Thursday morning it felt like things were off to a good start. Me and my girlfriends all had a good night, and it seemed like mom and Carol did too. I wasn't forced to hide part of myself and nobody said anything or complained. I still got the odd look from my mom and her girlfriend now and then, but from what I could tell that was more out of curiosity than anything else.
I made breakfast for everyone like usual, and we all had a nice morning together.
At one point I booped Farah on the nose with the tip of my tail and that got me and my girlfriends giggling. Poor Farah was so confounded, she had no clue what was happening. I could almost imagine her thinking to herself, 'But wait! Hoomans don't have tails!'
Then I tried to boop Pumpkin because I wanted to see if the cats would be just as confused. He wasn't, and I got a painful lesson about how cats like to attack strange things that get dangled in front of their faces. Especially if those things are wriggling and moving around and trying to boop their little noses.
My girlfriends got another giggle out of that, while I sat and pouted and held my wounded tail close to my chest. Lily healed it for me, but she made me wait a few minutes first to be sure I'd learned my lesson.
And finally the three of us packed up our clothes and gifts and stuff around noon, including all the leftovers mom had ready for us. We all hugged and wished each other happy xmas and new years and all that, then got in the car and headed off.
After the near-disaster of xmas, I was almost sad to leave so soon. It felt like mom had come to terms with who I was, and I had a feeling Carol was slowly coming to terms with it too. I figured she and my mom probably talked things over last night, or they'd definitely discuss stuff after we left. And maybe Carol talked with my girlfriends too, when they were out walking Farah.
The drive was quiet and uneventful. When we got back to our apartment we put the leftovers in the fridge and got our stuff unpacked and put away, then the three of us wound up sitting on the sofa together.
Susan and Melissa announced we all needed to talk about the 'horns and tail business' and I got nervous it was going to be some kind of an intervention or something. It turned out to be ok though. They weren't trying to gang up on me to make me to remove them or whatever. They asked me to explain why it was so uncomfortable, why I didn't like making them go away.
We opened some coolers and I started trying to explain it as best I could. Lily helped too, when I ran into trouble trying to put the feelings and discomfort into words.
"It sounds like dysphoria to me," Melissa commented when I was finished.
Sue nodded, "Or dysmorphia."
"Or both," Melissa replied. "Dysphoria because of dysmorphia."
I looked back and forth between them and asked, "What's the difference? And what's it mean?"
Susan looked like she was about to start on a lengthy and complicated lecture, but fortunately Melissa cut her off with a simple example that made it clear for me.
"It means us asking you to remove your tail and horns before going out is like if my parents said I could come visit them as long as I was changed back into a guy first. Too painful to contemplate."
Melissa pulled me into a hug and added, "I'm sorry Mara, I didn't realize how upsetting it was for you."
I hugged her back, then asked "So what do we do though? I mean, I don't want to get rid of them? But I understand I can't exactly go out in public with them. Except around halloween."
Sue was quiet for a few moments, then asked "Lily? Instead of making them go away, can your magic make them invisible? That might do the trick. That way Mara could still feel them, she'd still know they were there, but nobody else would be able to see them."
Lily seemed to think that over for a few moments, then she replied "Yes I think I can manage something like that. I'll work on it, then teach you how to do it this evening."
"Thanks Lily!" I grinned, then passed on her answer to Sue and Melissa.
Melissa cautioned, "If they're present but invisible, you'll still have to be careful. Like keeping your tail close so people don't accidentally touch it or sit on it or something. Same with the horns, there'd be a chance people could discover them somehow."
I shrugged, "I'm already careful about my tail, and if I can still feel them I won't forget they're there. It's not like I'm going to try and put on a hat or something."
The rest of the day went by ok after that. We had some leftovers for dinner, then Lily asked me to come inside so she could teach me a different spell.
According to Lily it didn't just make my demonic bits invisible. She said if they were just invisible then people would see the holes in my hair and notice my clothes moving strange. The spell was more like magical camouflage, so in addition to being invisible people's eyes or brains or whatever would edit out minor inconsistencies, so they wouldn't notice anything strange about my hair or clothes or whatever.
It wasn't even that hard to learn, compared to the spell that actually made them go away. And best of all, when I did it I could still feel them there. I could feel my tail swishing and I could wrap it around my waist or my leg. And I could feel the weight of my horns on my head, and I could feel my hair tickling against them.
I gave Lily a big hug and thanked her, then I did the same for Susan and Melissa too.
Friday morning I got the chance to put the new spell to the test. We needed to get groceries, so I'd be going over to the mall with my girlfriends and doing our weekly shopping. If the spell worked right, nobody would notice there was a demon girl in the grocery mart.
I did the spell before we left the apartment, and both Melissa and Sue looked me over to be sure.
"I don't see anything," Melissa said. "You look normal. I mean, you look like a normal human."
Sue nodded, "Probably best not to lift your tail up though, just in case?"
I was wearing leggings and a tunic top, and a warm hoodie. I figured she had a point, if I raised it up too high it would pull up the back of my tunic and people might notice that. "Ok I'll try to keep that in mind."
The drive over to the mall didn't take any time, and soon enough we were going up and down the aisles picking up our usual groceries and stuff, and nobody seemed to notice anything unusual about me.
When we got into the drinks aisle, Melissa grabbed a case of cola and put it in the cart. Then I picked up a couple cases of my bottled water.
I was about to stick them in our cart when Melissa suddenly gave me a look, "Mara stop for a second."
I stopped but sighed, "C'mon Melissa we've already been through this like five times. The water in our apartment tastes awful. You drink cola, I just want water that doesn't taste like lead poisoning."
She shook her head, "That's not what I was going to say. How are you holding those?"
"Huh?" I frowned, I had no idea what she was getting at. "With my hands? How else should I hold them?"
I had one case of water in each hand, I was holding them by the edge of the shrink-wrap plastic and hoping they wouldn't break open on me.
Susan stayed quiet as she watched us both. From her expression I could tell she didn't have any more idea than I did what our girlfriend was going on about.
Melissa nodded, "Right. With your hands. You have a full case of water in each hand. Two weeks ago you struggled to pick up one case with both hands."
My eyes widened as I looked down at the two cases I was holding. I raised them both up to have a closer look, like maybe they were half empty or something. There was nothing wrong with them though. I finally put them both into the cart then just quietly said "Huh."
I didn't feel stronger, I just felt normal. But Melissa was right, as long as I'd been Mara I struggled to lift a case of water. Now I could pick two of them up like they were nothing.
The three of us moved on from the soda and water to continue our shopping, but I stayed quiet. I was positive that had to be another side-effect from what the demonic energy did to me. As we made our way to the frozen food aisle I found myself smiling.
Horns, tail, night vision, and now demon strength. I figured being part-demon would be cool, and I was right!
We finished up the rest of our shopping without any more surprises or revelations, then when we got back home we put all the groceries away.
Then I started trying to think of some way I could test or measure how strong I was, but we didn't have any weights or anything like that. Our building didn't have a gym or whatever either. I figured there might be something at college, but that would have to wait till the new year when classes started up again.
After the shopping there wasn't really anything else pressing for the day. Susan and Melissa spent a little while setting up some dates or whatever, Sue would be out tonight on business then Melissa would go out Saturday night.
And Sue also got a call back from one of the contractors Melissa spoke to back at the start of the week. They agreed to come over to her house on the thirtieth to check the place out and give her an estimate.
Finally, Melissa got in touch with Sam to discuss new years plans. She was on the phone with him for a while, and from what I heard of her side of the conversation it sounded like Sam came out to his folks. And it sounded like that went about as well as any of us would have expected.
Then the topic shifted back to new years. We all wanted to get together but our place wasn't ideal. It was on the verge of being crowded with three of us here, and having Sue's stuff in boxes in the living-room didn't help. Apparently Sam and Troy's place was even smaller so that wouldn't work either.
In the end someone got the idea to get a couple rooms at a nice hotel somewhere, so the five of us could go out for dinner then party in a posh hotel room. Melissa started looking at hotels on her computer while Sam was looking at restaurants, and before long the two of them had everything sorted and booked.
When Melissa finally got off the phone she joined me and Susan on the sofa and announced, "Ok we're doing New Years downtown, I got us a big kick-ass suite with a view overlooking the lake. It's got twenty-four hour room service incase we want late-night snacks, and a mini-fridge so we can bring our own drinks and stuff. Sam and Troy will be in another slightly-less kick-ass room at the same place, but we can all pack into our room to do the New Years stuff."
She continued, "Sam's got us dinner reservations at some posh steak place nearby. We can get to the hotel around four or five, get checked in and stuff, then meet Sam and Troy and the five of us can walk over to the steak place for dinner. Then head back to the hotel room and chill out, there's a big TV, we can do the whole new years thing."
"Sounds great," I replied, "But expensive. Can we afford all this?"
Susan reminded me, "Lily said money's not going to be a problem thanks to Verothilas. I don't know how that'll work, but I assume she can access that without having to go to England?"
"I'll take care of it tonight," Lily told me, and I relayed that to my girlfriends.
Melissa grinned, "Cool! Plans are coming together!"
Susan smiled too, "Yeah. Monday we meet the contractor at my place. At some point we can pick up some extra booze and maybe some snacks and stuff, then Tuesday we head downtown."
I looked to Melissa and suggested, "We still need to take care of some assignments. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday, we can go out and do some photography?"
She agreed with that plan, and Sue decided while the two of us were out doing that, she'd stay here and tackle some of her own homework.
I was happy, we had the next few days all figured out and I was looking forward to seeing Sam and Troy again at new years.