Camping With the Tall People

Kevin was twenty-five years old, which meant that by every legal, biological, and social metric, he was a grown-ass man.

Kevin was also four foot seven. And ninety-six pounds. Soaking wet, and only then because he'd just been swimming.

He had the body of a middle-schooler who'd been left in the sun too long and the deep, rumbling voice of a man who smoked two packs a day in a past life — a voice so mismatched to his frame that people on the phone routinely assumed he was six-two and built like a refrigerator. Then they'd meet him. Then they'd do that thing where they look down, and then look down some more, and then their eyebrows would do a little dance.

Kevin also shaved his legs. He'd started in college for a cycling phase that lasted eleven days, and he'd simply never stopped, because the smoothness had become a lifestyle. His calves were hairless and gleaming. His thighs were hairless and gleaming. He moisturized. He had opinions about moisturizer.

His sister Kayla was eighteen, five foot ten, and gorgeous in that effortless way that made every photo she took look like it had been professionally lit. She had three friends — Mia, Sasha, and Jade — who were, in order, five-eight, five-nine, and five-eleven, and who had all apparently been assembled in the same tall, tan, glossy factory.

The parents had issued the decree over dinner: *Kayla's going camping a few hours out with her friends, and Kevin's going too.*

"For *protection*," their mother said, with the confidence of a woman who had never once questioned her own logic.

"Protection from *what*?" Kayla asked.

"Bears," said Mom.

"Kevin weighs less than a bear's *leg*."

"He's twenty-five," said Mom, as if that settled it. "He's the *man* of the trip."

Kevin nodded gravely and packed his bag. In it: three pairs of cargo shorts, a heavy flannel, thick wool socks, a hunting knife he did not know how to use, and — carefully folded at the bottom, because Kevin believed in being prepared for every possible romantic scenario — one pair of pink lace lingerie bottoms and a matching pink lace bralette. It wasn't a *real* bra, obviously. It was just a *bralette*. There was a difference. He had explained this to no one because no one had asked.

The drive took four hours. Kevin sat in the back between Mia and Sasha, both of whom rested their arms on his headrests like he was a small decorative cushion they'd brought along.

They hiked in. They set up camp. And Kevin, sweating through his flannel, announced he was going to change.

Then he opened his backpack.

Then he closed his backpack.

Then he opened it again, very slowly, as if the contents might have changed out of sheer embarrassment.

They had not. His clothes were not there. Somewhere between the driveway and the trailhead, his entire wardrobe had been swapped for a single pair of underwear and a phone charger.

"I have no clothes," Kevin said quietly.

The four of them turned around in unison. Four tall girls. Looking down at him.

"None?" said Jade.

"I have... these." He held up the underwear.

And so began the afternoon's entertainment.

They gave him a tank top that hung on him like a nightgown and a pair of shorts that he had to roll at the waist three times and which still slid down every four steps. Then they gave him a *sports bra*, because Sasha insisted that a tank top that loose "needs support, structurally."

Kevin put it on. And here is where the story takes its darkest turn.

Kevin had, over the years, quietly developed a chest. Not a *big* chest. But a chest. Two soft, round, perky little swells that sat high and firm on his narrow ribcage and, when cupped by a sports bra, produced a silhouette that could only honestly be described as *B cups*. Perky ones. The kind that girls pay for.

The camp went silent.

"Oh my *God*," said Kayla.

"I have pecs," Kevin said.

"You have *tits*," said Mia, delighted. "You have cute little tits."

"I have *pecs*."

"Bounce for us."

Kevin bounced. They bounced too.

They laughed until Sasha had to sit down. Kevin stood there, ninety-six pounds of hairless-legged, sports-bra'd man, being openly laughed at by four women under twenty, and he did what any mature twenty-five-year-old would do.

He went and sat in the tent with his arms crossed.

---

The next day they went to the lake.

Kevin's clothes situation had not improved. His options were: wet tank top, or nothing. He chose nothing, which meant he was wearing a bikini — Sasha's spare, bright coral, high-waisted bottom and a top that he had to tie twice around his back because his ribcage was the size of a shoebox.

He came out of the tent.

The four girls were already in the water. They turned. They saw him. They lost it.

"THE TOP IS *UPSIDE DOWN*," Jade screamed.

"It's *tied*," Kevin said.

"THE *BOWS* ARE ON HIS *CHEST*—"

He got in the water as fast as his smooth little legs would carry him.

And the bikini worked. That was the worst part. It *worked*. With his hairless legs and his perky B-cups and his tiny waist, Kevin at a distance read as a *girl*. A short, angry, deep-voiced girl. They spent two hours pointing this out.

Then they went back to camp, and Kevin's tan lines set in. Because a high-waisted coral bikini, worn for one afternoon in direct sun, does not leave you alone. It leaves you a *coral bikini tan*. A distinct triangle across the back, two round pale circles where the cups had been, a horizontal pale band across the waist, and stark white straps over each shoulder.

Kevin looked like he'd been sunbathing in lingerie. Which, as we will learn, he had.

---

That night, the strangers came.

Two girls, older than them, maybe nineteen or twenty, hiking through, who wandered into the campsite around nine and looked at the fire and the gear and the four nice phones on the log — and decided they wanted it.

One of them pulled a gun. A little revolver. She held it loosely, the way a person holds a gun when they know it's working.

"Alright," she said. "Phones. Wallets. Coolers. Bags. Everything."

The tall girls did the reasonable thing and started gathering. Kevin, meanwhile, had frozen completely solid. His smooth legs had turned to concrete. His B-cups were quivering. His throat had closed to the width of a straw.

"Hey," said the second robber, noticing him. "You. Small one. Empty your pockets."

Kevin emptied his pockets. Out came a phone, a lighter, forty dollars, and a single slightly-linty hair tie.

"What else you got."

"That's it," Kevin croaked.

"You got pockets in those?" She pointed at his shorts. Which were, of course, the borrowed girls' shorts, and had *front pockets* only in the decorative sense.

"I—" Kevin said.

"Strip," said the first robber. "Fully. Let's see what you're hiding."

So Kevin stripped. Down to his borrowed shorts. Down to his underwear.

Which were *not* his underwear. His underwear were at home, in a bag that had never made it into the car. His underwear, right now, was *pink lace*. Pink lace with a little bow. And under his tank top — because he'd worn it the whole trip, because he was *prepared*, because Kevin believed — was the *matching pink lace bralette*.

He pulled the tank top off.

The camp went quiet again. Kevin's tan lines were perfectly visible around the lingerie. Two white circles. Two white straps. A white band. Framed in hot pink lace.

The two robbers stared at him for a long, long moment.

"What... are *you*," said the first one.

"He's our brother," said Kayla.

"*Brother?*"

"He's twenty-five."

"TWENTY-FIVE?" The robber with the gun lowered it just to look at him better. "Twenty-five and you're wearing *pink lace*? What is that, a *bra*?"

"It's a *bralette*—"

"It's a *bra*."

"*It's technically*—"

"And what's *this*." She gestured with the gun barrel at his chest. At the perky little swells. At the two pale circles where a bikini top had been.

"I have *pecs*—"

"You have *titties*. And they're *round*. And they're *perky*. Why are they *perky*."

"I don't *know*—"

"And your *legs* are *shaved*."

"For *cycling*—"

"You don't even have a *bike*."

And then the second robber, the quieter one, said the sentence that ended Kevin as a person:

"Show us the rest. Pull the shorts down."

Kevin pulled the shorts down.

And there, framed in pink lace, under a twenty-five-year-old man's body, sat Kevin's penis.

Which was, in its fully engaged state — and it was *very* engaged, because it was the only part of Kevin that had any confidence left — a full inch. One. Single. Inch. Rounded, pink, smooth, and resting above two testicles that had never once been the topic of conversation.

The robbers looked at it.

The robbers looked at each other.

The robbers looked back at it.

"That's *it*?" said the one with the gun.

"That's *it*," said Kevin.

"It's *small*."

"He knows," said Kayla.

"It's *small* AND he's wearing *lace* AND he has *tits* AND he's *twenty-five*."

"He's four-seven," Mia offered helpfully.

"FOUR-SEVEN?"

They laughed. They laughed so hard the gun almost fell out of her hand. They laughed until they had to sit down on the log. And then, at some point, the laughing changed. It got *warm*. It got *fond*.

"Honestly," said the first robber, wiping her eye, "you can keep the phones."

"What?"

"He's had a rough night. Look at him. He's *shaking*." She gestured at Kevin with the revolver, and Kevin flinched, and she laughed again, softer. "We felt bad. For the—" she gestured vaguely at his crotch "—*situation*. And the lace. And the whole thing. We felt bad."

They left with the coolers and two bags of chips and left the phones, out of pity. Out of *dick pity*. Kevin stood at the edge of the campsite in pink lace, with his white tan lines glowing in the firelight, and watched them go.

"You're a legend," Sasha said.

"I'm a *joke*."

"You're *both*," said Jade. "That's the *art* of it."

---

Kevin thought the worst was over.

Kevin was an idiot.

Because the next morning, the four girls had a plan. And the plan required a costume.

They'd packed it as a joke. Mia had brought it "just in case." It was a *maid outfit* — a short black dress with white lace trim, a frilly white apron, white thigh-highs, and a little white headband. And, because the universe has a sense of humor, it fit Kevin *perfectly*. The maid outfit for a size-zero teenage girl fit the twenty-five-year-old man like it had been tailored.

And then Sasha produced the *dog collar*. Black leather. Brass buckle. And on a little brass tag, in engraved letters:

**BITCH**

She buckled it around Kevin's neck. It sat loose, then snug, right above the apron strings.

"There," said Kayla. "Now you're the *man* of the trip."

"THIS is the *man* of the trip?" said Mia.

"He's the *bitch* of the trip."

Kevin looked down at himself. Black lace. White apron. Thigh-highs. Collar. Perky B-cups pushed up by the dress's sweetheart neckline. Smooth legs. Pink lingerie still on underneath because he'd run out of options two days ago.

"Say something, *bitch*," said Jade.

Kevin opened his mouth. And out came the deep, rumbling, two-packs-a-day baritone of a man named *Earl*.

"...Yes, ma'am."

They *howled*.

And from that moment, Kevin was not Kevin. Kevin was *the help*.

They made him cook breakfast. They made him clean the campsite. They made him fetch water, wash dishes, and carry everything on the hike out, because "he's the man, he's strong," and Kevin's arms were the circumference of a soda can.

And they made him rub their feet.

That was the ritual. Every night, after the fire, all four of them would sit on the big log, legs extended, and Kevin would kneel on the ground — the *ground*, in his thigh-highs, in the dirt, because grass stains are the maid's problem — and rub their feet. One at a time. In order. Kayla first, because she was the sister and she got dibs. Then Mia, then Sasha, then Jade, who had the biggest feet, size eleven, and who took the longest.

"You're doing it *soft*," Jade said.

"I'm doing it *gently*."

"*Firmer*. You're a *man*. Act like it."

Kevin pressed harder. Jade groaned, satisfied, and shoved her foot up into his face — sole first, right up against his nose, so close his vision went all toes.

"Smell that? That's *outside*. That's *camping*. That's what a *man* smells like."

"That's *feet*."

"*Look up at me when you say that.*"

Kevin looked up. Jade, five-eleven, lounging on a log, looking down her nose at a kneeling twenty-five-year-old in a maid dress with **BITCH** on his neck, her foot an inch from his mouth.

"You're *older* than us," Jade said.

"I'm aware."

"You're *twenty-five*."

"I'm *very* aware."

"You've been out of college like *three years*."

"*Yes*—"

"And you're down there rubbing a *teenager's* foot in a *dress*."

"*Yes.*"

"Say it."

Kevin sighed. Deep. Rumbling. Defeated.

"I'm twenty-five years old, and I'm getting bossed around by four teenage girls while wearing a maid outfit and a collar that says *bitch*."

"*Good boy*," said all four of them at once.

And Kevin — kneeling, in the dirt, in a lace apron, with **BITCH** on his collar and a baritone that didn't match anything about him — felt something horrible happen.

He got a little hard. In the pink lace. Under the dress.

It was one inch of pure, uncomplicated humiliation, and it was *throbbing*.

Mia noticed. Mia always noticed.

"*He's got a boner*," she announced.

Kevin buried his face in Jade's foot to hide.

---

The drive home was four hours of Kevin in the passenger seat, still in the maid outfit, because the girls voted and Kevin lost, and the drive-through window girl at the last stop gave him a long look and said "thank you, *ma'am*."

They got home at seven.

Mom was on the porch.

Mom took one look at her twenty-five-year-old son — black dress, white apron, thigh-highs, collar, *coral bikini tan lines* visible on his shoulders — and did not blink.

"Kevin," she said. "Come here."

Kevin came over. Mom looked at him. Mom looked at the tan lines. Mom looked at the two round pale circles, framed by the sweetheart neckline of the maid dress, sitting high and firm on his narrow chest.

"Take the dress off," said Mom.

Kevin took the dress off. Underneath: the pink lace bralette, which he'd now worn for four straight days, which now had a faint permanent shape to it, and which sat cupped around two perky, round, *very* real-looking swells.

Mom put her hands on his chest. She *squeezed*. Kevin made a small noise.

"They're *tits*," said Mom, flatly. "You've grown *tits*."

"I've grown *pecs*—"

"Kevin. These are *breasts*. These are *round*. These are *perky*. These are a *B cup*. You have *breasts*."

"*Mom*—"

"And you've been *shaving your legs*."

"*For cycling*—"

"You don't *own* a bike."

"*MOM.*"

Mom stepped back. She looked at her four-foot-seven, ninety-six-pound, twenty-five-year-old son, standing on the porch in pink lace with white tan lines and a dog collar that said **BITCH**, and she made a decision.

"Go put on a real bra," she said. "Not that bralette thing. A *bra*. With a clasp. And from now on, you wear it *every day*. Twenty-four seven. You need *support*."

"*Support for WHAT*—"

"You know *exactly* what."

And so it was decided. Kevin went upstairs and got fitted. He was a 34B, which was a size that *actually existed in stores*, which was somehow the most insulting part of all.

And the girls never let it go. Not once. Not ever.

They made fun of him at breakfast. They made fun of him at dinner. When he stretched, they pointed. When he leaned forward, they pointed. When he wore a t-shirt, they pointed out the faint two-point outline through the fabric and asked if he'd "forgotten something." When he complained, they reminded him he was *twenty-five*. When he tried to assert authority, they reminded him he was *four foot seven*. When he gave up and stopped trying, they reminded him he was *the bitch of the trip*, and that the trip was now *every day*, forever, because they all went to the same house and Kevin lived there.

He was older. He was a man. He had a baritone. He had a hunting knife he still couldn't use.

And he was being raised, day by day, by four girls who were all taller than him, all younger than him, and all, without exception, *delighted* about it.

He took it. He massaged the feet. He wore the bra.

He bounced when they asked.

He *always* bounced when they asked.