Page 1 of The HalloQueen

PROLOGUE

ANNABEL

Ihave never seen a problem that could not be solved without skulls, plants, or glitter. Got an outfit that just seems kind of boring? Put a skull on it. Wondering why your living room is dull? Go buy a plant. Need to kick some ass? Buy the glittery combat boots. Skulls, plants, and glitter are able to fix any issue if you water them down enough. In fact, any bad day can be easily satiated by a $7 iced coffee and a trip to the hardware store to steal fallen pieces of succulents for propagating. After all, you’d just spent $7 on watered down bean juice…who would have money for the plant after that?

Thanks to the latest trends, plants were readily available for purchase at any store, and shiny, sparkly, glittery things were never in short supply when you knew where to look. The trickiest part of living your Bad Bitch happily ever after would always be finding the perfect skull for the occasion. Especially in March.

It was an issue I’d had more times than one would think. When I opened my online boutique, HalloQueens, a few years ago, I hadn’t expected that finding spooky items for my flat lays would be the frustrating part. I could curate the exclusive pieces and stock the decor; I could even manage the backend of the website all on my own, but I couldn’t manage to find the perfect mercury glass skull or realistic looking black roses at a reasonable price to really bring the look together in the middle of Spring. And that just couldn’t fly since my aesthetic was my brand. No, I had to stock up for dark February days when the skull inventory was high, and that would always be the Fall.

I’d had aesthetic obsessions since my formative years when I realized that while my friends were going through their Emo phase at the chain stores at the mall, easily buying baggy black pants with lace, or pinafores with tiny mushrooms, my fat ass was stuck going into the old lady store. The business-casual mass-market potato sacks left me a depressed tweenager who needed to figure out how to make a purple polyester wrap dress scream, “I could kick your ass if I wanted to” (P:S, the answer was fishnets, bitchin’ jewelry, and the sparkly combat boots mentioned above). Did these challenges give me creative problem solving skills? Absolutely. But moreover, they gave me a drive, a purpose. Goals. I wanted to grow up and make a one stop shop for all the girls, gays, and theys to purchase their gothic bohemian looks, and be the one to provide equal access to alternative fashion through size inclusivity and gender non-conforming staples.

To help achieve these goals, I stole my grandma’s sewing machine and cactus when I was 13. I did it while I was wearing a men’s xxl black cotton tee that I’d cut and tied up the sides and puff painted a skull with hearts for eyes on. I remember because my Grandmother asked why I was wearing the failed art experiment andwhycouldn’t I just be happy with the clothes that were my size! She never had a shortage of insults or backhanded comments regarding my size or fashion sense, but that day, instead of listening to another one of her lectures, I found the dutsy machine in the closet, and the sunburnt cactus on the kitchen’s windowsill. They both came home with me that day.

The cactus still sits in my sewing room, thankful to be loved and kept company. Her sewing machine, unfortunately, met a sad death-by-frat-boy in college when Gregory James got wasted and tripped on the chord, slamming the ancient beast to the ground. I was able to buy my first commercial sewing machine by selling overpriced succulents in aesthetically pleasing containers to the boho girls (see: glitter decoupaged terra cotta), born from propagated pieces of cacti from my grandmother’s plant, and embroidering skulls and flowers onto their clothes. Like I said, I hadn’t met a problem I couldn’t fix without skulls, plants, or glitter.

But the problem was finding the right skull, plant or glitter for the problem.Which is why when the seasons turned, I knew I’d be at the Halloween Store more times than any rational human being. Spooky Season was the time where I could buy a skull for five bucks, or purple twinkle lights that ran off a usb port in a discount bin. At the Halloween store, I could find gelly pieces of blood splatter, or bats that were cute instead of anatomically accurate. I needed to stock up on everything I’d need for the following year’s designs, lest I get to March and have to pay $34.99 for a pink skull that would match the spring’s latest pencil skirt.

I’d planned on chatting up the owner, Andrew, who was the spitting image of Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, in hopes of creating a relationship with him that would allow me to purchase more at the end of the season at a steep discount before he closed up shop. That was the plan, until I found myself leaned over the counter locking eyes with the most beautiful stranger I’d ever met in my life. His French accent melted all of my hard parts and I bloomed under the desire that danced in his eyes as he stared at my cleavage.

I thought it was well in hand and that it would be easy to get that discount, and was extra happy that the experience wouldn’t be nearly as unfortunate as having to flirt with the smelly guy from high school. That’s all I’d wanted. I just wanted the discount. I had never walked in there with the intention of becoming the infatuation of a 400 year old french vampire on the rebound. That had never been on my radar. Although, perhaps it’d be okay. After all, if I got in over my head, garlic was a plant, and plants, glitter, and skulls could fix anything.

1

ANNABEL

Fat Girl Fall was, by far, my most anticipated launch of the year. Autumn being the most sacred season to the plus-size woman as we gather around bonfires to celebrate the passing of uncontrollable boob sweat and the rebirth of the pumpkin spice latte. I’d know. After an insecure adolescence, I enjoyed adulthood at a voluptuous size 22, so any relief from the sweat of summer could bring a smile to my face. I’d worked hard to overcome the insecurities caused by being the fat friend as a teenager, and reinforced my body positivity daily thanks to my brand, HalloQueens. I’d created an online boutique where people like me could make our outsides match our insides, and allow us to present ourselves with the confidence that comes from feeling great in our own skin. I’m fat, and Iloveit. Even more, I want others to love their fat bodies too.

I love the way my ass fills out a pleated skirt, or how my large thighs stretch a pair of fishnets. I love the softness of my breasts and how the fullness of my hourglass creates a delectable waistline. I love my body so much that I turned it into a career. HalloQueens exists to ensure that any chubby teen goth girl can fit into a black cat hoodie and every thicc sex goddess can channel their inner Morticia, like I wish I’d been able to when my confidence had needed it. That was how I’d chosen to live my life - just a fat Morticia, raising hell through fashion while patiently waiting for my Gomez to blow my mind.

My spring collection had sold out almost instantaneously after I’d gone viral with a try-on video where my cat, Tim, had crashed through the frame and jumped into the curtains, ripping them down and landing the rod on my head. Was that how I wanted to become internet famous? Absolutely not. But by monetizing my content and feeding into the lusty comment section, I was easily able to put down a year’s rent on a small office space and I no longer had to operate out of my dining room. It only takes a single viral moment to change someone’s life if they can tackle the aftermath correctly, and I had, so for the first time since opening HalloQueens my senior year in college, I was able to leave my home daily to work.

No one talked about how lonely and isolating working from home was - sure, there were some perks, but at least by leaving the house I could drive through for a coffee without having to put pants onspecificallyto do it. Also, my collection of adorable skirts had skyrocketed because apparently, the hatred of pants was not exclusively a work-from-home problem. Having a designated work space and time had created more scheduled content and the popularity of my brand grew so much seemingly overnight that I’d even needed to hire a friend to act as my assistant to help keep an efficient shipping turnaround.

I knew I was one of the lucky ones whose boutique didn’t crash and burn as soon as my five seconds of fame ended, but I attributed that to my desire for inclusivity that I highlighted on all of my social media accounts. That, or it was due to the array of spicy and chest accentuating transitions I’d perfected that had a tendency to blow up. Either way, between my influencer income and the boutique, I also was finally comfortable and able to live without four roommates for the first time by leaving the city and moving back to Quaker’s Wharf. I will admit that my moms have compared my monetized thirst traps to sex work, but sales are sales. Also, everyone wants a shirt that they think will make their boobs look likethat, and dammit, I’d gladly send it to them in three to five business days up to a 6XL to afford a private row house sanctuary for me and Tim. We’d earned it.

Thirst traps had become my most successful form of marketing. So much so that I turned one of the storage closets in my office suite into a filming studio. It lacked natural light, being a closet and all, but I was happy to abuse my ring lights to stop myself from purposely bouncing my boobs by the windows. People can see me shake my ass on the internet all they want, but the idea of one of my neighbors catching me doing fifty takes of the same stupid dance while half-dressed was so cringe. This wasn’t a huge city - I was going to run into people at the grocery store. Try buying bananas while Mr. Smith stares and licks his lips. We’ll file the complications of thirst trap marketing under things they don’t tell you in business school. Pro: Influencer money. Con: Mr. Smith thinking that I would ever be remotely interested in his banana.

The thirst traps had not only boosted sales, but my self-confidence had solidified. Sure, there were always the “you’re killing yourself and others by promoting obesity” or “ur fat” trolls in my feeds, chomping at the bit to cancel me the second that “thin is back in” but those were the idiots who weren't buying my stuff anyway. Neither was Mr. Smith, but at least he was paying me by the view.

I’d come to love coloring my hair obnoxiously to match a specific item I wanted to promote, or having an excuse to put on thigh-high boots and enjoy my ass jiggling in all the right ways. Teenage me was proud of adult Annabel. Adult Annabel had worked hard to get to this point, and adult Annabel had 650,000 followers on one app alone.Thanks for watching me shake my ass, friends! Link to the corset is in my bio!

All this to say, I’d been working around the clock for the last two months purchasing inventory, taking photos, and doing back-end website work to prepare for the drop of over two hundred styles and decor items for Fat Girl Fall. I did this while exclusively living off of some pumpkin spice latte menu hack I saw on social media. Because how was I supposed to sell Autumn if I didn’t feel like it was Autumn? It didn’t matter that it was only the beginning of September - spooky season waited for no woman.

My days ran together, ebbing and flowing in stress level depending on how far away from a launch I was, and with Fall coming, I was living at the office in a constant state of anxiety wondering if this was going to be the launch that somehow cancelled my brand. My eyes were probably going to fall out from staring at the computer screen so much trying to make contingency plans for my contingency plans and hundreds of social media posts.

I only looked up from editing one such video post to see my friend and assistant, Shannon, stumbling into the suite with her sunglasses on and her short white pixie cut hair looking more fucked than spiked. Her extremely pear shaped body was squeezed into a pair of black leggings that must have been blessed by a priest to remain opaque over the globes of her ass, and she accented her slender shoulders with a tank and a flannel tied at her waist. “Good Morning, Shan - have a good night?” I asked her a little louder than I needed to, just to test if she was hungover.

She cringed at the volume and brought the palm of her hand to her forehead, so the answer was clearly yes. “Morning, boss.” She headed over to her desk, which was always meticulously organized compared to my system of piles, and even took a moment to sani-wipe her worktop before hanging up her black patent leather handbag and falling into her extra wide pink chair.

I’d been so excited to find pink office chairs with a higher weight capacity, only to get totally bummed when they arrived and the chairs were labeled by the brand with something stupid about being for a husky giant on the back, so that summer I’d used my new vinyl machine and added “you like my _____” to cover that shit up. Shannon’s chair says “you like my giant thighs.” and mine says, “you like my giant tits.” I felt it was a nicer addition to the workplace than sitting in a chair with‘made with herculean strength’tattooed on my lumbar support. Bonus, the labeling helped us from accidentally taking the other’s chair and messing with all the settings, thus making it an entirely functional addition to the furniture, and not at all about making us laugh. But if it was, I’m the boss, so whatever.

“I need to run to the store,” I said to her as I loudly dropped my keys three or four times while gathering my things, trying not to laugh at her obvious discomfort, “I don’t think all of the marketing props survived the move.” Fat Girl Fall’s launch was creeping up on us and I felt way behind on taking marketing images because of how many things got destroyed in the move from Chicago to my Moms’ garage and then to the office.

Shannon nodded, wincing and holding her forehead with her stiletto-tipped red nails, “Oh I know, I found multiple broken styrofoam skulls and a whole lot of chipped spray paint.”

“And that, my friend, is why we are no longer spray painting the same skull forty times a season for pictures.”

In the early days of my boutique, every penny meant the difference between groceries or begging my moms to Cash App me, so to save a buck I’d spray paint cheap props before every photoshoot. It slowed my process down, but I always felt like the aesthetic of the brand was more important than my time. Once I reached the point that HalloQueens got hundreds of orders a week, I realized that my time was also money if I could have been working on influencer stuff instead of painting a foam skull. So adult Annabel needed to go buy an array of skulls and props from the Halloween pop-up shop and store them properly to stand the test of time.

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