FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

First times always carried a certain fascination with them.

Hypnosis, of course, wasn't any different. Throughout the years, Zaffre had learned that there was something unique about letting someone mess with his mind for the first time, no matter how experienced they were in hypnosis. What will be his first step? How will he do it? Will he push me deep or make it shallow? Has the induction started already? Is this his hypnovoice?

Those were questions that the otter had found himself asking to no one in particular, many times in the past, and that had put butterflies in his stomach and a tingling sensation on his fingertips, like electricity. Not knowing, trying to guess, creating expectations, holding very still as the answers to those questions revealed themselves - those could be great aids for pleasure.

And of course, the other person knew that. They knew their subject was hanging there, lowering their walls, exposing their defenses - making themselves vulnerable in the best of ways while they just waited. It was a masterful exercise of trust and patience, if done right. Pulling and pushing, giving and taking. Those were the sessions that would later be remembered for months. Sometimes, even years.

That didn't mean that all the subsequent sessions were bad. Quite the opposite, in fact - there were a few non-first sessions in which Zaffre'd had lots of fun. But that special magic of first sessions was usually lost. Both sides already knew each other, and that was great, but there was no longer that burning curiosity to know for how long or how hard the other would pull or push, what techniques would be used, how would the trance feel. Very imaginative people still managed to make those interesting, but without the right amount of inventiveness they risked falling into routine.

That was why Zaffre had learned to cherish first times. They had a special kind of charm that other sessions lacked. And now, fidgeting with his checkered neckerchief as he walked towards the cute cafeteria where he'd agreed to meet his new acquaintance, he could feel that special brew of excitement and fascination bubbling inside him.

It also helped that the hypnotist was really handsome. Good looks were overestimated too often, but underestimating them was silly all the same.

Zaffre had never met any other otters in the city he was currently living in. When he'd joined that silly social media app his friend had been talking about for ages, he'd only expected to meet weird people with questionable levels of horniness or predators with no understanding of consent boundaries whatsoever. He'd met both, but he'd also met the albino otter he was about to have a cup of tea with.

Obviously, Zaffre always used a nickname in these sites and would have never agreed to meet a complete stranger unless he was one hundred percent sure he could trust them.

"Hi, Zaffs!" the albino otter greeted him once he got to the cafeteria. He was already sitting and it seemed he had gotten there early. "Uh, I mean, CheckeredBlue. Hope you don't mind, but I've already ordered."

"That's okay!" Zaffre checked his wristwatch and frowned. It was actually his own fault - he'd gotten there ten minutes late. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting for a long time."

"Not at all."

The brown otter had the weirdest feeling that something strange had happened during that short, apparently lax greeting, but he sat down, stroke his neckerchief and just forgot about it.

"Having a good day?" the albino otter asked. "Oh, maybe I should tell you my real name so you don't have to call me DeepWaters anymore, haha. It's Kalm."

"That's a beautiful name. I'm Zaffre!" he introduced himself. "Although you can call me Zaffs."

Kalm chuckled as if he found the name or something else really funny. Zaffre had to admit he was more handsome in person than he looked like in the app. Those pinkish eyes were sparkling with joy and curiosity, and he had a beautiful smile.

"So do you do this very often?" the albino otter asked, tilting his head. "Meet hypnotists you find in Zonkr?"

"To be honest, it's my first time," Zaffre answered, giggling. "I've had voice and text sessions with some other 'tists before, though."

Kalm's smile widened. He looked really reassured and in control of his own emotions, even in a situation like that, and he was wearing a mahogany colored tailcoat that enhanced the whiteness of his fur. The brown otter thought he could have easily passed as a stage hypnotist if he'd wanted to. He had the clothes and the attitude.

"Wonder what makes me so special, then."

Zaffre was about to answer something silly, but then he stopped himself. Weirdly enough, the words he'd been about to say lingered on the tip of his tongue for a few seconds and then disappeared. One of his claws ran slowly across the smooth neckerchief.

"That's pretty," the albino otter noticed, pointing at it with his chin. "And you seem to be very fond of it, too."

"Thanks! And yeah, I like it a lot."

He was about to start telling him the story of the neckerchief when their cups of tea arrived. Well, maybe some other time, the brown otter thought. He had a feeling that they would meet again in the future and, besides, it wasn't that important.

"You guessed my favorite tea," Zaffre noted, smiling shyly.

"Oh, yeah. Didn't I tell you? I'm not only a hypnotist. I'm also a psychic."

Zaffre chuckled softly. There was no way that was true.

"You know, I like first sessions a lot," the albino otter was saying then. "There's no way of knowing what's going to happen."

"You're right. Uh, well, I guess it's only fun when you know nothing bad can happen, but I generally know who to trust."

"And you trust me?" Kalm asked, still smiling.

"Yeah. You give me good feelings."

The albino otter chuckled and took a sip from his cup of tea, then winked one of his pinkish eyes.

"Well, let's hope I can continue to give you all kinds of good feelings," he said. His thick tail drew a slow arc at his back. "You probably don't want me to do it here, though. Do you have any private places in mind?"

"Uh... To be honest, I have no idea. I guess I thought about it, but you know, this is the..."

"... the first time you're doing this. Right," Kalm completed, giving him an apologetic smile.

"What about you, though? Have you done this before?" Zaffre asked, with curiosity.

The albino otter seemed to consider his answer for a few seconds.

"I have, yeah," he said eventually.

"How was it?"

It wasn't only that Zaffre was curious about it. He felt like he needed to ask and at the same time he hoped he wasn't being too nosy. Makes sense I ask, though, he tried to reassure himself. I want to make sure his previous sessions haven't been a disaster. And I want to see a bit of what's to come. I don't think I'm to blame.

Of course, there was another reason why he was asking, but he wasn't thinking about it at that very moment. His fingers twitched, moved towards his blue neckerchief looking for its silky comfort - then stopped. Kalm gave him a look with those big eyes of his.

"I couldn't have asked for anything better," he answered, grinning.

* * *

"We don't need to do this privately, but I thought you'd prefer it that way."

"Depends on what you make me do," Zaffre answered, walking by Kalm's side. "I don't see any problems about dozing off outside, but clucking like a chicken in front of complete strangers is not exactly what I had in mind."

Kalm chuckled.

They were now taking a walk by the lake near the cafeteria where they'd met. It was a big park and, even though it wasn't precisely a private location, it still made for a really nice place to have a stroll. The gravel path that meandered around the lake was lined with trees. A cold, humid breeze was blowing through the leaves. It had been raining lately, but every step on the wet ground crunched audibly. That and a few other strollers speaking in the distance were the only sounds breaking the silence.

Kalm had picked up a small rock and had thrown it at the lake playfully. It had broken its surface and created a thousand waves.

"So what did you have in mind?"

Zaffre tried to think about it. It wasn't like him not to think their "date" through and he was pretty sure he must have stayed up late, excitedly imagining every possible outcome. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was nothing that came to his mind.

"I can't remember now," he concluded, giggling.

"Oh, so you don't have expectations. Good. That should play in my favor," Kalm said, smiling again.

"You're the hypnotist! Think of it like a stage show. You're the one who has to plan it through, not me!"

"That sounds like a lame excuse to let me take responsibility," Kalm remarked, raising an eyebrow. He was still smiling. "But sure, I guess I can do that. Maybe I can give you flowers after the show again."

"What?"

"Heh. Sorry, just thinking out loud." Kalm turned to Zaffre and tilted his head, then placed one of his paws on the smaller otter's shoulder. "Do you think you'd like stargazer lilies?"

Zaffre opened his mouth to answer. Those were his favorite flowers. His eyes moved to Kalm's paw on his shoulder, and then back to those pink, sparkling eyes. The albino otter seemed to be enjoying a secret only he knew. Zaffre felt as if he'd lost track of their conversation some time ago.

There was something on the tip of his tongue, too.

"What...?" he muttered instead, bewildered.

Kalm chuckled and yanked his shoulder and Zaffre seemed to lose the grip on gravity for a second. Then, that second became three seconds. Ten. When his body got used to the pleasant weightlessness, he stopped counting. Instead, he allowed himself to drift away in the nice sensation as his limbs relaxed and every single tension evaporated. It was then when he noticed his eyes were shut close and he was being held by someone, but somehow that realization seemed to be really, really unimportant.

The breeze wasn't cold anymore but warm and it was caressing his left ear. It tingled, but it felt alright. Zaffre was resting. He could feel thoughts coming and going by but he didn't really want to pay them any attention so he just remained there, listening. Kalm must be close to him - there was a part of his mind that knew he was, and that the albino otter was holding him and whispering things into his ear, but the rest of him could only think of that rock he'd thrown into the lake. How beautifully it had rippled the surface with that small, playful splash.

How heavily it had sunk to the bottom.

Heavy. Underwater.

That was as far as his thoughts went before they came to a halt and settled on the lake bed. They remained like that for an indefinite amount of time, motionless.

Then, a piercing sound that Zaffre's waking mind identified as a snap made them float towards the surface quickly. The otter opened his eyes, feeling a bit disoriented, and looked back at Kalm. Apparently, he had made Zaffre lie on the ground and he was now crouching next to him. The first question that came to the brown otter's mind was 'How could I not notice the gravel under my body' and not 'How has he done it'. Then, he corrected himself, but he never got to actually asking it out loud.

"Morning, Zaffs," Kalm greeted him, with a smile. "Uh, sorry. I couldn't resist it. Hope you're not feeling too uncomfortable down there."

"I'm not," Zaffre admitted. That's the first thing that struck me as odd, too, he thought. "Can you... Can you help me stand up?"

"Oh! Sure."

It only took a few seconds for the brown otter to go back to a vertical position. He wiped some gravel from his coat as he tried to understand what had just happened and glanced at the lake. For some reason, he had a feeling it had something to do with it.

"I told you first sessions can be like this," Kalm said. He helped wipe Zaffre's coat clean and then stood in front of him, smiling. "You never know what to expect."

"Tell me about it," Zaffre murmured, shaking his head.

"Speaking of which, what are you expecting I do to you once I finally get to hypnotize you?"

The brown otter could tell immediately that there was something weird about that question, but instead he reached for his neckerchief. It remained around his neck, which was exactly where it was supposed to be. The smooth touch made him fight the urge to let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know," he answered, smiling shyly. "Guess we'll find out when it happens."

"You really like that neckerchief," Kalm noticed, looking at the blue piece of clothing. "I mean, it makes perfect sense, since your boyfriend gave it to you."

Zaffre nodded. Good thing he had shared with Kalm how he'd obtained the neckerchief.

"I'd love to put you under now, but we should probably wait until we're somewhere safer than the shore of a lake, in a public park. Maybe it's a good idea to take this to a private space after all," Kalm argued, sighing. "I don't mean to sound too bold, but would you like me to invite you to my place?"

Zaffre felt his cheeks turning red. He'd been secretly hoping something like that would happen, even though he hadn't expected the other otter to take such a big step so soon. However, Kalm had a point - he couldn't keep walking around, risking falling to the ground with every step he took. This time, the albino otter had been there to catch him, but who knew whether that'd be the case next time?

"Well, if you think it's alright," he answered, with the thinnest voice.

"Absolutely. I'm sorry if it's too sudden, but you know. I can't say I wasn't secretly wishing for this to happen."

Zaffre stared at the other otter. The fact that he could say stuff like that without feeling terribly embarrassed was weird, but he guessed those people existed, too. His cheeks were already hot and red, and there was no point in hiding his emotions when Kalm wasn't even trying.

"I guess I also was," he said, with a smile.

* * *

The good thing about small towns was that one could go everywhere on foot in a matter of minutes. Zaffre liked that. It meant one could take a nice walk home with friends instead of catching a bus or a cab. As they moved through the almost empty streets towards Kalm's place, that was exactly the feeling the brown otter had - that he was walking back home.

It also proved to be a perfect time to share anecdotes. Zaffre had been in Zonkr for a while and so had Kalm. The amount of weird people they had met during their time in that silly app proved that even terrible experiences could be discussed a few months or years later with a smile on their lips. And even though both stood at different sides of the hypno-kink spectrum, some of their anecdotes were actually quite similar.

"There's this time this guy sent me an unsolicited spiral," Zaffre remembered, chuckling. "Then an unsolicited dick pic. Then tried to put unsolicited triggers on me."

"Hmm, wonder if it was unsolicited play that he was into, rather than hypnosis," Kalm said, with fake hesitation. "Makes you think."

"Yeah. Good thing these people are generally very bad 'tists. They could cause a lot of harm if they had... you know, actual skills."

"Well, I'm afraid some do," Kalm pointed out. "There's a lot of abusers out there. And unfortunately, they won't leave or learn unless we make them."

"Unless we make them leave or learn?"

"I guess making them leave would be the safest choice at this point. Most of them don't deserve any better, anyway." Kalm stopped walking suddenly and Zaffre gave him a puzzled look.

The albino otter was looking at a shop they'd just walked by and he seemed to be considering something. His lips were subtly curved upwards and there was an amused gleam in his eyes.

"It's a flower shop," Zaffre said, as if it wasn't obvious. "Do you want to buy some orchids or...?"

"I have a better idea." The otter walked to the door and turned to Zaffre before entering the shop. "Wait here and when I come out I'll tell you all about that sub who tried to guilt-trip me into hypnotizing him."

"Oof. Sounds awful," Zaffre admitted, as he watched Kalm wink an eye and walk into the flower shop.

He wondered if the albino otter had decided to buy flowers for him. That can't be, he thought. One doesn't buy flowers in a first date... right? Let alone in a first hypnosis session thingy or whatever this is.

He didn't have to wait for long, though. Just like a part of him had suspected - even if the other had tried to convince him the possibility was non-existent - Kalm returned holding a bouquet of stargazer lilies. Zaffre could feel his heart rushing and his cheeks warming up. Embarrassment hit him so intensely that he barely noticed the weird sensation of déjà vu underneath.

"These are for you!" Kalm said, with a big smile. Again, he looked as if he was keeping a very funny secret from him.

"R-really?" the brown otter answered, too flustered to care. "Gosh, they look great. Stargazer lilies are my favorite flower. How did you know?"

"I'm a psychic, remember?" Kalm winked an eye at him.

Zaffre chuckled, accepting the bouquet and bringing the flowers close to his face. He let out a soft, relaxed sigh when he noticed the herbal scent.

"Keep doing this and I might believe you," he said, giving him a bashful smile. "But you didn't have to buy me flowers. You're going to make me think that you want to..."

Zaffre let the sentence hanging there. He bit his lower lip. Kalm's grin widened.

"That I want to be your boyfriend?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Zaffre's cheek suddenly felt much warmer. "Maybe I do. Are you single right now, Zaffs?"

The otter thought about it for a few seconds. He was tempted to answer "no", but then again, there was a part of his mind that knew he had a boyfriend. Wasn't that how he'd got the handkerchief? He'd just mentioned it, hadn't he? Why didn't he really know whether he had a boyfriend or not? It shouldn't be a hard thing to answer.

"I don't know," he admitted, after a few seconds.

He's going to think I'm stupid, Zaffre thought, but Kalm simply smiled in response.

"Well, guess we'll find out somehow," the albino otter said, placing one of his paws on Zaffre's back and pushing him forward softly. "Let's take you to my place, though. You're looking more and more disoriented by the minute."

Zaffre thought he was right, and that there was something really strange about that last question and the way he had answered it. One of his paws moved to his neck again as he held the bouquet with one arm, and suddenly things looked way less worrying. He was having fun with a handsome otter he'd found on a terrible app. They were going to do some healthy, relaxing hypnosis and they'd have a good time. He had nothing to worry about.

Kalm had mentioned he was looking disoriented but, to be honest, the more they walked to the albino otter's house the more Zaffre thought he knew where they were going. Now that there was no embarrassment to hide the intense feeling of déjà vu, the brown otter could feel it more clearly than ever. He had walked those streets before. He recognized the neighborhood. In fact, if they kept going that way, they'd eventually arrive at...

"Do you also live around here?" Kalm asked, smiling.

"Yeah!" Zaffre answered. How could he know? Maybe he really was a psychic after all. Or maybe he had just read his confused expression, which might not be so difficult to do since he wasn't trying to hide his bewilderment. "Not too far. Right there," he said, pointing at an apartment block.

Kalm raised his head, looking at the building.

"That's funny." Again, it sounded as if he was making an effort not to blurt out an exhilarating secret. "That's exactly where I live, too."

"Uh." Zaffre had to admit that was the last thing he'd been expecting. "Do you mean we've been neighbors and we never knew?"

The albino otter chuckled softly. If he was trying to look surprised, he wasn't doing a very good job at it.

"Who knows," he said, with the kind of tone that showed he clearly did know. "Apparently. Yeah."

There was something he wasn't telling Zaffre, but the brown otter didn't really think it was something worth worrying about. Besides, he guessed he'd find out in time. If the albino otter was trying to turn their date into a hypnosis show, there had to be a great finale, right?

They reached the door that led to their building. Any chances that Kalm was pulling Zaffre's leg disappeared once he took the keys out of his pocket and opened the door with a knowing grin. The brown otter even felt his own pocket, trying to make sure his keys were there - the only other possibility he could think about was that Kalm had picked them up when he had fallen to the ground. That would make sense, except for the fact that the hypnotist had known where to go at all times, and that meant he knew where he lived. The implications of that would have been scary had Zaffre not trusted Kalm completely.

However, his keys were in his pocket. Nobody had stolen them. Zaffre even tried to fit them in the keyhole and checked they were the right keys. He was about to drop his bouquet a few times as he clumsily fumbled with the keys, but in the end he managed to keep the flowers safe. Kalm watched him do the whole thing with a half-amused, half-surprised expression.

"Do you really think I'd steal your keys?" he asked.

Now that things were getting so weird, Zaffre's shyness was melting under the flame of Kalm's straightforward attitude.

"I just want to make sense of what's going on," the otter said, shrugging, as he walked into the building. They both waited for the elevator. "There's no way you live here. This has to be a prank."

"Are you sure about that?" the other otter asked, still smiling. The doors of the elevator opened and they walked into the small car. "Okay, I know I said I'd take you to my place earlier, but now that we're here and we're as close to your place as we are to mine, I think I should let you choose."

"Let me choose what?" the otter asked, too focused on his bouquet and trying to keep it from falling to the ground to really pay attention to what Kalm had just said.

"Your place or my place?"

Zaffre had a feeling his answer wouldn't change the outcome of their date, but he wanted to try and throw the otter off balance.

"Your place," he answered. He refused to believe such place existed, but he had to admit he was curious.

Kalm nodded, and pushed a button on the panel. Zaffre had practically seen that coming, so he was not really surprised that the albino otter was going to the same floor where he lived. There's no way he can open the door to my apartment, he thought, although less convinced this time.

They left the elevator and walked slowly towards Zaffre's flat. The door was locked, as usual. The only key was in his pocket, as far as the brown otter knew, but Kalm looked quite confident as he held his own bunch of keys and got closer to the door.

"You can't be serious," he murmured, as the key slid in and clicked, opening the door easily.

How could that be? How had Kalm got a copy of his keys? Maybe I was out for longer than I thought, Zaffre considered, remembering that he had fainted near the lake and that had been the only time when he hadn't been keeping watch of the albino otter. But that doesn't make any sense. Did he take my keys, make a copy and come back? That's... silly.

"After you," Kalm said, bowing courteously. With that smile and his long tailcoat, he did really look like a hypnotist in the middle of a stage show.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Zaffre was in the middle of a stage show. He hesitated, staring at the open door. A weird thought came to his mind just then. Why wasn't he feeling more nervous about that whole thing? A stranger had just opened the door to his apartment. Shouldn't he be panicking?

It's definitely a stage show, he thought. I have to be imagining this. There's no way this is real.

He pinched his cheeks and smelled the lilies again. Everything felt extremely real, but his mind was confused.

In the end, he gave up and walked in. Kalm closed the door at his back. They were definitely in Zaffre's flat. Everything was just where he'd left it - even the cup of tea he'd forgotten to leave at the sink that morning. He shook his head as he tried to understand what was going on and turned to Kalm, demanding an explanation.

"You're so cute when you're confused like this," was all the albino otter said.

Zaffre felt blush threatening to take over his cheeks.

"What are we doing here?" he asked. "This is my place."

Kalm nodded.

"I told you to take me to your place, remember?"

"This is my place," the albino otter claimed, looking around. "Oh, don't tell me you still don't know what's happening."

Zaffre tried to think about it. He was running out of possibilities by now.

He was beginning to think that the other otter had hypnotized him at some point, but he wasn't really sure when that had happened. Maybe at the lake? Yeah, it had most likely happened there. But even if that was the case, that wouldn't explain their current situation, only his sudden fainting. He didn't flinch as Kalm took the bouquet from his hands and placed it in a conveniently placed jar full of water. Zaffre frowned - he didn't remember placing that jar there, but there it was. Just like Kalm.

Things weren't adding up. He wasn't feeling nervous, but he was a bit disoriented.

"You look like you're thinking too much," Kalm said then. "Maybe you should touch your neckerchief."

His neckerchief? What did his neckerchief had to do with...

But once one of his fingers ran over the smooth fabric, he found himself letting out a sigh. Suddenly, everything felt much simpler, much easier. He still didn't understand a single thing that had happened, but the touch of the neckerchief made every single tension he'd been building up during the last few minutes dissipate like smoke. Too many questions, but not too many worries.

"What is..." He felt like chuckling, for some reason. The situation was too absurd. "What is this? What's going on? What did you do?"

"You still don't know?" Kalm asked, getting closer to him - too close. He placed one of his hands on Zaffre's back, as if to keep him from falling down. It felt soft and steady against him.

Then, there was a snap and the otter found himself melting, his legs giving up under the weight of his own body. Even with Kalm's firm hand holding him in place, the brown otter felt as if his body was sinking down, dropping suddenly at the sound of a second snap. Any questions and worries and thoughts that he could still be holding faded into the pure, pleasant relaxation as he let out a soft sigh. His eyes had been open up until then but they hadn't been seeing, and they closed shut just as easily as his head dropped to his chest on command. Kalm's hand on his back was softer than ever.

There was something he was supposed to be thinking about, but he wasn't thinking about it now. The only thing in his mind was the fact that someone was whispering very nice things into his ears and that he was imagining himself as if he was dropping into a deep pool of crystalline, still waters. His body dove through the surface without a splash and suddenly he was underwater. He felt the heavy resistance around his body, as if suddenly it was much harder to move - his thoughts, too, felt as if they were trying to swim weakly, but falling to the bottom in the end. Sinking, dropping, the light of the outside world vanished until he reached the deepest depths he could possibly rest at.

There was no trace of the outside world. Only the dark, heavy, deep waters all around.

Kalm was there. He was swimming by his side. Smiling, as usual. That smile comforted Zaffre. The albino otter took his hand softly and they swam together. Where? The brown otter had no idea. He honestly didn't want to move - instead, he just wanted to sink right to the bottom and remain there for a long, long time. However, Kalm had a firm grip on his hand and he made sure he kept moving. They weren't going too fast, but Zaffre could feel the cold caress of water against his body as they were swimming. From time to time, the albino otter let him rest underwater and then Zaffre felt the perfect calm washing over him, again and again, as he floated without moving. Weightless, careless, mindless.

But they kept swimming, and as they moved closer to the surface, there were images and memories and thoughts coming back and his body was getting lighter and he wasn't swimming anymore and...

Snap.

Zaffre opened his eyes, still a bit dizzy. It felt as if he'd gone through a journey longer than he could tell. Kalm was still holding him close to his chest. The brown otter lifted a hand to rub his eyes and then smiled shyly as the realization of what had really happened hit his mind.

Of course it hadn't been the first time.

"I can't believe you did this," he said, yawning and trying to get rid of the last, small remnants of warm sleepiness. "You even bought the flowers."

"What can I say." Kalm - his boyfriend - shrugged, his smile getting wider. Now, Zaffre knew the secret he'd been trying to hide for so long. His heart warmed at the thought of everything the other otter had done for him and he smiled back, feeling butterflies in his stomach again. "It's not every day I get to celebrate our first anniversary, right? That was the first time I put you under."

Zaffre chuckled and Kalm's eyes seemed to sparkle as if that simple sound made the effort of keeping up with a feigned date worthwhile.

"Well," the brown otter said. "I remember it, and I loved it. But after today, I think I might begin thinking that first times are overrated."

The stargazer lilies were watching from the porcelain jar that rested on the table.

Under their vigilant gaze, both otters kissed.