residue lining up.  He also wasn’t sure if the Sophia the First DVD went with the magical girl anime collection or if it had its own special place of honor or secrecy.  Hard to say.  The stuffies and the pillow he guessed, went on the bed.

When he was done, the garbage bags were empty, and it might not have been perfect, but it was much better.  The room now looked like it belonged to a thirteen year old girl whose parents spoiled her.

“Poor kid,” Max said to himself again.  “This is what he was scared of me seeing?”

Max walked out into the living area and picked Alby up off the couch.  He was getting way too good at karting Alby around. “Up we go, little girl,” Max said.  Alby stirred just long enough to pop his thumb back in.

Quietly and slowly, Max carried Alby into his own bedroom and laid him down.  He briefly considered dressing Alby back up in cute pajamas.  Max had brought a few pairs, just in case. He decided against it, however. He didn’t want to be rewarding bad behavior.  Neurotically purging was a form of  self-harm in Max’s book. Definitely bad behavior.

Similarly, he didn’t want to crawl into Alby’s bed without permission.  It seemed Max would be sleeping on the couch tonight. Good thing he’d also packed a spare blanket. Max was never good at sharing bed sheets.

More emotionally than physically exhausted, but exhausted nonetheless, Max stepped away and took one final look at Alby.

“Daddy?” Alby moaned sleepily.

“I’m here,” Max said.  “I’m just turning out the lights.  Go to sleep. We’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Alby sleep talked.  “Night night, daddy.”

Max flicked the lights off.  “Night, little girl.”