5. BENJI
My first time as a member was on the weekend.
I’d told my friend Theo, practically thanking him for standing me up the other week when I met Max. It was all thanks to him I’d looked lost and alone. And why I was here now, fresh from the changing room in my comfy onesie with the back flap and my teddy from home, the lion named Lionel.
It was so much more different than I imagined it being. I’d seen on the tour, all the rooms, all the things on offer, but now I was a member, I was seeing the place completely differently. There was calm, quiet, and people who paid to be here—or were paid to be here and kept to themselves.
Most of the playrooms were empty, since there were two floors filled with them.
People had so much choice of space to use.
Max took me to his favorite room, which was a room filled with giant overly stuffed teddies.
He sat on the leather sofa in the room, sinking into it.
He yanked me onto his lap and we sat there together, looking at the largest teddy bear I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Is it bouncy?” I asked him.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “But I don’t want you to leave my lap yet.”
“Are you hiding a boner?” I asked, giggling.
“No, maybe.” He winked at me and my entire body shivered with want. “I just like to feel you on me.”
After we’d discussed how we’d both been unable to contact each other, and both thinking we’d done something wrong, we’d been clinging to each other in our spare time—or my spare time, which meant the gym had been replaced with him, working me out in his loft apartment.
The type that let light pour in and made me want to wear an oversized white shirt, tube socks, and hold a cup of steamy hot coffee.
He made me feel more than just wanted, he made me feel needed in a way that wasn’t work.
He needed my touch, tongue, taste. He needed me, and I needed him.
“Have you been studying?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “As much as I like spending time with you, I wanna get into law school even more.”
“Good, because I might have a job lined up for you once you graduate,” he said, squeezing a kiss against my face.
“I don’t think I’d want to work for you, but it’s years in the future, a lot could happen before then,” I told him.
He chuckled. “Not for me, well not directly, but I do want you to have the best job possible.”
“Don’t jinx it,” I said, pressing both hands to his mouth.
“I really like you.” His words were muffled behind my hand. “You know that, right?”
My entire face heated up. I knew that, we’d practically been chasing each other around town in our thoughts. Of course he liked me, and I liked him, and together we liked to play. “I know,” I said softly into a giggle. “And it makes it even more special because I know how picky you are.”
He let out a slightly raspy chuckle. “Only from what I’ve told you,” he whispered.
“The truth is, I’m more choosy than that, because I believe if the universe wants me to have something, it will bring it to me.
” He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
“And I think the universe wanted me to have you.”
“Or it wanted me to have you.”
Daddy squeezed me, and kissed me on the wrinkle of my nose, then on my lips. “The big bear is yours to jump on, baby,” he said. “I wanna see you throw yourself at it, arms wide.”
My heart raced, and childlike wonder tingled through me as I questioned how soft it was going to be before I could even touch it. I rolled around off Daddy’s lap and slinked from the sofa like a snake, slowly falling mostly, but in a graceful way.
“I wish I could take a picture of it,” I said, standing to my feet. I turned to see my lion teddy sitting in Daddy’s lap. He was cradling it like he had done me, like a baby, his baby.
“Rules are rules,” he said, stroking the teddy lion’s mane.
“And without them, everything would be chaos. Plus, why do you need pictures, when you can come here, again and again? You don’t have to live in the memory of photos and videos with me.
” He leaned over his lap, gesturing with a finger for me to come closer.
“I don’t,” I let out softly.
“With me, you can have those feelings and memories happen, again and again,” he said. “So of course, savor the moment, baby, but remember, this is all for you. Right now, at least.”
I nodded, leaning in and taking another one of his delicate kisses, the type of delicate that signaled we’d be a little bit more playful tonight.
The teddy bear had been stuffed to the point of bursting with fiberfill and small polystyrene balls like a beanbag. I jumped right on it and they spilled out. I think that was the entire point, to be ready to burst, to let whoever was playing jump around on it and play with all the insides.
I made snow angels with it on the ground and tried to cover myself in it.
Daddy got involved, on his knees, chasing me around in the mess I’d made.
We were exhausted by the end of it, lying in the middle of the floor, wrapped in his arms as the husk of the teddy bear now resided in the corner of the room.
“What happens with the teddy now?” I asked, staring up at the gold stickers dotting the ceiling.
“I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I assume someone comes in, sucks it all up with a powerful vacuum, and then pumps it right back into the teddy with—whatever setting that takes,” he said, while running his fingers across the lines of my palm, and I was ticklish to the point of snatching hold of his finger, but his touch was always needed, like it healed me—at least, some part of it was healing.
I giggled. “Sucks it all.”
“Mhm, feeling naughty?” he asked, turning his head to me.
“Can we go to the ball pit as well?”
“We can do whatever it is you want,” he said. “As long as it involves me.”
I rolled onto his body, placed both hands on his face, and gave him the biggest kiss I’d ever given anyone else’s face before; it was a little wet, and just enough pressure. “Then I vote ball pit—oh, then maybe the cat room. I wanna try it all, I wanna go everywhere.”
“There’s no rush,” he said. “But whatever you want, I’ve already promised you that.”
I’d been nervous to do anything when I visited on their open night, like I was a voyeur, a guest, someone who others would’ve looked at and smirked—at least, that’s what my anxiety had told me.
It wasn’t saying that now. Those words were well and truly devoured by the membership card I’d been given.
I was a member now, and I was empowered to do everything to please my inner happiness, my little, squeezing through the pressure of work, the stress of life.
I was happy here. I was happy at the Playhouse.
* * *
Life had a strange way of rewarding people. I grew up being told that if you worked hard, you’d get where you wanted to be, and if you didn’t work hard, or you didn’t have ambition, then you’d become a nobody, and that seemed to be the worst thing in the world, like it was an identity.
I’d grown a lot since then, to the point I knew who I was, I knew what I liked, and how to make sure everything in my world came out sparkling. A deep contrast to the work I did which was rigid, formal, and always had to be delivered dry—law and legal systems were like that.
In Daddy’s room at the Playhouse, I lay looking at the ceiling. There were no stars on it . . . yet. Daddy said he’d do anything to make my happy, and stickers on the ceiling would do just that.
The beep of the hotel door sounded, and Daddy walked in with a paper bag in hand.
“They have a huge selection of stickers,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed, then lying right beside me.
“So, I got you one of each.” He presented me with the stickers, poking out the top of the paper bag. “But I also have another offer.”
“A better offer?” I asked, giggling as I comforted up against his side. “What could be better than decorating the ceiling?”
“Well, coming back to my place,” he said. “The loft.”
“And—and decorating there?” I asked, eyes wide in surprise. “Because your space is very immaculate and—”
He laughed. “It’s not,” he said. “It’s plain, and when I was in the elevator just then, I was looking at all these glittery stickers thinking about how they might, you know, brighten my space up, and they’d be a part of you at my place.”
“Yes,” I said. “I wanna do that.”
He kissed me, pulling me on top of him. I managed to push the stickers away from getting crumpled.
“You mean it?” I asked.
“What’s one of the number one rules?”
“Uhm.”
“Close,” he chuckled. “Try again.”
“Honesty,” I answered. “I remember. You like to know whatever is on my mind, and you like to say whatever it is on your mind. At all times.”
“At most times,” he said. “I try not to do that in business, unless I have the upper hand.” He rolled me over on the bed with all his Daddy strength. His body weighed down on me like a blanket, soft and warm.
“And you have the upper hand now.”
“As a Daddy always should,” he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. “You smell delicious.”
“I bet I taste delicious too,” I giggled.
“So, is that a yes on going back to my place?” he said. “And you won’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn because it’s the weekend.”
I full-body shivered beneath him. “I like the sound of that a lot.” I’d spent a night or two at his place, and since both of us lived busy lives, we kept a similar schedule. “But I’d like to—” I paused, my stomach rumbling under him.
“And I best feed you as well,” he said. “So, my place, I’ll order takeout, and we can go crazy, decorating with stickers. I want them everywhere.”
From beneath him, I slipped my hands up his back, getting under his shirt.
I couldn’t do the same soft drawing he did on me, but I tried.
It felt like I was fingerpainting with the way I dragged my fingers across his back, drawing a landscape in my mind with rolling hills and one large spiraling sun.
“Can I ask one thing, before we go anywhere?” I began, staring into his eyes as he looked down at me all soft.
“Anything,” he said. “Remember, I’ve got my rules on communication.”
I nodded. “You’re right. So, are we dating?
” It was the question I’d swallowed and kept in my throat for days.
The first time we spent together was right here in this bed, but we’d been together again and again, and now, here we were again, and he was offering me space at his place to dot glittery star stickers, basically the little’s equivalent of an animal scenting their area.
“Yes,” he said, kissing me with our noses together. “I consider this dating. Are you asking for a key to my place?”
“No, no, we should give it a few more weeks before you confess your heart to me, and give me your keys,” I snickered.
“Why wait?” he asked.
“What?”
Daddy slipped off the side. “Why wait?” he repeated himself.
“For those two weeks you didn’t call, I thought I’d done something wrong.
I spent way too long analyzing it. I knew we had a good time, but it kinda collapsed my brain on itself thinking about it.
And in all those thoughts, I came to the same conclusion each time.
You’ve made me care about you,” he said, his soft hands doing their calming motions on the back of my palms. “So, I would give you my heart. You’ve already consumed my mind, so why not my heart? ”
A tear trickled down my cheek. I placed a hand, guided by his hand, on his chest. “For the first time, I feel like I’m the lucky one. I—I feel like you’re my reward.” His heart thumped under my fingers.
“You are the reward.”
I sobbed, immediately pressing my lips together to not make a sound. “But I think you’re the reward, everything you’ve given me.”
“That’s because you’re giving me something back in return.”
My forehead scrunched, trying to think about what I was giving him. Immediately switching back into adult mode, I hoped this wasn’t something to do with my work, and perhaps it was something I’d actually already done for him. I wasn’t exactly a lawyer, if that’s what he’d wanted.
“Relax,” he said, laughing. “You’ve given me you, your attention, your space. Your little space, that is. You’ve opened it up for me to take care of you in. And that has given me new purpose, which I’d been searching for.”
I tilted my head. “You’ve got so much going on, what do you mean?”
“Well, I think they say matters of the heart are entirely different,” he said, now placing his hand to my chest, feeling just how quickly my heartbeat was going. “I’ve never had luck with them, but you’re different.”
“Maybe because you never approached a loner before.”
“God. I regret calling you that,” he laughed. “But you were alone. And of course, I know you have friends. And maybe if he had come with you, I’d have stayed in my booth, drinking my vodka soda, watching and waiting for guys to approach me.”
“I guess that was different too. You approached me, I didn’t—”
“See, my heart knew something even then,” he said as my heart was racing in my ears, thundering almost, as if we were about to confess we were each other’s greatest love.
I hoped not, at least not yet. “So, I’ll get you a key.
It’s quiet and feels light in the day, if you need somewhere to go and study. ”
I’d seen daylight in his apartment, but I’d ever only visited in the night, and left as the sun was rising. I wasn’t going to complain, the bed was incredible, and I didn’t have to hear two other people in the apartment—or the neighbors upstairs
“Thank you,” I said. “It’ll be helpful, and I think I’m ready to take my LSATs. I just need to pick a date and sign up.” I nodded with my words; it had stressed me. “Can we—get back to playful talk? I wanna play.”
“Here? Or at home?”
My heart.
I knew he was referring to his apartment, but he called it home, like we shared it.
I’d already fallen head over teddy bear feetie onesie for him, and that cemented it.
I was in love with Daddy Max, and he’d given me his heart—pretty much the same thing.
“Home,” I said.
He leaned in and kissed me. “Home it is.”