Annie LIII: Shaking

(Chronological index: High School (1st time for Raymond, 2nd time for Annie))

"Doo doo, doo, doo dooty," Annie hummed. She realized she was humming the Hustle because she was hearing it.

She turned and grabbed at Raymond's shirt and tugged. "Must shake tail!" she shouted. "MUST SHAKE TAIL!"

"Gotcha," he replied. He scanned back and forth. They had just passed the entry to the record store. He called out to his parents and ran back.

"What was that?" Mom asked, turning around.

"Annie," Dad said. "Gotta dance," he sang. "Gaw...taw...dance."

"I love Gene Kelly," Mom said with a wide smile. "I obviously married you for your money." He snorted and led her slowly back in the kids' wake.

Just inside the store was a rack of VHS cassettes on sale. Raymond touched one with a finger to make sure it was stable, then lowered Annie to it.

She was nodding her head to keep her place in the song, then started to do the Hustle along with the music.

A few customers did a double-take at the sight. Raymond watched patiently as his pet shook her tail. She'd tried to teach the dance to him but he was a terminal klutz.

She was still trying, though. He'd promise to take her to the Prom and she said he needed to be ready for at least one dance.

They'd just stopped trying to teach him line dances, though. Annie's latest goal was simply to disable 'the Frankenstein Stomp.'

She'd said when he tried to move his feet to music, he might as well have bolts out of his neck.

He'd pointed out that the Mad Scientist was Frankenstein, not the monster.

She'd shaken her head and dropped the subject.

For now, though, he was just admiring her movement. Raymond was pretty sure he'd never be that confident, just to dance in public. Never mind her smooth moves.

Dad and Mom caught up with the two just as the song ended. Annie drifted to a stop with a deep, satisfied sigh.

"This has been a test," Dad intoned, "of the emergency disco network. Had this been actual music-"

"Dad!" Raymond protested. Just then Funkytown started to play. The little sylph held her hands up to her chest and looked up at Dad imploringly.

"Shake tail?" she begged.

"She really must burn off her energy," Mom said. "And she was so good in the car..."

"One more song," Dad muttered, heading towards the soundtrack cassettes. Annie danced.

Once the tail was well and truly shaken, the mission continued. The parents led off to a sylph store that had 'everything sylph.' Raymond followed, if less than happily.

Annie was ecstatic. The sylph was going to get a dress. For the first time since shrinking, she'd wear clothing.

-------

Annie was having a temper tantrum when the parents came home. Raymond sat on the floor against the sofa, watching television.

A cheap dolphin doll had been disemboweled on the coffee table. Annie took one beanie out of the corpse, loaded it into a paperclip and rubber band crossbow and fired it at her master's forehead.

It bounced off. He kept a hand over the mouth of his can of Coke. Little plastic beads littered the floor around it. They also dotted his shoulders, hair and a plate with a few cookie crumbs on it.

"What did Flippsy do to deserve this?" Dad asked. He rounded the sofa and sat, careful to avoid the line of fire.

Mom bumped the coffee table as she went around the other side. Beads rolled but Annie kept her feet, hardly pausing as she reloaded.

"Nothing," she growled. Another bead arced over, narrowly missing an eyeball. Raymond blinked, then took a quick sip before the next shot.

"Annie's just mad about her gift," he said.

"GIFT!" she screeched. "Try PUNISHMENT! Try an IRON MAIDEN with a ZIPPER! Try something POE never wrote about because some things are TOO HORRIBLE-" She paused to aim and fire. "TO inflict on PEOPLE!"

Dad nodded approvingly as the bead landed in the teen's ear. "Nice sh-" he started to say, stopping as Mom glared. "Nice sylphs don't do this to their masters," he tried.

"Nice Masters aren't butt-headed, dick-breathed, SHIT FOR BRAINS!" she replied. Her energy folded in an instant. She lowered the weapon and glanced from parent to parent. Dad had to smother a giggle as he saw her biting her lip.

Annie very seldom swore in front of the grownups. Her record for vocabulary violations was better than Raymond's. Hell, Dad had to admit, it was better than his. She had to be really, really pissed to make such an error.

She was obviously the victim here, whatever was going on. And now she was worried that her mouth had gotten HER in trouble.

Dad and Mom made eye contact. Judge and jury passed a silent verdict. Dad turned to his son. "Well, Raymond. HAVE you been a nice Master?"

"I got her some clothes." Raymond said. He turned off the TV and turned to face the family. "And she doesn't like it."

"Why did you get her clothes?" Dad asked.

"What? I can't wear clothes?" Annie asked.

"No, dear," Mom said, picking up the sylph. A finger gently flicked the weapon across the table as she did. "It's just that Raymond's always been adamant about keeping you nude."

"Principal Niedermyer sought us out in Home Room," Raymond said. "He wanted to personally invite us to the Prom."

"Well, isn't that special," Dad said.

"AND, he wanted to make sure we knew that there was a new policy for Dances. No nudity. No bared breasts, or butts, or dangles, or-"

"Got it," Mom said, brushing Annie's hair with a fingertip. The sylph had her arms crossed, trying to keep the anger flowing. But the warmth and comfort was relaxing her.

"Yeah, well, no nudity, of any scale, will be tolerated," Raymond finished.

"So we'll have to get Annie a dress," Dad said.

"I got her...clothes," the boy said. He wouldn't look any of the other three in the eye.

"Where?" Mom asked.

"The pet store," he said. He fidgeted at the lasting silence that came after that remark. "I, uh, let her pick the color."

"Puke green, or baby-sh-," Annie snarled. "Or a really nasty brown."

"What did you end up with?" Mom finally asked.

"Well, she wouldn't choose. So I figured that brown would match her eyes." He climbed to his feet and took something off the bookshelf by the TV. He handed it to his mother.

It was a one-size-fits-all set of sylph-scaled overalls. The material was tough, for all sorts of wear and exposure. It was baggy, to allow an owner to pick them up quickly without pinching a limb.

And with the hood up, it literally covered the sylph from head to toe.

"Oh, God," Mom protested as she took it. "This is like a onesie made of burlap."

"Sandpaper," Annie said.

"You were going to take someone as sophisticated as our Annie," Dad said slowly, "out in public? In this?"

"Shameful," Mom said.

"Scandalous," Dad agreed. Annie smiled at them.

"Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!" Raymond muttered.

So now they were at the mall, headed for the store that promised to put a serious dent in Raymond's allowance.

He practically moped along.

Annie, however, was practically dancing in his pocket. "I want a red dress," she said. "No, a green one. OOH! I had a blue one that everyone said made me look like Susan Saint James!"

She smiled and looked up at Raymond's face. "What do you want to see me in, Master?"

"Something cheap," he muttered.

The sylph smiled wider and tried to pet his chest. "It'll be worth it, you'll see."

"Uh huh."

Two steps inside the store, Raymond froze. Dad came to a stop right behind him.

"It's so...pink," the teen said.

"The horror," Dad muttered. "The horror."

Row upon row of shelves were covered with white sheets accented with pink embroidery. Pink bunting decorated the light fixtures and the shelf supports.

The one time Raymond had wandered into the store, right after opening, it had been split between male and female goods, trying to cover lots of different interests.

But he hadn't been back since taking one glance at a price tag. In the time since, the market for indulgent sylph owners had dragged the store in a particular direction.

The big money was in owners that liked to play dress-up with their pets. And the most popular type of dress up combined the cutest elements of living dollies with the sense of entitlement associated with Barbie dolls.

And they responded well to pink.

There was other stock. It was still the place to go for sylph attire. Earth tone, dark colors and male clothes were on display in some corners, a few back shelves.

Raymond and Dad, though, just saw the pink.

"Honestly," Mom said. She reached gently into her son's pocket. Annie gratefully grabbed Mom's thumb as she was lifted out.

"I think something subdued," she said. "You're already so eye-catchingly lovely, there's no reason to gild the lily."

"Flowers are organized into guilds?" Raymond asked as Mom disappeared into the racked clothing and accessories.

"No, no, she didn't say guild," Dad said. He tugged the boy's sleeve towards the door. "But I never knew you could geld the damned things."

Raymond stopped at the door. "Wait, Mom's not going to pay attention to the price!"

"Oh, son," Dad said. "That ship sailed when Mom saw the onesie. Orange Julius?"

-------

They were just throwing their cups away when Mom leaned out of the store and beckoned.

"Don't ask how much," Dad advised for the eleventy-eth time.

"I know," Raymond said.

There was a certain energy to Mom's step as she led them to the dressing shelf. They saw the top of Annie's head behind a screen.

She looked...hesitant as she stepped into view. Dad thought it was odd, the sylph usually told people to approve of her, and how much.

Was she actually concerned about Raymond's reaction?

It was a simple enough dress. Black, short sleeved, and came down to mid-thigh. A white accent spiraled down from her shoulder, across her bosom to wrap around the opposite hip.

The simplicity seemed to highlight her natural beauty, and outline her body's curves.

Dad glanced down further, expecting heels. Instead she had black boots with tiny white triangles on the toes. They looked comfortable and seemed practical, considering the distances sylphs had to travel.

"What do you think?" Mom asked.

He glanced up to see if Raymond appreciated the thought that went into the dress. Then he reached up and closed the gaping mouth.

"It's a little pricey," Annie said quickly, "but I can go without my allowance for-"

"Don't worry about it," Raymond finally said. "You look...." He waved his hands around for a moment, trying to come up with the words. After a frustrated silence, the sylph suddenly nodded in understanding.

"Really?" she asked, smiling cautiously. "You mean that?"

"I do," he said.

"Wait," Dad asked. "Mean what?"

"Doesn't matter," Mom said. "She understands what he wants to say, that's all that matters."

"You, uh..." He gestured and Annie spun. The white line spread as it spiraled down to the hem. "You're going to knock them dead, Annie."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I will, won't I?"

---------

Annie sat on her swing, kicking her heels gently back and forth. The Dress was on a hanger in a little plastic closet Raymond had made for her. She stared at that, and at the four other hangers on the rack.

Her master had promised to put those to use, soon. She was going to get clothes. Real ones, not that pet store crap, either. Once he'd worked off the loan from Dad, they were going to-

Her plans for fashion domination were interrupted by a tap on the cage door.

"Put it on," Raymond suggested. Pleaded. Begged.

"What?" she shouted in mock outrage. "This is like the first week you owned me."

She slid to the floor and walked over to the Dress. It went on like it was her Destiny and she walked to the cage door.

Raymond put his head on his hands and stared at his pet. The sylph walked back and forth, careful not to put too much swing in her walk.

The Dress demanded respect. And, if she was any judge of giant teen faces, it was getting it.

"I remember being your living posing dummy," she said. "Hours on end, walking so you could watch real female body bits in motion." She spun and posed for a moment, then walked back.

"Hip and thigh, arms and torso, knees," she went on. "It was like you'd never seen a woman before."

"I remember," he said. She stopped right in front of his nose and started at the nearest eye. One hand stretched out to let his finger hover just off of her shoulder.

"I'm afraid to touch it," he whispered.

"You don’t have permission to touch it," she replied.

"I own it!" he complained.

"I own it, you only own me." She tugged the hem down, stretching the material over her hips. "And the Dress owns you, Master."

"I suppose it does," he admitted, lowering his hand back to the desk.

Annie spun on her toes and walked over to climb back in the cage. She half expected him to grab her up anyway, but she walked unmolested.

He had been quite reasonable about the cost, she remembered. And mature in insisting that it was his pet, his burden.

Annie turned at the cage door and blew her owner a kiss. For one of the first times ever, it was sincere.





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