FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Another day, another set of overconcerned parents. Or in this case, an aunt and an uncle.

During the end of the work week, a pair of middle-aged gray foxes with conservative clothes and a Mormon demeanor came to my office, requesting for me to investigate their adult nephew. Having raised him ever since the kit’s parents passed away from a drunk driver, they were torn about him moving into the dorms at college after high school graduation. However, Benjamin Mullen had been uncharacteristically insistent about.

“Benjamin’s always been a good boy,” Mrs. Mullen explained while fidgeting with her dress. “He gets good grades at university, never smokes, never drinks, has a steady part-time job, but recently, Joseph and I have begun to notice him…acting out of character.”

I pretended to sound invested, despite knowing the answer a mile away. “Out of character, how?” Mentally, I started going through the list of possible ‘sins’ or ‘satanic influences’ their young nephew could be under but settled on the realistic notion of him simply pressing for more independence. “Most college students go through changes after moving out of their guardians’ home. I did too and turned out fine, ma’am.”

“Well, yes,” Mr. Mullen gruffly agreed, “that is to be expected, but—”

“See, there is this other boy he’s befriended,” his wife explained, “and ever since they started hanging out between classes, Benji has today been acting out whenever he visits us. He has less time to visit us on the weekends, misses our nightly phone calls, and when he does answer the telephone, he sounds so tired and lethargic. Just last night, we discovered that he got fired from his job, and when he called him, he insisted not to worry about any spending money!”

Simply put, they believed he had gotten involved in drinking or drugs. Parental figures nowadays would pay any amount of money to go behind their wards’ backs, rather than actually sit down and talk to them like adults. Sometimes it was unbelievable. Oh well, whatever got me paid.

Part of me wanted to dismiss Mr. and Mrs. Mullen as clients, but Daniel insisted we needed the money so he could purchase us a new microwave. So, I took the case, and silently made a future mental note to get contacts for family therapists.

Finding Benjamin Mullen wasn’t hard. Getting into the Crossroad City University campus wasn’t difficult either. With my short height and still being in my mid-to-late twenties, I easily blend it in with the rest of the other students going back-and-forth between classes. The fox’s aunt and uncle were kind enough to give me his schedule, but I disagreed with them on attending the classes to see what he was up to, especially the ones that involved this new friend of his; Mitch DeSanta, a coyote sophomore of medium height, pure confidence, and who liked wearing Texas cowboy boots despite not having the accent.

The moment Mrs. Mullen described Mitch as ‘handsome’ and ‘roguish’, I had two conclusions: Either the middle-aged gray foxes were making mountains out of anthills, or their nephew happened to be in a closeted relationship.

“My bet’s on the closet,” I muttered to myself while watching Benjamin from afar.

He had just left one of his evening classes and began to drift from one study hall to the next. The boyish, casual gray fox walked as if he was looking forward to the rest of the evening. He wore a loose-fitting hoodie jacket with the University of Crossroads City logo printed across the back, plus denim jeans too torn up to actually be something his aunt and uncle would’ve bought for him. I felt bad for following him, but money was money.

My suspicions were confirmed in three stages; number one, when Benjamin stopped by a bathroom and left a minute later with his headfur combed properly. Number two, when he approached a familiar Coyote to hug him immediately after the other canine left with other students from their finished lecture. It wasn’t a friendly hug either. However, the third and final clue came when they started walking down a sidewalk to the dorm buildings, paw-in-paw.

I started pulling out my phone, pretending to look at the weather or a news update, when the canine pair suddenly world around to face me. In hindsight, I probably should have doubled my distance to around thirty or forty feet, as well as account for the fact that most of the students on campus were flocking to the main hall for cafeteria food.

“Why are you following us?” Mitch stepped forward, asserting his height over me as I held up both paws. Benjamin stood closely with concern and anger in his eyes. “Benji said you’d been failing him for a couple days. Can you tell us what the fuck you’re doing?”

“Easy, easy, I’m sorry I scared you two,” I said, picketing my phone and pulling out my P.I. badge for them to see. In situations like this, I had a choice between lying through my teeth and potentially getting banned from the campus after getting a complaint or being truthful with the target. I decided to go for the latter, instead of making life more difficult for everyone involved. “My name’s Leander, I’m a private investigator. You’re uh…aunt and uncle were concerned that you were taking drugs.”

The laughter that came out of the gray fox and his coyote boyfriend alleviated the tension. Mitch looked completely dumbfounded by my explanation while Benjamin appeared unamused.

“I take it this isn’t the first time they’ve tried something like this?” I asked the fox.

“Nope,” he said, shaking his muzzle. “At this point, I wondered how long it would be before they started following me themselves…”

Several minutes later, I invited to get them food so we could discuss what was going on, which they happily accepted what I said I would pay out of pocket. The canines and I soon sat down at a private corner booth in the campus cafeteria, me having a pumpkin spice latte and the others having pizza. For the following hour or so, Benjamin explained how overprotective and sometimes invasive his relatives could be. His parents dying in a car crash had affected them severely, almost to the point of either his aunt or uncle imagining terrible scenarios that would happen to him at school or in extracurricular activities. Forget about him even trying to come out of the closet until he moved out.

What eventually broke the camel’s back though was when he finally started dating Mitch not long after they formed a nice friendship, and Benjamin had slowly begun to go no-contact with his adopted folks. Even his manager at work got tired of their checkup calls and lied about him getting fired so they would leave the telephone line alone.

“Probably not the best choice,” Benjamin conceded. “I’m tired of my choices constantly offending them. I’m not a kid anymore, and they can’t keep thinking I got mugged or raped or overdosed because my phone is turned off…”

Sitting beside the frustrated gray fox, Mitch patted his shoulder comfortingly. “You’re not gonna tell them about what ya saw, are you?” he asked.

“Now I’m the one who’s offended,” I dryly joked. “You don’t need to worry. I’m a private eye, not a snitch, and what you two are doing has nothing to do with what I’d been hired for.” I casually sipped on more of my latte, then looked to Benjamin. “And if it makes you feel better, I’ll talk to the other agencies and warn them about your aunt and uncle using them to harass you.”

Benjamin beamed. “I would love that, thank you.”

I also planned on changing my Terms of Service to include a few additional rules. Daniel would object, but I needed to do it if not for my clients’ wallet’s sake, then my own sanity. If I had to deal with clingy religious parents one more time, I was going to need a vacation.