It was the night of the senior prom. For anyone who can remember being in high school, it’s usually one of the biggest nights of the year. Albert groaned in front of the mirror, trying to readjust his tie to keep it straight. The tie had been a Christmas present from his mom, a silk plaid pattern that matched the Scottish clan his great-grandfather had come from.

Barely satisfied, he glared at his reflection. The tuxedo looked sharp, but had clearly seen a lot of use. He and Ralph had actually played for a couple of wedding receptions, on top of the concerts with the school orchestra and county youth orchestra.

His mom stopped at the open bathroom door, holding up the flowers for himself and Michelle. “Do you have everything you’ll need?” she asked.

Albert took his carnation, pinning it to the lapel of his jacket with slightly shaking hands. “No, I think I’ve got everything.” He gave his mother a guarded smile. “Don’t worry, we aren’t going to be staying out all night.”

“I know. You’re a good kid.” She stopped there, as though unable to think of anything else to say. It had been that way most of his life, Albert thought, as everyone compared him to his brilliant, straight-A younger brother. “Have fun.” She gave him a quick hug, before returning to her bedroom.

Albert looked himself over once more in the mirror, then with a furtive glance, put a hand to the interior pocket of his jacket. To his relief, the box was still there. Taking a deep breath to calm his shaking hands, he left the house, driving to pick up Michelle.

As usual, her mother met him at the door. “Albert! You’re just a few minutes early. Come in, have a seat.” He perched on the edge of a sofa cushion, trying to fight down the butterflies in his stomach. I just hope I’ll be calm enough to eat when we get to the restaurant, he thought, clenching his fists.

In about five minutes, Michelle came out of her room, preceded by her mother. The gray, tabby-striped girl was wearing an almost skin-tight emerald dress, the same color as her eyes. Her shyness mostly disappeared with a giggle at the sight of his face. “You need to pick up your jaw, Albert,” she said, hiding her grin behind a hand.

Stumbling to his feet, he took a deep breath, striding over a little more confidently, slipping the corsage onto her wrist. Finding a flower shop that could dye the roses had been a pain, and cost him an extra twenty, but seeing the silver-shaded blossoms glistening against her fur was definitely worth it.

She oohed and aahed over the flowers, before her mother pressured them to stand together for a half-dozen pictures. With spots swimming in their eyes, they stumbled out of her house, heading for the car at the curb.

In relative privacy, they stopped for a few minutes, glad for the opportunity to kiss and hold each other. With Michelle’s whiskers soon close enough to tickle his cheeks, Albert had to pull back laughing. “Oh, sure, laugh at the way I kiss you,” she teased.

“You know exactly why I’m laughing, you little hellcat,” he teased back. Her whiskers curved even further forward, the closest she came to blushing. With a muted rumble, the Toyota swung out into traffic. “Let’s go have dinner with Ralph and Krystal.”

Ralph was almost notoriously fickle with his girlfriends around school. He’d dated every furry female except Michelle, and at least one of the furry guys, and at least a dozen human girls. Krystal was his latest human girlfriend, and at two months, surprisingly long-lasting. Albert and Ralph had frequent mock arguments about it, to the amusement of many other students.

They pulled into the restaurant parking lot barely a minute too soon. Ralph, dressed in a rather stunning silver suit, and Krystal, in a red dress that begged to be ripped off, were making out just outside the doors. “Hey, they’re here,” Ralph muttered around a kiss at the other two approached.

“Damn,” Krystal muttered, only half-serious. The meal passed surprisingly quickly, broken with frequent bouts of laughter as Ralph continuously failed his attempts to eat properly with chopsticks.

The dance seemed like little more than a whirl of noise and color. Dresses and tuxedos of all colors abounded. One couple also swapped clothes halfway through the night, the girl dancing around in the neon pink tuxedo, while her date flaunted his stuff in a banana yellow slinky dress and three-inch heels.

Somewhere, hours into the party, Albert and Michelle sat down at the table, pulling their chairs close together and snuggling. “I didn’t know dancing was such hard work,” he said over the music.

She laughed, resting her head on his shoulder. “It’s because we’re having so much fun,” she said back. “Geez, now I wonder if all the school dances have been this fun, and I missed it all.” A contented purr could be barely felt through the jacket, and he grinned back, trying to imitate it into her ear.

Michelle laughed, pushing him away as she tried to control herself. With a smile, Albert took her hand, leading her away from the dance floor. The school had rented a house, almost a mansion he would have thought, for the prom. They went upstairs, and out onto the open balcony. The music could still be heard, but not quite so loudly. A few other couples were up there as well, mostly just holding each other and talking quietly.

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, Albert pulled out the box. With some puzzlement, Michelle opened it, pulling out one of the small silver pieces. “What are these?” she asked, turning it over in her hands.

Albert shrugged, a little uneasy. “They’re kind of like earrings, for furries.” He took it from her, carefully slipping it over one triangular ear. With one in place, she carefully put the other one on as well, then frowned at him. “I don’t have a mirror, so how am I supposed to see what these look like?” They also made it more difficult for her to flatten her ears, as she discovered.

Feeling a little let down at her reaction, he led her back down to the first floor, until they reached the bathrooms, and she could use the mirror. The silver almost blended into her fur, just like the dyed roses on her arm. But here, the effect was only evident when she moved, making her ears sparkle and shine in the light.

Gasping in surprise, she turned her head, trying to see them from every angle. Another girl offered her a makeup mirror, and she turned around, trying to see the effect from the rear as well. Finally, she dropped the mirror joyfully on the counter and turned to Albert. “These are incredible!” Small tears were forming in her eyes, and she threw her arms around him.

Unfortunately, it surprised him, and they toppled over onto the floor. He caught Michelle so she didn’t strike the floor quite so hard. Several students and a few teachers turned, concerned, but they got up unharmed and mostly oblivious. One senior, out of their hearing, turned to his girlfriend asking, “Why aren’t you that excited when I give you something?”

Tired, and with their heads whirling from the excitement and loud music, they almost missed the announcement for the prom court. Within moments, most of the senior class was assembled on the dance floor, waiting for them to read out the names. Principal Strauss blathered on for too long, before finally taking the envelopes. “Alright, here’s the winners. For Prom King – Ralph Creedy?”

His surprise was painfully evident over the microphone, but students were clapping and cheering as the fox clambered over the front of the stage, accepting the plastic crown with mock sincerity. The queen was someone Albert and Michelle didn’t know, but they danced anyway. After the first slow dance, the DJ swapped records, and Albert howled with laughter as the next song started. Pointing at his friend, he shouted over the noise, “You are a devious, evil bastard!”

To the surprise and even greater dismay of Principal Strauss, most of the students started dancing the Time Warp with the music. Ralph had jumped up on stage, leading for the students who didn’t know how the moves went.

By the time that song was over, Albert and Michelle stumbled outside, grateful to gasp in fresh air. “What the heck was that?” she asked between gulps of air.

“It’s from a really strange movie,” he replied, taking deep breaths to calm his fluttering heart. He jumped a moment later when the alarm on his watch started beeping. “And that means it’s eleven. I don’t know about you,” he glanced at her with a smile, “but I think I’ll collapse if I dance any more.”

She nodded, slipping one arm around his, and they caught the two-block limo shuttle back to the parking lot. They held hands the whole way back to her house, as well, and he escorted her inside. The house was quiet and dark. “Both of my parents are at work now,” she whispered. A little nervously, Michelle put her arms around his shoulders.

Kissing quickly upgraded to groping, and when her dress started to slip off her shoulders, she led him to her room. Somehow, they managed to undress each other, and despite their nervous fumbling, their hands never seemed to leave each other’s bodies. They fell onto the bed, naked, joined at the mouth. Very shortly, Michelle arched her back, clutching her legs around his hand where it teased her, mewling happily.

Lying back, she pulled him closer to her. “Make love to me, Albert,” she whispered into the dark. He almost rolled over on top of her, too eager to please her, before jumping up and suddenly ransacking his clothing. “What is it?” she asked, suddenly nervous and feeling rejected.

He grinned then, brandishing the condom. “I grabbed a few last week, when Sarah went around the cafeteria passing them out to all the students.” She laughed a little, playing with herself as he inexpertly unrolled the condom over his erection.

Impatiently, he crawled over her, managing to slip inside her. She sighed happily, wrapping her arms around him, the tip of her tail flicking back and forth between his legs. The feelings were so intense, Albert found himself at orgasm within seconds, gasping into her mouth as they kissed.

But he was too horny, he kept going, unwilling to accept that it could all be over so soon. The passionate emotions kept him going, until he felt her tightening around him. Michelle grabbed his shoulders, pulling him towards her, her fingers kneading his back as she cried out into his neck. Feeling her orgasm, he followed her whispering her name as she held him.

They lay there in the dark, still too desperate for each other to be still. Kissing and running their hands up and down each other’s body, they waited until Albert was soft enough he slipped out. As he started to rise, he realized that it had left the condom behind, still inside Michelle. Blushing and feeling like an idiot, he pulled it out, to her laughter. “I’ve never done this before,” he muttered. “What should I do with this?”

“I don’t know,” she laughed, curling up with her head on his thigh. “Flush it down the toilet, I suppose.” Reluctantly, she allowed him to rise, and he hurried to the bathroom to flush the evidence.

He checked his watch as well, and blinked in surprise at the time. “It’s almost midnight,” he said, unhappily gathering his clothes from the floor. “I have to get home before we worry about my mom calling here.”

She rose from the bed, unconsciously covering herself with her hands. They kissed, then kissed some more, only breaking it off when Albert felt another erection start to stir. “If I don’t leave now,” he nervously laughed, “I’ll still be here when your parents get home.”

She gave him a small pout, then suddenly wrapped her arms around him in a crushing embrace. “Please, call me when you get home?”

He gave her another small kiss, buttoning up his shirt. “Oh, Michelle, anything you ask for.” He shivered as a furred hand helped him pull up his pants, brushing the insides of his thighs.

Later that night, on the phone, they talked to each other, discussing fantasies in hushed tones and listening to each other gasp and quiver as they repeatedly passed the point of no return. Finally, somewhere around dawn, when neither of them could keep their eyes open, or use their arms any longer, they said goodbye. “Albert? I think I love you.”

He was silent for a moment, smiling. “I love you too, Michelle,” he whispered back. He barely managed to drop the phone back into the cradle and pull the covers up before sleep overtook him.