Steamed Paws

Phaëgoni was a wolpertinger—a hybrid creature resembling a rabbit. Unlike a standard rabbit, though, he had wings sprouting out of his back, horns jutting out atop his head, and two fangs poking down from behind his upper lip. He stood at 6’4" (198 centimeters) and his fur was mostly orange, the endpoints of his limbs accented with yellow, brown, and beige. His ears were much the same but with yellow bordering white.

He was calm in personality and patient by nature, but even patience has its limits. He found himself frequently cleaning up after his younger sister, or otherwise sorting out various messes she made. It usually wasn’t anything major, but as things built up he felt he could really use a way to relieve the stress. As luck would have it, a new sauna called “Steamed Paws” opened up nearby that advertised itself as “guaranteed to relieve stress in as little as an hour.” They were offering a free two- hour trial for your first visit (and you can’t beat free) so he decided to check it out.

The entrance to the building was a bit intimidating: a massive concrete wall, with the gray slabs reaching into the sky and seeming to touch the clouds. As Phaëgoni reached out to grab the metal handle on the steel door leading inside, he briefly wondered why they would seal everything off from sight like this. He shrugged to himself, decided not to question it, and stepped inside. The inside was much more welcoming than the cold, grey exterior. Cedar panels lined the lobby walls, much like the interior of many saunas. Unlike a sauna, though, the floor had a fluffy beige carpet, and there were wooden desks near the walls. Behind one of the desks sat a tigress, wearing a lab coat and wire-rimmed glasses. She looked up from a tablet device in her hands, and beckoned the wolpertinger over.

“Ah, welcome! I assume you’re here for your free first visit?” The tigress didn’t even wait for an answer before she stood up from the desk, and made her way to one of several wooden doors opposite the lobby’s entrance. “If you’ll follow me.” She opened the door and stepped into a long wooden hallway with more wooden doors. Phaëgoni followed along behind her, closing the door behind him. They walked to the very end of the hallway and stopped in front of yet another wooden door. As they approached, the wolpertinger became aware of a scent wafting from beneath the door and mixing with the natural cedar scent of the wood.

“What sort of infusion is that?” asked the Phaëgoni.

“Ah, it’s a vanilla infusion! We’ve found it matches nicely with the cedar and the… well, I won’t spoil the surprise,” replied the tigress.

Phaëgoni recognized the vanilla but there was something else there. It was a sweet smell, delicate and alluring. The wolpertinger took a few whiffs as he tried to place it. After a few seconds, how strange it must have seemed for him to be standing there and sniffing the air. But the tigress just smiled at him, and opened the door.

The doorway led into a small locker room, decorated much the same way as the rest of the sauna complex but with wood on the floor instead of carpeting. There were showers opposite the lockers (a rinse or soak in ice water is common after using a sauna to help close the pores). The tigress gestured for Phaëgoni to step inside the room, and once he did she began to close the door, peeking her head in from behind the wall.

“If you need anything, someone will be in the lobby. But do be sure to put your clothes on first.~” With a wink, she closed the door and the wolpertinger was left alone in the locker room. He undressed himself, chose a locker to store his clothing in, and grabbed a towel off the wall. After wrapping it around his waist, he grabbed a second towel and opened the door leading into the sauna proper.

Phaëgoni wasn’t surprised to see the walls and benches made out of cedar, just like everything else he had seen here. The heating box in the center contained basalt (igneous rocks which are well known for their ability to retain heat), and was heated by a fire from underneath. He made his way over to a small bucket filled with infusion water and a ladle. He grabbed the ladle’s handle, scooped up some liquid, and splashed it over the rocks in the box. A cloud of vapor hissed and rose from the fire-heated stones, and the wolpertinger spun his second towel around to spread that steam around the sauna.

Once he was finished, he sat down on his second towel and took another few sniffs of the humid haze now filling the space. There was definitely vanilla from infusion and cedar from the walls, but what was that other scent in there? It was so familiar but he still couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and an otter stepped inside, quickly closing the door so as not to let too much heat out. He was quite short, only about three feet tall (1 meter, to be exact), and he had to fold his towel over itself in order to get it to fit around his waist. For the most part, he was a regular brown otter, except his paw pads were blue. The same blue could be seen on his blush as he saw Phaëgoni — not so much out of embarrassment as it was that the otter was a little shy.

“O-oh, hello,” said the otter. “My name’s Cooper.”

“Hello. I’m Phaëgoni,” replied the wolpertinger. He watched as Cooper placed his second towel down, and took a seat on the opposite bench. For the next several minutes, the two of them just sat in silence, and Phaëgoni’s mind went back to trying to place that scent. He knew how odd it was that he was getting caught up in it, but part of him wanted to know what exactly he was smelling. Again, the wolpertinger’s thoughts were interrupted by a new arrival: this time a tiger, who stood at 5’7’’ (170 centimeters). He too had a towel around his waist and a second towel under his arm. Though his paw pads were different from the otter’s (pink instead of blue), he seemed to share that shyness, and a light blush crossed his face as he saw the two already in the sauna.

“Hi, I’m Jasper,” said the tiger a little timidly.

“Hey Jasper. I’m Phaëgoni,” said the wolpertinger. Cooper was still silent, so Phaëgoni gestured towards him. “That’s Cooper.”

“Hello,” said Cooper.

“Hi,” replied Jasper.

As Jasper sat down next to Cooper, Phaëgoni stood up and added another splash of water to the sauna rocks. With a twirl of the wolpertinger’s second towel, the vanilla-infused steam once again clouded the room, mixing with the cedar and that scent which Phaëgoni still couldn’t identify. He sat back down and looked between his two sauna companions. He noticed that their body language was tense, and hey were curling up to themselves slightly.

As minutes passed, the heat and steam began to work their magic for Phaëgoni. He could feel the tensions with which he entered starting to melt away, as if mixing with the sweat trickling down and being caught on the towel upon which he sat. The other two seemed a bit more relaxed but he could still feel a bit of tension in the air. It was perfectly okay to sit in silence, of course, but he felt perhaps striking up a conversation would help relax everybody.

“You know,” began Phaëgoni. “Steamed Paws is quite an interesting name for a sauna, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I was kind of thinking that too,” said Cooper.

“Do you think they got it from Steamed Hams?” asked Jasper with a little bit of a smile.

“They must have!” replied Cooper with a grin.

Phaëgoni smiled as well. “I’m glad they at least tried to be creative about it instead of going for something generic.”

By now, the sauna had eased their tensions almost to excess, and the three felt a bit intoxicated — not so much that it impaired their judgment, but enough to lower their inhibitions. The heat of the sauna had also taken an unusual physical effect: the three felt warmer than the actual air around them. Tendrils of steam rose from between the toes of the otter, the tiger, and the wolpertinger. Cooper was the first to notice. He leaned over to Jasper and pointed at his feetpaws.

“Why is there smoke coming from your paws, Jasper?” Cooper asked Jasper in a silly voice.

“Uhh,” Jasper looked down at his paws, and then back up to Cooper. “Oh! That isn’t smoke, it’s steam. Steam from the steamed paws we’re having. Mmm, steamed paws!”

The three laughed for a few seconds before returning to silence. Jasper and Cooper spent the next minute staring at each others’ paws, but both were too still too shy to make a move on the other. Phaëgoni could sense this, and thought it would be fun to maybe prod them in the right direction.

“So,” said the wolpertinger. The other two looked up at him. “What do you like about paws?”

Cooper smiled and kicked his legs, which didn’t quite touch the floor. “I think a better question would be: what don’t I like about paws? Everything about them is perfect!” “Yeah same!” Jasper chimed in. “The sweat, the smell, the taste… perfect!” He gave an enthusiastic swish of his tail as he spoke.

“Right?” said Cooper. “Especially webbed paws. I’m a bit biased but you can’t beat a nice pair of webbies!~” He stuck his leg in front of him and wiggled his toes. The otter turned to the tiger sitting next to him, only now noticing just how intently Jasper was staring at his paws.

“Y-yeah, webbies are… really nice,” said the tiger, sounding a bit distracted. This caused Cooper to swing around and lift his paw up, holding it right in front of Jasper’s face.

“See something you like?~” asked Cooper with a playful wink. Jasper responded by giving in to temptation and pressing his face forward directly into the offered otter-paw. He nestled his nose into the webbing between Cooper’s toes, taking a deep sniff before dragging his tongue over the sole. Cooper hadn’t been expecting this and squeaked, his face flushing the bright blue of his skin. His blush deepened even more as the tiger swung a footpaw around and planted it on the otter’s face, catching Cooper’s soft snout in between toes. The otter offered the same tongue-bath treatment to the tiger, lapping all over the still-steaming soles.

The two stopped and looked at Phaëgoni, as if asking if he wanted to join them. The wolpertinger grinned and shook his head. “Thanks for offering but I’m good,” he said, gesturing at them to continue. They were all too happy to resume indulging each others’ paws.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to interrupt so much as it was that male paws didn’t really hit him the same way as those of females. He much preferred the feminine touch and the silkiness he associated with their paws. He thought about velvety soft pads, like pillows among a sea of furry fluff. He thought about dainty claws, tapping with each step against the hard ground. His mind drifted away as he got caught up in his own thoughts, and the other two simply worshiped each others’ paws.

This went on for a few minutes until Phaëgoni’s mind wandered back to his own paws and he realized something peculiar: his soles could no longer feel the ground. He snapped back to the present moment and took a look at himself. He was about half his previous size and only getting smaller! The other two were so busy with each others’ paws that they hadn’t even noticed.

“Hey,” said Phaëgoni. Jasper and Cooper were completely caught up in their mutual pawplay and didn’t react. “Hey!” the wolpertinger called a bit more loudly, causing the startled tiger and otter to drop each others’ paws. The two looked around and realized what was happening.

“What the-” Jasper gasped.

“We’re shrinking!” exclaimed Cooper.

The three were helpless to stop the shift in size, as it became clear that this was no normal sauna. When they stopped shrinking, they were all the same height: about a foot tall (30.5 centimeters).

Jasper and Cooper were on one towel, with Phaëgoni on another. Naturally, they were too small for their covering towels to remain wrapped around their waist, but any potential awkwardness from them all being nude was offset by the shrunken situation in which they found themselves.

As the three tiny creatures watched in awe, the wooden walls on either side of the entrance began to melt, revealing the surprise behind them: another wall, but this one made of glistening leather, huge and pink and spreading from floor to ceiling. A few tufts of white and orange peeked in from the top and bottom. It was at that moment that Phaëgoni finally recognized that smell from before: that alluring essence that came with female paws.

He wouldn’t have time to congratulate himself for finally figuring it out as the paw-walls closed in, trapping the three of them in a tight, squishy hug. The owner of the paws had their bodies pinned, but left enough room for them to move their heads. Despite the rough leathery appearance, the pads were unbelievably soft, like a marshmallowy embrace conforming around their bodies. It felt wonderful, but Phaëgoni was admittedly a bit unsure how he felt about the large droplets of sweat that trickled down the pads in front of him.

“You must be thirsty! Take a drink, why don’t you?~” teased a female voice.

Jasper and Cooper didn’t need to be asked twice, and eagerly buried their faces against the paw-pad wall in front of them. They hungrily lapped up the droplets while Phaëgoni continued to hesitate. But the air around the paws was warmer than the sauna from before, and he soon felt a dryness scratching at his throat. Whether he was really thirsty or this was simply the power of suggestion didn’t matter to him at this point—all he knew was that he needed a drink. So he leaned his head forward and stuck his tongue out, tasting a droplet in front of him.

He was surprised at how good it was! This definitely wasn’t normal sweat: it was sweet instead of salty and had the same vanilla essence as everything else about this particular experience. Even more surprising was how quenched he felt, as he scooped up some of the liquid with his tongue and swallowed it. As Phaëgoni drank more of this unusual sweat, he felt his resistance to it slipping. It didn’t take long before he was like Jasper and Cooper, face buried in paw-pad and eagerly licking up droplets as they trailed down the flesh.

“That’s it. Just relax and enjoy my paws.~” purred the female voice.

As the three lapped up the magical thirst-quenching sweat in front of them, they continued to sweat out their toxins and stress. The heat was almost oppressive, but thanks to the nourishing nature of the liquid they were kept in relative comfort. They would spend the rest of their two hours this way before finally being released, the paws receding back to where they were before. “Well, I’d love to keep you here for longer but your time’s up, I’m afraid. Do feel free to request me when you come back, though. Until next time.~”

When the female finished speaking, the now-crushed rock box in the center of the sauna reformed, as if time were rewinding. The walls slurped their way back up, and as they grew so did the three creatures; back to their original size. The sauna was left dry and clean, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

The three took their towels and made their way back into the locker room. As they took their cold showers and dried themselves off, they talked about the experience and all agreed that they would have to come back. Jasper and Cooper also made plans to continue their fun, and left the sauna together (another story for, perhaps, another time).

As the wolpertinger made his way out of the hallway and into the lobby, he saw the same tigress behind the desk smiling at him knowingly.

“Welcome back! Did you enjoy your first visit?” she asked.

Phaëgoni hadn’t realized it while it was happening due to the surprise, but there was no mistaking it now: the female voice from the sauna had been hers. The wolpertinger thought about how to respond. Normally, he would be likely to just affirm that he enjoyed himself and would be back again. But he was in an especially good mood now, and decided to run with it.

“Well miss, you are an odd sauna, but I must say…” he paused for a moment as he folded his arms behind his back, “…you steam a good paw.”

And with a laugh from both of them, Phaëgoni left the lobby, back outside and heading home to enjoy the rest of his day.