Free Primal Song by Danica Avet

wasn’t his only reason for coming to the Hair Shack. His mane was driving him insane.
    He had to keep it cut. Feeling the long strands sticking to his face during his morning runs and getting it caught in his eyes when he was trying to do something irritated the shit out of him. If he thought he could cut a straight line, he’d have taken a pair of shears to himself and called it done. However, he did have an image to uphold and a botched haircut wouldn’t do him any favors.
    The Hair Shack looked exactly like what it was called—a shack. It was an old wooden building that had apparently started off as a shed, but had been expanded over the years. It wasn’t fancy, yet it was full of clients who all stopped to stare at him.
    He recognized a few of the women from the welcoming committees. At first he’d been wary of the females, convinced they were there to gather information to give to the press, but they had something more important to see him about. It seemed they all thought he’d starve without their help. Over the last week he’d received more food than he could eat. Gumbos, bulging pans of jambalayas, desserts, and even a block of something dubiously named hog’s head cheese. He liked that the women wanted him to feel welcome in their town, but wasn’t sure he could put a dent in the pile of food crowding the fridge at Red House.
    Unnerved by the attention, but doing his best not to show it, Ram smiled at the room. “Hi, I need a trim and a blow dry.”
    A woman stepped forward. She looked older than the other women in the salon, but the scissors in her hand and the bubble-gum pink smock she wore over her clothes identified her as one of the stylists. She looked him over, even going so far as to sniff him.
    “ Cher , I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but lions do not cut their manes,” she told him firmly.
    Beneath her stern regard, he felt a blush trying to form. Ram hadn’t blushed since he was a teenager and he damn well wasn’t going to do it now. Instead, he studied his adversary, ignoring the gaggle of females staring at them. The woman in front of him looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her before. She was tall like Daisy, but hadn’t been one of the women to welcome him to town.
    “Ma’am, I was told this was the best establishment in the tri-parish area, but if you don’t think you can handle trimming my mane, I understand.” He purposely spoke loud enough for everyone to hear.
    Of course he hadn’t heard any such thing. If anything, everyone he’d called had said The Hair Shack was the only salon or barbershop in an eighty-mile radius. He was stuck unless he went out and bought a pair of clippers to shave his head.
    The brown eyes staring at him twinkled at the challenge in his tone. “Well now, it looks like you came to the right place,” she murmured. She closed her scissors with a snick and stepped back. “We’re a little short-handed today, but we’ll get you fixed up. I’ll give you your trim.” She looked around the shop. “Do any of you girls have time to give him a blow job?”
    *
    “Possible 103R and 82 in progress at the Hair Shack,” the dispatcher squawked over the radio. “Daisy, your mama’s involved, the sheriff’s already on his way.”
    Daisy threw her lunch in the passenger seat, clipped her seatbelt into place and tore out of the shade of an oak tree. Her heart pounded the entire way to her mama’s beauty salon. Prostitution and a riot? God, she prayed her mama wasn’t hurt.
    She saw her dad’s cruiser parked haphazardly in the middle of the parking lot and pulled in next to him. Daisy had her door open before she came to a stop. She threw her car into park and leapt out all in one smooth motion. She ran up the familiar steps of her mom’s shop and flung open the door.
    Women were everywhere. They all wore capes. Some wore towels over their hair, some had aluminum foil sticking up all over their heads, and some were all