Be Myself! - 11. Camping

WARNING: (If you missed the one on the chapter note) There is implied child sexual abuse later in the chapter. If you would rather not read, please skip the bit starting with "O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O". The same marking is used to indicate the end of the scene.

Henry was not at school on Thursday. It was a consensus in our group that his absence was due to the embarrassment and public humiliation caused by Jean the previous day. As much as we tried to call the blond out on it, though, our words seemed to reach one of his ears and immediately come out from the other without any of it registering in his brain.

“Enough with the Henry shit.” Jean said as soon as we got together for lunch break. He had not let any of us speak. “I have some great news for you!”

“What now?” Asked Hannah, rolling her eyes. She had been the one to argue the most with Jean during morning break.

“Edgar said we can all go camping! Isn’t that great?” Jean beamed, hugging me and Edward to celebrate. “He’s going to rent a van and everything!”

“Is that true, Edward?” Hannah asked Mr Smith’s son, somewhere between surprised and sceptical.

“I’m afraid it is. I’m very afraid it is.” Edward sighed, slumping his shoulder until Jean almost lost his grip on him.

“How did that happen?” Hannah asked again, this time definitely surprised.

“It’s simple, really. Edgar always does all I want because he’s afraid I’ll run away again if he doesn’t.” Jean explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“You would be doing us all a favour running away again.” Edward chimed in, edging as far from Jean as he could, which unfortunately amounted to not more than an inch or two.

“Oh, Ed, don’t say such things about your sexiest foster brother! I’ll think you hate me…” Jean clung to Edward, letting go of me completely.

“I do.”

“No, you don’t. You know you don’t.”

“Enough.” Hannah interrupted, forcing Jean to look at her again and return to his chair. “Mr Smith agreed to take all of us on a camping trip for the whole weekend? I can’t believe it.”

“Well, ask him yourself, then.” Jean answered, pouting in a rather childish way that somehow still managed to have an edge of sexiness.

“I will.” Hannah nodded seriously.

“Cool. And the rest of you…” Jean turned to look at all of us. “We’re leaving tomorrow after school. Bring all your lube and condoms and the whatnots, because we’ll have some serious partying as soon as we get there!” He winked at me, making Olivia giggle and send me a somewhat intimidating glance. Her eyes slowly moved from my face to the rest of my body, stopping for much longer in the area around my waist. By the time her eyes returned to my face, I was sure I was blushing enough to serve as emergency light for people stranded at sea in stormy nights.

“Don’t forget the dental dams.” Helena reminded Jean, hugging her girlfriend with one arm. “And maybe some other things…” Ariadne blushed slightly, but not as much as I.

“Well spoken, well spoken!” Jean complimented his friend, coming forward on the table to shake her hand. “Toys and accessories are most welcome! Particularly if they are big and cock-shaped!”

“Haven’t you got enough dicks already?” Helena asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked from Edward to me.

“There’s no such thing as ‘enough dick’, Helena. Or would you say you could ever have enough pussy?” Jean asked. The girl seemed to think for a bit, then looked at Ariadne and flashed the kind of grin that was usually plastered over Jean’s face.

“No, I suppose not. You have a point.” She admitted. Jean nodded enthusiastically.

“There you go. For the sake of my own mental health I’ll refrain from imagining you surrounded by pussies, but you get the idea.”

“Oh, definitely.” Helena and Jean exchanged creepy glances for a couple of very long seconds. It was Ariadne of all people who found a way of changing the topic, pointing out that our exams were coming soon and that having Mr Smith around for the weekend could be a good way for getting some extra tips for revision. Jean tried to laugh at her, but Helena sent him a murderous glare and he stopped on his tracks. There were a few more mentions of penises, sex, and orgies before lunch was over, though.

(...)

Olivia walked with me most of the way home. I wanted to go camping with my friends, but in order to do that I had to convince my parents to let me go. There was no way I was telling them the ‘gay club’ was organising a trip, or that Olivia was coming. I needed to find an excuse, but I was not used to lying to my parents, so I was struggling to come up with anything. It had been easy enough when all I had to do was to say ‘yes’ to their questions about my study schedule, but making up a whole story was beyond my abilities.

“You could tell them a potential new girlfriend wants to spend more time with you.” Olivia suggested. She had offered to help me overcome this little problem, but so far all her ideas failed to get past the live lie detector that was Joseph Schubert.

“But then he’ll want to meet the girlfriend.” I pointed out. After the fiasco that our family dinner was, the last thing I wanted was to hint that I had found someone else.

“Not if it’s a potential girlfriend. You know; the kind that asks to get to know you better before committing?” Olivia insisted. It was still not good enough.

“My parents don’t approve of this kind of girl. They don’t want me messing around with sluts, at least not for relationships.” I sighed. Apart from how girly and pretty she was, one of the reasons my parents loved Wendy so much was because she had been very clear about waiting for the right moment to have sex. They liked to go on and on about how those were the only girls worth of having a relationship with.

“And if it’s a girl that’s not for relationship, but just for fun?” Olivia asked, looking for all possible holes in my parents’ logic. Over the past weeks she had proved quite good at it.

“I don’t know if they would believe I would want to do it.” I noted, remembering how relieved I had been when Wendy told me she wanted to wait. Before meeting Jean I had always been terrified of getting this intimate with girls, of doing things they would not like or even hurting them. My father had tried to shake away my insecurities, telling me that it was natural for men to want sex and have urges, and that because of that all my problems would disappear if I gave in to my instincts and just let go.

The one time I actually gave in to my instincts, though, I ended up in trouble because my instincts told me to fuck another guy.

“Then maybe tell them it’s a school trip. We’re going with a teacher, after all…”

“But school trips are planned weeks in advance, I can’t just tell them something came up now.” We were running out of options. I was beginning to think I would have to skip the group trip and stay home on my own for the weekend.

“Tell them you forgot about it because of all the stuff that happened.” Olivia suggested, and for the first time I thought her idea could work. “Tell them that today the teachers reminded the class of the trip and you finally remembered.”

“I will need the sheets with the information about the trip, though. I need some kind of proof to show them.” I noted, remembering how strictly my father read all correspondence from school and asked me dozens of questions before letting me do anything.

“You can tell him you lost the papers because of the chaos.” Olivia suggested. “If it comes to it, I think Mr Smith wouldn’t mind telling your father about the trip personally. We can tell him what to say beforehand…”

“This sounds so complicated…” I sighed, halving my walking pace. Olivia slowed down to match my new speed. “I wish I could just go to your house or something.”

“We could try to do something about that too. We could ask Hannah’s or Helena’s parents to tell your parents that you’re spending the weekend with them to study or to be with their daughters or something like that.” Olivia suggested almost immediately. It was as if for all of my arguments on why the plan would not work she always had the perfect counter-argument.

“Then my parents will think I’m dating one of them.” I pointed out, shuddering with the idea of having either of the most terrifying girls I knew as my girlfriend.

“That solves it, then. Say it’s Helena, and if your parents want to meet her, at least she looks closer to you parents’ idea of perfect girl.” Even though we were talking about giving me a fake girlfriend, Olivia sounded cheerful and almost excited.

“No, she doesn’t. All she does is making me look like the girl in the relationship because she’s bossier than the two of us together. My parents would think I’m humiliating myself for finding a dominating woman. I know they would.” And they would probably punish me for it too; after all the main reason they punished my ‘adventure’ with Jean was because I had acted like a girl by letting myself be seduced, not so much because of the sexual act itself.

“Ah, well, then I guess we’re back to the school trip plan…” Olivia’s optimism finally gave signs of wavering.

“I don’t know if I should try anything, I might as well just stay home and catch up with my studies. I should be practising more viola too…”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Oscar!” Olivia grabbed my arm, speaking like she was referring to a five year-old. “This trip is for us to be together with our friends, I can’t let your parents spoil it even before you talk to them!” We stopped near a corner in a completely residential (and therefore empty) area. “Tell them it’s a school trip and you lost all the papers because of the chaos of those weeks. If they don’t believe you, text me and I’ll figure something out. I think my parents will be happy to help, too.”

“I don’t know…”

“C’mon, it’s worth a try!” Olivia insisted, patting my lower back as an incentive. I almost considered telling her that no, it would not be worth risking some kind of punishment over this, but refrained just in time. Her mother had given hints that she might be on to what my father had done; I did not want to give her any reason to be sure. She would probably try to do something against my parents, and I did not want that to happen. “Think of all the things we could do together at the camp, sharing a tent…”

For a moment Olivia’s smile became so like Jean’s I had to blink a couple of times to make sure I was not facing the blonde. I ended up agreeing to try out the plan, though I swore to myself that I would not call Olivia if it went wrong.

(...)

When I finally faced my parents that evening I was mentally prepared for withstanding the punishment for lying. My best hopes were that my father would think I was lying so I could get away from them and be wild in secret or something like that. If I lied well enough hopefully he would not think I had friends who wanted to spend time with me and convinced me to make stupid and potentially dangerous promises.

What happened, however, was that my father patted me on the back, winked suggestively and told me to have a nice weekend away. Only much later, as I was trying to come up with the proper words to describe the situation to Olivia, did I understand why.

‘Looks like I’m such a bad liar that when I told my parents I had a school trip they saw me blushing and thought I was hiding something else from them.’ I texted her, still baffled by the evening’s development.

‘What?’ Olivia asked just a couple of seconds later.

‘I guess they think I’m having a secret affair or something. They acted like those ‘I know you know I know’ things. It was creepy.’ I answered, remembering the somewhat disturbing exchange of glances that took place right before my father’s pat on the back. He and mum had shared a moment of deep understanding that they thought I was part of too.

‘C, I told u they’d believe the girlfriend story ;)’

‘Dad was proud. He thought I was screwing someone in secret and it made him happy.’ Even as I texted I was trying to digest my father’s strange attitude.

‘U just proved u r really a man ;)’ Olivia pointed out. It took me a while to think of a reply. Deep down I knew this was the reason my father had been so happy, but seeing it written next to a smiley face, like a solid confirmation of my suspicions, kind of hurt a little. All this time my father had been thinking I was not a real man, and the only reason he changed his mind was because of a badly-told lie. I was carrying less and less about his expectations of me, but this one in particular seemed to be too important to let go.

Dad had called me a girl before, and made sure I associated that word with pain. If the only way I was able to get him to change his mind was through lies, I was not safe from that pain yet. And probably would never be.

(...)

“I still can’t believe your parents let you do this.” Olivia told me as a way of greeting on Friday. Apart from our school bags, we were carrying oversized backpacks with provisions for the weekend. “But I’m glad. I can’t wait to spend time with you outside classes.”

“Yeah, me too.” I decided not to comment about my parents, fearing a discussion about their reasoning and their ideals of masculinity would lead to dangerous waters. I focused on happier subjects instead. “I’m curious as to what it will be like.”

“Will you run away from Jean all the time or do you intend on fucking him again?” Olivia asked, raising her eyebrows in the scariest expression I had seen on her so far. She sounded like she was eager for me to get on with our resident sex maniac.

“You’re my girlfriend. Shouldn’t you be jealous that Jean pays that much attention to me? Or, you know, try to stop him, even?” I asked, afraid of what she was going to say. I felt my face heat up as it usually did when sex came up as a conversation topic, but my girlfriend acted as if nothing had changed and spoke with the kind of normality one would talk about the weather.

“I probably should, but Jean is kind of sexy, and you don’t seem to mind him that much. And although I kind of like you now, when we got together we did it because we wanted people to stop thinking of us as gay, so it’s a bit unfair on me to prevent you from fucking whoever you want.”

“I…” I blinked a couple of times, trying to digest Olivia’s words. They did not fit at all with what I had been taught about how couples should treat each other; but then again our relationship as a whole did not fit any of those teachings either.

“What I mean is: you’re my boyfriend and I like you very much, but you’re free to fuck other people if you want to.” She winked at me and lowered her head until her eyes fell below my abdomen. By now she had been giving enough hints that I could have an idea of what she had in mind for the camping trip.

“You don’t want me to spend all my time with Jean, do you?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow to match hers and trying not to be afraid of her answer.

“I don’t mind sharing… Though sharing does imply that I get at least a little bit of you…”

Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I was just insecure. Whatever the case, I felt butterflies moving frantically around my stomach for the rest of the school day, even more so when I looked at Olivia. It was nothing like the kind of feeling I had when I thought about Jean’s constant invasion of personal space, though it could be because Jean and I had already had sex, while with Olivia it would be a brand new experience.

(...)

“I’m glad all of you could come at such short notice.” Mr Smith told us as we gathered in front of his rented mini-van. There were nine of us in total, including a young girl I had never seen before. Mr Smith waited until everyone was there to introduce her to us. “Everyone, this is my daughter Emma. She’ll start Secondary School in August.

“Hi everyone!” Emma greeted us, waiving her hand animatedly. She had black hair like her father and brother, and chose to wear it in two braids pig-tail style. She was wearing jeans and a pink T-shirt slightly too big for her frame and seemed overall happy to be with us. “Nice to meet you all. Jean has told me what his plans for the weekend are, so I want to let you know that nothing you do will shock me.”

“What the…?” I heard Helena mutter under her breath, probably just as astonished as I was.

“Jean and Emma are best pals.” Edward explained, sounding either very annoyed or deeply ashamed. It was surprisingly difficult to tell. “She has already been corrupted. It’s too late to save her.”

“Oh, Ed, don’t be mean!” Emma protested, rolling her eyes. “You’re just jealous because I know more about sex than you do.”

“That’s not true!” Her brother exclaimed, angry that his insult had backfired so spectacularly. Hannah, Helena and Olivia were openly laughing at the situation and Jean was grinning like a maniac.

“It is, Ed. But you know I’m here for when you want to get more practical knowledge…” Jean butted in, grabbing his foster brother by the arm.

“Why don’t we load the van and get going? We don’t want to arrive late…” Mr Smith gracefully interrupted, giving his son the perfect excuse to get away from Jean and do something useful.

After all our backpacks were safely tucked in the back of the van, a short scramble for the best seats took place. Helena quickly claimed the three seats on the back for her and her girlfriend, taking Ariadne by the hand and running there before Jean had any chance of making a move. Mr Smith’s foster son was slightly disappointed, but declared he would feel better if Edward and I sat beside him somewhere else. Edward’s answer was to run to the front seat with his father, which meant that I ended up sitting between Jean and Olivia, with Emma and Hannah sharing the remaining three seats.

“So, Mr Smith, why did you let Jean plan this trip?” Hannah asked our teacher about half hour after we hit the road. Until then we had been entertained by Jean and Emma sharing embarrassing stories about their brother, but now Edward had started swearing far too much, prompting his father to subtly call for a change of subject.

“Jean seemed really keen to spend time with his friends. I thought something like this would be good for him.” Mr Smith explained. Jean opened his mouth to say something in return, but his foster father was quicker. “And yes, I know what Jean is planning to do this weekend. But at least this way I’m close by to make sure he’s doing his things safely and with other willing participants.”

“Oh, so you won’t try to stop Jean from having underage sex?” Ariadne asked from the back of the van. I was surprised she had been able to listen to our conversation, particularly when she and Helena had been involved in a series of long, clingy and passionate kisses until right before she spoke. Emma and Hannah rolled their eyes, as if they knew what Mr Smith had to say about that.

“I’ve been with Jean for two years already. This is more than enough time for me to realise I can’t really stop him no matter what I do, but I can at least make sure he’s not doing anything too dangerous.”

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

“Oh, Edgar, you love me, don’t you?” Jean asked mockingly, hugging me around my lower back.

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Mr Smith answered, prompting Edward to jump on his seat and almost hit his head on the top of the van.

“What?” His son asked, sounding very much like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“I don’t know why you’re so shocked, Ed.” Mr Smith answered with the calm and composure one could expect from a Buddhist monk. “You saw the all trouble it was to get Jean to stay with us. If I didn’t love him there would be no reason for me to do all that.”

“If you really loved me you would’ve let me sleep in your bed already!” Jean protested, sounding surprisingly annoyed. I expected Mr Smith to come back with a harsh reprimand for his words, but my teacher carried on speaking in the same tone.

“It’s no that kind of love, Jean. I love you like a son.”

“So? My boss did too.” I could not make much sense of Jean’s words, but after he spoke the atmosphere in the van obviously changed. Hannah and Emma exchanged worried glances and Edward turned to furtively look at us from the front seat. No one spoke for a while, until Jean decided the dramatic effect had gone too far. “What? It’s not like…”

“We have spoken about this before.” Mr Smith said, with the harshness I had expected to come out much earlier. “That man did not love you.”

“And he was just using me, and he was evil, and you should stop talking about him, and for the love of God don’t go after him again. I know the deal, Edgar.” Jean answered, smirking once he realised he had finally pushed Mr Smith’s buttons. “Still, he was nicer than everyone else, so if you want to make me really forget him you’ll have to be even nicer…”

“This is not the time to have this conversation.” Mr Smith cut Jean off in the coldest tone I had ever heard coming out of his mouth. Hannah and Emma looked visibly uncomfortable with the situation, but Jean did not seem phased. He lay on my lap and began playing with my ponytail, smirking with the kind of satisfaction of a general who just won a major battle in a war. He did not say anything else, though, and for a very long time no one else did either.

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O.O

Our camping site was a nice place surrounded by trees, nature, and insects. By the time we got there it was already getting dark, so our first priority was to get the tents ready for the night. We had four tents that could fit two or three people each, and although we were quite fast working as a big group to set them up, deciding who would sleep where took considerably longer.

“I’m not sharing a tent with that maniac!” Edward shouted as soon as the subject was brought up. Jean had been edging close to him the whole time, so he now stood next to Ariadne and Helena as a protective measure. “Dad, I’m staying with you!”

“I thought Emma was going to sleep with Edgar!” Jean exclaimed, pouting with fake grief and real sexiness. “She’s afraid of the dark, she needs the protection of a big, sexy grown up…”

“Emma could stay with you.” Edgar suggested, clearly ignoring his foster son’s creepy comments about him. “You’re very good at protecting people; didn’t you save Oscar from his bullies before?”

“But then how am I supposed to fuck people? I should share with Oscar…” Jean protested, running towards me with a suggestive grin. He stopped in his tracks when my girlfriend put herself in front of me like a protective shield.

“Sorry, but Oscar is already sharing with me. I have partner privileges here.” She declared, sounding a lot more self-assured and bossy than usual.

“Oh, come on! How am I supposed to have fun if everyone keeps cock-blocking me?”

“You can tell me more of your sexy stories.” Emma suggested, hugging her foster brother to try lift his spirits. “Or tell me about your plans for tomorrow so I can help you with it.”

“You will have the whole day tomorrow to have your fun, Jean.” Mr Smith nodded. Jean was finally convinced.

“Fine. But tomorrow there’s no stopping me. Mark my words.”

“Have fun!” Olivia beamed, pushing me by the arm to get into our tent. Helena, Ariadne and Hannah decided to share the last remaining one and we all disappeared to bed soon after that.

“So, we are alone now…” Olivia whispered, turning off our lamp. Our tents had been positioned close enough to see each other, but not as close as to allow for easy eavesdropping.

“Yeah…” I agreed sheepishly. After her stunt with Jean, the butterflies in my stomach had returned full force; and now they seemed about to explode their way out through my throat if I tried to speak too much.

“How about you and I have some fun?” Olivia asked, jumping on my lap much like Jean used to do. “Jean talks so much about your dick I’m kind of curious about it. And it’s kind of early to go to bed anyway…”

“Ah… are you sure you…”

“Totally. I can’t wait for it.”

She unzipped my jumper and grabbed my shirt, motioning that I should take it off. Surprised by her change of personality and new bossy attitude, I did as she wanted and felt her doing the same to her own clothes. Next thing I knew, her hands had dragged mine towards her naked chest and we were lying in the soft ground with her on top of me. Her lips touched mine and, much like what had happened in the school toilet, I was no longer all that unwilling to go along with it.