David Nicolaus Scott the Third couldn't say for certain that he was woken up because he couldn't be sure he'd really slept. Glancing at the cyan-colored digits of his alarm clock/tape deck player from the 80's, it looked like he'd been asleep for about four hours as it was nearly dawn now.
Shifting in bed, the wolftaur was curled up upon himself, his waist circled to his tail, and his upper body spooning his lower body with how it wrapped. Ears flicking in the direction of his bedroom door, he could hear scratching of a big paw. Leaning backwards, he almost fell off the side of his one-person mattress and onto the floor. Still, with his current position it was either fall or twist painfully.
As his upper body slid onto the floor, he put his hands on the floor and sort of six-legged crawled out of the bed until he was all on the floor. There was a musky, male wolf smell... mature and sticky... but the the heartbeat he heard was one he last identified as Alice, so an arousal as a female wolf he could have felt was quickly eliminated. No matter his instincts, his human mind was on top, at least for now.
"Mr. Scott?" came the small girl's voice from the other side of the locked door. He was pretty sure she must have heard him getting out of bed with her big wolf ears. "I made a mess."
David wanted to ask what kind of mess, but based on context clues, he thought it best to just let Alice say whatever was on her mind. Pushing with his front legs, David was upright, back onto all fours with his humanoid torso reaching for the door.
He stopped himself, though, and reached for the underwear he'd taken off before getting into bed. Standing up on his hind legs, he passed the underwear down to his lower front hand-paws. As if he'd been working with them his whole life, David pulled the dark gray boxer-briefs so that one hind leg could step into them, and then the other. Pulling them forward, the cloth cover his heavy canine sheath, testicles, and vulva. Once everything was secured, he bent his body into a u-shape to pull up the briefs over his big rump, latching the narrow leather belt over his tail to keep them up.
"Just a second," he said to Alice as he retrieved his somewhat bloody denim carapace, a tauric ultilikilt redesigned by transAI to fit logically over his whole lower body. He didn't bother grabbing his shirt, but he wanted to make sure he had pants on when he opened the door for the eight-year-old turned male dire wolf outside.
A moment of dressing and unlocking the door later, David opened it to see a bristly gray and chestnut colored dire wolf with a light underbelly standing before him. Even though David's lower body was wolf in shape with just a hint of horse, and was about five to ten percent larger than a regular wolf... size-for-size, this male dire wolf before him's same body was larger still, with a blockier head and bigger canines.
"I tried to wash up, but I messed up," Alice Phillips whimpered, her golden-green wolf eyes not meeting David's golden brown. "The bathroom's all wet." That said, she took off in the direction of the downstairs walk-in shower, tail tucked between her legs...
(|[***]|)
The basement's bathroom was adjacent to the workroom where all the tools and laundry machines were and it was from there that David and Alice retrieved a number of towels to place on the floor near the walk-in shower. It was a wide, tall rectangle of a space with one of those distorted glass doors that showed the colors and general form of the person within, though that you couldn't quite make them out.
Apparently she'd made herself a mess and was trying to wash up. She got the knobs turned for the water and temperature but could not get the door closed. Before she knew it, she'd made a puddle all over the floor.
With David's help, the big wolf barely fit back into the shower. It was around that time he realized he didn't have any canine shampoo and would have to pick some up in town for himself. David didn't know a ton about dogs since he'd never actually owned one, but he knew human shampoo would irritate the skin and mess with their coat.
Alice spoke to David who she knew was still in the bathroom cleaning up from the still pouring shower. "OK, Mr. Scott... I think I'm done. You sure you can't shampoo me?"
"Besides not having the right kind, kiddo, I think telling someone later I washed a little girl that wasn't mine might... bring questions."
"I think... I think I have a sex question."
"Ask your mom," David half laughed, but there was something in her tone combined with the scent he picked up earlier that concerned him. "I think your mom was only OK with what happened earlier because she's a bit of a trickster now and I shouldn't push my luck," he chuckled. Alice went quiet. "Be sure to shake off before you step out... that'll reduce the need for towel."
Alice was quite as mouthed the handle for the water, turning it to the side so it would go off. She sat there over the drain on her rear legs for a long moment before finally saying... "Don't open the door."
David glanced over from the other side of the room where he was picking up the last of the towels and putting them in a basket. Against the dark gray and chestnut colors smeared into indistinguishable shapes was a swath of bright red. "OK," he swallowed, really hoping this hard question just softened and went away. "I won't."
Alice began to whimper, putting David in a decidedly more awkward position.
"Alice... would you like me to make you human again?"
"I want to ask questions."
Urge to answer questions so confused child doesn't cry rising... David thought to himself, but also supposedly loud enough for us to hear. His eyes turned toward me. Raising a hand, he flipped me off, then looked back to the shape in the shower. "I really think you should ask your mom."
"Mom doesn't have one."
David groaned a little. "Then... ask your dad?" The question actually sounded wrong to him the moment it left his muzzle and he regretted it instantly.
"You want me to ask dad about a weewee you gave me?"
David flipped me off again, then put that same hand against his head. He grumbled. "You know, when you put it like that... What's your question?"
"What's the white stuff?"
Oh, for fucks sake... David opened his one eye back up to look accusingly at me, then he looked at the ceiling. "I thought you were gunna ask about size, shape, color—"
"It's a dog weewee, Mr. Scott," Alice said as if to say 'I know what it is... I want to know what it does...' She sighed. David rubbed his forehead. "My nightmare. The fur uncovered it. It was covered in fur, and now it is not. The white stuff made me sticky and I tried to wash it and I made a mess."
Is Tommy sticky? You know what, brain? Fuck you for asking... David grumbled a bit. "I really shouldn't get specific Alice. But... but... it's not something a little girl your age should see, and I'm sorry that happened. Please ask your mom—not your dad—that question and I will accept any consequences."
Alice gasped, but spoke softly: "I knew it was a bad secret!"
David's ears perked up. "You didn't do anything wrong, kiddo. It's probably because wolves reach adulthood by the time their your age... since I didn't age you down, you became an eight-year-old boy wolf... man wolf. And that's my mistake."
"So daddy was afraid he'd get in trouble."
David's mouth fell open, but no words escaped. Wait. What're we talking about now? He rolled her remark around in his head. Her dad was afraid he'd get in trouble about... the white stuff? Showing it to a little girl? Oh no... Oh, fuck, David realized his situation, Now I can't not ask... if he's done something to Alice...
"Alice," David began, finding his own courage. "What secret?"
"You have to keep secrets, right?"
"No," the wolftaur spoke clearly, making sure he wasn't about to teach a lesson that would backfire later. "Alice, a secret you're pressured into is probably a bad secret. If you don't get a choice... if you didn't consent... the secret is invalid." He took a breath. "No one can make you keep a secret."
"I saw daddy making white stuff!" she yelped. "Is it bad? Is it coming out of me because I'm bad!?"
David took a few steps forward towards the door. "No, Alice. It isn't bad. Showing—making it appear for a child is bad. Your dad did that?"
"Uh-huh. He was watching a movie. He didn't know I was there, but then he did... He looked at me and told me to keep it a secret... pulling on his weewee. Then there was white stuff..." David actually thought she'd end there, whimpering, but she went on. "Now I have bad dreams about the white stuff. Sometimes it's mine. A wolf tries to help, but is scared to touch it. What's wrong with the white stuff!?"
David couldn't follow the girl's story. "Alice..." he almost swore softly, but then remembered her wolf ears. "Girl, the white stuff isn't bad. It's part of what makes babies. Little girls shouldn't ever have to know what it is not because it's bad, but because it's adult. Only adults should be thinking of making babies."
Alice sat in the shower, quiet for a moment. "You said I'm an adult wolf, so it's OK?"
What answer gets me out of this moment? wondered David. "If you had an adult dream which made you have white stuff because your body is an adult when you're not an adult... then that was normal for your body, but not for you as a little girl, OK? So that's not your mistake and you didn't do anything wrong. That's my fault for putting you in that situation. I'm sorry. Very, very sorry..."
"Apology accepted." Alice stated matter-o-factly. There was something changed about her tone which reminded David of the fairy or the raptor she'd been earlier. He shook his head to get stray thoughts out before Alice pressed on: "But if people know... daddy gets in trouble?"
"Yeah, he could. But you should definitely, absolutely tell your mom... and be totally honest with her because it might be important later." David shook a bit, not wanting to consider the possibilities.
"Can I... come out of the shower now?"