FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

My condo's living room couldn't be any more cleaner. The carpet was vacuumed, the kitchen remained spotless, and my paws shook in anticipation as I waited for Jim to arrive.

I stared down at my smartphone, particularly the app that my son recommended to me last month. Onscreen showed a photograph—a 'selfie', my daughter-in-law called it—of a handsome timber wolf in his mid-twenties, with thick, wavy grey fur, piercing green eyes and a smile that showed pristine white teeth. His physique particularly attracted the side of me I'd longed to repress since my youth; a bare, muscular frame of wavy chest fur that Jim claimed to be from a casual session or two ever week in the gym, and toned legs he earned from spending his entire high school years on track-and-field. His swimming trunks revealed not much, save for an almost visible bulge that always made me blush, trying my best to imagine what lay hidden beneath the tacky Hawaiian pattern.

He sent me another text.

It read, “I am almost there. See you soon, big bear ????"

I could not help but smile at the emoticon.

“I hope to see you soon as well," I replied back, realizing too late how formal I typed. I couldn't help it though, given my lack of experience on apps like this. Especially dating apps.

I sighed. No, to be specific: dating apps for gay men, like myself.

Despite the butterflies dancing in my stomach, and the eagerness to finally meet Jim after several weeks spent communicating with him, I did not know how to feel about this. It had been only a year and a half since Bethany…passed on. Eighteen agonizing months of losing my wife and best friend of forty-one years. Eighteen agonizing months of waking up to an empty bed in an empty condo.

Our final conversations on her death bed, each day as the leukemia took hold of her precious soul, still resonated in my mind. She had known the longest about my…tastes in the same gender but didn't care.

When I asked how she knew, she mentioned how I'd often look at other males whenever we went somewhere. Still, she was thankful I kept my vows and remained faithful to her alone throughout our years together. She later told me how much she loved me, that I was the best husband any woman could ask for, raising the children to be accomplished adults and remaining by her side through thick and thin. However, she wanted me to promise her two things.

One, to come out to our children. Tell them the truth about myself.

Two, to go out and love again, but this time, for the gender I found myself most attracted to. Times had greatly changed since our childhood days, she told me, and I needed to find myself once she passed. Initially, I tried to refuse, but Bethany was a stubborn she-bear, making me look into her eyes and promise her I would live again. So, I did. I promised her.

Days later, the only girl I ever loved left this Earth.

Jim had been aware for some time that I'd been a widow. At first, I thought he'd grow cold feet soon after and 'ghost' me like the other men I'd talked to. However, he didn't He stayed, eager to talk to me each morning. Retirement gave me plenty of time to myself in the morning, afternoon and evening; it allowed the chance for me to explore new hobbies, finish some stalled home project as well as to speak to Jim when he did not work as an accountant in the inner city. Turned out, he and I enjoyed the same hobbies and interests, and the handsome timber wolf introduced me to new terminologies on the Internet (a few days ago, he sure had fun explaining to me what DILFs and GILFs are, much to my confusion).

“What the hell are you talking about?" I remembered asking him.

“You do not know what a DILF or GILF is?" he laughed on the other end of the call.

“Is it a new phrase like YOLO or something?"

The wolf laughed even harder.

“It's an abbreviation," he calmed down, “It means I'm attracted to you. You're an older bear, but I still find you sexy and attractive, and I've enjoyed talking to you. I really have."

“Me too…" I couldn't help but smile. “But what does it stand for then?"

Now, I finally heard his car pull in, and the handsome younger wolf immediately beamed at the sight of me as I opened the door and invited him inside. Seeing him here vs on a phone screen certainly felt…odd, but his cheerful demeanor and friendly, patient attitude as we talked melted my uncertainty away.

We conversed about many topics while sharing a glass of wine; his day, my day, his ride over here, my struggle in trying to grow a garden in the backyard, his boss unable to give him a raise, the usual. Jim didn't act less animated as the minutes turned into hours, not as we finished watching an old movie I kept among my VCR tape collections, nor when I absentmindedly leaned in close to his side, watching a YouTube video with him on his phone.

“Uh…oh, sorry Jim!" I realized, trying to back away.

“No, it's okay, really…" he half-laughed, holding my greyer-furred paw. “I don't mind…"

I couldn't remember much, but at some point into the evening, we were drunkenly kissing, then fumbling into the bedroom, undressing each other like blushing schoolboys about to lose their virginities.

“If you don't want," he hiccupped, then giggled, “we…ah…we can stop…"

“I don't…mmm, mind," I breathed into his neck, yanking him in a big bear hug against, my older, bare chest, “Hmmm, It's been so long, I'd forgotten what it's like…"

Before today, the only other male I'd ever touched was this boy from early high school. We practiced kissing once or twice in the safety of the nearby woods, holding each other close and groping the other until either of us climaxed. One week, he'd go on to get a girlfriend, pretending what we did never happened. Like it was a mistake. Well, back then, that was the mentality of my generation, but now…

In all honesty, nothing about his caressing touch and pressing erection felt unnatural at all. And as we lapped and kissed and laughed together, naked under my sheets as the day we were born, Jim panting and huskily telling me to take him like a 'big bear'—which I did in ecstatic passion, thrusting and drooling all over his shivering back each moment I made love to this canine—I felt more alive than I ever had in years. It especially grew and erupted in a geyser of sexual healing when I climaxed inside Jim, and we lay together entwined in bed, drunkenly sleeping in the others arms and grinning like the happiest doofuses on Earth.