FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

At one point in his life, Oskar had aspirations of becoming a manager. The thought of going to work in something other than a uniform, of having his years of shortcuts and business ideas made official policy, was a thought that was almost energizing. The rabbit had soured on the idea, however, when he remembered that he used to dream of things far more ambitious. A life spent in various “entry level" jobs had drummed out any sense of adventure he had had, and one morning he had woken up to find that his dreams of world travel and dalliances with strange and interesting people had been replaced with dreams of becoming shift leader at Bean Bae. Now, an older and wiser Oskar had no greater ambition than to coast through his shifts, collect his paychecks, and leave the life questions at the door.

In the spirit of that coasting mentality, he had ideas about what to do when it came to matters like particularly chatty and opinionated customers. Oskar had long since come to the conclusion that such things were matters to be endured. All he had to do, in those situations, was to put on a passable imitation of a smile, nod, and wait for another customer to come into the store, so he could pretend to care about keeping the line moving.

For the young cat who leaned against his counter, this tactic was working like a dream.

“...if you ask me, it's all a load of bunk." She spoke in a whisper, the patent conspiratorial murmur of someone who doesn't want to be heard voicing her opinions to anyone who matters. “Did you hear about the law the mayor passed, the Emergency whatsit?"

“I did," Oskar replied. He was not particularly keen to keep this conversation going, but there was no one else that he could pretend to be helping.

“Shameful," the cat continued. “I don't know what that man is thinking."

“Pretty sure it's meant for people who get the Syndrome," Oskar offered, knowing it wouldn't stop her from talking.

As he predicted, she scoffed at that. “As if anyone's gonna be honest about that. Have you seen anyone who's suffering from this so-called Syndrome?"

“I have. Just this morning, in fact."

“And how do you know they were actually suffering from this thing? Did they have a doctor's note?"

“They were pawing at each other pretty heavy. Had to be corralled into the bathrooms, where they wouldn't be seen."

“But you don't know if it was Rayford," the cat insisted, fingers drumming against the counter in agitation. “You don't know if they were actually sick, or just hoping to get their rocks off in public."

Oskar, with a force of will that can only come from truly not caring, kept his expression stony. “I suppose I don't know that, ma'am."

The customer had an air of anxiety about her. Not even the satisfaction of feeling like she was proven right could blunt that air. She seemed to be exercising a concerted effort to keep her eyes locked on his, to stop them from wandering down towards his body. Her one leg jiggled, eager to turn her around so she could retreat from this place as fast as was dignified. However, she stayed rooted to his counter, unwilling to retreat until some unspoken ego-soothe was performed, upon the cashier behind the counter of Bean Bae.

“Exactly," she whispered, vindicated but still unwilling to say her thoughts loud enough for anyone but Oskar to hear. “You mark my words, this town is going to be crawling with perverts, by the end of the week. Everyone's just gonna start lying about having some stupid Syndrome, so they can start fucking in front of good, decent people." With an unsteady exhale, she stepped back, finally lifting her coffee off the counter. “Keep your eyes open."

“I will," Oskar lied. “Have a good day, ma'am."

Oskar watched as the customer threw open the door and disappeared around the corner. For a moment, he could only stare at the blank spot where she once stood, exhaling deeply, enjoying the relative silence that came with the off-hours. A song came on the store's radio, a breathy pop ballad that was popular around the time he and Gina were dating. It was a happy memory, but he was not particularly fond of having it, when he was at work. Stewing in memories was so tempting a prospect, when the alternative was living in the present. Memories of warm spring nights, overplayed pop jams, losing his virginity in the bed of his dad's beat up old pickup truck…

“...kar? Oskar!" He was pulled back to reality by the sudden realization that Janine was next to him. Judging by the tone of her voice, and the quirk of her brow, she had apparently been calling him for a hot minute. He made eye contact with the weasel, who quirked her head towards the back entrance. “If you wanna take your break, now's as good a time as any."

“Might as well," he muttered, reaching back to undo the laces on his apron. “Thanks."

“Uh-huh." Janine took Oskar's spot in front of the register, where she also began staring off into the middle distance and waiting for somebody to show up.

Oskar tossed his apron on a counter in the employees-only area and pushed open the door out into the alley. There, he fished around in his pocket for his phone. Something in there would distract him from yesteryear's top charting songs. However, just as he was about to reach the lock screen, he heard something over the music wafting in from the building behind him, something that made one of the rabbit's broad ears turn off to his left.

He could already guess what he was about to see, when he looked around the corner to the side of the building. The past couple of weeks had proven he had something of a sixth sense, when it came to stuff like this. The sounds of breathing, labored and over-strong, was easy enough to flag as suspicious. Beyond that, however, were the tiny noises, the ones that seemed to come from someone determined to have a crisis as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Such noises could only have come from one of two kinds of people. Either the person around the corner was in the middle of a panic attack, or…

What Oskar saw, when his head slipped past the bricks blocking his view, was what he expected to see. A crumpled up ball of orange fur and cloth pressed against the wall. One piece of cotton, Oskar recognized, would have been a pencil skirt, if it had been arranged in a more orderly fashion. As it stood, pulled up as it was to the top of the cat's hips, it only served to draw more attention to her bare, fuzzy thighs. Same for the light pink strip between her legs, that now sat next to her exposed vulva like a colorful sign.

Her eyes were screwed shut, as she ran her fingers along her nethers. She didn't dare open them. The thought that she was anywhere other than in her own home, as she did this, seemed to be such a horrible thought that she refused to engage with it. It was also why she kept her ears flat to her head, trying to ignore the sounds of traffic and life going on around her. Even so, no amount of self-delusion could put her somewhere safe, could keep the paranoia from setting in. Oskar wasn't sure what noise he made that had alerted her to his presence. All he knew was that she turned her head in his direction and fixed him with a look of terror with a speed that made his heart flip.

“I-it's okay," he stammered, backing away. “I didn't see anything."

The cat was obviously mortified, to be seen like this. Oskar dimly remembered having just spoken to her, in that way he dimly remembered speaking with most of his customers. She, however, having remembered what “they" had spoken about, clearly felt that this situation needed an explanation.

“It's not what…" she began, curling in on herself as if it would make it less obvious what she was doing. “I didn't want to do this. I just… I can't…"

“Hey, hey, hey…" Oskar held a hand out, patting the air placatingly. “I know. It's fine." Quickly, he leaned back to look down the other alley. Then, turning back, he said. “Nobody's gonna come down this way. I'll keep an eye out. You just… you know… do what you gotta do."

She shook her head. “N-no, wait. I can't… I need…"

“It's fine," Oskar repeated. “I'm gonna just go around this corner, you don't have to worry about-"

“Don't go!" The cat hissed, with something approaching panic. “Please, don't… I need you, I…"

She recoiled, suddenly realizing with horror what she was about to ask, where, and to whom. Even as her heart pounded in her chest, and her flesh screamed for the touch of another, the sight of the little bit of gold on Oskar's finger was chilling enough nearly to, if not break the spell that Rayford had over her, than at least to return her momentarily to lucidity. She withdrew into herself, shutting her eyes to try to pretend like none of this was happening.

Oskar exhaled through his nose. He knew he could just walk away. The responsible thing to do was to turn around, to spend his break watching the road and steadfastly ignoring anything he might hear. However, as soon as he saw that expression, heard the sheer need that suffused her voice and her body, he was struck with the sudden, potent feeling in his gut that this was a problem in need of solving.

He offered one last look down his side of the alley, at the door to his work and the cars passing by, down the street.

Then, with a weary sigh, he approached the cat.

---

To hear his wife talk about it, Oskar had a talent for using his tongue. Oskar wasn't really sure why such a thing was a vaunted skill, why it seemed like other men seemed so incapable of putting their head between a woman's legs. Even though this cat was the second such woman he had ever tasted, she was no different from her wife. Not in any way that mattered. She made just about the same noises, when his tongue brushed against the same places, and barring a brief little period of experimentation he found the right places to attack, almost immediately.

The cat, for her part, fought against the contradictory urges to keep her dignity as intact as possible, and to get her little crisis over with as soon as possible. Her hands idly pawed at her breasts, her stomach, her legs, but she couldn't bear to expose any more fur to the open air than she already had. She wanted to keep her eyes closed, to try and focus on the sensation of hot tongue on hotter sex above all else, but the fear of discovery kept causing her eyes to snap open. No fear of discovery would be too great, however, to silence the plaintive whines and gasps that escaped from her throat.

Oskar's body responded to the sounds, to the taste, to the feeling of fur brushing against his cheeks. He could feel his pulse quicken, his body heat up. However, his mind did not move one iota. It simply responded to the distracting sensations tugging at it by sharpening its focus, by narrowing the whole world down to the space in front of his snout.

“F-fuck, that's it," the cat whispered. “Right there. Right there! Please don't… stop."

Those words were all Oskar needed to hear. Once he knew he was on the right track, the only thing that mattered was doing it more, pressing until he didn't need to press anymore. He reached his hands up to grab her by her hindquarters, suspecting that it was just a matter of time before… there! Just as she was starting to get close, she began trying to shrink away. Oskar pulled her back, unwilling to let her break his concentration.

Her cries got more urgent, at that, as the realization quickly set in that she was going to go over the edge. She felt one last instinctive spat of shame, of disbelief that she was going to cum like this. Then, the precipice beckoned, and coherent thought became a forgotten memory. She reached down, gripping onto the rabbit's head for dear life. Her body curled, tension building in every muscle of her body, before they all suddenly released at once. With a choked whimper, she began to tremble, legs pressing against the side of Oskar's face as her body was wracked by waves of pleasure.

After what felt like an eternity, Oskar could finally pull himself off of the cat. He let out a panting groan, taking in full breaths for the first time since he knelt down. Then, realizing he could no longer ignore the feeling of his knees on the pavement, he grunted his way back onto his feet.

It was around this point that the cat was starting to come back to reality. At the very least, she had become sober enough to feel the first hints of exposure. Closing her legs, she reached down to the hem of her skirt and began the process of righting herself. “I…" She stared down at the ground, mortified. “I don't know what happened."

“It was the Syndrome, right?" Oskar and the cat exchanged glances, the latter wide-eyed. Oskar shrugged. “The tightness in the chest, the shaking, a sort of aimless but consuming need for…"

The cat shook her hands in front of her, trying to bat away the end of that thought before it could reach her flattened ears. “I-I've heard the news reports," she protested. “I know what Rayford does. I just… I didn't think it was…"

“...real?" Oskar offered.

She didn't answer, right away, instead focusing on trying to re-establish order in her wardrobe. Her eyes, pointed down at herself, caught a glimpse of something on Oskar. “Um…" She pointed down at the rabbit's waist. “Should I… do you want me to…?"

Oskar's eyebrow quirked up. Then, he looked down at the tent in his slacks. “Oh." Looking up, he shook his head. “No, no, it's fine. I don't really need it."

Her expression was a little bit concerned, but there was no hiding the clear undercurrent of relief in her eyes. “Y-you're sure? What if it's… you know, like… contaigous or something?"

He shrugged. “If it was, I'm pretty sure I'd have caught it weeks ago." He took a moment to adjust himself, so it was less obvious. “Far as anyone can tell, Rayford just happens to people. Doesn't seem to follow any sort of rhyme or reason." Looking down, he saw the coffee cup that the cat had dropped, when ducking into this alleyway. The coffee had almost entirely emptied into the nearby storm-drain, leaving nothing but a thin brown streak on the pavement. He met the cat's eyes again.

She gave an empty smirk. “Oh, it's fine. I'm as wide awake as I'll ever be." She let out a weak little chuckle, before once again checking to make sure there was no evidence of what she had just done. When she was as sure as she'd ever be that she could step out into the wider world, she turned to Oskar and said “Thank you."

Oskar, once again, could only shrug. “Nothing to thank me for. Far as I'm concerned, none of this ever happened." Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he sighed. “And that's my break more or less done." He turned around, offering one last “Have a good day" to his customer before pulling open the back door and heading back inside.

The plan had been to slip back in, slide past Janine, wash his face off in the men's room, and then go back to waiting for his shift to end. However, traffic in the store had failed to pick up. With nothing for her to pay attention to behind the counter, Janine's eyes naturally went to the back of the store, as soon as she heard the door open. And, unfortunately for Oskar, the weasel was perceptive to a fault.

“Hey, what's up?" she asked, as Oskar approached. “You look like you've been running or some…" Her eyebrows shot up, as her nose began to twitch. She put a hand on Oskar's arm, to keep him from moving, as she put her face close to his. She pulled back, bewildered. “Is that… what I think it is?"

“Depends on what you think it is," Oskar replied, trying to keep his expression stony.

“It smells like you've been eating puss."

Oskar sighed, more annoyed than embarrassed. “That's 'cause I have. Somebody was having an episode behind the shop."

Janine had that grim sort of mortification that can only come from knowing that she asked a question she wasn't really hoping had an answer. “Was it that lady from before? The one who was haranguing you?"

“No," Oskar lied. “Just some stranger."

“Well… good, I guess. She was an asshole." Sheepishly, she withdrew her hand and motioned towards the bathrooms. “You'd better wash up before you get back to work." As he started to leave, however, a rogue thought popped into her head. She grabbed his arm again. “Is your wife okay with… you know…?"

Oskar stared into his boss's eyes, for a good ten seconds. Then, he shook his head. “Yeah, of course," he lied. “We had a long chat about it, a couple nights ago."

“Really?"

“Yeah, yeah." He waved the thought away, as he slipped around to the front of the counter. “I mean, it's weird, but folks with the Syndrome are, like, in crisis. It's no different than if somebody was having a heart attack or a panic attack or whatever."

“Huh." Janine had nothing more to say. As she watched her coworker slink off into the bathroom, however, she could not help muttering to herself. “If only I could trust my husband, to think like that…"

In the bathroom, Oskar pulled off his shirt and began to splash water onto his face and neck. The sound of inoffensive pop jams came in more clearly, in the confined space. He busied himself with trying to scrub his activities out of his fur, in order to keep his mind from wandering, once again. When he was reasonably sure his face was back to the way it was, he took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. He thought about the phone in his pocket. He'd kept the thing on silent, but he knew that if he checked, he was going to find another text message from his wife.

She was either going to be delayed with work, again, or she was going to suggest bringing home takeout.

Absently, he pulled the phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and checked his text messages.

It was takeout, this time.