FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The feel of your breath lightly rustling my fur... The feel of my fingers threading their way through yours...

It still sneaks back into my consciousness every once in a while. I can't help it. They always say you never forget your first, after all.

I still think it's a fun coincidence that we lived relatively close to each other growing up and yet never met until college. Me, closeted in high school and not coming out until halfway through freshman year at uni, excited and hesitant at the same time for the new me; you, a year behind me in high school and a full district over, out early and so comfortable with yourself. You showed up to the very first Pride club meeting of the semester and were already acting like you had found your home on campus, when it had taken me months to go to my first one and months still to come regularly and get comfortable interacting with everyone else.

We hit it off well right away, but in hindsight you hit it off well with just about everyone. Such a friendly, sociable guy. And you always seemed glad to be under my arm at parties that semester. You were helping me socialize more than anything else, I think, but I enjoyed it so much. And of course people talked about sex at club meetings on and off. It was only a matter of time - ultimately just before Thanksgiving break - that you stayed under my arm all the way back to my room after a party.

We of course didn't have any "sleepovers" during Thanksgiving break, but since we lived so close we met each other's families. Maybe that was the beginning of the problem for me. You invited me to your dorm several times as we finished the semester, and spent most of winter break together too. I'll never forget huddling up with you watching the fireworks on New Year's Eve.

In hindsight, I can tell you were happily giving a close friend their Gay Education. And I would've done the same thing were I in your shoes. Someone who I like, get along with, and find really hot? Hell yeah I would want them as a friend with (frequent) benefits.

But I guess I had fallen in too deep too quickly. You had never been "romantic" with me any time we had been together - even on New Year's Eve, it was just practical (and comfortable) - but in my greenness, I saw more in your actions than were actually there. Which i guess I can't complain about too much; I still cherish that New Year's Eve not-date as one of the best dating experiences of my life. But even if I know now that I had such an askew view of what was actually happening between us, it still felt like such a betrayal when we got back to campus and you had a different guy not me in your room each of the first two Friday nights of spring semester. I'm sure that's what you had been doing (or at least something close to it - I know you weren't the type to play incredibly fast and loose) in the weeks before our first time, too.

I don't blame you in the slightest, by the way - both in late college and then back in the real world now, I've also grown a friend network that includes a group of furs that I'm more than happy sharing my bed with from time to time. But back then, I guess I had somehow constructed a story of US-us that I internalized too much, and took it far too personally when that story shattered. And in hindsight I know how much it hurt you, because I made you think you had led me on, when I had just been leading myself.

I know you still wish we could be friends. Trust me, I do too. When I'm by myself, I still think how it could have worked out somehow. There's nothing about you I don't like.

We saw each other across the plaza the other week; I knew we both came home after college. You smiled and waved. I started smiling back, feeling all those thoughts about what could go right coming forward in my mind. How we could be friends again.

And the scar of that feeling of betrayal, no matter how falsely constructed it had been, panged through me unbidden. I ducked and nearly ran the rest of my way across the plaza.

I felt like I had to confess to my boyfriend (nearly ten months now! I'm hopeful he's The One) about that encounter later that day. I'm glad he knows more about my baggage now, and I think he is too. Every once in a while I think I smell you in our bed instead of smelling him. Some really messed-up part of me gets excited at the thought that you and him are friends with benefits, too - both you and I connecting at arm's reach through him. We have an open relationship, so I guess it's possible... I know I would feel a lot worse about still missing you if my boyfriend and I were monogamous.

I'm not sure who I'd pick if we were...