Slowhand
#1 of Slowhand
Loosely based on true events. This is the first chapter of what is sure to be a long (-ish) series. Ezra is (c) is player, and Layla is (c) me. Please enjoy! Feedback is also very much appreciated! :) (Psst, see if you can guess where the title comes from! ;) --Love, Roxanna
_Slowhand
Chapter 1: What Will You Do When You Get Lonely?_
The keys clacked away under his fingers, claws scraping against the keyboard in a rapid-fire pace. He paused and brought one paw to push away some tendrils of black hair out of his face and continue typing. Ezra's long feline tail twitched idly and his green eyes fought against the blue glare of his computer screen to read what he had been working on for the past five minutes, instead of his work report:
_Name: Ezra Naylor
Age: 26
DOB: April 6th
Sign (pick one):_
Sign? They couldn't be serious. Sure enough, the indicator for astrological affiliation was right there in the "required" fields. The white tiger groaned and continued reviewing.
Height: 6'8"....he had noted the "Be Honest!" signs everywhere on the website. He doubted even half of the furs on this site were half-way honest in real life, let alone cyberspace. But, true to form, at six feet and eight inches, he was quite tall, even for a tiger.
Weight:...
Forget it, he snorted. He tabbed over to the next field. Looking for...
What was he looking for? Let's see, he'd had everything he ever wanted up until a month ago: a good job that he enjoyed, a decent apartment, and more importantly, the sweetest girl on his side of the Mississippi. Within a week's time, she had broken up with him...and right after he'd bought her the ring, which he pawned the next day.
He sighed through his nose and filled out the rest of his information.
At his friends' urgings, he finally got an account on a dating website, more as a joke than anything else. Ezra was in no mood to go bar-hopping with them every weekend, and too depressed to pick up some drunk redneck floozy at whatever establishment he was dragged to.
Location: ...
Hell, should he be very specific?
San Antonio, TX
Hell, it beats Huntsville.
Religion:... Skip. Political affiliation: ... Here we go, anyone from out-of-state would take one look at him and think...
Moderate-Liberal.
Hah, take that Republican party, he thought dismally.
Finally, he typed in a brief description: "I'm just interested in meeting new and interesting people. Yes, I am a male white tiger, single, looking for a single female (any species) to be friends, or something more."
The white tiger groaned inwardly. He felt like he was whoring himself off to cyberspace and whoever else was watching. Ezra didn't even feel all that attractive; instead of a photograph, he posted a picture of a painting he'd done in college, a luscious landscape of the Ozark mountains at sunset.
Hey, he reasoned, if anyone was really that interested, they can ask me for a photo. Not that he expected them to. As he finished his profile and logged out of the site, he opened up the report he needed to finish before the meeting at 3 o clock that afternoon. It was 2:15.
"Bullshitting time," he muttered to himself.
A week later, Ezra booted up his computer at work and checked his inbox. Invoice, memo, memo, third memo reminding him about the first memo, furrymatch.com mate-sheet, Letter from the President...
Wait, huh?
He double-clicked on the email and opened up the link to the furmatch.com website, looking at his profile. Six matches. Well, better than nothing. He looked over his shoulder then realized he could get away with anything short of porn at this job. A dating website was the least problematic thing being done on these computers.
The first "suitable match" was to a sickeningly cute tabby cat, with a sickeningly cute name: "Candy". Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph, he thought to himself. She was from Georgia, was currently a Zeta Tau Alpha, and her profile featured numerous pictures of her sporting booze and Mardi Gras beads, plus pictures of her kissing her equally inebriated sorority sisters.
DELETE.
The next was a skunk...or should he have said "skank." He didn't bother to click the link to her profile, since her picture featured her--and she wasn't altogether unattractive, if she'd lay off the porn star make-up and multiple piercings in her eyebrows, ears, tongue, lips and God only knew where else--in a blue cropped shirt that barely covered her fake DD's and stated quite plainly in bold yellow lettering: "I swallow."
DELETE.
The next girl's profile he couldn't even decipher. It was so horribly mangled with netspeak abbreviations and leet (or l337, or however the hell it was spelled) that he instantly thought she must be a minor. He checked out her profile just to be sure. But after the fifth lolz in the same sentence, his cursor moved across the screen to the button marked...
DELETE.
"Oh dear God," he swore at the next one. Drug and marijuana paraphernalia everywhere, and pictures of her bong collection. He couldn't tell the species through the haze of smoke.
He clicked DELETE in record time.
"Moonflower," he said to himself. "Okay..." he checked out the profile. He brightened up. A Tigress! With long, black hair and a Bohemian vibe...in Oklahoma! Perfect! He could do that! 'Come on,' he pleaded silently. 'Please be a...' "YES!" he whooped.
I am a Vegetarian, read her profile.
He was ready to do a dance of joy. Vegetarian tigers like himself were few and far between. She was starting to look like a suitable match...that was until he saw more pictures of her. Did she ever consider that she had a unibrow and a mustache? Okay, don't panic, he told himself. Those things can change...
Then he read about her other interests.
Bringing down "The Man"? Crystal healing? What the hell...?
He sighed, weighing the pros and cons, then decided to see his last option: a vixen.
Ah, Christ, he thought. Another vixen...you'd think with so many furs wanting one, there'd be no single ones. Which left him to think there was automatically something wrong with this one. He clicked the link anyway.
The profile picture, he had to admit...was rather nice. She was pretty, but not overly gorgeous. She had red fur and auburn hair that fell in loose waves to her slender shoulders, and bright blue eyes as deep as the ocean in the photo's background. In the profile picture, she was sitting on a sea wall, respectably clad in a green turtleneck and black peacoat, the sea winds tousling her hair just so. A warm, delighted smile was on her face, clear of any marks, and her fur and hair shone in the sunlight.
Not bad...
He began reading her profile. Her name was Layla, and she was from Virginia...damn, so far away? He could have sworn he'd put the settings toward "local," but he continued reading. Mid-twenties, petite (4'11" he saw, which made him mentally calculate and conclude that she came up to his lower chest), looking for friendship, to casual dating, to relationship, working for law firm as an assistant, interests include watching movies, the ocean, yoga, dance, reading, writing, visiting museums and art galleries...
She couldn't be real.
Sure, women will say they do yoga and are interested in finer things, but they just say that to grab the man. This girl--woman--seemed too good to be true. And although he should have obeyed the old adage, ("If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is") he clicked "Send Message."
He'd better make this quick and get back to work:
"Hi, I saw your profile and I think you're pretty cute..."
He almost slapped himself; "you're pretty cute"?! What was he, fifteen? He backspaced. "I saw your profile, and I'd like to get to know you a little better". There, that's better... "If you'd like to, here's my screen name, we can chat that way, later tonight perhaps? Hope to hear from ya soon, Ezra."
There, that should do it. He settled back into his chair and got back to work.
That Friday night was no different from any other: alone, in his (very) meager apartment, his so-called furniture the remnants of his college days, and his lifestyle was also similar to college: cheese pizzas and veggie burgers almost every night for dinner, and lazing on the couch until well into the early morning.
His computer screen blazed blue light onto his white and black fur, his green eyes just staring out into space as he watched what little there was on TV. He sighed, putting the veggie burger on the stained and broken coffee table that he still needed to fix. He looked over at his computer and reminded himself that he still needed to check his email to see if everyone had gotten the memo he'd sent earlier.
Heaving himself up, the brawny white tiger made his way to his computer chair, then visibly jumped as an IM alert chimed.
FoxwhosayNI!: Hi there. You're Ezra, from the dating website, right?
He stared at the screen a minute, wondering if someone was pulling his leg. No self-respecting woman, to his knowledge, used an androgynous screen name...unless it was really a male on the other end! He shuddered at the thought then opened up the internet browser to check that his settings on the dating website were still "Male searching for Female". By the time he reached the login page, he took a closer look at the screen name, then laughed out loud when he caught the reference. He got up and moved over to his computer table, sitting in his chair and beginning to type:
DarthTiger: wow...nice Python reference! XD
The mysterious instant messenger responded quickly. Ezra noted the time it took and the number of characters, and was impressed. Whoever he was talking to was a fast typist.
FoxwhosayNI!: Thank you, I appreciate the Star Wars reference too ^_^...but please dear god tell me you're not still living in your mother's basement and really weigh over 500 pounds...
His answer flowed from his fingertips even before he knew it.
_DarthTiger: Nope, moved up to the attic years ago.
FoxwhosayNI!: LOL! Touché!_
Ezra gave himself a pat on the back. This wasn't so bad, and after a quick check at the website, confirmed that FoxwhosayNI! Was actually...
_DarthTiger: So, Layla Manning I presume?
FoxwhosayNI!: Ah-hah, someone's looking on the website?
DarthTiger: mmmmmmaybe?_
Truth be told, he was looking over every single thing on her profile, reminding himself of things to talk about to get to know her better. It was too early yet to tell, but she didn't seem so bad...at least over the internet. But it was clear enough to him that she was at least playful.
_FoxwhosayNI!: lol, ok, fine don't tell me :P
DarthTiger: sure thing. Any time.
FoxwhosayNI!: lol
DarthTiger: are you really laughing over there?
FoxwhosayNI!: mmmmmmaybe?;)_
Touché indeed, foxy lady... He made himself comfortable and began what was to become the first of many conversations between them, a regular duel of words every time she signed on. Ezra, within the first hour, came to love this vixen's intelligence and her turn of phrase. He found, in the time he spoke with her, that she was more that he had expected: she was smart, funny, with a bit of a sarcastic, deadpan sense of humor, which he found immensely appealing. Sharp as the crack of a whip, she was.
For a long time, he couldn't quite figure what he was feeling as her typed words blinked up to his screen. After a while, he began imagining what kind of voice she had, or how she laughed...yes, more than anything right now, he wished to know what her laugh sounded like. But please--ask for her number now? They'd only just met...sort of.
FoxwhosayNI!: Sadly, I'm afraid I need to get going...
It felt like someone had sucker-punched him in the gut.
_DarthTiger: so soon?
FoxwhosayNI!: its almost 4 am here._
Ezra blinked in surprise then looked over at the time in the lower right corner of his screen. Sure enough, the stupid clock read 2:48 am. He'd forgotten about the time zones. Stupid...stupid!
DarthTiger: Sorry >.FoxwhosayNI!: Don't be. I had a great time talking to you, even if it was just on instant messenger. See you online tomorrow maybe?
He couldn't believe what he read. Was she really asking to "see" him again? What should he say? No, be cool about it, don't make her think you're desperate...uh, dur, you ARE desperate. No I'm not! Yes you are! Dude, answer her before she thinks you're dead! But be cool about it...stay CALM!
_DarthTiger: sure
FoxwhosayNI!: awesome! Have a good night! *hugs* oh! One last thing...could I see a picture of you?_
He thought about it long and hard, but had to snap himself out of it. Couldn't keep a lady waiting for very long. The white tiger sighed, his green eyes roving over the various pictures in his files, trying to find the most photogenic. It wasn't that he had low self esteem...he just wasn't very photogenic. At least in his mind.
He finally selected one: a picture of him with some friends in a bar, celebrating some event he'd forgotten about.
_DarthTiger: here, this one's old though. I'm not very photogenic
FoxwhosayNI!: don't worry about it. I'm not either._
Ezra stared at the screen in disbelief. His fingers acted on impulse, readily typing...
_DarthTiger: oh bullshit. You're easily the prettiest girl I've seen on that whole site!
FoxwhosayNI!: 
you're sweet.
DarthTiger: it's true. You're the most genuine person I've met in a long time
FoxwhosayNI!: I'd have to say the same thing about you, Ezra. I can't tell you the number of males who will wear masks to get what they want from me. Doesn't work though. I can smell a rat.
DarthTiger: yes, they are very smelly bastards
FoxwhosayNI!: lol
DarthTiger: but I'm keeping you from your sleep. You go ahead and have a good night, Layla
FoxwhosayNI!: you have a good night too. Oh, and just got the pic...you're really handsome._
It was Ezra's turn to blush. Did she really think that? The tiger typed a quick response; she answered in the affirmative.
_FoxwhosayNI!: of course! I love your eyes though...they're so...I can't explain, they've got so much life in them. So much energy.
DarthTiger: yeah...if there's one thing this tiger has, its energy ^^;
FoxwhosayNI!: mm, good. you'll need it around me ;)
DarthTiger: ...
FoxwhosayNI!: Well, have a good night! *hugs* See you tomorrow!_
He chuckled and returned her digital hug and her greetings, making sure to add her to his friends list immediately. When the prompt in the lower right corner of his screen "FoxwhosayNI! has signed off" appeared, he allowed himself to sigh. He rubbed his green eyes and groaned. It really was late. How did the time fly like that? When he'd started talking to her, it had been just shortly after 8 pm.
He'd been talking to her for seven straight hours. Holy hell...
"Urk," he grunted as he stood. Seven straight hours of leaning back in his computer chair and his back was letting him know it. Sleep, he decided. Sleep is good...
He plodded into his bedroom, which served the dual purpose of sleeping and a space for his art. If there was one thing Ezra was especially fond of, it was painting. It was what he went to college for originally, though that was a long time ago. Artists didn't make jack shit--that was why he worked for that damned software company. He was good at what he did, but he always preferred the meditative flick of the brush, or the smooth pencil slowly trailing across the paper...
He took off his shirt and tossed it into the laundry pile in the corner, then flopped onto the messy, unmade bed he'd been too tired to make that morning. Facedown in the pillow, he sighed, then flopped over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling.
He took a deep breath and rolled onto his side, trying to get comfortable despite the warm Texas night. As he closed his eyes, he remembered going through Layla's profile, looking at all of her pictures. They were few in number, much like his, but he seriously doubted her lack of pictures was because she thought herself non photogenic. He, on the other hand...
He sighed through his nose and curled up like a little kitten, despite his size. She really was pretty, he remembered. No, not pretty...she's gorgeous.
His mind's eye recalled a picture of her in summer pajamas, a tank top and boy shorts in a cherry blossom pink, the petite vixen curled up fast asleep on someone's bed, hugging a down comforter like a teddy bear.
There was the picture of her on the beach, clad in a tastefully revealing blue bikini the color of her eyes, her wide grin brightening up the whole picture. He recalled the way her body looked with a painter's eye, going over every last curve and detail. The graceful slope of her neck and shoulders tied directly to the gentle S curve of her body, small yet round pert breasts covered with navy blue fabric, and a flat stomach and slim waist moved on to small hips and shapely dancer's legs. Her hands looked so small, he wondered what it would be like to hold her hand...he wondered how it would measure to his huge paw...he wondered how it would feel to have that small hand wrapped around his cock...
He opened his eyes quickly, wondering where that thought came from, then groaned as he felt his stiffness tenting his pajama pants. Oh, that's where it came from... It'd been a long time since just thinking about a woman had this effect on him, and it wasn't altogether unwelcome...
He sighed, then reached his hand inside his pants, wrapping his paw around his studded tiger cock, giving it a few slow strokes. He closed his eyes and tried imagining a female's hand stroking him, making him stiffen and harden more and more. At first it was the image of another tigress, but slowly the image in his mind shifted, became vague and misty, then suddenly out of nowhere he saw Layla in his mind, her small hand wrapped around him and stroking him just as slowly, her blue eyes trained on his length.
He moaned and quickened his pace, imagining more and more of her. He imagined her, naked and lying back in his bed, her legs spread as she touched herself, her eyes closed and the vixen gasping in ecstasy. In his fantasy, she opened her eyes and fixed him with such a gaze it left him powerless.
The white tiger stroked himself faster, his breath hitching as he lay on his back, starting to buck his hips. He pulled his pajama pants down his hips and stroked his cock faster, his body jerking. He imagined Layla again, hearing her moaning in his ear as she fucked him, moving up and down his shaft, touching herself all over that slender body to bring her closer to the brink.
But Ezra wasn't the only one fantasizing that night.
Layla signed off and stood from her computer, arching and stretching her back, feeling a few vertebrae pop and crack. She settled back down with a sigh and got up to go to bed. She had decided hours ago that Ezra was a pretty decent guy when all was said and done. And the picture certainly helped matters.
She made sure the door to her room was closed; if she'd woken up her roommate again, heads would roll. It wasn't that Liz was a bad person, the lioness just liked to sleep during the night. Layla was a night owl, on the other hand. And good luck getting her up before a decent-enough hour.
The vixen stepped into the bathroom and splashed water onto her face before drying off and squirting toothpaste onto her toothbrush. As she brushed her teeth, she looked at her reflection and tried not to sigh. Her contacts had been bothering her all week, but she hated the way her glasses hid her eyes. They were the one feature about her that she'd never change, even if she could.
She ran a hand through her short auburn hair and held it back as she rinsed and spit. "Minty fresh," she muttered and plodded back into her room. The two-bedroom apartment was quiet except for the hum of her computer on the desk in her bedroom. Checking her door was locked, Layla drew the shades over the windows and finally gave in to her one hedonistic pleasure...
She stripped from head to toe, tossing the discarded clothes in a corner beside the clothes hamper. The vixen collapsed onto the bed, drawing up the sheets just over her naked breasts. She sighed contentedly and cuddled into the soft cotton sheets. Sure, sleeping in the buff wasn't the wildest thing she could do, but it was the only thing she was comfortable with. Besides, with Liz's tendency to burst into a room without knocking, giving in to pleasures like these would be problematic.
Layla opened her blue eyes a moment, staring into the darkness, before she realized she should make good use of the privacy she had at 4 am. Closing her eyes, she imagined having a lover in bed with her, pushing up against her back, big strong arms around her tiny frame, his hardness pressing against her slit...
She suppressed a moan as her fingers traced over her nether lips, before slowly running a finger along her slit. In her imagination, it was a skillful tongue lapping away at her nether region, lips pressing against her clit. Layla rolled onto her back, biting her bottom lip to keep from making a noise. Her breathing sped up as she started to rub her clit, her hips bucking against her own ministrations.
She tried to envision her lover, kneeling over her, pressing their hips together, his studded feline cock dripping precum onto her stomach. Layla stifled a moan at the image, the memory of a male's cock pressing against her slit, moving in slowly, just as her fingers were desperately doing now. Her climax was quick in coming, and finally her petite frame jerked as she came, her fingers wet with her juices.
Breathless, she collapsed back into the mattress, then curled up with a pillow, trying her best to imagine that she was holding her lover in the afterglow. But a pillow was no match for a mate.
After all, fingers were no substitute for a good, hard fuck anyway...and fingers also didn't kiss you good night, or tell you that they love you.