Prom Part 1

Having a stern Italian beetle-man wrap tape all over my body for the fitting was far more awful than I anticipated.

At the very least, it was quick. Instead of the recommended tuxedo, my father had given me a suit. It felt tight and stuffy, but it also looked—dare I say—good. It made me feel confident, a rare, fleeting feeling. There was even a hole fashioned on the back of the waist for my tail.

But I still had to resolve the problem of transportation. While Jessica and I both lived brisk-walking distance from the school and hence prom, my brain’s random-factoid-lobe told me “it’s kinda lame to walk to prom.” Not to mention the early summer heat would make me quite sweaty.

I only had a driver’s permit instead of a proper license, and its validity was conditional on having a licensed driver over the age of majority in the car with me. Renting a chauffeur was definitely out of scope.

Jessica was little help in that regard. While she had a license, she was very clear about the fact that she didn’t feel comfortable behind the wheel. She was also only seventeen.

If I wanted to travel by automobile, I was forced to ask my father. Worse yet, he would probably need to be in the vehicle with us. I prayed I’d be able to convince him otherwise.

“Uh… Dad?” I asked.

He sat boredly in the living room, watching some documentary. “Yeah?” he said, glancing at me.

“Uh… can I use the car for prom?”

He hummed. “Sure,” he said after a small amount of deliberation.

“Like, alone,” I clarified.

“Yeah, no biggie. As long as you just go there and come back.”

“Thank you!” I stated emphatically.

And a few days later, the end times—AKA prom—were upon me. But my father was no man of his word, probably because he was no longer a man.

I was already wearing the suit when he broke the news.

“Hey uh, sorry about this, but Liz was chewing my ear off about letting you drive alone,” my father disheartedly said.

I scoffed. “Come on,” I tried. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I don’t have a problem with it, but she was not having it.”

I scowled. “Man….”

“Sorry. I’ll sit in the back. You won’t even know I’m there.”

I frowned. “Whatever,” I said, before grabbing the keys out of his hand and storming off. It was already getting off to a bad start.

At the very least, he kept his promise to stay in the back. I didn’t hear a single peep from him on the way to Jessica’s.

I poorly parked the car along the curb and walked up to the door. I rang the bell, gulping.

The door swung open only a moment later, and Jessica greeted me, mouth slightly ajar, baring her fangs.

I retracted in surprise, my flight response activated.

She was quick to close her mouth when she noticed my discomfort. She shied away. “Sssorry, I got excited,” she hissed.

“All good.”

Intriguingly, she wore a tube of red cloth, vaguely reminiscent of a dress with its length and skirted lower half. The vast majority of her body was uncovered, but the garment still seemed sensibly proportioned. The most striking thing, however, was the sunflower adorning her head, just behind her left eye.

It was such a simple piece, but for the first time I truly recognized her as a young woman. I exaggeratedly blinked in surprise.

“Wait! Wait!” a high pitched, airy voice similar to Jessica’s called out from inside the house.

I stood still.

Jessica’s mother slithered up behind her daughter. “We need pictures!”

Jessica left the house, letting her mother follow behind her, a professional-looking digital camera tied to her mother’s neck. Her father took their place at the door.

Jessica and I stood on the lawn, the daylight quickly fading.

“Come on you two, get into picture position!”

I hesitantly walked up to my friend, holding my hands at my sides. Jessica was similarly stiff.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Act like you’re having fun; put your arms around each other!”

Jessica was the first to act, sliding her smooth, scaly tail up my back and over my shoulder. I flinched at the touch.

With much trepidation, I wrapped my arm around her neck.

I stared at the camera.

Jessica’s mother’s body was bundled up on the ground. The camera balanced on a segment of her tail whilst the tip meticulously fiddled with the settings.

Seeing a giant, suburban snake use a camera in simultaneously the most and least convoluted way possible broke me. I simpered at the pure absurdist comedy.

A camera flash later, and Jessica’s mother nodded. “Perfect. Have fun!”

I waved and Jessica followed me to the car. I saw my father grinning from the backseat. My mood soured.

I opened the passenger door for Jessica. “By the way, my father is in the back seat since I only have a permit.” It was a leap of logic, but it conveyed enough information.

Jessica took almost half a minute to load her entire being into the vehicle, coiling up like spaghetti on a fork. I was surprised she fit with any clearance at all.

I got behind the wheel, started up and took off.

There was a frustrating silence pervading the car. Jessica was unsurprisingly the first to break it. “So, uh, Mr. Samesen….”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” my father said coyly. I balked. He sounded like a girl.

“I was just surprised that you also… became a succubus,” Jessica finished.

“Yeah, everyone in the house did,” he elucidated.

“Oh wow. Noel never told me anything,” Jessica said, taken aback.

“You know how moody he can be. Teenagers, am I right?” he joked.

“Hm… I don’t know if I’d say moody. More like… awkward?”

As much as I wanted to deny the comedy, I still smirked. “You guys suck.”

“I love you too,” my father said.

Jessica snorted in amusement.

We arrived at the school, and the little blood-pump in my chest did overtime. I parked the car in the lot.

“Ok, I’m going to take the car home and I’ll bring it back when you call me,” my father said as I opened the passenger door for Jessica.

We agreed and waved him farewell.