FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I was a performing arts major at the time. I went to local community college, nothing special. I didn't have a job, I lived with my parents and they just kinda threw money at whatever I felt like doing. I'd been singing and acting since middle school, so it didn't surprise anybody. But throughout my whole history of performing, I've had just a tiny bit of a narcissism streak. I was one of those guys who hated being an extra and wanted the lead role. Like I'd sound amazing to myself, and then audition for the drama teachers and get 'dancing villager #3.' I always resented everybody for it, especially when I was being told what to do. Like the leads are over in a special corner learning all the special moves and lines that make THEM the center of attention, whereas I'm just doing step-kick-turn-step-turn-slide-kick over and over again while singing a chorus.

I especially hated stage-managers, because I always felt like they were bossing me around whereas they had to respect the top players. I still remember doing a show in middle school and every little obnoxious fucking detail on this one fox's face. She gave me this look like I was incompetent and sorta shout-whispered at me. I wanted to punch her. Just break that stupid smug nose in until she looked like a pug. But I was still a kid, so fear managed to wrangle that emotion. So I just nodded and went back out there for my 30 second bit part. And keep this all in mind. I'm gonna come back to this topic.

Fast forward to college, and I'm performing with the yearly college play. I'd made a little more of a name for myself at that point, mostly with upbeat, musical shows. I was the guy that everybody looked at when it came to humor and energy. But I was starting to feel a little typecast. I made people laugh, I made them smile and that's all just peachy, but I wanted to be more than that. I wanted to prove that I could actually ACT, y'know? So after putting on another broadway musical show, the drama department announced that the next show would be a classic Shakespeare. Henry the V.

That was it. That was my chance. I was going to practice, memorize that shit back and forth, and then underdog my way through the auditions. I spent months reading it, trying to nail the perfect passage to use for my audition, something to show that I was more than JUST the funny guy. I went with The Saint Crispin's Day Speech. I know that probably doesn't mean much, but it's a really powerful passage. At least to me. In a nutshell, it's basically the king telling his remaining soldiers that they can totally fight this overwhelmingly huge army, and that they'll tell stories about how they wrecked their shit for years and years. I felt like I could relate. I was going up against everybody else, the token goof vs all the other drama actors. But I was determined to go in there, and blow everybody's minds. I was mostly banking on the initial shock of 'DAMN, that came out of the peppy musical guy?'

Well time passed, and the auditions opened up. I knew the Saint Crispin's Day speech by heart, I didn't even need to bring a script. I sat down in the theater along with all the other hopefuls, each of them giving me looks like 'why is that guy here?' I didn't let it get to me, because I knew I was going to knock it out. I barely paid any attention to the others auditioning because I was just so goddamn certain I was going to nail it. They call my name, and I strut up there like I'm already the star. Once they give me the go-ahead, I poured my heart out. I Gave it everything, every little bit of energy I could drag to the surface, "They shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks, That FOUGHT WITH US UPON SAINT CRISPIN'S DAY!"

By the end of it I was panting for air, looking up expecting the shocked and amazed expressions of the director and the other players. That they would give a standing ovation, that they would just tell everybody else to go and that they'd found their man. What I got was the director making some notes and the audience either on their phones or yawning. I think I got one clap from a janitor in the back. I felt my face twitch. I stood up and asked, "How'd I do?"

The director didn't even look up at me. He just made a note and said "We'll call you." Then called out the next guy's name. I felt like my spirit got broken in half. I'd put so much work into that one audition, all that effort to prove I wasn't just the funny guy, and that was all I get? But while I walked off the stage, I realized that the director hadn't really given anybody that much of a reaction. Maybe he was trying to stay neutral and not give anything away? That I could understand. I let myself retain just a little bit more hope that I'd impressed him and that I'd get my chance.

Aaaaaaand that didn't happen. Not even remotely. I got a callback to be an extra in one scene. I didn't even get speaking lines. I was furious. It felt like somebody just blew out all the candles on your birthday cake and then gave you the smallest slice when they started serving it. And it's the piece that has nothing on it, just a plain sliver while somebody else has the corner piece with the giant glob of frosting. I didn't want to give up though, so I begrudgingly went to the practices and rehearsals. I gave enough effort to satisfy most everybody, except for this one stage manager. It was like the one from middleschool but the 2.0 version. She was a fennec named Jesebelle, with a snaggletooth and a constant snarl. Or at least whenever I saw her. She would always harp on anybody who stepped off que, came in too early or so much as cleared their throat on stage. But she always seemed to have a hard-on for making me more miserable than I already was.

I was never a big drinker before then, because I never understood the appeal of getting smashed and acting like a complete dumbass. Well halfway through the production, I felt like starting. It took some of the sting out of it. I could endure the frustration so long as I could come home and have a drink to ease me down. My folks always had a reserve of the good stuff and didn't mind me getting into it every now and then.

But I could deal with her. I could deal with being a guy at a wooden cart for 2 minutes in a background scene, I could handle nobody giving me all that praise I wanted. But the guy who got the lead. That guy, Tony, that bear, that goddamn bear and his teen-vampie-novel level of delivery. I listened to him do Saint Crispin's Day speech like it was a geology documentery, and everybody just throws themselves at him. A rousing speech about facing impossible odds, and he gives the lines like a broken, droning microwave. I couldn't stand it. I wanted so bad to just go out there and show him how it was done. But like before, I held myself back. I would just do this show, stick to it, and earn my chops one show at a time. Maybe the director just wanted to be sure I could handle being in a drama before I tried being a main player in one. I could understand that.

Now here's the part of the story where I fuck it all up. It was a week before the show, and things were getting harder. Jesebelle was in my face every 10 minutes, the director was calling for overtime after overtime of rehearsal, and I was finally admitting to myself that I regretted ever coming in for it. I'd started drinking a little harder too, to a point where my parents were actually getting a little concerned. They cut me off at one point for my own good, and I totally understood. I've known people who became raging alcoholics and I certainly didn't want to turn into that. That eased things for them, but made things worse for me. Without that little bit to take the edge off at the end of the day, I was getting more and more bitter and spiteful. I started having some incredibly bad ideas and unfortunately one of them slipped the filter.

It was the night of the show, and I was pissed. On my way to the theater, I stopped at a gas station and I grabbed a cheap plastic bottle of vodka. I just wanted something to calm me down, take that edge off, just enough to get me to normal. I wasn't aware that cheap drinks like that tend to get you drunk really fast. I got to the theater and took a big swig of it, and then rolled it up in my costume to keep it hidden. I walked in and immediately the stage-manager was right up to my nose, screaming at me that I was late and I needed to get into wardrobe immediately. I didn't know why considering my part didn't come up for nearly an hour. But the buzz was kicking in and I didn't fight it.

I waited in the dressing room for a while, taking sips of the bottle, wrapped up in my street clothes now. I should've stopped earlier, hell I shouldn't have bought it to begin with. But I just couldn't stop. I kept taking drink after drink hoping this awful feeling in my head would go away and I'd stop being so angry. By the time my part was coming up, I was halfway through the bottle and my world was starting to tilt. Jesebelle suddenly burst open the door and told all the extras to go backstage to get ready for the next scene, and when I didn't respond after everyone else left, she came straight for me.

I don't remember what she said, just that she was yelling at me, and that I had a fire burning in my stomach that was about to erupt. She was so close to my face that I could count the individual hairs of fur on her face, the thickness of her whiskers and the little bit of goop in the corner of her eye. I could feel her breath on me, little flicks of spit hitting my nose. There was only one word that stood out, I think she said this was a serious production, and that I couldn't just be a goofball like I always was.

I headbutted her in the nose.

It made my head ring for a straight minute, but god it was satisfying to see her snarling little nose bleed. I remember thinking in my head, 'that'll give you something to fucking snarl about.' She was holding her nose in her hands, yelping in pain. I shoved her out of my way and walked out to the backstage, bottle in hand. I hadn't let go of it and I hadn't stopped drinking either. I took another huge chug of it and stepped up behind the others waiting to go on. My memory gets really fuzzy here, and I consider that my brain showing me mercy. Because in my parent's words, 'I gave the performance of a lifetime.'

From what they told me, I didn't even bother to wait for a transition, I just walked right out stage in the middle of the scene and started shouting. Everything I'd felt from day 1, I slurred at everybody in the theater. The director tried to tell me to get off the stage but I told him to fuck off and stop telling me what to do. I imagine somebody tried to stop me, but either they couldn't hold me or they were all too dumbstruck watching me make an ass of myself. I unloaded every feeling about everybody in the production, listing off each and every one of the other actors and why I think they sucked. Finally, I got to Tony, just staring at me wide eyed and confused. Which was more emotion than I'd ever seen on him previously. I unloaded on him for I don't know how long, calling him out on every shitty little aspect, every horrible habit and his abysmal delivery.

Then he asked who I was. He didn't even know. He didn't even know that I was extra in the show. From what my dad told me? I stood there, chugged the rest of my bottle, threw it down and shouted, "I AM HENRY THE MOTHERFUCKING FIFTH." And I gave the most drunk, incomprehensible rendition of the Saint Crispin's day speech that he'd ever heard. Then I blacked out.

****

Bridget shut off the water. The steam had filled the bathroom and it was billowing out into the bedroom. She opened up the sliding door, and I saw her standing there completely drenched. Her pink fur had gone to a dark rosy color and her ears were flopped against the back of her neck.

"Shit, you weren't kidding. You seriously went up in front of an audience doing Shakespeare, drunk off your ass? That's hardcore."

I raised a finger. "Not quite. My 3oclock this Wednesday is hardcore. We're shooting a 3 hour gangbang that day." I said. Bridget laughed, and I watched her nipples bounce for a split second with the rising of her chest. I distracted me from the story, which I really didn't want to remember anymore. At least not that half of it. I was permanently banned from the drama program and the entire campus itself. That didn't bother me so much to be honest. I hated everybody anyways and in my opinion, I picked the absolute best way to say 'fuck you' before I left. From what I've heard, I'm a legend on that campus. People still talk about me and hilariously enough, the drama department uses me as an example of how not to deal with stress. So who knows, maybe it did some good in the long run. What bothers me more is that I even tried in the first place. I could've just kept going in my happy little normal world, singing and dancing to showtunes and not trying to force myself into something that just wasn't me. Though, forcing myself into things that aren't me is pretty much my job description now.

My parents took it pretty well actually. Apparently they had a bet going on whether or not I was going to crack and give up, but I surprised them both with my 'performance.' They didn't judge me too hard but they did tell me it was time for me to think about moving on with my life. Move out, get a real job and find something new. So I went out, I picked up some schlep job at a smoothie stand in the mall and got a decent apartment. It was all pretty cut and dry for a while until I had another life altering night. But this time for the better.

I suddenly realized that I'd been staring at Bridget's tits for about a solid minute. She didn't seem to mind, but spoke up to break my thoughts.

"It's flattering that you still like my boobs after the work is done, but I'm gonna need a towel." She said. I shook myself out of my head and gave her a weak smile. "Oh yeah, sure, let me grab one." I reached under the sink to grab a folded white towel, and then tossed it over to her. The steam was starting to clear and her color was coming back a bit more every minute or two. She wrapped herself up in the towel and stepped out on the bathmat, reaching behind her head to flop her ears around a little. My eyes drifted to her tail, which was wet but still poofing out. The edge of the towel rested on it, and I had a clear view of her butt. I think she was catching on to my little kink, because she twinged it for me while looking at me dead on.

"Doesn't take much to get your engine back to life, does it?" She asked.

I grinned and shrugged. "What can I say, it's the little things that turn me on."

Bridget stepped in front of me, running her hand over my dick, which was starting to harden up again. Not quite enough to be useable, but enough for her to know what I was thinking about.

"Then you and I are pretty different, because it's the big things that turn me on." She said. She started leaning in on me, her damp towel and wet fur pressing up against mine. Another few seconds and maybe that chub WOULD be useable. Couldn't hurt to get a little more footage.

But she slid off me, giving me a brief tug at my length and letting me slip out of her grip. "So." She started, as she went into the bedroom to get her clothes together. "How'd you go from drama queen to porn king? That was a nice backstory, but I'm not quite seeing the part where you whipped your cock out. Unless you peed on somebody that night too."

When I thought about it, I totally could have. But if I did, my brain was censoring it. "Well," I said. "It's all pretty boring after that. Got a job, got a place of my own, made a few friends and sat around playing videogames and getting fat. Nothing that saucy. It took about a year before the next big event happened, and I like that story way better than the other."

Bridget threw off the towel and started slipping into a pink lace thong. Which I still don't quite get, because it was almost the exact same color as her fur. You'd think a girl would want to diversify. She sat down on the bed and started hooking her bra back up, which was actually black. Which made even less sense to me because I imagine you'd either match up the colors or at least mix and match with a similar color. But what did I know, I don't know how girls pick underwear, just how they come off. She paused for a second and looked up at me expectantly. "Well?" she asked. "Go on, I'm still not in any rush."

I crossed my arms and smiled to myself, getting the next half of the story prepared in my mind. I went to go fetch my jeans and said "Allright. So much like the last story, this one starts in college and me being drunk."

"Seems to be a running theme so far." She said.

****

To be more accurate, I wasn't technically IN college so much as I was AT a college. I was looking into a state university and thinking about going to school again. But more legit this time, like something practical. Because I didn't want to be wage slave at a smoothie stand all my life. I'd been looking around for a while, when I found a decent program for video editing, y'know, being the guy who pieces scenes together in a movie or a show or something. I thought it'd work out, but I withdrew the class in the end and got my money back. It didn't feel right, simple as that. But I met somebody in that class. Somebody I really felt like I could sympathize with.

Her name was Sherri. She's actually the lady you had to call to schedule the shoot with me today, and she's also my video editor. But back then, she was taking classes to work as a movie editor. And she was doing terribly. While I was in the class, I was just some random guy in the background. Not even the instructor gave me that much attention. I think he knew I wouldn't be there long, so he didn't mind me too much. But Sherri was giving it her all, and she'd been taking all sorts of computer literacy and programming classes to get familiar with the software. She really didn't look like the type who'd be into it either. She was a large porcupine in denim jeans, a leather vest and a white T-shirt with her quills bound by a bandana around her head. I could recognize her facial expression most of the time. The face of somebody who's working incredibly hard towards something they really care about, but worried about mucking it up. I never talked to her while I was in the class, but I couldn't help but watch her. At one point she got pulled aside by the instructor, who told her she was doing her projects with outdated software and it had to be more current. It really brought her down, because supposedly she couldn't afford it. She'd spent almost everything on the classes alone and had to make due with that they had on campus.

I withdrew the class before the end, so I didn't see her final project. But I didn't need to see it to know she'd failed the class. There was one night where I saw her sitting on a bench at the student center, leaning against her fists and her shoulderbag on the ground. I was there to take a look at the catalogue for the next semester. It was late in the day going on evening, because that's when the place was emptiest. Save for one very distressed porcupine. I could understand that kind of feeling, so I felt the need to at least go check on her.

I sat down beside her. The breeze in the hallway was getting chilly and I noticed her shivering a little. I didn't quite know how to open, because as anyone who's ever felt this way can tell you, there's no good way to approach it. I decided to just say something traditional. "Are you okay?" I asked. It was a redundant question, but an easy one. Sherri looked up from her fists. She had tears welling up in her eyes, but she wasn't crying. She looked me over, taking her time to think of a retort. She finally asked me, "Why do you care?"

I saw that coming. From what I'd observed, she wasn't the type to open up that easily. I didn't give up on her though. I'll admit I just enjoyed pretending I was this amazing guy from nowehere who had experience with utter failiure. I gave her a hard hard stare and said "Because I know what it feels like to have to give up on something that used to mean a lot to you. Maybe you're not the same as me, but that face is universal."

It was a big gamble to just blurt all that out. I was praying internally that I had the speech skill to pull that off. Which I did, big time. Because I could see that flimsy brick wall she put up crumble around her feet, and her tears started flowing. I could tell though that she was doing her best not to physically cry. She put her forehead back to her fists and sniffed. "I failed. I failed all four of them. I couldn't afford the right programs, I couldn't do the homework. I don't even have a computer of my own, I have to use the ones here, but I'm always at work when the lap is open. "She wiped her eyes and picked up her shoulderbag. She opened it up and pulled out a few textbooks from her classes. They looked pretty expensive, and still had the "NEW" stickers on them. To be fair, they were hard to find used. She continued on, saying. "Something happened with my financial aid and they lost my information. I'm completely broke now because of these stupid classes, and I didn't even pass the beginner classes. I wish I hadn't even tried in the first place."

Those words hit home for me. I went from being sympathetic, to revisiting my own regrets. I'd really calmed down in the time between my performing days and this, and I still cringe when I think about how I'd lost control of myself. Sherri's expression suddenly turned sour, into an angry expression that I knew pretty well too. The, 'I'm going to do something really stupid because I'm mad' face.

"I'm just going to sell these books back, take the money, and I'm going to get blackout fucking drunk until I stop feeling like shit. Then I'll get up tomorrow and try to figure out what I'm going to do." She looked at me like she expected a speech about not giving up, or having some self respect. Which I wasn't about to give, because fuck that. Sometimes you need to go out and do something assbackwards stupid to make yourself feel better. Rather than give some hamfisted shpeil, I just said "Sounds like a plan. I was gonna sell my books too. Mind if I join you? You just reminded me of a bunch of things I don't want to remember."

Sherri just gave me a confused, blank look before slowly nodding her head and tucking her books under her arm. "Yeah okay. I can think of worse plans than being emotionally unstable and going drinking with a strange man I just met." She lifted her shoulderbag and a small leather case fell out. She seemed to freak out for a second, whipping herself down to pick it up. I heard her give a sigh of relief, and then she noticed me watching. "It's a camera." She said. "The one I used for class. It cost me more than 3 classes combined, and I'll be damned if I break it. Even if I don't know what to do with it anymore."

I love that she said that, because it was like foreshadowing to what would happen later. That camera was going to make us famous by the end of the night.

-