The Trouble With Furries

by David Sharp

  "I don't have that much," Daniel, the blue wolf, said.

  Wesley put his hands upon the glass counter, filled below with animal ears and masks. "Let me finish. The fur suit is also twenty percent off."

  The blue wolf's shoulders slumped. "I don't have eight hundred either."

  "What do you have?" Wesley reached out and touched one of Daniel's paws.

  "Six-fifty is all I have."

  Chad dug into his pockets. "Make it seven hundred. You can do that, Wes."

  Wesley mulled it over and let go of the paw. "I can do it on one condition."

  Daniel carefully took off the head. His short hair was matted with sweat. With a hopeful expression, he asked, "What's that?"

  "You call me and I will show you what it means to be a furry more than he will. Can you do that?"

  Daniel smiled, the elation growing from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. "It's a deal, Wesley. Plus, I really want to learn more."

  Chad placed a crumpled fifty dollar bill into Daniel's wolf paw. "You got your suit."

  Daniel used a claw to slide Wesley's card toward him, the glass squeaking on the contact. The design on it was anthropomorphic, similar to the drawings in Daniel's sketchbook. His smile grew wider.

  "And you shall learn." Wesley locked eyes with Daniel and they shared a moment of common interests unspoken, but waiting to be told.

  Chapter Twelve:

  Club Trade was filling up with a different sort of crowd than the usual gay crowd. College coeds filled the space with a defiantly straight, frat house vibe. Upstairs at station seven, Daniel proudly looked over his handiwork of setting up the bar correctly and quickly. In addition to the holiday decorations, new red velvet curtains had been hung behind every bar and candles were lit and arranged on the top of each one.

  "How do you like it here?" Darren asked with a hint of malice.

  "I love working this bar. It's my favorite."

  "I wish I felt the same, but since Eddie found a way to finagle his way into Ned's sweet spot downstairs, I guess I can't choose," Darren bitched as he poured shots for himself and his barback.

  "I don't think anyone has ever called it sweet," Daniel kidded.

  "Oh, that is dirty. Here, salute!"

  Glasses clinked and they downed the bitter cinnamon Hot Damn liquor shots.

  Daniel gasped, "Hey, at least you're a bartender now."

  "True, I needed that." Darren adjusted a curtain to his liking. "So, what do you think about the new night?" Darren had the bad habit of putting his hands on his hips and they automatically rested there.

  Daniel felt the red velvet. "Why is it called Hedonism?"

  "It means pleasure seekers. What else would you call it for straight night?"

  "How about bi-curious?" Daniel paused for effect, "because some of those jocks seem curious."

  "I don't mind the boys when they are not fighting. It's the fish I can't stand."

  "Some of the girls are pretty, kind of sexy, you know."

  "Yuck!" Darren shut his trap when a bubbly red haired girl bounced up and ordered a rum and Coke.

  Daniel watched Darren check her identification and reluctantly make her a drink, laughing at the intentional rudeness. He motioned a circle with his finger, signaling that he was going to take a spin around the floor and be right back.

  Downstairs, the dance floor was packed with bodies. A few gays braved the straights to cruise the scene. They tried to avoid the available women to hit on each other or to hit on the drunken straight boys. Daniel plowed through the crowd using the bus tub as a way to part them. Sloshing the disgusting contents of the tub, he moved a red velvet curtain aside to pick up underneath the stage. Mostly hidden from sight, a frat boy was mounting a wild cat girl on the dirty floor, oblivious to all. Unfazed by the carnality, Daniel reached around them, picking up trash and glasses. His hand grazed the boy's thrusting side and he quickly pulled it back. The guy winked at him and kept at his debauchery. Daniel laughed again and winked back, and not believing his bizarre job, he continued on his way. In the creepy glow of the candles, he dropped off the tub at station four and waved to Freddy at the other end, waiting to change out the tub for a new one.

  Chad purposefully bumped him. "Are you ready to wear that fur suit tonight?"

  "Hell yeah, I am. Is it Furry Fridays at Steam?"

  "No, that's a ways off, but I know where we can go."

  "I thought it was a surprise."

  "I got to thinking about it and thought I should tell you first."

  "Okay, I'm game for anything."

  "Good. How about we go to the bookstore on I-10?"

  "I don't know. That place is dirty."

  "Come on, Dan, be a bad dog with me."

  "Here's your tub." Freddy slid one over and added, "Let's do a shot."

  "Sure, as long as it is on you." Chad rested his arms on the bar.

  "Thanks, Freddy." Daniel watched him pour something that looked like lemon drops from a pre-made shaker. "Alright, I'll go," he said to Chad.

  "Cool, dude, it will be fun." Chad did a strange little fox dance in place.

  "What's up with you two?" Freddy slid shots to them.

  "Patrick is out of town, so we're going out," Daniel spilled.

  Chad elbowed him and cleared his throat.

  "Oh, trouble in paradise." Freddy raised his glass in a toast.

  "Whatever. Cheers," Daniel said to both of them, and together they all drank the lemon shots.

  *

  The adult bookstore was busy at a peak time of activity when a bewildered and high Daniel and Chad walked inside. The front was chock full of aisles and rows of pornography. The desk was enclosed with a Plexiglas window, a slot at the bottom. Sex toys, for the curious to the freakish, along with smoking paraphernalia and pipes, leered out at them from the locked glass cabinets. Chad approached the desk while Daniel nervously hung back with both of their oversized duffle bags in hand.

  Chad tried to find his tongue, clearing his throat overly loud. Holding out a ten dollar bill, he said, "Give me some tokens for the back."

  The clerk was tattooed and covered with the aura of prison. "Here you go, boys...enjoy," he said flatly with a salacious look.

  Chad turned back. "Come on, follow me."

  "Okay," Daniel said in almost a whisper. His eyes roamed the shelves, spotting the gay section of titillating flesh on flesh in all possible combinations. The male models on the boxes aroused sensation in the blatant wrongness of their cover poses.

  "Hey, come on," Chad urged again, anxious to get to the other side of the locked door.

  The clerk reached down and hit a button, his arm tattoo sleeved with the Madonna and a cross. A loud buzz sounded, signaling the metallic lock being momentarily freed. Chad acknowledged the clerk with a nod and grabbed the doorknob.

  The hallway beyond the door was dark and seedy and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the sudden gloom. Creepy older guys cruised about, watching and waiting in dark recesses. Daniel felt a wave of disgust, yet at the same time his heart beat with excitement of the unknown. Chad was checking doors down the hallway for an empty one. The first couple of unlocked viewing rooms were occupied. Daniel was glad he did not get a glimpse of whatever sights terrorized Chad. The third door was the charm, and they entered the tainted space.

  The room was fairly small with a worn wooden bench running down one side and an enclosed monitor on the other wall with a token slot. Daniel sighed as he latched the door and dropped the bags. Chad plopped a token into the video machine. Static-filled pornography flickered on the screen until it came to vivid life. Chad hit the greased button, flicking through the few channels until he found one that piqued his interest. A bisexual film with two overly muscular jock guys and a petite Asian girl played out in the usual scenarios.

  "Look at those tits! She's hot!" Chad slipped off his shirt and unzipped his duffle bag.

  "You're such a dog." Daniel stripped and pulled out his blue wolf.<
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  Naked, Chad got inside of the fox fur suit. Head and paws in place, he spoke, "No, I'm more like a fox. You are the dog."

  Daniel felt a chill from his neck and down his bare spine as he pulled on the wolf. He watched the skewed vision of Chad unzipping the crotch of his suit, and he undid his in the same fashion. "Dog will hunt."

  The soft sensation of the fur paw stroked Daniel and he stroked back, but it felt a little off. He tried to spit on his paw but had cotton mouth.

  Chad, the fox, pulled Daniel, the wolf, on top of him. "Yiff, me hard," Chad put his haunches up.

  Daniel worked at it for a while until he roughly pushed forward.

  "Wait...oh fuck that hurts," Chad, the fox, panted. "We need lube."

  "Is there none in the bag?" Daniel, the wolf, asked with a tilt of his blue head.

  Chad, the fox, trembled, and in an antsy manner replied, "Go get some."

  "Out there?" Daniel, the wolf, pawed toward the door.

  "They sell it." Chad, the fox, scooted down the bench, exposing his genitals to the soft flickering video light.

  "Fuck," Daniel was resigned in being the one to go. He pulled off the wolf head, unzipped the beast, and slid his sweaty body out of it. The Asian girl on the monitor moaned at the attentions of her jock suitors. Daniel was in a hurry, putting his t-shirt on backward, instantly soaking it with sweat. The perspiration was profuse and dripped from his forehead into his eyes. Daniel eyed the surreal sight of Chad, the fox, pawing off.

  Barefoot and a little tweaked from Chad's bag of stuff, Daniel tiptoed down the cruising hall to the front. The main door opened easily from inside, but it still made the magnetic sound.

  The once prisoner clerk looked Daniel over with mirth from behind the high front desk. "What do you need: a lighter, a toy, or something else?" The clerk motioned along the wares in the case and moved his hand back toward his bulky abdomen.

  Daniel did not break eye contact as he tapped the glass. "All I need is that bottle of Wet there, the small one."

  The clerk made the transaction and briefly grazed the top of Daniel's hand with one of his unkempt fingernails, like talons, through the slot. "Here you go, pretty. If you need anything else, you know where I am."

  Daniel put his change away and in doing so realized his shirt was inside out. He tugged the bottom edge of it and sarcastically smiled, "Yeah, I'll do that."

  The magnetic lock let go with a buzz and Daniel was glad to be back in the half light. He hurried down the graciously empty hallway to the room, and once inside, quickly locked the door. Chad, the fox, was masturbating furiously while sprawled out provocatively on the bench. Excited at the strangeness, Daniel got dressed in the wolf suit and slathered a good portion of the bottle of lube on his extremities. Before the wolf could mount the fox, the fox sprang up to be on top. The anthropomorphic curiosities went at it, doing their best in the confines to copulate like wild animals. The sweat poured inside of the animal hides. Daniel noticed the holes in the walls through the wolf's eyes. Light shifted behind the holes with the movement of unknown others.

  Daniel, the wolf, panted, "Someone is watching us."

  "Fuck them, let them watch." Chad, the fox, rode Daniel, the wolf, harder.

  Weird as it felt, Daniel gave into the moment and became the wolf, and the beast found it fine to let anyone watch. The yiffing was fantastic, all in all something he had never experienced before. The unreal became real. The desire in his head was now tangible, and it was in fact better than he had dreamed it to be. The anthropomorphic pairing came to bestial climax, and even the bystanders from the spy holes chose to look away from its fury.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  Daniel and Chad arrived at Patrick's empty loft wide awake but exhausted from their carnal exertions. Daniel dropped the duffle bags on the floor and they resoundingly landed with a heavy thud. Chad purposefully fell face down onto the bed and stretched out.

  Daniel stripped down. "I want to take a shower."

  "Okay, dude," Chad mumbled.

  The phone rang and both of them jumped. Daniel laughed at their folly.

  Chad had his shirt and shoes off on the second ring, and fumbling with his tight pants, he answered, "Hello - no - when did that happen?"

  Daniel watched for a second but he felt dirty, physically and psychologically, so he walked into the bathroom instead. The tiles were cold underneath his bare feet. He was disgusted by the black film on them and remembered that he had been shoeless earlier that night. The water felt amazing, as if his skin was soaking it in, rehydrating his body. Chad's voice, barely audible and indecipherable in content, came in and out of frequency from the bedroom. The phone conversation rose in tone and sounded heated, but Daniel could not be bothered.

  The hot water washed it all away: the ill feeling, the tone, and the dirt. Daniel soaped up and scrubbed his skin hard with a wash cloth. Thoughts drifted to him: Adam, with his fur bandana and intense eyes, hanging out at a urinal, wanting to tell him the downside of the Fur Meet; Wesley, the cute scholar, with his ethical and mainstream ideas of furrydom; and the unbelievable first yiff with Chad as fox and himself as wolf on a bench in a backroom in an adult bookstore. Logic left and strange desire returned with force, and before he could touch himself, Chad did.

  "Hey Dan, I got to go." Chad stepped into the shower.

  "What?" Daniel managed as Chad took over.

  "I got to handle something other than this."

  Daniel backed away and flinched, his back touching the cool tile of the wall. "When will you be back?"

  "I don't know." Chad washed his hair, and dripping water everywhere, added, "I have to go, pay up, and make things right."

  Daniel moved closer and held Chad to him. "Are you alright?"

  Chad gave a faint smile. "Yeah, it's cool."

  Daniel let Chad go and watched him vanish in the steam. Taking his time, Daniel tried to enjoy the relaxing spray, but he felt empty from the loss of a companion, especially when he really needed one. He turned off the faucet and could hear the downstairs door slam shut with Chad's departure. Naked and dripping, he trekked across the bedroom to look out of the mini-blind, getting to the window in time to see Chad get into a red Chevy truck with a lanky, dirty-blond man. Daniel sighed again, realizing it was James from the bar, the one that Chad used to work with and supposedly only bought from. The blind snapped back into place when he let it go. Daniel lay back on the bed and watched the blades of the ceiling fan turn. He felt so alone, and in that aloneness he saw a napkin wrapped tightly in a ball sitting on the nightstand.

  Daniel smiled at the gift from Chad. Carefully, he opened the trouble inside, grabbed a house key, and snorted it. The world blurred as it burned so sweet.

  *

  Daniel was in a daze for hours, lost in erotic thoughts his body could not keep up with. But he tried and tried, regardless of the futility, until he was sore. The sun was low again, or it was cloudy outside, but he dared not look to find out. He had lost track of time. Vaguely, he remembered calling into work for both him and Chad and hoped it would be fine when he went back. A loud knock at the door startled him and he was up in a flash pulling on some loose work out shorts that made him look like a porn star.

  Downstairs, Daniel could not tell who was outside of the door. The view through the peephole was blurry, and whoever was there had turned to the side. Convinced that it was not an authority figure, he opened the door, and standing on the doorstep was a casual, all-American, clean cut Paul with a shark's grin.

  "Well, hello there." Paul flicked his sunglasses up from his face to rest in his shaggy brown hair.

  "Hey Paul, what are you doing here?" Daniel felt awkward and naked with only the loose shorts on.

  "You seem a little partied out, my friend," Paul assessed the situation.

  "No, I'm just feeling a little under the weather, that's all," Daniel lied.

  "Is Chad here?"

  "He ain't." Daniel felt tension rise. "He left before dawn."
>
  "Really now? Do you mind if I check?" Paul took a step forward and was blocked.

  "Yeah, I do." Daniel felt his heart race. "He left with that James guy. I think you know him."

  "Oh, I see. If that's the case, then maybe everything is fine." Paul moved his other leg forward so that his body was touching Daniel's. "How about I come inside anyway? You know, just for the hell of it."

  "Patrick is going to be back soon and we wouldn't want him to get the wrong idea."

  "True, but if you change your mind, here's my number." Paul handed Daniel a card and casually let his hand graze the front of Daniel's shorts.

  Daniel backed away but his body betrayed him and reacted to the touch. "Sure, maybe sometime later." He hoped to brush off the encounter.

  Paul backed away. "Oh, you can count on that, pretty."

  Daniel shut the door and leaned against it and thought, Oh my God what madness is this?

  Paul disturbed him on many levels. He was a dealer and full of trouble, yet there was something charismatic about his forwardness. Daniel wondered what kind of animal he was and realized there were more alphas out there.

  *

  Another day and night was lost to the drugs. The dark comfort of the loft's living room was broken by a blinding flash of daylight. Daniel popped awake with a sharp intake of breath, his pants undone, and his lower body half covered in lube. The television set emitted static in erratic patterns as a frantic Daniel crawled to the imagined safety on the side of the couch. Patrick came into focus.

  "Daniel...is that you?"

  "Dude, you scared me." Daniel tried to calm himself but could not.

  "Where's Chad?"

  "He left, and um, I don't know where he is anymore." Daniel stood on weak legs and stumbled, knocking a shin into the coffee table. "Ow! Dammit, that hurts."

  Patrick reached down and touched the scattered powder on the table top. Casually, he licked his finger and made a grimace at the taste. "Whew, first thing, I'm going to get us some food." Patrick raised his voice in an authoritarian manner, "So get cleaned up while I'm gone, will you?"

  "Sure...you just...uh sure," Daniel stuttered, eyes downward like a bad kid.

  "Be ready, because when I get back I'm going to fuck you proper."