Feral High, Ch. 3 (Patreon)

A few minutes later, Anon was almost literally being squashed into an old, ratty looking couch that was stuffed into the corner of an otherwise abandoned room on the lower floor of the school. Zenza sat on his left, and Shazi on his right, the two girls giggling and laughing at some joke the other had told and constantly making sure they were pressed right up against him. He tried to extricate himself a little just to maintain his own space but then, once again, the canine girl laid a gentle but firm paw on his arm and he felt immobilized. All he succeeded in doing was sliding further down the back of the couch and them leaning in closer around him. What was even happening?

They had all begun to smoke, puffing on e-cigs of various sizes, exhaling various gouts of smoke and steam from their nostrils and making the whole room hazy. It didn't smell bad at all really, mostly fruity, but he declined taking a try on the one that Shazi offered him. He didn't smoke, and they seemed to respect that, even complimented him on it. IT would have even been a nice feeling to be hanging out with them, if Kenzi, their apparent leader, didn't keep her eyes locked on him the whole time. The Hyena barely seemed to blink, or even talk, just looming in the background and rounding out their strange trio of personalities.

Shazi was brash, loud, and sarcastic, full of quips and jokes that made Anon's ears flush, but never crass or vulgar. She had no internal filter, it felt like, and said exactly what she felt. He wished he could have that kind of self confidence, although from what she had said, it earned her few other friends, not that she needed them. What surprised him was that immediately after saying that, Zenza had leaned across him, squashing various soft, furry pleasantness against him for a second, to plant a kiss on the leopard's cheek. Then they both laughed and kept puffing. Shazi had had a falling out, apparently, with her old friends in the cheerleading club when she had refused to be the driver for a night of underage drinking.  To put it in her own terms, "This girl wants to survive graduation, and that shit aint gonna happen if I'm dead behind the wheel while driving a buncha drunk bitches." He respected that kind of attitude, although telling her that had only earned him an awkward feeling nuzzling against his arm with her head, her purring filling his ears. "Thanks, little homey," she said. "You fit right in with us."

Zenza, meanwhile, had once been a starring member of the school's drama club, as well as a singer in choir. She had the look of someone born for the stage, but after her boyfriend's explosion and destruction of the stage props right before a big play, she had been ostracized by her former friends and bullied into dropping the club entirely. She even pulled a phone out from her bra, flustering poor Anon even more, and showed him pictures of her in various costumes, and even a recording of her singing. She had a lovely voice, and she had done her fur differently back then, bushier and yet sleeker. Not to say that she wasn't lovely now, but she combed it all flat and kept it shiny with product now. She still wanted to shine, and he could tell she really missed acting. He asked why she never tried to rejoin, or talk to a teacher, and there he understood a bit of awkwardness in regards to their third companion.

Kenzi was the daughter of a cop, an all-around upstanding citizen who everyone expected great things from her daughter, who just wanted to be left alone to figure out things concerning her own interests, although she said none of this and the other two girls had to fill him in on it. As a result, she became a wild child, experimenting, dating, and quickly developing a reputation as a troublemaker. And by becoming her friends, the other two had not so much suffered the same but garnered a fair amount of wary apprehension from others around them. None of them actively did anything illegal or dangerous, except for stunts in the woods and sometimes they graffitied the trains. Anon began to get the feeling that all three girls were just horribly misunderstood, and he could relate significantly to that. When Shazi stated, bluntly, that she had to pee, Zenza went with her, and he decided to stay rather than take the chance to escape.

He asked Kenzi what she liked to do as the other two padded their way down the hall away from them, if she had any interests, knew what she wanted to do. Her response was the same feral grin, puffing on her e-cig. He gulped and shyly admitted that he understood where she was coming from as the others had told it, how he had been bullied at his old school and not given a chance to find out who he was either yet. She seemed to nod a bit as he spoke, not saying much, and then abruptly stood up from her wall crouch she had remained in, and stomped over towards him. He gulped as he looked up at her, paws in her jacket pockets and teeth glinting.

"Mind if I sit down?" she asked then, voice very rough and growly. He nodded and made to scoot over more on the couch. "Cool." She sat down heavily, making the whole couch shake and jump a bit, and incidentally making him slide a bit back down towards her as the middle bowed a bit down. She leaned back against the back of the couch, looking up at the ceiling, the room dark around them. Her arms were spread wide across the back, and he felt as surrounded by just one of those burly arms as he had been trapped between the two girls. It was a very intimidating feeling, but he had to admit not a bad one. She puffed again on her e-cig. "Sorry about you being bullied," she said eventually. "People won't do that here if you hang with us. Too scared to."

Anon admitted that that sounded very nice, but when he glanced up at her face, she was still looking at the ceiling. He joked in asking if people had a reason to be scared around her.

"Probably," she said, making him gulp. "I have a problem controlling my Aggression." He had heard about that before, while researching before coming here but he didn't know the specifics. "Anthros have this musk, I guess you could call it," she explained. "When we are stressed, or scared, angry, hungry, or turned on, we subconsciously release a chemical called Aggression. It triggers our Predator or Prey instincts, and lets others around us know so they can either get out of the way, join in, help, or whatever. In the old days, it led to a lot of fighting and injuries. But nowadays we have Aggression Awareness classes in elementary, along with tons of drugs and psychotherapy to reduce our sensitivity to it. Humans can't really sense it the same way, but you do tend to get jumpier when someone 'turns it on'. We aren't trying to dominate or intimidate you, but it's part of our anatomy that that's how we know to act on our impulses or not to."

Anon took all of this in with fascination, Kenzi sounded so smart and it made a lot more sense. Was that why Anthros had that distinct, overpowering scent? And why their bodies put off so much heat? Wait, did that mean that everyone was so friendly towards him in class, smelled, and were hotter around him because...?

"Yep, probably," she cackled, betraying her Hyena nature. "Humans used to be alien to us, but now you're this new, almost kind of taboo, exotic thing, and by nature, Anthros are curious. We have very little impulse control. Everyone wants to know how you think, behave, breed." Anon's face went cherry red. "It's not that they just want to have fun with you and then leave, Anthros are both more open about sex and also way more attached to it. Mating isn't just some carnal orgy for us or that we just sleep around with everyone we want to, although we do understand that's how the media makes us look. You just know someone better through it, the way we look at it anyways."

Anon took this all in while trying to wrap his head around the admittedly preconceived notion that Anthros really were a lot more risque than humans just by nature. She had a point; for years, during the Fursuit craze, people when first trying to coexist alongside Anthros had developed the opinion that they were simply more vulgar and violent by nature, and while that had attracted a few people, it had also led to a lot of misunderstandings of humans trying to hook up with Anthros and the Anthros being insulted or offended by the idea that they would just mate on the drop of a hat. Kenzi painted a picture that Anthros did indeed have standards, had come a long way from their roots, and were socially aware how they were expected to behave. Anon felt guilty for even once believing the rumors and racial discrimination rampant around his old school.

"Now me?" she continued, cackling. "I still mate whenever the urge takes me. Guys, girls, doesn't matter. Only my crowd's gotten a lot slimmer lately since everyone's so scared of me. And admittedly I'm a bit of a bitch. Bad relationship material." Anon shyly but firmly said that he doubted that, without thinking, and her paw fell around his shoulders like a lead weight. Looking up at her, she kept staring straight up, as if zoned out. "Doubt or not, I'm not anyone's ideal type of girlfriend, even the masochistic, shut in, submissive types. It's ok though. I'll figure out what I want for my life to be when I get older and people shut up about expectations. What about you?"

Anon had no aspirations, just to exist, survive, and maybe find a bit of acceptance. He liked admittedly nerdy things like tabletop games and video games, but he also liked music, art, acting, comedy, and painting. He diversified his interests in the arts, even had grown up wanting to be a painter. But he had been bullied out of art class by both students and his unhelpful teacher. Her paw patted his shoulder.

"That sucks," she said simply. "Sounds like you need to just try again though. Not every school's a prison yard. I've been to Juvie enough that I know the difference. Just put yourself out there, and damn what other people think. You're living your life for you, not to make other people happy."

What she said hit him hard and he looked down at his knees as he heard the other two girls approaching again, their voices loud and energetic. Kenzi's paw seemed to tighten on reflex around him and suddenly he was being pulled tighter against her burly and busty chest, the hard leather creaking around him and her smell abruptly distracting him from his introspection. The two girls rounded the corner at that moment, and immediately made cooing noises at the apparent sight. Shazi snapped a photo of them immediately and Zenza flounced back to sit down against the foot of the couch, head leaned back on his knees. He felt incredibly surrounded and uncomfortable, but for the soft fur and the sheer warmth radiating around him. If only he had more experience with girls...

As if by a blessing, the school bell began to toll, and a chime of his phone alerted him to a text message from Suri, letting him know that the officer was here to take him home. He tried to excuse himself, and the disappointed noises made by Shazi and Zenza almost broke him, but they did eventually let him up. Kenzi winked at him as he stood, but not before snagging his phone in her huge paw and putting her number in as "#1 Bitch", and then proceeding to hand it to both of her friends to also do the same. And then Shazi and Zenza were kissing his cheek, lips warm but noses cold, and hugging him goodbye. His face felt like it wanted to burn off as he waved awkwardly goodbye and he hurried down the hallway from them.

Suri greeted him by the doors, concerned for the red flush on his face, but he explained it away about something with the heating system in the school and lots of really friendly people. Suri nodded along, starting up the monster engine of his squad car, and just as they were pulling out from the school, his phone chimed again.

All it said was, "We will continue where we were later. ;) " from Kenzi. Anon had no idea how to even respond, but a warm glow settled in his stomach for some reason. This year was already so interesting...but what would be more interesting would be if he survived it.