I wake up early in the morning with a smile on my face. The first step of a new journey is always the hardest, but I get to do it with a side of pampering. I roll over, draping an arm across Anon’s chest. He stirs awake under my touch.

He slowly opens his eyes as he groggily smirks at me, resting his hand over mine. “Hey…good morning, Fang,” he says with a yawn.

“Good morning, Anon.” I give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m gonna go get ready for my day out with Trish. You going to be okay here all by yourself?”

He tiredly nods with another hefty yawn. “Sure, I’ll be fine. Figure I can bother Naser. Probably need to spend some bro time with him anyway. Always seems like he’s got a lot on his mind but doesn’t want to say it. I could try to be a shoulder for him to lean on.” He shrugs.

Naser does have a lot of weight on his shoulders. I know he seems happy that things with him and Naomi are over, but it still had to hurt. He could use a good friend like Anon to take his mind off things. “You know, I think you are right about that. He’s not one to have anyone else take on his burdens; too busy trying to fix everyone else’s. Thank you. I appreciate you doing that for him.”

He smiles as he kisses me on the lips. “Glad to do it. I’m part of the family, after all. A family that actually cares about me…fucking weird feeling, I’ll tell you that much.” He pats my hand as pulls himself free from the blankets and me, heading to the dresser and sifting through his clothes.

“You don’t need to get up right now, you know,” I say as I hop out of bed. I walk up beside him as I grab a shirt and pants I don’t mind getting dye on. I know I’m going to love my new look; I just hope Anon does, too.

“I know, but no time like the present to get ready. Naser is an early riser and I want to catch him before he sprints off on a morning jog or some shit. I’ll wait to take a shower just in case I end up having to go with him.” He slides on his normal shirt and jacket, pulling on a pair of blue jeans, tightening them up with a fresh new leather belt I got him.

“Try to be clean before I get back home…don’t need stink all over my fresh new look.” I smirk and he chuckles.

“Any hints at all?” he asks as he straightens out his jacket.

“Not a one. I want it to be a complete surprise.” I wrap my arms around his back and hug him tight. “I’ll catch you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too.” He gives me a squeeze back and I head down the hall. I take great care in avoiding getting my hair wet in the shower. Trish told me it’s best to go in with it unwashed so it doesn’t fuck up your hair so much when you get it dyed, plus they are going to wash it for me afterward and there is no feeling like someone else’s fingers through your hair.

Hopping out of the shower, I quickly dry off and put on my clothes. I don’t think they’ll get anything on them, but I don’t need any of my good clothes ruined by splashing dye. Not going to put on makeup; it’d just get ruined anyway. I tie my hair below my crest into a ponytail after I finish brushing my teeth. After a quick swish of mouthwash to get the smoke smell out of my mouth, it’s time to go pick up Trish.

I whip out my phone and tap out a quick message to Trish.

Fang: Hey, you up? Our appointment is in an hour.

I can already see her typing back mere seconds after hitting send.

Trish: Of course, Fang! I’ve already been up for an hour. No idea how much I’ve been wanting to go on a salon trip with you. I could really use a good day just relaxing after everything that’s happened.

Fang: No kidding. Need me to call you a ride or something?

Trish: Naw I’m good. Mom is gonna drop me off while she’s driving to work. Meet you in front of the salon?

Fang: Sure thing, Trish. See you there.

Trish: Okay!

With that, I tap the number of the taxi service in town as I head down the stairs. My mom catches sight of me as I stroll through the living room and calls out to me.

“Hello dear! On your way to your girl time?” Her joyful smile is infectious and I resist the urge to groan at the mention of girl time.

“Mmhmm.” I peer into the kitchen, hunting for a snack. She instantly catches on and pulls a small sandwich roll out of the fridge and hands it to me.

“I had guessed you’d be hungry before you left. Had that made up for you. Enjoy and have a great time at the salon!” I smile at her before taking a nibble of the snack. Holy shit, this is good.

“Thanks, Mom!” I give her a hug and a kiss and she squeezes me back with a happy coo. I take a few more bites before deciding to eat the thing whole. I turn back to my phone and finish calling the taxi service as I walk outside.

“Hey! Whatcha need?” The unmistakable voice of the same raptor that drove us to prom crackles through my speakers.

“Hey, I need a ride to the salon. Can you come and—”

“Say no more.” I don’t get to say another word before he hangs up. Does he sit around town waiting for me or Anon to call? How the fuck does he stay in business? I don’t have time to continue that thought as the squealing of tires comes around the corner and he skids to a halt right by the curb.

“Hah. Still got it.” A felony driving record? Probably…fucking crazy bastard.

I hop in the back and lounge across the seat as he looks in the rear-view mirror. “Just you? That hunk of a boy toy not coming with you today?” He chuckles as I roll my eyes.

“Not like he’s going to be interested in going to the salon with me anyway. Just get me there quick. I don’t want to be late.”

“You got it, miss.” He clicks his tongue with a wink and puts it in drive. Not sure how he can drive so fast without hitting anything or getting a million tickets, but we arrive in record time and I reach into my wallet and pull out a few bills, tossing them on the seat.

“Thanks for the ride. Guess I’ll see you later tonight.”

He smirks with a nod. “Sure will. Take care of yourself.” He disappears into a puff of smoke as he speeds off to whomever else he actually works for in this city. I see Trish leaning next to the door. She spots me and a grin bursts across her face as she waves me down.

“Hey, Fang! You got here fast. I thought you lived like fifteen minutes away?”

I walk up beside her and shrug. “I do, but the crazy fucking taxi driver doesn’t believe in traffic laws and barely obeys physics. I guess we’ve got some time to kill.” I think about having a smoke but considering someone is about to be spending hours working on me, I don’t need to choke them out with fumes.

“All the ladies here know me. We can probably get in early if someone else forgot to show up for their appointment.”

“Works for me. Less time I sit around, less time any dumb part of me might try to reconsider this.” I sigh and she takes my arm.

“Don’t think about it too much, Fang. Just do what feels right. Everyone here is a professional and they can do anything you could ask for. Haircut, hair dye, mani, pedi, and even piercings. Come on!” She tugs on my arm, and we head inside.

The aroma of the place hit me first. Floral scents mixed in with the unmistakable smells of high-quality shampoo and conditioner fill the air. The walls are lined with all sorts of high-end salon care products and pictures of expensive looking haircuts decorate the empty spaces. The lighting is bright but soft on the eyes as it illuminates the whole place in an even and comforting glow. There are a couple of people sitting in incredibly comfortable-looking salon chairs chatting away with their pedicurist or hair stylists, laughing or groaning at whatever madness of the day they’ve come to escape. One of the more striking things to me is the employees. Nearly all of them are either triceratops, stegosauruses, or ankylosauruses. I guess with how much hair and horn work they have to deal with on a regular basis, they are probably experts in the craft.

The eldest triceratops amongst them smiles as she sees Trish and I come through the door. She absolutely dwarfs Trish in size, standing nearly two feet taller than her with light purple scales covering her body and speckles of soft yellow scattered about. Her long mint-colored hair is pulled into a masterful braid with a layer of finely combed hair on top of her head. Her olive-colored eyes lock onto Trish’s as she pulls the diminutive purple trike into her arms and squeezes the life out of her.

“Trish! I haven’t seen you in over a month…where have you been, darling?” she asks with a delighted tone as I hear the bones in Trish’s back cry for mercy.

Trish bears it admirably with a smile. “I’ve been…I’ve been a bit busy, Patricia. Been going through some rough stuff but I’m doing better.” Trish tilts her head toward me. “Me and my best friend are here to relax and pamper ourselves a bit.”

Patricia sets Trish down and looks at me in surprise. “You brought a friend? Is this the Fang you are always talking about? She finally caved in, huh?” She elbows Trish in the side with a wink.

Trish laughs and shakes her head. “Actually, this was her idea.” That floors Patricia for a second. “She’s starting a bit of a self-discovery quest and thought that this was the right place to begin. You ladies will treat her good, right?”

Patricia claps her hands together with a grin. “Oh, don’t you worry about a thing, Trish. I’ll make her feel like a queen when I’m done here. Now, what can I do for you, Miss Fang?” She walks up to me, sizing me up as she examines me.

“Well…hmm.” I think for a moment. What exactly do I want to do? You know what, fuck it. I just got my allowance for the month; I’m going to get whatever the hell I want. “How about everything? Mani, pedi, dye, haircut, and anything else we can think of.”

Patricia’s smile grows as she takes me by the hand. “You are going to leave here like you are floating on air, my dear! Take a seat.” She motions over toward a seat that has room for my wings to fit behind and safely be shielded from any splashing water, and with a nice-looking footrest. I sit down and kick up my feet; the soft texture of the chair feels like heaven on my scales as I sink into it a little.

“We will start with dyeing your hair. Now, what did you want to do?” She’s already combing through my long hair as I think.

“How about…let’s dye it black.”

“How black you want it, love?” She smiles as she watches me run the options through my head.

“Jet black. I want it to look like I absorbed all the light around me when I come into a room.” Patricia chuckles as she rummages around through a cabinet and pulls out a tube of the darkest dye to ever grace this planet, a bowl, and brushes.

“That I can do for you, dear. With a hair color like yours, it’ll take in one go and you’ll have hair as dark as midnight.” With that, she lowers me down again as she gets ready to mix the dye with developer. She wheels back into view for a moment. “This might take me a bit. You’ve got a lot of luxurious hair and I want to make sure I get every strand, so get comfy, honey.”

I keep my eyes closed as I feel her working a brush through my hair, covering every strand in a coat of black. I can’t wait to see this when it is done. I’ve never once dyed my hair. My mom never really approved of the idea back when I was younger, but I’m a full adult now—I can make my own decisions. Well, except for tattoos…until I move out, of course. It takes her a solid thirty minutes to coat my hair evenly before she wraps my hair in a shower cap and tosses her gloves in the trash.

“Alright, this’ll need to sit for about forty-five minutes and then we’ll finish it up. We shouldn’t need any heat, but we’ll check on it in a few. Until then, one of our pedicurists will start working on your feet so you aren’t sitting bored out of your mind. I’ll catch you in a little bit, love.”

She leads me back to a station in the back with chairs against the wall and little stools in front of them before wandering back to the front to talk to Trish. I can just barely make out some of the words but none of it sounds super happy. I can tell how sad Patricia is to see Trish’s shaven-down head and all the cuts, and a few quiet sobs break out of Trish as Patricia holds her tight. After a few tearful words, she sits Trish in the chair and cleans up the dye bowls and brushes before she starts polishing Trish’s horns. The smile on Trish’s face lets me know this is exactly what she’s been needing.

“Okay, pedicure coming up!” A cheerful voice pulls my attention away and I see a brightly colored ankylosaur lady standing in front of me. “First thing we need to do is soak those feet of yours. No nail polish to remove so don’t have to do that.” She puts a basin in the gap between the chair and the stool and places my feet inside. Warm soothing water fills the bowl and pulls the tension from my muscles. Holy crap, I need to do this shit more often.

She starts setting out some gear beside the stool. After about five or so minutes pass, she gently lifts my feet back onto a towel and removes the bowl. I nearly melt under her expert care as she exfoliates my feet and tends to every inch of them, flaking away any dried scales. She files and trims my claws to utter perfection, moisturizing and massaging away my every care in the world. She stops for a moment as she looks at me. “Natural color, or do you want something else?”

“Just keep them black, I like them that way. Just shiny please.” She nods to me and applies a clear coat of nail polish, bringing out their luster in the warm light of the salon. Satisfied with her work, she smiles at me and gently rests my feet on the chair’s footrest. Do I have to leave or can I just live here? I must have said that out loud as she chuckles.

“Well, thank you for that compliment!” Oh fuck, did I catch Anon’s mumbling? That shit can’t be contagious. “It won’t be long until they’re dry, and Patricia will come check on your hair. We can do your manicure after that. Take care!” She waves at me as she goes back to another customer. I turn my head to look at Trish again. She’s laughing as she chats away with Patricia. She does this all the time, not that I can blame her after today. Almost all of her free time is spent taking care of her siblings. Not for much longer, though. She’ll be moving out on her own and then Riley will be in charge, Raptor Jesus save their tiny souls.

She almost looks like nothing happened at all. Outside of the evidence etched across her body, you wouldn’t be able to tell that only a couple days ago she had hit her lowest point. A gentle smile curls onto my lips as I watch her giggle while Patricia tends to the crack in her horn. She groans as Patricia seems to be explaining options to her and nods to whatever was just offered. A few moments later, she grits her teeth as Patricia grinds it down a little, evening out her other horn to match. Fuck, that must hurt like a bitch, but she takes it like a champ. Trish smiles afterward, all evidence of the crack gone, replaced with resplendent horns.

I guess the dye has set long enough as Patricia gives Trish a kiss on the cheek before walking back to me. “Okay dear, let’s see how this set.” She chuckles as she pulls a strand out from the shower cap and wipes the dye away to check the color. “I think we’re all good now. If you’re not happy, of course I’ll redye it free of charge. I’m not worried, though…I’ve had lots of experience and I think this will look great.” Patricia leads me over to a sink and sits me down in the chair in front of it, rinsing the excess dye out. “Before I finish, what do you think? Dark enough?”

She hands me a mirror and I take a look. I gasp with a smile on my beak as I gently touch my hair. Even though it’s still wet, I can tell that not a single strand of it remains untouched by the new color that covers my head. It’s a pristine black coloring that draws so much attention to my face. Not that I’m bothered in the slightest by that…if I’m doing this band stuff for real, I’ll need every edge I can get.

I turn to her with the biggest smile on my face. “It looks freaking amazing! Thank you so much!”

“You are very welcome. I’ll finish conditioning it and then we can work on the cut. Now, how do you want your hair done?”

I grab my phone and pull up the picture I found last night. “How about this?” It’s a left-side-shaved look that gives me plenty of options when it comes to how I want to wear it. Either parted on the left, completely showing on the shaved side with the rest of the hair cascading over on the right, or I can part on the right and hide the shaved side if I want to…which I doubt I ever would.

I can see Patricia nod from the corner of my eye as she leans me back and begins to work conditioner through my hair, massaging my scalp with her claws as she makes sure each strand is coated. It takes all I have not to audibly groan in delight as her masterful hands glide through my hair, putting in more care now that she’s prepping it for a cut. She explains that she already rinsed the dye out, but the conditioner will help it set. Barely any seems to be washing off on her hands even with a second go. I give in and quietly moan as she runs her claws gently over my scalp again.

“Now I know you are relaxed! Enjoy yourself, honey. This is a day for you and you alone to enjoy.” She continues to wash away my troubles. The warm water is the absolute perfect temperature as it cascades through my hair. This is a heaven I don’t want to leave. Why did I refuse to come here with Trish for so fucking long? A few moments later, she finishes rinsing the conditioner from my hair and towel dries it a little before leaning me back up and leading me back to her station.

She puts a pair of scissors between her lips while combing my hair and straightening it out. She cuts with surgical precision, trimming back the uneven ends and damaged hair as she balances out the right side of my hair. She moves around to the other side and she combs my hair out of the way before she runs a pair of clippers across the side of my head. The clippers softly hum as they easily trim their way through my hair, leaving a soft fuzzy layer behind as she perfectly measures and evens out every spot. She turns her attention to the back of my head, being extra careful around my crest as she trims away.

After what feels like a comfortable eternity, she slides up back in front of me with a smile on her face as she holds out a mirror for me. “How do you like it, sweetie?”

I brush my hair aside to take a look at the shaved side of my head. It almost brings tears to my eyes as I let my fingers glide across the smooth fluffy surface. This is Fang, right here. This is the me kept locked inside that I kept pushing back to make everyone happy. I’ll draw her out, piece by piece. I nod to Patricia with an ever-growing grin as I examine the perfectly trimmed ends of my hair.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen my hair look better! Thank you so much.”

She smiles back at me. “My pleasure, dear. Now just got to get your manicure done and we are all set…unless there is anything else you might want as well, of course.”

I think for a moment. No time like the present and I am all in at this point. I gesture toward my left eyebrow, and I can tell she’s picking up my plan. “I want to get a piercing here, if that is possible.” I point just to the left of the center of my eyebrow.

“Sure thing. Can do that for you easy. Fair warning, though, piercings closer to the middle of the eyebrow can hurt like hell. Just want to make sure you are aware of that before we go through with it.”

I nod with a grin. “I can handle it. Might cuss a little, but I’ll survive.”

With that, she nods to me and helps me up and leads me to the manicurist’s table. A slightly skinny violet-colored stegosaurus woman smiles as I sit down in front of her. “Hello love!” she says with a cheery voice. “A quick manicure for you and then I’ll take care of that piercing you want as well. I do both those jobs around here. Helps when you’ve got a welcoming voice for when people are about to get just a tiny bit of ouch.” As she’s talking, she takes my hands in hers, examining them thoroughly before getting to work.

She rests my hands in a small basin in front of her for a few minutes before gently drying them off with a soft towel. She picks up an emery board and gently files and shapes down my claws, leaving them sharp but immaculate. She expertly tends to my hands, not missing a single spot as tends to them and my claws, then looks up at me. “Do you want any gloss or anything today?”

“How about just a nice glitter gloss to make the black stand out. Is that okay?” I ask as she examines my claws and nods.

“Sounds great to me, hon!” She swiftly applies a glitter polish to each one of my claws, drying each one in turn by sticking my claw into a little box with a UV LED light before repeating the process with a clear top coat. It takes twenty minutes to do the whole thing. After she’s done, she lets me take a look. It looks like stars glistening across my clawtips and I marvel at them. They are done so perfectly I don’t want to ever let this crack.

“They look beautiful! Thank you so much!” I say as I continue to check out every last one of my claws.

“You are very welcome! Now comes the only slightly unfun part of your day. Don’t worry, it’ll be over quickly and I understand if you need to drop an f-bomb or two. We’ll get it done and stick a single curved barbell in there until you decide to do anything else yourself.” She places a small mark just above and below my eyebrow to the left of the center and looks at me for approval. When I nod, she grabs clamps my eyebrow where it’s marked and pulls it up slightly.

“Are you ready, hon?” She patiently waits for me to respond.

I gulp back any remaining fear as I nod to her. A moment later, I feel a needle start to slide under my eyebrow from the bottom to the top mark.

I bite my lip but that doesn’t work and I yelp. “Oh motherfucker, that hurts like fuuuuck!” I stop myself from grabbing at the needle and I take a few breaths to calm down.

“Sorry, love. Sometimes they don’t…but sometimes they hurt like hell,” she says as she connects the barbell to the needle and pulls it through, screwing the top ball on once the barbell is through the top hole. She then dabs the small trickle of blood over my eyelid as gently as she can. I do my best not to panic as I see the blood on the rag. “You have to leave that in for six weeks for it to heal properly. After that, you can put any other decoration in there you would like. Keep it clean and wash your hands; you don’t want an infection in there.”

I nod to her as I groan. The fuck did I want to do this for again? Oh yeah…it’ll look awesome after it’s done hurting like hell. A moment later, Patricia comes up to me as I gingerly tap around my eyebrow, not touching where I just got shanked. “Doing alright there, love?”

“Yeah, I’m okay. Guess I should have picked a little further away from the middle huh.”

“If you start out with the one that hurts the most, any others you want to do will be a lot less miserable. So no, you picked just fine.” She pats me on the shoulder. “Anything else we can do for you today, dear?”

I shake my head as I get up from the table. “Nah, I think we’ve done plenty today. Any more piercings and I might give my mom a heart attack.”

She chuckles as she leads me over to the front. “I understand. Let’s work out the total and get you on your way.” She tabulates everything swiftly and a number pops up on her register. It’s a lot but not nearly as much as I thought it would be. I quickly pay it and toss on a tip for the whole group. “Thank you, honey! Now, you two take care and come back anytime.”

She waves to me and Trish, who is already sitting in the waiting area flipping through her phone. She stands and pockets her phone as soon as I get close. Trish whistles. “Holy shit, Fang. You look great! See? Should have come with me here a long time ago…it’s a lot of fun.”

“And not too expensive. I was expecting so much more after all they did.” I almost put my hands in my pockets before I stop myself. I don’t need to ruin their hard work already.

“Family discount.” She smirks and thumbs back toward Patricia. “That’s my aunt and you came in with me. That makes you family to her.”

“Well shit…I guess I should go back and thank her.”

Trish shakes her head. “No need. She does it because she cares; she doesn’t want attention for it. Now come on, anywhere else you want to go before we go home?”

“You know that young adults clothing shop by Lil’ Troodon?” She smirks and nods. “I think I need a new outfit.”

“Let’s fucking go then, Fang!”

She puts an arm behind my back and we head down the street. It’s not far from where we are and I know exactly what I want already. Something that’ll probably make my dad groan but it’ll definitely rock Anon’s world.

Arriving at the store, we ignore all the pastel-color clothing up front and head back to the more mature section of the store. I find a pair of dark leather thigh-high boots with just a little bit of a heel on them to give me a little more height. I try them on and Trish whistles with a wink. I find the dress section and rummage through the racks, hunting for what I know is here. After a little digging, I pull out a dark black dress with a slit. I hop in the dressing room and come out wearing it and the boots along with a black leather choker I found.

“Fang! You look fucking amazing. Also, Anon is going to die when he sees this…you know that, right?”

I smirk deviously. “Of course I do. This is for me, but it doesn’t mean I can’t use my new fashion to destroy him as well.”

“Well, let’s not waste any more time! I want to see the look on his face when he sees you in this.” Trish grins as she helps me take my stuff back to the front. Welp, my allowance for the month is gone but to be honest, it was worth it. I haven’t felt this much like me in a long time. Only took almost twenty years, but I think I’ve finally found parts of me I’ve been without. I guess Fang was just the beginning for me…now I’m owning it for myself. I decide I want to wear this home and head back to change before heading out of the store.

The taxi driver must be tailing us around town because as soon as I call, he somehow has pulled up beside us. He leans out the window and whistles. “Goddamn, that’s some fancy hair you got there, miss.”

For once, I don’t want to hit him as I slide in the back with a smirk. “Thank you. Now get us home without slamming into anything. I don’t want this ruined after spending all day in a chair.”

He winks in the mirror with a smile. “You got it, miss.” The ride is surprisingly gentle for once as he carefully navigates through the city toward my house.

As we sit in the back, I realize that something has been bugging me and I just have to ask. “Trish?” She stops staring at her phone to give me her attention. “Your aunt’s name is Patricia. Your name is Trish. Did your mom…?”

She sighs as she rests her phone on her leg. “Yes, my mom named me after her sister. She’s the tallest in the family and I’m the runt in the litter, so I guess she thought it was funny.”

I try to hold back a snicker but fail completely. “I mean, it kind of is.”

She punches me in the arm with a huff. I deserve that, I guess.

The taxi slides in front of my house and he stops me before I can pull anything out of my wallet. “This one’s on me. You two have a fine night.”

I thank him as I help Trish out of the seat and he speeds off into the distance. I quickly comb my hair and part it as I dust off the dress and check it for any fuzzies. Satisfied with how I look, I nod to Trish who walks up to the front and opens the door for me.

“Welcome home, dear!” My mom calls out from the kitchen before coming out and covering her beak. “Oh my…!” I expect her to be upset but it’s the opposite and I see the smile curling under her fingers. “You look gorgeous, honey!”

A soft hint of color dusts my cheeks as I smile back at her. “Thank you, Mom. It took all day but I think it was worth it, don’t you?”

She nods with warm enthusiasm as she looks me over, walking all around me as she checks me out. “It was worth every penny you spent. You look like a fine young woman. Anon is a lucky man.”

“Yes, he definitely frigging is,” Trish says with a smirk. Both of our stomachs gurgle, not having eaten a damn thing since we went out, and we both look at my mom with puppy dog eyes.

She chuckles as she shakes her head with a wave of her hand. “Oh, like I’d let you two starve. Sit, sit. I’ll get you something that isn’t messy so we don’t ruin that dress.”

She brings out a few carefully constructed sandwiches—making sure no sauce can escape—but still puts a napkin around my neck just in case. She sits at the table across from us with a smile on her face as we munch away. After we finish, she gets up and takes the napkin from my neck and gathers the plates. After a quick washing, she pops out from the kitchen with a sly grin on her face.

“Now, honey…your dad is getting ready for a movie night with just me and him, and Naser is on the road getting more college work squared away, which means you and Anon will have the house to yourselves for the night.” Her grin turns into a smirk as she gets closer to me. “I hope you two behave yourselves while we are out,” she says with a wink as she turns to go upstairs.

Trish and I sit there silently, not entirely sure how to react to what my mom just suggested to me.

Trish speaks up first, staring blankly at the stairs where she last saw my mom. “Did your mom just tell you in no subtle terms to get busy tonight?”

I nod slowly. “Uh…yup. I do think she just fucking did.” Not that this is a thing I ever saw coming from a mile away, but goddamn…guess my mom is a little wilder than I thought.

“Welp, then I’m going the fuck home. Tell me how Anon reacts to your look…if he survives tonight.” She gives me a hug before turning toward the door.

I chuckle as I wave at her. “I’ll see you later, Trish. Thanks for today.”

“No…thank you, Fang, for everything. I’ll catch you tomorrow?”

“Sure. Text me.” I smile and she nods to me before heading out the door.

“Come along, dear,” I hear my mom call from the top of the stairs. “We don’t want to be late! I want some popcorn and snacks. I rarely get to eat junk food and I am not skipping this opportunity!”

“Alright, Samantha, I’m coming.” I hear the lumbering steps of my father thudding down the stairs and he emerges wearing a rather nice polo shirt and pants. My mom steps aside as he stares dumbstruck at me for a second. “Wait a minute…Fang?”

I nod at him slowly, slightly concerned he might blow up in my face but he doesn’t. He just stares for a second longer before walking up to me. “That’s a hell of a look, Fang.” He smiles. “You look fantastic. I hope you had fun getting all that done.” He points at my piercing with a smirk.

“Thank you, Dad. And yeah, I did. Except that. Screw whomever invented eyebrow piercings.” He chuckles heartily as he pats me on the back.

“Your mother and I will be out for a bit. Behave, alright?”

I give him my most sincere smile as I lie straight through my teeth. “Of course, Dad. I’ll behave.”

I can tell he doesn’t fully believe me but probably doesn’t have time to think about it as my mom slides her arm in his and starts pulling him toward the door. “Come on, dear. No more standing around…I’m hungry.”

“Of course, honey. Goodbye, Fang.” He waves to me as he heads to the door.

“Goodbye, guys. Have a fun night!” I wave and I swear I see my mother smirk as the door closes behind them. Well, time to see if this outfit kills Anon. I silently creep up the stairs and gently open the door to my bedroom. He’s busy staring at his computer that he brought over a while ago as he flips between tabs, most of it being more bass lessons and how to make a crossbow with a rubber band and a popsicle stick.

I clear my throat and he turns to me, his jaw dropping. “Well, I guess I don’t need to ask you if you like my new look,” I say with a sly smirk as he quietly nods.

“Holy shit, Fang. Look at you!” He looks me up and down with stars in his eyes. “You look fucking amazing! I can see why you wanted to keep this a surprise. That hairstyle is so cool.” He gets up and runs his hands through my hair, gently brushing against the shaved side, whistling as he goes. “Man, they dyed it and still kept that silky texture, fucking impressive.” He backs away a little and checks out my outfit. “That is the sexiest dress I’ve ever seen. It’s so you, Fang.” He nods with a smile. “Those boots are fucking out of this world as well.”

“Glad you like them, dweeb.” I wink as I dim the lights in the room and put a hand on his chest.

“Fang, what are you…ooof—”

I knock him over onto the bed with him landing on his back looking up in surprise. I give him a coy smirk as I let the dress fall to the floor. I step out of it and watch as his face turns beet red. I don’t think he was expecting that I wasn’t really wearing anything underneath that…and considering his stammering, I’m definitely right.

“But your parents coul—”

I climb on top of him and put my finger to his lips. “They’re going to be out for the night, so I’ve got plenty of time to do whatever I want. Which is exactly what I’m going to do.”

I pull his shirt over his head and fling it to the floor as I unbuckle the choker around my neck and toss it onto the dresser. He is too dazed to say a word as I giggle with a grin. This poor dweeb, he’s never prepared for this.

“Oh, and Anon….” I say with a sultry tone as I lean down close to his ear.

“W-what, Fang?” he stammers out as his brain melts out his ears.

“The boots are going to stay on,” I whisper with a smirk as I click the table lamp off.

“Oh, sweet Raptor Jesus, thank you.”