As Delilah led Josh into her room, he couldn't help but notice it was a huge mess. It looked like a tornado had run through the room, with dirty clothes and fashion magazines haphazardly strewn across the floor and furniture. A humungous bed occupied most of the room, the sheets unmade and practically ripped off the bed. Josh saw some very thick books sitting on the nightstand but couldn't read the titles. Could Delilah actually be a college student? Or was she just an avid reader?
Delilah let go of his hand and opened the door to her closet. The closet was practically bursting with a wide variety of clothes, at least half of which were resting in a huge pile on the floor. She got on her knees and began to dig through the pile, tossing random articles of clothing casually aside and across the bedroom as she discarded them.
"Ah, here we go," said Delilah as she pulled out a large chest.
Delilah dragged the chest next to her bed and sat down, motioning for Josh to join her. Curious, Josh sat next to her. He was a little disappointed when she opened the chest and revealed just more clothes. At least what he thought they were clothes. As she pulled a few items out of the chest and held them up, Josh realized they were more like really odd costumes.
"Okay, take your pick. But you need to choose quickly. The guests are due to arrive any minute," said Delilah.
"Guests? What are you talking about? And what are these things? " asked Josh.
"These things are animal skins - very rare and expensive ones, actually," said Delilah. She sighed again loudly. "Look, I don't have a lot of time to explain, but here is the gist of it: I am having a party tonight and my guests are all hybrids like me. We are not huma-phobic or anything but everyone would just be more comfortable if there were no humans at the party."
Josh held up one of the strange costumes. It looked like the something left behind after a lizard shed its skin.
"This is ridiculous. There is no way anyone will ever believe I am a hybrid just because I am wearing one of these things. Your friends will see through my disguise as soon as they meet me," said Josh.
"You would be surprised. Just keep your mouth shut, don't do anything weird and you should be fine, " said Delilah. "If it really bothers you, you can just leave and spend the night somewhere else. But you can't stay here tonight, not looking like that!"
Now it was Josh's turn to sigh. He wasn't anxious to spend all night playing an elaborate masquerade game with strangers, trying desperately to stay in character and constantly worrying that someone would discover his true identity and get upset. But he really didn't have the spare money to waste on a hotel room. So Josh thought he didn't have much of a choice.
"Okay, I'll do it. Let me see what you got," said Josh.
Delilah watched anxiously as Josh began looking through the different skins in the chest, anxiously tapping her hoof on the ground and occasionally casting a nervous glance towards the clock on her wall. Josh tried to hurry, but there were just so many choices. It seemed like every animal he could imagine was represented. And the costumes were remarkably realistic, even anatomically correct.
That was when Josh noticed something ..... off about the costumes. As he cycled through the skins he had previously examined, he found that despite the many different species they represented, they all shared one rather important feature.
"Hey! All of these costumes are female!" said Josh.
"Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, it's kind of a 'girl's only' party tonight - absolutely no boys allowed. That's not a problem, is it? I mean, do you really mind pretending to be a girl?"