Chapter #5Walk on the Wild Side by: BeeJay   Hello. My name's Cassidy Steele. At least, that's what it says on my birth certificate. Nowadays, I'm called something else entirely.
I was the only child of a single mom. Whenever someone asked her about my father, she just kept changing the subject until they figured out that she just wasn't going to answer them. She dated a handful of guys, but none of them stuck around long enough for the subject of marriage to come up. We lived in Yakima, Washington.
I had a couple of good friends. Liv Hall was fun to hang out with, but she couldn't have me over all the time; her folks decided that, since Mom wasn't married, that meant she was morally questionable, and so was I by association.
Liz McGrory let me come over just about anytime. Her father, Ron (he insisted that I call him by his first name), wasn't always around; but, when he was, he let me know that I was always welcome. As a show of gratitude, I didn't laugh at him when he talked about what he did. He called himself a cryptozoologist. When I asked him what that means, he explained that he studied creatures called cryptids, which were animals whose existence was not recognized by established science. Bigfoot was his main obsession, and he was usually up in the Cascades looking for the chance to get a picture of one.
As for me, I was the shortest girl in school; maybe even the shortest in Yakima. I had to stand on my toes if I wanted to measure over 5 feet tall. I had racked up every other mark of womanhood, even my period; height was all that eluded me.
And then came the summer when everything changed.
******************************
It was the first day of summer vacation. Come the fall, it would be time for high school. But, for now, the days were for freedom. My eyes were still blurred from just waking up when I shuffled into the bathroom. A nice hot shower was all I needed to wake me up completely.
It was all I needed, but nature gave me something else to wake me up anyway: I had been shaving my legs daily for about six months; yet, when I bent over to do it that day, my legs looked like I hadn't shaved them in weeks. Lifting my arms, I saw that my pits were just as hairy as a boy's.
Well, enough time later to solve that mystery. For now, the best thing was to take a pair of scissors to the overlong hairs, and then shave them down to the skin.
When I got to the kitchen, Mom was nuking breakfast while sipping her coffee. "Mom," I asked, "how long does it take your leg hair to grow?"
She shrugged. "About as long as anyone else, I suppose. Why? I thought you were already shaving."
"I am, every day; but, this morning, it was like I hadn't done it for weeks. I had to trim them down with scissors before I could shave them."
Mom set down her coffee mug. "You'd better sit down for this, Cassidy."
I sat down with my breakfast. "What is it, Mom?"
She sighed. "It's time for me to tell you about your father. Because that's why your body hair grew so much faster."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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