Chapter 12

The students gathered around Samuel in the lobby area of the Smithsonian museum. Some of the students looked as though they were still waking up, being teenagers he was sure many of them stayed up late and weren’t keen on getting up early. A select few, looked about the entrance way to the museum with a bit of wonder. Seeing those expressions is what he felt this was all about.

Growing up no one other than his father expected much from him academically, or at least that was true once he had shown his talent on the football field. He would have loved to be on a trip like when he was their age and hoped they all took advantage of the opportunity. He had just finished getting all the paperwork, mostly waivers signed before he addressed them all. “Ok.” Sam projected his voice. “I see some excited faces this morning. This trip wasn’t a surprise, but I still think I have one for you all. Now this excursion is about developing your skills as leaders, not just rewarding you with a fun afternoon of sight-seeing.” he ignored the chorus groans from a select few who appeared to be having a hard morning. He wasn’t sure if Gabriella was one of those that groaned, but she was among those that looked to be struggling.

Despite the previous evening's events and that morning's struggles Gabe was able to recall the plans for the day. Sight seeing at the museum, go into break out groups and write two paragraphs about things the students saw that they would like to know more about or things they connected with. School work wasn’t exactly a surprise, so he had no idea what the blonde man was talking about.

With a bright smile Sam continued. “So I pulled a few of the right strings and got all of you an opportunity. An internship here at the Smithsonian for a single day. We will provide the paperwork so each of you can list it on college applications and your resumes. As interns you will be working as tour-guides.” The large man held up his hands to quell the murmur of questions. “You will not be going in blind, each of you will get a clipboard with an image of displays and something to say about them and a few key facts and I think the best part is that you all will be looking after about five hundred young students yourself today. Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’ll each only be assigned about five to ten kids a tour, but we’ll be doing this until four. All of you are part of the Future Business Leaders of America and today you will lead those coming after you to success.”

Maria glanced over at Samuel as he spoke, her focus mostly being on her charges, but the passion in his voice kept her attention. Using their kids as tour guides was not in the original plan, but as they were waiting for their flight at the airport before coming out to DC he had an idea after the museum had contacted them about a change in plans for who their contact was for the day.

A simple thing like a person calling out changed everything when the replacement just so happened to be someone her boss had gone to college with. Now each of the pre-college teens were not just going to enjoy the museum, but they were going to learn through teaching. While Maria had never experienced it, she had heard many horror stories of new principles coming in and seemingly caring little for the students, among other things. Then there was this man who not only cared, but was passionate.

As the first batch of students got assigned their kids, Mr Banks walked over to one of his future students and current charges. Gabriella looked pretty with her short but naturally curly hair like her mother. Today she wore a red sleeveless dress and white high heels that looked more than a little out of place considering what they were doing.

She appeared more dressed for a date than a day of touring the Smithonian. Though he had seen Maria at school, the short time he had been there so far and she dressed much the same, though today she had sneakers on. Instead of commenting on her choice of attire, something he didn’t feel equipped to speak on, he jumped into the heart of the matter.

“Since you’re new here, I didn’t wanna **** such a responsibility on your shoulders this quickly, so Rebecca… Becky.” He corrected himself, remembering how she wanted to be referred to as, something he had taken the time for at the airport, but hadn’t yet done with Maria’s girl. “She volunteered to work with you as a tour guide. If you have any troubles, just let us know, ok princess?”

When Sam saw the blush on her cheeks and how she averted her gaze, it made him a bit uncomfortable. The man had no idea the girl he was looking at was not in fact attracted to him but was instead Gabe blushing once more from the shame and infantilizing expression as he meekly nodded.

As his boss walked off, Gabe looked over to Becky who seemed determined to adopt him as her new best friend. She was wearing a black jean pinafore with a white t-shirt underneath, along with her normal converse shoes. Today though they were black, making it clear to him that she brought more than one pair along on the trip. Instead of a purse the girl had one of those tiny leather backpacks that he assumed was fashionable. “So the other day my mom showed me this movie called A League of Their Own? Becky spoke articulating with her hands. “Apparently it's about one of the first major women’s baseball teams? Can you believe that it took that long before women were allowed to compete in professional baseball?”

By this point, Gabe wasn’t as taken aback by Becky’s obsession with sports, but he was still pleased when they got assigned their first group of kids. He was a professional, had a teaching certificate to prove he was an able bodied educator, but right now he didn’t feel like he had the bandwidth to deal with children.

There was a reason he chose to teach highschool, as a stepping stone sure, but far better than teaching elementary. Engaging with the dark haired teen about baseball was a better topic than what he imagined teen girls talked about, but with his limited knowledge it was difficult to engage with her on the subject. Gabe never really gave sports much thought as a kid besides whatever games his mother would play on the television growing up. Making this down right serendipitous, she could tell the brats about the different exhibits and he could pretend to have a loose grasp of the English Language.

With Becky continuing to go on about the movie it made Gabe think about his own relationship or lack thereof to athletic ability in his formative years. To Gabe, he was expected to be intelligent and rise to success off his brains, not his brawn. A challenge with his inborn handicap of dyslexia, but one he overcame, not that he would ever admit to the disability to anyone. His mother made it clear growing up that he’d need a scholarship if he was to get into a good college, so he only attended gym enough to get a good enough grade, but never put any more effort into it beyond that.

“Okay, how do you want to tackle this? Take turns with each area, or…” Becky moved her jaw to the side and pressed her lips together. “I could do a line and then you do a line.” Like always the girl moved her hands as she spoke, motioning to herself and then her friend. When Gabby didn’t respond right away she nodded, figuring that as cute as that would be it wasn’t like they had time to practice.

“Hmm?” Gabriel had only been half paying attention to the girl, her shifting from babbling to actually making a plan of action on how to move forward with educating the little tots, however old they were put a smile on his face. He was an educator at heart, or so he told himself. So the teen taking a real interest in the history of this place and working on a lesson plan, along with the energy she had behind it all made him feel a bit inspired to push forward with the inane activity.

“If you’re not comfortable talking to the kids cause of your whole… um.” She paused, not wanting to offend her friend. “Language barrier thing, I can handle most of the interviews?” Her voice going up an octave at the end changed her statement into a question.

The dress wearing man wasn’t about to turn down the offer help in this instance, her taking the lion's share of the work meant he could just stand around and keep his feet from dying in these heels. Internally he rolled his eyes thinking his real task was to stand around looking pretty like a girl he was supposed to be impersonating would do, or so in his own opinion. ‘Besides, this is supposed to be a task for students, Becky is a student and I’m not.’ So he played his part, smiling happily like some stupid, brain dead vapid girl and nodded, adding only a single word. “Bueno.”

Before they could go off and get assigned to their first tour the pair got waylaid by one of the chaperones, and supposedly Gabby’s mom. “Okay girls, it is almost time to get started. Do the two of you have a plan?”

Each of them held a clipboard with more than a few sheets of paper with facts about different exhibits along their directed route, but it was Becky that first held it forward in her teacher's direction. “We got everything, Miss DeLeon and I have some experience. Last year I was an assistant coach for a little league team. Well for softball I mean and it was a load of fun.”

A pleasant smile crossed her face thinking about how both her parents came to watch her team's first game that Saturday morning and despite them losing the game the majority of the kids enjoyed themselves, at least partially thanks to all the cheering and encouragement from those that came to support them.

“Oh I love hearing that, your group is for future business leaders, but it seems you are already a leader.” Maria felt a connection with many of her students, she didn’t teach them difficult subjects where they had to study and put pen to paper for hard tests. Theater was a different animal and she always believed a big part of it was lifting the students up, helping them have a healthy self esteem so that they would be willing to put themselves out there to perform.

Turning her eye to her brother, who for the life of her she still wasn’t sure why he had chosen to forgo the flats she had for him to go with wearing the five inch heels for a day of walking. “Gabriella, don’t let your bestie do all the work.” She shifted her gaze back to her actual student. “Becky, don’t you let her get away with giving you all the work.”

The corner of Rebecca’s lip curled up as she looked from Gabby to her mother. “Bestie?”

Locking eyes with his sister, Gabe gave a small shake of his head, pleading with her not to do this, but his wishes were not to come true as his sibling clapped her hands and laughed. He knew it was a fake laugh, but still it was something filled with genuine mirth. Mirth at his expense. “That is what she called you last night, she was asking about switching hotel rooms. Gabriella wanted to stay in the same room as her best friend.” She paused for a heartbeat to sell her lie, or at least partial lie. After all, it was true that Gabriel had asked about changing hotel rooms. “Bestie, that does mean best friend right? That is what she called you.”

It was then that an excitement bubbled up from the eighteen year old girl that made her practically vibrate. It wasn’t the same type of energy one might see in a tween that was overly excited, it was more contained than that. Yet it was easy for Maria to see she had said something practically magical.

With that barely contained gleeful energy Becky bumped her hip into her friend while answering her teacher's question. “Yep, bestie means best friend.” She didn’t have a lot of friends and bestie was a stretch, she did want to be friends with Gabby and it felt real good to be called as such, she just wasn’t as quick to attach herself to someone. Glancing to her side she could understand why Gabby was so quick to latch on and considering how happy she felt at the little comment that her friend looked a bit miffed at her mother about spilling it wasn’t supposed to come out, at least yet.

“Tell you what.” Maria took her phone from her purse. “Why don’t the two of you stand over there?” She motioned below a few banners hanging on the wall. “So I can get a picture of the two of you.”

Photographic evidence of what he was going through wasn’t exactly something Gabe wanted, but when he groaned and went to complain his fake mother just treated him like a complaining teen that didn’t feel like she was pretty enough to take a photo of. So not only did the photos get taken, but he also got some supportive compliments about how pretty he looked. It wasn’t till after the little photo shoot, that he saw something oddly off.

In the image on Maria’s phone, an image where he looked like a shy girl next to her friend who was not only winking at the camera but was giving him bunny ears. The oddity was the banners were to be read together and they weren’t right at all, when he touched the screen Maria read them out loud.

“Be in you present. Visit your past. So you can lead the future.” She looked between the two she had been taking photos of. “You would think a grammar check would have caught that. See Gabriella that the first one should read "be in your present or be in the present.” Being talked down to only made him glower in her direction.

The photos were not the first ones that were taken of him dressed up like a girl, Maria had taken many of them the previous day, but still they weighed on him as he went about the tours with Becky leading the way. Thankfully she didn’t seem to take heed to Maria’s warning of doing most of the work. Along the way Gabriel found himself impressed that beyond baseball, Becky was quite the effective tour-guide. Sure she had notes given to her by the staff, but she was actually memorizing them in-between tours and seemed to be actually interested in teaching the kids about it all.

Gabe was so impressed at this point by her ambition, that he began asking her questions as part of the tour just to keep her on her toes and support her as a teacher. Of course, to Becky’s point of view, she just assumed Gabby was getting into learning and just as eager a student as herself.

At one point during the day, not for the first time came across a bunch of historical clothing worn by men and women in the fifties. This time Gabe got himself distracted as he lined himself up with one of the displays of an old suit. Admiring his own reflection as he imagined himself wearing the article of clothing. He saw himself as a younger Clark Gable, ready to take on the world. A much needed distraction from his current **** wardrobe.

To anyone else’s perspective Gabriella looked as if she was admiring the woman’s cocktail dress one model over. Becky saw the girl practically mesmerized by the clothing on the other side of the glass and wondered if she had missed Gabby’s infatuation with the fifties dress on their other passes through the area. Making a mental note of the interest in fashion. A new, multi-faceted aspect to her new friend’s character.

Things were going well far as Becky could tell, the kids for the most part were engaged and Gabby felt comfortable enough to ask questions so she could expand upon the information on the exhibits. It was during one of their slow periods, she was chatting to Gabby about the tv show about the old Pan Am airlines. She had watched a few episodes with her mom, and considering how her new friend was looking at the display for old clothes thought it would be right up her alley.

“So in the second episode they go to Paris, and…” She lightly touched her friend's forearm as she veered slightly off topic. “I would love to go to Paris one day, I’m thinking of backpacking across Europe before college.” It wasn’t a thought she had given a lot of attention to, other than wanting to see part of the world and just get away. Looking into Gabby’s brown, amber eyes she considered having someone with her along for the trip. ‘We don’t really know each other… and she just got here from Mexico, I doubt…’ Becky let the thought trail off as she went back into talking about the episode how Christina Ricci had to deal with a drunk gropey passenger, her seeing Gabby nod along with interest.

It was about then that the teen got distracted, this time instead of a tangent it was because another student, a boy, was walking through the same area as them. While she didn’t have a tour group to lead at the moment, Chase Cross had a gaggle of kids following him like ducklings. Thoughts of her conversation evaporated from her mind as she tracked her crush as he came through the area they were taking a break in.

Gabe had been nodding along as he rolled the ankle of one foot, then the other as he tried to get some relief as they sat on a bench. He knew of the period peace tv show she was talking about, heck he loved Mad Men, but it hadn’t been something he had watched. Though the idea of seeing the actress Christina Ricci in a stewardess outfit sounded appealing.

When Becky stopped talking he followed her line of sight to see one of the students on the tour. It wasn’t the first time he had seen the girl go gaga over him. ‘Cross… abundantly annoying class clown, pitcher on school varsity baseball team, yep.’ Gabriel nodded at the thought, it making perfect sense why girls, Becky included, fancied him. ‘Girls go for the jocks and those with an ego.’

“Oh, um, well, I’ll be right back, ok?” Becky nervously wandered off in the direction she saw Chase and his ducklings go off in, with little thought to leaving Gabby all alone. ‘Today I’m going to talk to him!’ she told herself, trying to work up the courage.

‘Peace at last, no teenagers, no children.’ Gabriel let out a sigh of contentment, wanting this moment to stretch on, but his bladder had been nagging him for attention for the last ten minutes. He had ignored it, wanting to take the chance to sit down and avoid Becky continuing whatever inane conversation she was having in the bathroom.

Putting both feet together he stood up to his heeled feet and walked around a corner to head into the restrooms. The area itself was partially divided by ferns from the displays for visitors to take a break, use the benches, the bathrooms or water fountains but as Gabe moved he found another obstacle. Coming out of the bathroom he saw Bryan heading in his direction.

“Hey!” Bryan’s eyes flickered across the girl’s body. “How's your feet?” He was on a break from his tours and had been looking for Gabby and felt ever so lucky to find her alone.

A shiver ran through Gabriel. The creepy teen’s eye line seemed to stop momentarily on his feet and stiletto shoes while wearing a malicious grin.

“Bet you feel pretty stupid taking that bet. But I guess a pretty girl like yourself has to give up sometime.” He attempted to perform what a pick-up artist would describe as negging, folding negative insults inside a complement to make a woman feel self-conscious. Wanting to top it off with a second, if not similar complement, Bryan then held up a finger before she could reply. “I wanted to make sure I got this right.” He then pulled out his cell phone. “Gabriella es hermosa.” Looking up from his phone, proud of himself he was hoping to see a pleasant smile on the girl's face.

Not much caring for Bryan’s attention or to be complimented, Gabe crossed his arms, unintentionally enhancing his fake chest as he did his best to keep any embarrassment off his face. “What do you want?” With Bryan in the path ahead, Gabe considered heading the other way back to Becky, but through the ferns he could just make her out as she talked to Chase. That alone wouldn’t have stopped him, but the fact that she looked happy gave him pause. She had been kind to him and the least he could do is let her shoot her shot with the school's star pitcher.

Turning his head slightly, taking in the girl's demeanor, he saw how she purposely tried to draw his attention to her larger than average assets, while at the same time acting demure by looking away. “I’m here to do what any white knight would do. Save you of course.”

Looking the teen in the eye a small smirk crossed Gabe’s face. ‘This kid needs to be taken down a few pegs.’ Gabriel was smart, but he wasn’t always wise enough to consider that he wasn’t quick witted, a problem that popped up from time to time when he wanted to control banter.

“Save me from what? You are less a knight and more of a beast.” he said wanting to point out he was the problem, not the solution. The teen was a good deal taller than him, a medium build compared to his rather small one. He had swept back golden blonde hair with dark blonde thick, but orderly eyebrows and matching brown eyes. Today he wore a white button up shirt that was mostly covered by an orangish gold sweater, a pair of green slacks and brown tennis shoes.

“If I’m the beast, I guess that makes you Belle, we already agreed on your beauty.” Her flirtatious smile allowed him to feel bolder. If it wasn’t for that look, that just made him feel like she wanted him; he would have taken her comment a different way. “Knight or not, I’m here to save you from your pretty, fashionable, but I’m betting painful shoes. I double-backed to our hotel room and put your only pair of non-heels in my bag for you. Honestly you have been a good sport and I really don’t want to be the cause of you in pain. So I’m letting you off regarding that bet you made last night.”

Bryan wasn’t the most compassionate guy, and what he said was true, but he had a plan. His poker face wasn’t the greatest, or down right atrocious if you asked others, so his ear to ear grin made it clear he had conceived of something much more than just letting the girl off. “All you gotta do is do what you were supposed to do last night. Kiss or Dare. If you give me a kiss…” Bryan thought of the kiss, makeout session between Sarah and Jennifer the night before. “I’ll forgive this whole incident.”

Gabe was beyond insulted, especially with how Bryan framed all this as some sanctimonious act, when he was the one still hounding him for a kiss. Flexing his hands a few times Gabriel glanced around, finding no one else nearby except Becky and Chase, though they had the privacy ferns between them. At least semi alone he turned back to Bryan, a malicious smile growing. ‘I’m going to tear this little punk down so much he is going to run off to his mami.’

Looking back at his phone, intending to get something else translated to Spanish he only got a partial look at the widening smile on Gabriella’s face as she moved closer to him. He wanted to tell her in her native language she was wonderful, though his idea of turning that into a bit of negging stalled when the girl suddenly lurched forward. The dark haired beauty grabbed a hold of the waistband of not just his jeans, but his boxers as she yanked them down as she dropped to her knees in front of him.

Ready to show the eighteen year old what spite really felt like Gabe stalked forward, to be on the aggressive side with the intent to keep Bryan on the back foot, but as he stepped forward the stiletto heel got caught in the gabe between the tiles where the grout was thinner. This would have been nothing, just a stumble to even someone of Gabriel's skill level in the heeled shoes, but because of how he moved his entire balance was off. Falling forward, feeling as if he was going to smash his face into the tile floor, Gabe reached out for the only thing he could, Bryan.

The moment felt like it was all in slow motion, a memory of Maria giving him instructions on how to walk gracefully came to his mind as his hands gripped the boy's pants. If either had been slightly closer the fall could have been avoided by gripping onto the blonde young man, but instead Gabriel found himself falling to his knees and pantsing the boy in the process.

Gabriel had been pantsed as a kid more than once, he had seen boys do it to each other as a teacher, but he had never been the one to partake in the activity, not that he had just done it on purpose. But as he turned his heel to face Bryan and give him a mouthful, his foot slipped. He recalled Maria lecturing him about keeping his feet flat to avoid tripping, and here he was, falling face-first in front of the one he most wanted to avoid in all this.

In Gabe’s attempt to steady his balance, he ended up grabbing the asshole’s pants and yanking them down with him. Pain blossomed in his knees as they hit the hard floor, a grimace quickly came to his face as he looked down, at what he was gripping onto it. Slowly raising his head Gabriel’s eyes went wide, his mouth fell open in shock when he saw he was face to face with Bryan’s naked lower half, his cock and balls on display and face level. Panic seized his mind and body as he froze in place, words slipping out of his mouth practically on their own. “Yourrrrrr cock…”

‘She pulled down my pants she…’ Bryan’s mind never moved at rocket speed, but it seemed to come to a crawl. Gabriella’s gorgeous eyes were locked onto his junk, her red kissable lips open and ready as she looked at him hungrily as she told him what she was after. While his mind was slow to react, his hand still holding the phone in hand another part of his body knew exactly what to do. Like an elephant raising its trunk to trumpet his member rose to the occasion.

Never before in Gabriel’s life had he been this close to another man’s dick, and he just knelt there unoving as he watched it go from flaccid to erect right in front of him. Bryan’s member was not much longer than his own, but much thicker. It was like watching a train wreck, he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t stop from noticing the veins across it with little to no power to act.

While things felt like they were stretching on, minutes passing the truth was everything was taking place quickly. It was clear to Bryan what was going on, even if he wasn’t actually able to verbalize it. Gabby didn’t just want to blow him, she was demanding to give him a blow job right here in public with only a few plants to keep them out of view. A more confident man that actually walked the walk would jump at the opportunity that the pretty girl was presenting to him. At least the person Bryan pretended to be would.

He had no idea Gabriella was really Gabriel, a crossdressed man with no interest in being touched, let alone performing a sexual act. Even without the knowledge he couldn’t bring himself to really accept what was going on. “What are you doing?” The blonde teen looked around in a panic, not even able to focus enough to see those that were obscured by the ferns. “Not here! People might see us!”

Reaching down he yanked his pants and underwear out of the girl’s grasp as he felt his chest grow tight, his breathing changing as he began to hyperventilate. Pulling his clothing back into place he darted off into the bathroom and the closest stall, slamming it shut. Sitting down, eyes wide he put his face into his hands, looking into the little darkness his palms could provide. “Did she just!? Damn… Fuck… I should have…” His words drifted off as he thought of how he could have acted. He could have brought her into the bathroom with him, but in truth he wasn’t sure he actually had the courage even for that.

Shakely Gabe got back to his feet, using the bench he had stepped away from to help steady him. ‘Shit, shit, shit, that didn’t just happen. I didn’t… no, no.’ He shook his head, glancing to the bathroom door where Bryan ran into. His knees hurt and he was pretty sure just a little bit of wee came out, either from the sudden pain or the traumatic experience of an erect dick being in his face.

Taking a steadying breath he closed his eyes, taking in one breath, letting it out and then another. When he opened his eyes he caught Becky looking in his direction and really hoped she hadn’t seen anything. ‘I’m going to jail, someone is going to tell and I’m going to jail, shit, shit, shit, I’m going to jail dressed like some girl!’

Not far away Becky was feeling good about herself, she had worked up the courage to speak to Chase. Starting with asking him about how things were going with his elementary schoolers before asking him about his pitching. She was sure everyone talked to him about baseball and attempted to direct it slightly differently in a way that he would know they had a shared interest. Asking him about his head space before getting up to the mound, how she often freaked out despite how much practice she put in.

That was when she heard something hit the floor, excusing herself for just a moment. She took a few steps closer to where she had left Gabby and saw the raven haired girl in the red dress on her knees in front of a half naked Bryan. Her first instincts were to get the heck away from there, moving back to Chase. Her second thought was a mental encouragement to her friend. ‘Get it girl!’ The third was a mixture of fear and horror for what could happen if Gabby and Bryan got caught.

“Everything okay?” Chase asked, glancing at the pretty blue eyed girl, while also doing his best to keep a mental count for how many of his kids were in sight.

“Yeah… I mean, just a lot of interesting things happening today.” Becky tucked some of her hair behind her left ear. Wanting to both keep their conversation going, and make sure no one went off in Gabby’s direction.