A note from the author.

Dear Reader,

If you ask, you shall receive!

In All The Write Moves it was announced that Nancy had written her first novella. Many of you crazy gals and guys have asked/begged/bribed me to read it. So, I wrote it. Apparently, my character Nancy is as crazy as I am. We hope you enjoy our bonus book. We had a blast writing it.

We present to you, My Big Fat Hairy Wedding.

xoxo Robyn (and Nancy)

Chapter 1

After standing in the water for two hours, I could no longer feel my toes. The ocean was a freaking chilly fifty-one degrees, my bathing suit was up my ass, and the sun was about to go down in fifteen minutes. The lunar calendar had a full moon on the schedule for this evening and I was about to be screwed. Not in the fun, orgasmic kind of screwed. Nope. Screwed as in I was about to sprout fur and end my career as a high-fashion model.

Granted, at forty-five, I was a little long in the tooth to still be strutting the runway and gracing the pages of magazines, but I had good genes and a fabu plastic surgeon on speed dial. With my God-given long legs, high cheekbones, full lips, icy-blue eyes and wild, curly black hair, I was still considered marketable… even at my advanced age. My agent’s words, not mine. That had been a rough pill to swallow. However, a compliment was a compliment even if an insult had snuck in at the end.

“It’s colder than a witch boob,” I griped to Bellamadonna, my partner in freezing-modeling crime.

“Boobs,” she corrected me with a shudder and slightly blue lips. “This kind of cold is a two-boob cold.”

“Agree. Never should have gotten out of bed today—not getting paid enough for frostbite,” I muttered as I removed the itchy gold material from my crack for the umpteenth time. “There’s got to be a better way to make a living.”

“Amen to that, girlfriend,” Bellamadonna agreed, making sure her ample breasts were covered by the miniscule scrap of material that she was barely wearing.

Bellamadonna was human and thirty-nine. Normally, I avoided getting close with non-supernatural people. It was too complicated to watch what I said in front of them. However, I’d been on jobs with Bellamadonna for decades and liked her smart mouth and bad attitude. She was one of the very few exceptions to my hard and fast rule.

I’d been tempted to reveal my true nature to her many times over the years, but since werewolves and other magical species lived secretly amongst the human population, I’d decided it was too risky. My two BFFs, Johnson and Connie had agreed. While we all thought Bellamadonna was a hoot, we kept our secrets well-hidden.

However, if this shoot from hell kept going, the entire world was about to discover my furry secret.

“Swoozie, babycakes,” Arnaldo begged from behind the camera, sweating profusely even though it was chilly out. His periwinkle beret was ridiculous, and his chartreuse pants belonged on someone three sizes smaller. The fuzz on his upper lip that was supposed to pass for a mustache was a stark reminder that he was twelve. Not literally, but he couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. “Give me the magic, baby! Show me that sultry, sexy look you’re known for. The famous Boner Builder! I know you’ve still got it, chica.”

I rolled my eyes because that was the only part of my face that actually moved. The Botox had kicked in and my entire face was frozen. Never again was I going to take beauty advice from Johnson. He was an asshat.

“This is a swimsuit spread for AARP,” I whispered to Bellamadonna. “People who read AARP don’t get boners anymore.”

The contingency from the magazine gasped and began chatting furiously amongst themselves.

“Busted,” Bellamadonna said with a wicked grin. “Again.”

“Whoops.” Guess I had to work on my whispering skills. I was going to get an earful from my agent tomorrow. I was hanging on to my waning career by my claws and couldn’t really afford to be banned by clients—even AARP. 

Bellamadonna cackled and grabbed a parka from the stylist to warm up. “Hey Arnaldo,” she yelled. “Just take the damn pictures. My nips are so hard they’re about to crack and fall off. I’ll sue the shit out of all of you if I lose sensation in my nips.”

Arnaldo mopped his dripping face with a towel and swore in a language that was a combo of French, Italian and Spanish. He was from Brooklyn. His real name was Frank and he was a pudgy douche who had married into the Stupey family—the largest media conglomerate in the USA. He wasn’t a shitty photographer, but he was a spineless asshat.

Bellamadonna and I didn’t suffer spineless asshats lightly.

“Take five,” the assistant called out.

Shit. I didn’t have time to take five. I was going to be hairy soon. However, it didn’t look like I had a choice.

Johnson sprinted over and handed me a fleece blanket to cover myself and warm up. His eyes were huge and he wrung his hands nervously. “This is bad. This is very, very, very bad,” he fretted, pulling a wine cooler from the pocket of his caftan and downing the contents. “I can do the Mama Cass if necessary.”

Johnson was a wizard—a forty-year-old gay wizard. We’d been inseparable since we’d met in rehab for magical exhibitionists twenty years ago. Johnson had a bad habit of conjuring up Cher lookalikes at gay bars and I’d been found guilty of flashing fang when pulled over for speeding. I didn’t see the problem. I’d never ended up with a ticket, but apparently sending human patrolmen into therapy was a no-no. 

My wizard buddy had a few obsessions—Cher obviously being one of them. However, his love of Cher paled in comparison to his adoration of Mama Cass. He knew every lyric to every song the Mamas and Papas had recorded. His impromptu concerts at gatherings were epic and usually involved copious amounts of alcohol. Johnson only wore caftans in honor of Mama Cass and for the most part refused to eat ham due to her cause of death.

“Your wig is slipping,” I told him, hoping that the Mama Cass wasn’t going to be necessary. But if the shoot kept going, desperate and horrifying measures would have to be taken.

“Balls,” he muttered, adjusting his long brown, parted-in-the-middle locks. “Should have glued it on. Didn’t know it was going to be so windy.”

Johnson was bald. Most of the time he sported his shiny hairless pate. But on special occasions, like accompanying me to shoots, he liked to get spruced up. He was totally spruced up this evening. His rose-colored, floral caftan was dotted with silver sequins.

“I have about ten minutes left,” I said, looking up at the sky. “If we go longer, do the Mama Cass. I’ll haul ass to my trailer and you’ll need to shave me.”

“What if I’m still choking on the ham sandwich? How can I shave you if I’m inhaling my own vomit?” he asked, getting slightly hysterical.

My mind raced with unacceptable scenarios—most debilitating was the one where there was photographic evidence of my hairy issue. “Okay,” I said, pulling a plan out of my skimpily clad, gold-covered butt. “You start choking. I scream like the world is ending. I grab you and bring you to my trailer so you can recuperate. Then you shave me. I have three electric razors. You can do my body and I’ll deal with my face.”

“Not sure your face will need it,” Johnson whispered. “You have so much botulism in your head that it might stunt the hair growth.”

“For real?” I asked, touching my wrinkle-free, unmoving face.

He shrugged then downed another peach wine cooler. “It’s a possibility.”

“Whatever,” I said, feeling my stomach begin to cramp with nerves. “We’ll have about ten minutes to shave my whole body.”

“Pubes?” he asked.

I groaned and glanced down at the shiny, barely there bikini. “Unfortunately, yes. I can’t have a jungle in my pants. It’s not Boner Building.”

“Got it,” Johnson agreed. “Pubes shall be removed.”

Having good friends was a blessing. Having a good friend who didn’t pass out or run for the hills when tasked with helping trim the hair explosion from my nether regions was priceless.

“I’ll owe you ten new caftans for this one,” I told him, giving the wizard a hug.

“Honey child, you owe me nothing,” Johnson assured me with a grin. “Vicariously living through your cray-cray life while dressed as my hero is all the thanks I need.”

I laughed. Johnson was a keeper.

***

“Holy shit,” Johnson screamed, shaving my legs and arms like his life depended on it. “This is hairific!”

“Do not make hairy puns right now,” I snapped, shaving my face and hoping I didn’t take off my lips in the process. “Yes, this is worse than usual. I have no clue why, other than that I’m stressed out to the max.”

“It’s the wedding,” he said, picking up a new razor since the massive amount of hair I’d sprouted had clogged and killed the one he was using.

“I don’t want a wedding,” I hissed as I narrowly missed shaving off the hair on my head that I actually needed.

“Hush now,” Johnson said. “You’re getting more stressed, which means more hair and we only have one working razor in reserve. You know you want to marry Chance. He’s a doll baby with a great ass, beautiful face and bod, spectacular package and a heart of gold. Nicest damned demon I’ve ever come across.”

“Didn’t say I don’t want to marry Chance,” I told him as I grabbed some tweezers and had a go at my unibrow. “Said I didn’t want a wedding. I’m forty-five. He’s fifty. We should elope. I’m too old for a white dress and I haven’t been a virgin in years.”

“Decades,” my BFF corrected me.

“Decades,” I conceded. “The wedding is for Chance’s bee-otch of a mother—who hates me by the way.”

“Chamunda hates everyone,” Johnson reminded me. “She’s a monster demon goddess, for the love of everything nightmare inducing… and tacky. That demon is tacky with a capital T.”

Johnson was correct. It was one of the many reasons I didn’t want a big to-do for my nuptials with the demon of my dreams. It was bad enough that Chamunda wanted the color theme to be black, navy blue and yellow. She’d also come up with a guest list of ten thousand. And she’d insisted the wedding take place in Hell. It didn’t feel like a good omen to get married in the Underworld.

Chance was in a pickle. He’d be just as happy as me to elope. But his vicious mother had sworn to make the rest of our lives a living hell if we denied her hosting the wedding of her only child. It had caused a few whopper arguments between us, but the makeup sex had been spectacular.

“How do I look?” I asked, using a magnifying mirror to check my upper lip.

“Hair free and fabu,” Johnson assured me, pulling yet another wine cooler from the large pocket in his caftan.

“You have more of those?” I asked.

“Always.” He grinned and handed me one. “Go get ’em, Swoozie. You have about an hour before we have to shave you again. Thank God, you can control the actual shift. That would be a shitshow.”

“Word,” I replied, chugging the entire alcoholic beverage in one swallow. I was good at keeping my beast from emerging. However, the fur was uncontrollable. Occasionally, my tail made an unwelcome appearance, but luckily, Johnson’s Mama Cass had saved the day.

“You really need to stop agreeing to night shoots on full moons,” he commented as we walked out of my trailer.

“I’m too low on the food chain to demand my own schedule anymore,” I admitted.

“Maybe it’s time to get out of the rat race,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Retire from this crap.”

He did have a point, but I wasn’t exactly qualified to do anything else. “Then how would you vicariously live through my cray-cray life?” I asked him with a raised and perfectly plucked brow.

“Point,” he replied with a giggle. “Have razor, will travel. Go give ’em the Boner Builder! And if necessary, I can Mama Cass it again.”

“On it,” I said with a laugh, sliding out of my coat and walking back into the ocean.

It had been a close call, but excitement was the spice of life. Thankfully, it wasn’t necessary for Johnson to choke on a ham sandwich again. Bellamadonna told Arnaldo he had fifteen minutes to get the shots or she’d castrate him. Arnaldo obliged. My secret was safe and Bellamadonna was a hero even if she didn’t know it.

I had a darn good life.