Penny & Neil: A Dryad Wolfman Love Story in an Arcade (Part 2)

Across town, Neil also was living his best life.
It had been a cool autumn, and winter was coming in fast.  This was good news for a guy who was half man and half wolf.  He killed it with the ladies during cooler weather.

 See, Neil hadn't always been half wolf.  Only a few years prior, Neil had been a young man with normal amounts of body hair in normal places.  He grew up in Syracuse where people knew how to dress for the weather.  But three years ago, when his banking job moved him to Charlotte, he discovered how little Southerners knew about dressing to keep warm.  Granted, it wasn't nearly as cold as New York, but as soon as the temps hit 60 or below, it was all anyone could discuss.

The first time Neil had gone out with his coworkers after work was a brisk October evening.  Downtown -- or was it Uptown?  Neil could never remember -- people stood outside restaurants and bars waiting for tables.  There was huddling, bouncing from one foot to the other, the exclamations of "Fall never comes this early!  What is happening?!"  Neil couldn't understand it at first.  It was only about 50 degrees outside.  But after a few nights of this, he realized Southerners had no idea how to dress to stay warm.  The women just kept wearing their ankle pixie pants and wedge sandals, and puzzling over their blue ankles and exclaiming.  This is how Neil discovered he was a canis lupis hypertrichosis empath, or "empathetic wolfman" for short.

[PG-11 portion to follow]
Neil developed the condition the first time he (nearly) made out with a Southern girl.  He was walking with a group of friends from one bar to the next, when Ashlyn fell behind to step into a doorway of a closed store.  "Let's just get out of the wind for a minute," she said.
"What wind?" Neil thought.  He held her hands.  They were freezing.  He looked at her in surprise.
"I know, I know," said Ashlyn in a knowing resigned tone.  "They've been cold since 1992.  How are yours so warm?"
"I don't know," said Neil.  "Maybe because I'm wearing pants...and socks...and, you know, an undershirt and this second shirt, and a jacket."
Ashlyn looked intrigued.  "Ahhh...fascinating."  She touched the hem of his untucked button down shirt.  "May I?"
Neil had no idea what the question meant, but he nodded.
She slipped her small icy hands under his appropriate number of layers, and placed them on his warm torso.  "MY GOD, DUDE.  YOU'RE SO FREAKING WARM!  DO ALL YANKEES FEEL THIS WARM?"
Neil nodded in surprise.  "Well...yes."
"Just give me a minute," said Ashlyn, her eyes closing halfway in relief.  Her thin legs sticking out from her rayon shift dress were still dancing side to side and her toes matched her cornflower blue toenail polish, but her hands began to warm slightly.
They must have stood there twenty minutes, Ashlyn with her eyes closed, Neil patiently waiting, eventually getting out his phone to check Snapchat, but then something started to happen.

"Something's starting to happen," Neil said, like an omniscient narrator.  Ashlyn opened her eyes.  The skin under each of her hands began to itch.  Neil looked down and pulled up his shirt.  As Ashlyn removed her hands, she and Neil watched as two pink spots shaped like hands appeared.  Then, a few seconds later, POOF!  Out popped two patches of dark hair.  "Holy shit!"  Neil said wide-eyed.  Ashlyn blinked, considered, then put her hands on the patches. Closing her eyes, she pulled him close.  "Even better.  Stand still.  I just need five more minutes."

Penny & Neil: A Dryad Wolfman Love Story in an Arcade (Part 1)

Penny was a dryad.
She didn't do great in the dryad singles scene, mostly because her name was Penny and all the dryads had names like Wisteria or Naralescent or Jenniferesia.  But Penny had two things no other dryad or tree spirit had.  Penny had retractable feet and a velcro Vans wallet full of arcade tokens.

Neil was wolfman.  No, he wasn't a werewolf, because that would mean he could change from wolf to man at various times.  At all times, Neil was part man and part wolf.  Like Penny, he had his own challenges.  However, also like Penny, he had a secret.  Neil had never gotten less than a perfect score at Galaga.

Obviously, it was only a matter of time before they met.  And when they did, it would be electric.
(boogie woogie woogie)

Thank the gods (Penny was into Game of Thrones, so she always thanked multiple gods, or occasionally Oprah), she could sleep all day as a tree, because the closest arcade was crowded until about midnight.  After midnight, you could play any game you wanted without waiting.  Each night as the moon reached its highest point in the sky, and the rest of the forest quieted, Penny would begin to work her feet out into the open.

The trick to retractable feet was core strength.  You had to really use your pelvic floor and lower abs to encourage them to extend.  The first few times, Penny had strained until nearly dawn before finally giving up and going back to sleep.  But by the fourth night, something clicked.  Using all she had heard from the yoga instructor who led class under her branches on Saturdays, Penny managed to target her lower trunk six-pack.  Before she knew it, she was looking down at two brown bare feet.  She wiggled her toes in surprise.  Six toes on one foot and four on the other, but cute nonetheless.  And more importantly, those toes and feet were serviceable.  Once, the initial novelty subsided, she headed towards town.

See, Penny hadn't always been a tree spirit.  Only a few years prior, she'd been a young woman.  Dryad was a form she had chosen.  Some people said it was a matter of nurture not nature, but Penny had always known deep down, that she was a nymph.  Eventually, she embraced the dryad lifestyle and loved it.  The only part of being a woman that she missed was landing her high scores at Klepto's Fun Zingers.  The day she realized she had retractable feet, her life seemed complete.  Now she had the best of both worlds.

Across town, Neil also was living his best life.