FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this, Paul."

The Airedale terrier just stares through the gym's glass windows and shrugs. He grins at me, and his cute little ears flop as he brushes aside his bangs. Those blue eyes are positively glowing with glee.

"Yet I did. Aren't you even a little excited?"

My tail goes limp as I stare into the gym, too. "Uh..."

It's as big as a warehouse and looks just as well put together: red, iron beams crisscrossing the ceiling, vents and air shafts hanging about, other structural pieces visible as there was no insulation in some places. Bulky men and fit women wander from one torturesque looking contraption to another and strain until every vein in their bodies pops out. I wipe my nose, practically smelling the testosterone through the glass. Paul sees that I'm anxious.

"Hey, there are guys like us in there, too." He points to a lemur--a fellow scrawny--on an elliptical, his legs a blur. "And there are girls."

"Oh, yay!" I clap my paws. My reflection is glossy with sarcasm. The skinny, baggy gym-clothed Border collie in the mirror doesn't look pleased.

Paul sighs and starts toward the door into fitness hell, picking up his gym bag from the sidewalk. "I meant that there are girls for, like, emotional and moral support." He tugs open the door and rolls his eyes as I follow. "To make you feel comfortable, not to ogle. I know you detest the vagi..."

Then, out through the opened door, comes the most frighteningly gorgeous she-hulk lioness I've ever seen. Eight feet of sinewy, savannah predator cocks an eyebrow at my now pasty friend and, likewise, cocks her curvaceous hips. She's toting a bag the size of me, and her knuckles pop as she squeezes the strap slung over her right shoulder.

"Beg'pardon?" she says, voice like an angel: beautiful...and wrathful.

Paul just squeaks, something I didn't think us dogs could do.

Straight men, I think, are cursed with the power of speech.

_ _ "Sorry," I say to her. "He's not misogynist, just a masochist." I offer my paw, which she takes. Hers swallows mine, and she has a very firm grip. I smile/cringe. "My name's Tucker, and I'm gay. Paul was talking about me, but I don't detest anything about women. He just pushes it a bit too far."

"Oh," she says, perfectly calm, smiling. She lets my paw go (thank God) and chuckles. "Well, I'm Aurora, and aren't you sweet, baby doll."

"It's my curse."

She then eyes Paul. "And a masochist, huh?" Lick of the lioness lips. "I can make you hurt real good, honey."

And Paul dashes into the gym, leaving a trail of cheek-heat behind. Aurora bursts out laughing and so do I.

She pulls a towel from her gym bag and wipes her eyes. "I was just playing with him." She winks. "He was a cutey-pie, though."

"Single, too," I say quite matter-of-factly.

She nods, pondering, and then looks me over. My skin tingles afterward and I blush for some reason. "You two are new here, huh?"

I nod. "Should be pretty obvious." I wave an arm over myself, self-conscious but not altogether ashamed of my body.

She chuckles, thick tail flicking. "A little, but no offense."

"None taken."

She shifts from her left leg to her right. I'm in awe of her meaty thighs. "Your friend force you to come?"

I shrug and can't help but feel a little angst about the situation. "Yeah."

"I got'cha."

"But I was thinking about starting to work out anyway," I say when Aurora's eyes wander. I flex my thin arms, grunting just because, and she giggles. "I'm not very appealing to guys like this."

She winks and turns away. "Well, I think you're adorable, but I'm not the sex you wish to attract."

"Nu-uh, sorry."

"You might be surprised by some of the guys in there, though," she says, tossing up a paw and walking away. "Don't let'em scare you away, and maybe I'll see you and your cute buddy another time."

"Okay," I say. "Maybe you can help me get as shapely as you!"

"You wish, sweety, and welcome to the gym family!"

My ears flop. "Gym family?"

Her laugh reverberates down the busy street as I shrug and follow after Paul.

My assumption that the place was going to smell wasn't wrong. It wasn't a foul odor or anything, just...well, if you could bottle masculinity, that's what this place was spraying; it was musky, sea-salty, and--strangely enough--sweet to a degree. It was odd. I still curl my nose on my way through.

Walking past the front desk I'm greeted by a bubbly "Hi!" A polo wearing rabbit girl waves and I wave back. I flash my spiffy new gym pass and she takes my ID number, and then I'm in. I assume Paul went into the locker room since he hadn't worn his gym clothes like me, so I dodge around folks with headphones jammed into ears, mewing "excuse me" and "sorry" when I come too close. No one really pays me any attention, though, which is both relieving and annoying at the same time. There are some really attractive guys here, and I wouldn't mind catching their eye.

I round a corner into the locker room and an "Over here" draws my attention. Paul is changing, nervously I might add, with three other guys around who dwarf him in stature. I don't understand where all of these amazingly fit men had come from! I guess they all lived in the gym and that's why I'd never seen them. I felt like I'd won the lottery. I should be nervous, I guess, but--for the time being--I was just too overwhelmed to break a sweat...figuratively. The treadmill soon saw that my tank top was thoroughly drenched.

But, surprisingly, the cardio does more damage to Paul. I guess that's the athletic breed of dog in me. We only run for ten minutes (as a warm up apparently), and by the time we're done my friend is panting and sweating so much that his fur's matted. We wipe the machines down afterward, Paul not saying much, and then head into the thick of the gym with free weights. There are mirrors taking up most of the walls, forcing me to look and compare myself to everyone else. I don't know what I would've done if Paul wasn't with me. I mean, it was obvious we were out of place, and we could feel it like a (figurative) weight on our shoulders, but to see it--to witness our presence in those mirrors...it was even more unnerving. But, we persevere!

Since Paul isn't totally new at the whole weight lifting thing he walks me step by step through whatever he's doing, and I watch and cringe and know deep down that I'm going to be hurting tomorrow. He deems today to be chest and tricep day and leads me to a flat bench to do bench press. Even I know what that is. Big, sexy pecs come from that.

"Alright," I say, my tail wagging a bit as I envision a future, hunky me. "Let's do this, huh?"

"Sure," Paul says, sticking some 25 pound weights on each side of the barbell. He's recovered a bunch of his energy and is rearing to go, too. His tail wags as well. "Spot for me?"

"Uh, sure." I just stare at him after he lies down on the bench. "What's that mean?"

His eyes widen, and the curly fur around his mouth wiggles as he huffs. He motions for me to come and stand behind the bar, right at his head. I look down awkwardly into his face.

"Just help me if I need it," he says, suddenly quite serious.

I, on the other hand..."My crotch is in your face, hahaha."

"Tucker, come on man..."

I latch onto the bar. "Sorry, sorry..."

All in all, the bar weighed about 75 pounds, and Paul managed more than I thought he would: 14 reps, as they're called. Who knew? Afterward he added more weight until it got up to 115 pounds or so, forced out some more presses, and I ended up having to help with the last two sets. He got up afterward, huffing and stretching, and patted the bench, winking.

"Your turn," he says, wiping his brow and swirling his empty water bottle, "After I get more to drink."

I eye the weighted down bar. "Take your time."

He hustles off and I'm left all alone. I just turn and watch other furs do what they do, my ears flicking to the alien song of clanking weights and primal grunts. We'd been here for a half-hour, so the shock-and-awe had worn off a little. Not only that, but I guess we'd figured out when the place started to slow down. I check my phone--5:50--and see that there are only a handful of furs in here now. Maybe that's why it didn't feel overwhelming. I watch a wolf guy pressing dumbells over his head, his front reflected in those blasted mirrors. He's so focused that he doesn't see me, even though I'm clearly visible in the mirror, too. His shoulders are cut with muscle striations, arms wonderfully sized, chest wide, waist thin, face...handsome.

I smack my cheeks. "Meh," I say, "Focus." Paul still hasn't come back, and I wonder if he'd drowned in the water fountain. I glance back at the wolf, glance at the bench press. I came here to work, right? Paul's being slow as sin, and I don't want to wait any longer. "I can do this," I say as I lay on the bench like my friend had. "He didn't need that much help. I can do it." My tail swishes against my ankles. I wrap my paws tight around the bar. My ears flatten and I swallow. "Piece of cake."

I push. My arms go rigid and the bar lifts like it had when Paul did it. So far so good; it doesn't even feel that heavy. Maybe I'm stronger than I think!

"Okay," I huff. "Bring it to...mid-chest...elbows...to my...sides..." I suck in a breath and the bar sinks toward me. I feel the weight now, the backs of my arms taut and stinging. Paul had brought the thing down onto his chest, but...My elbows pop, my arms start to shake, and my front feels like it's being torn in two. I can't breathe. "Oh...shit..."

Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy is all I can think as the bar, taken by gravity now, slowly tilts toward my neck. I strain and squirm, trying with all of my exasperated might to shove the thing up, but it's no use. It might as well have been an SUV backing up onto my throat. I think a blood vessel ruptures in my eye from the strain. The ceiling beyond the bar becomes fuzzy. Great, I think, I'm going to die here. Good times. Cold steel pinches the fur and skin on my neck. My lungs are aflame.

"Hey! I got'cha, buddy!"

And the weight lifts. It clanks back into place on the rack, and I gasp and let my arms fall limply down. I can only stare at the gaudy, iron-beams overhead, but then I close my eyes. The blood pumping through my head makes a static like noise fill my ears, but I still hear Hinder's "Lips of an Angel" playing from somewhere. There's movement to my right, and then warmth spreads across my shoulder. Someone's patting it.

"You alright?" they ask. A faint chuff makes my ears flick. "Came pretty close, huh?"

It isn't Paul, that's for sure. Voice is too deep, too gentle. Through the dark of my closed eyes I can sense his presence, and it's looming. He's big.

"Hellooooooo," he says, poking instead of patting now. "Sleeping Beauty? Am I going to have to kiss you to wake you up?"

What an offer!

"Yep," I say to this stranger just because near-death experiences bring out my inner comedian. "I was going to kiss you anyway for saving my life."

"Sweet!" they bark.

And then I gasp as warmth covers my lips. Glaring, expecting to find a strange face over me, there's just a silver paw with its middle and index finger stuck together and stuck on my mouth. They feel faintly like lips. I sputter and they pull away.

"What the hell!?" I say, sitting up.

The handsome wolf from the mirror is squatting beside me, doing his best to hold in laughter. I go from red-faced fury to scarlet-faced embarrassment. Still, I notice he's blushing too, and his tail's sweeping back and forth across the floor. The residual warmth of his fingers against my mouth flares.

"I kissed them first," he says, wiggling his paw, voice on the verge of a chuckle. "And it worked!"

I feel so ridiculous that running for the door seems to be my only option, but I just sit and stare round-eyed at this guy. He soon understands that I feel like a fool, though, thanks to the three minutes of silence.

He clears his throat and I jump. "Hey, I'm...I'm sorry." He rubs the back of his head, bicep bunching up like a softball. "I was just being funny. Well, trying to be. I didn't really kiss them." He glances back at me, regards my silence, and then rises with a grunt. "I'll...leave now."

"God, I'm sorry," I blurt out as he turns to go. "I'm just..._really_out of my comfort zone here."

"You looked fine a while ago," he says straight-faced, idly patting his side.

I snort. "How would you know?"

His tail wags. "Mirrors. They're everywhere."

I tilt my head to the side. "Watching me, were you?"

He squints and smiles and his face bunches up. It's adorable. "Yep, and be glad I was, otherwise you'd be breathing through a crushed windpipe."

That knocks the breath out of me. My ears fall back. "Yeaaaaaaaaah, thanks for helping me."

He winks, ears fluttering. There's an impressive gauge in the left one. "No worries."

Still sitting, I do my best to grin at the herculean lupine. "I'm Tucker, by the way." My cheeks blush again. "So you can tell your friends about the newb to avoid."

"Hey," he says, frowning. He strides over and sits to my right on the bench. His arm brushes against mine. The fur's so soft. "Don't say that," he says. "I don't judge people here. So you're new--big deal. I was new to all of this once. I know it's overwhelming."

An athletic cheetah with about 6 percent body fat saunters by and I can't stop myself from staring. "In more aspects than one."

The wolf chuffs. "Yeah, lots of eye candy."

My floppy ears stand at attention. I turn to look at him, expecting him to be eyeing the cheetah like I had been, but he's looking right at me. His eyes flick upward, he snickers, and then he runs a paw over my head and brushes the tips of my ears.

"Sorry, but that expression's incredibly cute."

Super-mega-ultra-chocolate covered-hyper blush!

"Buh," I drool. "Bah, you...you're..."

"I'm Robin," he says cheerfully, winking and offering a paw. I somehow manage to shake it.

"Buh...buh, bah..."

He stands and pats the bench. "Want me to spot for you, Tuck?"

"O...okay." I lay down. The spot where he'd been sitting is so warm against my back. "Th...thanks."

He smiles down at me at grabs onto the bar, stepping closer. "No worries. And, hey..."

I grab onto the bar, too. "Y...yeah?"

"My crotch is in your face, hahaha."

I swallow. "I...I don't mind."

Did I mention I love the gym?