Chapter Two #2
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” I grin at her. “Maybe I need to teach you a thing or two about bratting.”
She gasps and shakes her head. “No. Uh-uh. Nope. I like praise. I totally panic if I think I’m gonna get in trouble.”
I can’t help chuckling. Shaking my head, I sigh, “Well, you’ve picked the wrong Boy to make friends with, Tess. I live for trouble.”
She leans back a little, eyes raking over me almost skeptically. “You seem too nice for that to be true.”
“You can be nice and a brat, you know.”
“Sweet, then.”
I make a gagging sound. “I’m not sweet.”
Tess’s lips curl upwards and she starts digging into her own lunch, taking a bite of food and waggling her empty fork at me. “Nah,” she says as she chews, “you just comforted me, a complete stranger, and talked me down from my freakout within like five seconds of meeting me. That is sweet.”
“Maybe I just didn’t want to make a scene?”
“If you’re really the brat you say you are, wouldn’t making a scene be exactly the kind of thing you’d enjoy?”
“I…” Damn it. She’s probably right. I scowl. “Shut up.”
She giggles.
I can’t help but smile back.
***
After lunch, I half-consider signing up for the same Littles group activity that Tess does, if only because it feels like I’ve made a friend already, but I am not feeling Little today.
So, instead, I wave goodbye to her and head towards my chosen Middle activity for the afternoon, which is apparently an arts and crafts session on the lawn.
There are a bunch of Middles and their Caregivers already in attendance when I get to the group, and I swallow because I seem to be the only Middle on my own.
The counselor running the activity is cute, though, so that’s something.
His stickers and wristband have him flagging as a Daddy and gay, which also lifts my spirit.
He’s also a solo Daddy, unpaired for the week, if I’m understanding the stickers correctly.
And the bandanas tucked into his back pocket suggest that he’s happy to play with Middles and Littles both.
“Hi! You missed us all introducing ourselves,” he tells me, making my stomach drop a little. But his smile, surrounded by dark stubble, is warm, and he doesn’t seem annoyed by my accidental tardiness, “I’m Kris,” he points to his nametag, which reads ‘Kristian’. “What’s your name?”
“Benjamin, but I like Benji,” I answer with confidence. I look around the group, most of whom are standing behind a semi-circle of eight easels. “I was late ’cos I couldn't choose what I wanted to do first. Sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” Kris beams back at me. “It’s the first real day of camp and there’s a lot to choose from.”
I nod, not sure what kind of response he expects from that.
Apparently none, I realize as he just claps his hands and gestures to the others.
“Today we’re going to do some landscape painting.
You can follow along as I paint my own canvas and try to paint the same scene as me, or you can choose another view and paint that instead.
You can paint with your Caregiver or on your own. That’s totally up to you, too.”
“I’m here on my own,” I explain, as if that’s not obvious by the fact that I turned up alone. I choose one of the free easels, adding, “And I don’t have an assigned Daddy.”
There are some murmurs from the couple at the easel to my left, but I ignore it.
I don’t need a Daddy to enjoy myself, or my regression.
Kris, at least, doesn’t seem to think I do, either.
He just smiles that warm Daddy-esque smile at me.
“Excellent, more chance for you to express yourself on the canvas without interference.” He makes a show of “hiding” his mouth with the back of his hand before stage-whispering, “Daddies can be a bit bossy about these things.”
Sunshine-y Daddies don’t usually do it for me, but something about this guy’s warm brown eyes and bright smile makes my stomach flip pleasantly.
He’s got a cute face, like I said, but is otherwise just your average Daddy.
He’s not super tall, and he doesn’t look ripped or even particularly athletic, but I’m attracted to him anyway.
Maybe because the last Daddy I hung out with was a jerk.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes at my own inner voice.
He wasn’t a jerk. We just didn’t really gel.
He wanted a little Little, and he’d thought that because of my whole pee kink, I might be okay to regress further than I actually do.
It probably frustrated him that, nope, I’m really just a Middle with some Little tendencies, and a bit of a brat to boot.
I wonder what this Daddy —this Kris— is really into.
But then I shake myself out of those thoughts and remind myself that I am not here to hook up or find a Daddy. I am here to relax and indulge my regressed side without anyone else’s expectations weighing on me.
Everyone chuckles at Kris’s attempt to be silly and then he moves to the easel at the front of the group, turning to face it.
“Now,” he says loudly over his shoulder, “I’m going to be painting the scene right in front of us, with the lake and the mountains in the background.
I’m going to start with this pot of green paint… ”
I lose focus almost immediately when I notice just how nicely his shorts fit his ass.
Around me, the other Middles are picking up their paintbrushes and laughing as their Mommies and Daddies “help” them paint. At first, I try to follow Kris’s brushstrokes on his canvas, wanting to emulate them, but I get bored with how slowly the picture is coming together.
My mind wanders.
I reach for the pot of bright yellow paint and, after dunking my brush in it, spray a slash of yellow across my boring green and brown canvas. The deviation from following the instructions gives me a bit of a buzz, so I do it again, with a bit more energy.
“Daddy, what’s he doing?” the Middle to my right asks, and I turn to find them staring quizzically at my canvas.
“I’m being…expressionist,” I declare, slashing at my canvas again. The yellow turns green around the edges where it meets with the wet blue paint I added to the canvas to represent the lake.
The Daddy from the couple arches a bushy red eyebrow. “This is a landscape session.”
I roll my eyes. “Counselor Kris said to paint whatever scene we wanted.”
The Middle makes a face. “Why would you join the activity if you’re not even going to try doing it properly?”
I was trying, I want to protest. But it was slow. I couldn’t focus.
But I don’t owe them an answer, or a justification. I aim a smug smile their way and shrug. “I like it better this way.”
They scoff. Something inside me twists unpleasantly.
I swish bright red across my canvas this time and oops. A tiny splodge flies sideways and mars the middle of their painted lake. I know my look of shocked apology is exaggerated as I say, “Sorry! I got excited.”
The Middle narrows their eyes. Their Daddy places a hand on their shoulder and shoots me a reprimanding glower, which I take great pleasure ignoring.
“It’s okay, James,” Kris’s voice sounds out over my shoulder, instead of from the front of the group where he’d been the last time I’d paid any attention.
He’s looking at the spot of red in the middle of the other canvas.
“You can blend that in and make it look like deeper water.” He turns to me, his expression still warm, but there’s warning in his eyes, “You’re going to be more careful, aren’t you Benji? ”
“Of course,” I nod, but my smile says ‘make me’.
He arches an eyebrow. I bat my lashes. His lips twitch. Then he looks at my canvas, and his smile is kind, “I like your creativity.”
Why does that give me butterflies?