Camping Day 0: 'A life lived differently'

William was sitting alone with the goblin in the canteen and had gotten his extra 5BP for setting up the tent. However, the other tasks on the board seemed a lot harder. He didn’t know where anything was, and the stuff for it cost him BP. There was no gym to do the workout in. Body weight exercises were an option, but they wouldn’t grant him BP. Most of the others were atrocious. The transformations he had looked at were too expensive. 50 BP for ‘Making it up by service’ was more than his 35 could afford. How would he fix this? He wasn’t planning on going down on Chris, let alone having sex with him. He could bring another along, but who?

Even if he could afford it, he didn’t want that transformation anyway. What he wanted was a proper gym and a better tent! The gym costs 40 to unlock and 5 for the tent size upgrade. Chris, Ryan, and the Jessies, entering stopped him from spiralling. “Hey, can you front me some BP?” William asked, looking desperate.

“For what and why would I care?” Jesse responded, snapping at the dude who had insulted his feminine side.

“A gym for us all to work out, 20, it will be an equal split. You like to work out, don’t you?”

“This is all bodyweight and a pair of dumbbells. How much are dumbbells?” There was tension as they looked at each other. William didn’t know they had heard the story from Chris. “You can always do some lifting of other bodies if you need heavier weights.” This last snide from Jesse tipped him off.

“So that is a no?”

“That is a come up with a better reason for me to offer you BP.” Jesse noted as Jessica inquired about the cost of ‘A life lived differently’, getting told it costs 100. Sex with Chris to orgasm could provide that during their date, which was the day after tomorrow. Still, they needed to find out if the bastard was to be trusted. “I will give you 60 bp, you have to spend some of it on a transformation for yourself and any remaining you keep, but the freebie you give us, ‘A life lived differently’. Deal?”

That was a hard bargain; it would allow him to get the things he wanted, but barely. He hadn't looked at the generic or cursed transformations. They didn’t know that. They also didn’t know what my return would be. It was worth trying not to waste the return on investment aspect of the transformation thing. “Why can’t I just buy your thing and then return all but the bonus?”

“Fair point, if you want to do that, also fine, but can you afford that?” Jesse questioned.

“Mine costs only 50, why would yours be more expensive?” William asked.

Samson shouted from the back. “Did you not listen, dumbass! You have the tie discount, aka minimum price. Theirs was second in a three-way tie with barely any votes. The ranking means still a decent discount, but the votes would have made it harder. 100BP for a transformation with so few votes is nothing.”

“Ohh… No, I can’t,” William said, looking at the floor.

“I have a free upgrade anyway due to my bet or challenge with Syl earlier, so we could do it, and I will return you the BP. I will end up 10 in that case.” Chris offered to ignore the distraught William. It also allows me not to have to worry about when to spend the dam coupon, he thought.

“Why not give it to me?” William said.

“EARN IT. Don’t be a spoiled ass. You don’t need a gym to do good exercises and to gain muscle. You do need it for a specific type of muscle pattern, I will agree.” The one in the position of power said, looking at him with pity for the fucking vanity.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Can you do your exercises without a gym? Yes. Can you have bodybuilder-style muscles? No, you can’t. I will make you, Jesse, and Jessica a deal, and if Ryan wants to come along, he can as well. We start tomorrow with my workout routine. I don’t own weights, so I make do with my body and what I find. The Jessies and I buy them that transformation, and I keep the BP in trust. If you can keep up in repetitions and length, you get it; if you fail, you fail. I would appreciate it if both of you were naked for the simple reason that it is a quest completed, and the pillow seems nice.” Ryan shook his head at this. He knew Chris’s routine, and he could never keep up. Jesse and Jessica gave an approving nod.

William looked at Chris with trepidation; he didn’t look muscular, but knew that was a trap. Power is the amount of muscle fibres, not width; those were linked but not one-to-one. What Chris had said was true. He knew it all too well, lean dudes sometimes outlifted people with the broadest shoulders, how? He didn’t know. Did Chris know of his competitiveness and use it against him to humiliate him? He was lost in thought as Chris bought the transformation. The two Jessies fainted on confirmation.

(Break)

Jessie got up to take a shower. Chris would come to pick them up and drive them to school. They planned to have a date with him afterwards. Date with him since when? They decided to put on a midi skirt with tights and a garter belt, a pair of heels and a long-sleeved sweater. Breakfast was warm oatmeal with a bunch of fruits. This was a change, but a welcome one. I could get used to this over the cold stuff. They finished the oats as he rang the bell.

The elder Ms Wilson showed Chris in and was having a conversation in the hallway; Jessie could barely overhear them. “Chris, you know you can come in when you want, right? You don’t need to ring the bell.”

“Ms Wilson, should you be saying that to the boy dating your child?”

“You know you have been more to us than that for a while. You caught her after Grandpa Wilson died, and she started lashing out.”

“One, she might just be bisexual, and the other girl didn’t end up liking her. She might also be with me as a sort of lavender compromise.” The words of her mother hurt mainly because they denied her. Chris’s also hurt. Why did those words hurt? “That doesn’t matter, though I love her all the same, even if I might fear this is a temporary thing. There is plenty of time to learn what she likes. But in order for me to be secure, you and your husband need to be okay with something other than straight cisgender.”

“You know you have me on board.”

“Then quit saying I caught her. It makes me feel like you aren’t on board with it.” He was coming to the kitchen. Quick, look like you weren’t listening at the door. “Hey, are you ready for class?” She grabbed her last bite and nodded.

Getting into the car, they had felt awkward. “Chris, I overheard you with mom.”

“Okay, and do you have objections to what I said, or are you afraid that I will leave you?”

“The second… I don’t know what I have done to make you think that I don’t love you. I do.” That was it, that was why it hurt.

“You always say it after moments like this, never when I say it, never on your own, on a moment where my questioning isn’t brought up.” He was calm, as if this were a conversation we had daily. “But if I can get your dad on board, I might be convinced. You also heard that your mom says she would be okay with you being trans or bi or a lesbian, right?”

“Was that what it was about for you? You feel like a second choice.”

“No, but you thought you were trans for a while, didn’t see a therapist because of the reaction your parents had to you kissing a girl. I want you to be able to have a conversation with a professional about it. I love you as you are, but I want you to love you too.” He said with a tone of care and understanding. There was also recognition of the hurt that Jessie hadn’t shared with others. This must be the reason I fell for him.

“Chris, you are the best boyfriend in the world, and I love you even if I end up becoming your boyfriend,” Jessie said half jokingly. “I don’t think I need to be a man anymore. I just never felt safe being myself. If I wore boots and a leather jacket, you wouldn’t give a shit, you wouldn't treat me differently. I am me, and you are you; that is enough.”

Chris breathed a sigh of relief that neither of us had noticed he was holding. He held his gaze on the road, but something told them he wanted to look at Jessie. “Next month is the dance, do you want to be my date for that?”

“I want you in a dress for that.” Jessie joked.

“Only if you go shopping with me for one and you wear a suit.” He replied with confidence rarely found in men his age.

(Break)

Where did the weeks go? I feel like I missed something? “Jessie, you look beautiful in the suit,” said their Dad. “I wouldn’t have chosen it, but if Chris is okay with it, who am I to stop the two of you?”

Chris rang the door not in some sort of suit but in a green, flowy, gala dress, with black tights and Mary-Janes. With the biggest shit-eating grin he could have had as Jessie’s dad’s jaw dropped, he said, “You look oh so dashing in that suit. Are you ready to go?” Their Mom chuckled, but their Dad wanted to protest as they went on their way. Chris must have known this would be pushing it and not a little. This was as gender non-conforming as he could have been. Wearing that dress was a ‘Fuck you, accept us as we are!’ without the words, but felt as just as aggressive a refusal by him.

“Did mom know?”

“Mine helped me look for the tights. I asked your Mom to get me the Mary-Janes with an outline of my insoles. She knew what I was planning. Did I pull it off?”

Chris was a muscular, broad-shouldered man in a dress, not as a mockery, not as drag, but as a man wearing a dress. “Depends, did you want to look feminine? Then no, but you do rock that dress. However, that is mostly your confidence and the commitment to wearing it like it should have been.”

He smiled. “You didn’t say I had to look feminine. You said wear a dress! Doing it half-measure felt like cheating. My mom got the reason when I explained Dad would never. What is it with men their age and not wanting to show themselves as vaguely feminine?” He chuckled. His old man would never have approved the fact that he called him Dad, which might have been a mockery at some point. We talked about the things we wanted to do as we drove to the dance, as well as the theoretical fallout at school.

At the door, we were stopped by Miss Walters. “Mr Philips, Ms Williams, what is this?” She gestured to our outfits.

“Dress code stated formal dress, a gala style dress or suit, not who Miss Walters.” Chris pushed, always standing on the letter of the law, bending it for good or for fun? A rules lawyer who knew when to look at the other interpretation and when to let go.

“You know well enough that those rules were written with standard gender norms in mind.”

“Yes, and… that is not how you have to enforce them. You have final say. We both know that, but refusing us… What would that say? Would you be a bigot or an enforcer of the mores and folkways? Would this lump you in with the men keeping women down? Would you be against gender equality?” Chris was playing into Miss Walters ' insecurities and wants. He was trying to appeal to her feminism that she proclaimed during Biology class so often. He wanted her to join in his unadulterated idealism. “We aren’t all that different, only a tiny bit of hormones at the right times.” He played a card that a true biology teacher would know, not that dumb genetic bulshit.

The teacher growled as she had to come to terms with how Chris had been pushing her buttons. The teacher did, however, not relent to his reasoning. “Sorry, but fine, I will return you the money you paid for the dance. Can you live with that?” Chris nodded. “Sorry, you are correct, but the PTA will be beside themselves if I let you in. I care for my job more than my ideals. If you were trans, Chris, I might have forced the issue, but you aren’t, or at least not diagnosed.” The teacher said with regret in her voice.

He walked away. “Let’s go to my place, we can do all the important things there anyway. Mom has a late-night shift.”

Before the dreamlike highlight reel could get to the juicy parts, it ended.