Liz whispered something to Felicia, then said aloud, “Felicia is the one who will do your nails. She has the biggest nail polish collection out of all of us, which is why I figured that it was best for her to do it. She knows the colors I picked out, so you can go with her to her room to get started.” Miles did as told and walked with Felicia to her room.

Felicia’s room was pretty similar to Liz’s in style, except there were a few additional decorations to make the place more lively. She had a string of lights, a few posters, and photos on her mirror. It definitely seemed to fit with her personality.

Felicia told Miles that he could sit on her bed, which would make this process easier. She grabbed a big case out of her closet and opened it up. Inside of it was a bunch of nail polish bottles, each with their own unique color. There was also some tools often used in nail care, like a nail file, toe separators, and other miscellaneous stuff.

First, Felicia took out a nail polish bottle with clear liquid in it. “What I have here is a base coat. It’s just something I’ll be putting on all your nails so that the polish doesn’t stain your nails. It also helps the polish last longer, which I guess doesn’t really matter in your case, but I’m going to use it anyway.” Miles nodded as she had him stick out his hands. She unscrewed the bottle and brushed his fingernails with the shiny liquid, eventually doing the same with his toenails.

While that dried a little, Felicia grabbed the necessary nail polish colors. She had taken 3 bottles out; one was a red polish, one was a pink polish, and last one could not be determined by Miles, as the bottle was not see-through. “Those are probably the worst colors that could’ve been picked for me,” he thought.

Seeing the look on his face, Felicia tried to comfort him. “I know the colors are kind of extreme. Liz sometimes goes too far with these dares, but I think she just likes that there’s someone new to try and embarrass. Hopefully she’ll get tired of it soon enough. I’m glad you’re being a good sport, though. Most guys I know probably would’ve run when Liz mentioned the underwear.” He smiled at that as she prepared everything for the official start of his punishment.

She gave him the toe separators to use for his feet. “You should put these on so that you don’t mess up the polish or get it on your skin.” Miles did as such while Felicia grabbed the pink polish. This pink was very bright, close to a neon type of color. It was definitely a girly color, and it is unlikely that anyone else would see it otherwise.

Felicia screwed the top off of the polish and began to paint Miles’s toenails. One by one, his nails were coated with the pink color as she glided the brush over them. Although he wasn’t happy about the dare, the feeling of the brush going across his nails was an interesting sensation. After Felicia had painted all of his toenails, she went back and did another coat on each of them. Once she was finished, she allowed Miles to get a better look at them.

Miles had to hand it to her: she did a really good job on his toenails. Each nail was perfectly polished with the pink color, and he could not see any of his bare nail at all. It was kind of weird to see polish on his toes, especially since they have only been unpolished his entire life. Although he didn’t pay much attention to what his feet originally looked like, the polish definitely made them look different. He didn’t want to say this out loud, but he actually kind of liked it.

While his toenails dried, Felicia moved on to his fingernails. She grabbed the red polish and had Miles stick out his hands again. After taking out the brush from the nail polish bottle, it didn’t take long for her to start painting his nails with the cherry red color. It was pretty much the same process as the toenails, except this time, Felicia didn’t paint the nails on either of his ring fingers. Miles asked her why she was skipping those nails as she screwed the brush back onto the nail polish bottle.

“Liz told me that she wanted your nails to be as feminine as possible,” Felicia said in a somewhat somber tone. “So, she decided to be a little… creative. I am so sorry about this.”

In that moment, Felicia picked up the mystery bottle and took the brush out. Miles could instantly see what was in it: glitter. It seemed to be a silver-colored polish, except it was almost straight-up covered with glitter. His eyes widened, and he couldn’t believe that this was going to be on his nails. It didn’t take long for Felicia to put the polish on his two bare fingernails, officially making all of his nails painted.

Miles took a look at the nails on his hands; they were definitely a sight to see. Not only were they red, a popular nail color for women, but they also had the glittery accent nail, something that you would never see on a man. Unfortunately for Miles, he hadn’t cut his nails in a while, so the length of them really made things worse. Aside from a little hair on his knuckles, it would be hard to tell that his hands did not belong to a woman.

Miles praised Felicia for a job well-done, which brought a smile to her face. He did not want her to know, though, that her work was almost sending him into a panic attack. He was feeling very stressed on the inside, and had so many questions as to what would happen next. How would he get through classes like this? Will people begin to think he is gay? Can he even go out in public anymore?

Felicia, despite Miles’s attempts to hide his emotions, could definitely tell that something was a little off with him. To help distract him while his nails dried, she decided to get a normal conversation going.

“So, how have your classes been going so far? When you named off what you were taking, they sounded pretty cool.”

“It seems like they will be interesting classes. I’m usually not big on lecture-heavy courses, but once they got into the material they’ll be teaching, I was intrigued. This is probably because I am an only child and have not even had a girlfriend, and I guess learning about certain relationships is the closest I can get to experiencing them.”

“That makes sense. I have a big family, and it’s hard for me to imagine what not having that would be like. I get why you would want to explore that kind of thing, having those relationships is pretty nice.”

After a short pause, Miles inquired, “Can I ask you something? How is Liz so good at Dare Poker? She’s won both games since I’ve been here, and none of us ever came close to beating her.”

“Her dad was like the poker champion of North America or something, so she dominates this game. I don’t think she has lost once, and there have only been a select few where she didn’t get to choose the loser’s fate.”

“Wow, that’s intimidating. I’m surprised you all could get this far without the dares running so thin.”

“Believe it or not, the dares have been pretty good this entire time. Even after the most outlandish of dares, she was still rolling them out every week. Like I said, she can get really creative with this kind of thing.”

After they talked for a little while longer, Felicia checked Miles’s nails and felt that they were dry. She grabbed another bottle of clear polish out of her case and began to put it on all of his nails. “This is called a top coat. It’s just to make sure that your nails don’t get ruined. Hopefully this means that you won’t have to get them repainted, as Liz said they need to be perfect throughout the entire dare.” Once she had put the top coat on his nails, she put everything away and stored her case back in her closet.

Miles thanked Felicia for making him feel more comfortable with the situation. She smiled and said that it was no problem. He got off of her bed and left the room. Looking at his nails one last time, he gathered up the courage to go downstairs in his current state.

The moment he got into the living room, all of the girls asked to see his nails. Each of them gave many comments about how the colors and design looked good on him. They didn’t seem to care that the nails were on him, a guy (which is not very normal in society). He actually kind of liked the attention he was getting in that moment.

After the initial shock of things, the girls went back to watching their movie, as if everything was normal. Miles, along with Felicia, joined them in watching the movie. Once the movie was over, he went to his room and got into bed, falling asleep soon after.

After he showered and got dressed on Saturday morning, Miles realized that he had just put on his last pair of women’s underwear. He needed to do some laundry anyway, so he took his basket of clothes down to the laundry room. He had looked up how to wash the underwear and learned that it had to be separate from all of his other clothes. He stuck the underwear into the washing machine, set the cycle to delicate, and pressed start.

While those were washing, Miles decided to do some of his homework. He already had a paper to write, but luckily, it only needed to be a page long. He sat down at his computer and opened up a new Word document to get started. The topic of the paper is “Gender Roles”, which seemed like an easy thing to write about to him. As he typed on the keyboard, he couldn’t help but get distracted by his new nails. Although he initially didn’t like them, he was starting to become okay with them. His nails have been bare his entire life, and he figured that there’s not much harm in adding a little color for a few days.

After he had written most of the paper, he went to go check on his laundry. His underwear was done, so he put them in the dryer and added the rest of his clothes to the now-empty washer. Upon leaving the laundry room, he noticed that everyone was chatting in the living room now.

“Hey, Miles,” Maddy said, noticing him walk in. “We were just talking about going to the mall on Cedar Drive that just opened up, and we’re going to hang out there and maybe have lunch. You wanna join us?”

Miles thought for a moment, then said, “Sure, that sounds great!” The girls said that they would be leaving soon, so he hurriedly went back to his room to grab his wallet and shoes. That’s when he remembered that he had the nails. “Damn it, I forgot about these!” he said to himself. “I guess I’ll just have to make sure to keep my hands in my pockets the entire time.” He headed downstairs again and they all left in Trish’s car.

As they pulled up to the mall, Miles was feeling a little nervous. Even though he would try his best to keep his hands hidden, he worried that he would slip up and that people would take notice to his nails. He did have a group of girls who could defend him if anything happens, but that still didn’t really help with his confidence. Eventually, though, he sucked it up, stuck his hands into the pockets of his shorts, and walked in with the girls.

The mall was huge. There were over a hundred different stores, varying from fashion to tech to sporting goods. A food court also sat in the middle of everything. The mall at the moment was very busy, likely due to it having just opened. Maybe Miles wouldn’t have to worry so much if he will just blend in with the crowd.

The girls were really interested in going into the clothing stores. Obviously, Miles wasn’t really interested in that, but they dragged him into those stores anyway. They went to at least 5 different stores over the course of a few hours, where the girls tried on shoes, dresses, tops, and a bunch of other things. They continued to ask for Miles’s opinion on what they wore, but he really didn’t know what to say when they asked him that. They even went into a lingerie store at one point, which made him even more uncomfortable.

After they were done with their shopping, they went to the food court to get some lunch. Since there were so many choices of food, each of them split up to get their own stuff. Miles decided on a sandwich place and got a turkey club with a drink. He was the first of everyone to get his food, so he found a spot for everyone to eat at. He specifically chose a more secluded area, as he was still reserved about people seeing his nails. The girls found where he was sitting and they all ate together. They chatted like normal, and Miles really felt like a part of the group at this point.

It wasn’t long before they decided to head back to the house. Nobody had noticed Miles’s nails (at least, nobody mentioned them), which made him relieved. “Hopefully classes will go as smoothly as this experience,” he thought.

Once they arrived at the house, Miles changed out his laundry. After putting his regular clothes in the dryer, he brought the women’s underwear into his room, folded them, and stuck them in his drawer. He then went back to doing his homework, and it didn’t take long for him to finish up his paper, which he promptly submitted online. He browsed the internet while waiting for the rest of his clothes to finish, and upon them finishing, took them out of the dryer and put them away.

For the rest of the day, Miles hung out with the girls downstairs. It was mostly just talking while the TV was playing in the background, but he still enjoyed himself. They pretty much just did that until around 1 AM when they all felt tired. They all wished each other a good night and went to their respective rooms. Miles got changed into his pajamas and slipped into bed.

“Maybe this whole dare thing isn’t as bad as I was imagining it would be,” he thought as he drifted off to sleep.