Done Adulting Vol. 2 Ch. 43 (Patreon)

“When’s the last time you wore a collared shirt,” Amanda asked as she got Jamie dressed in the new polo shirt Becky bought him.

“Christmas probably,” he replied as she she pulled it over his head.

“Your belly looks almost all better.”

“Almost. How did you convince Mom to not be here for this?”

“I told her it would ruin my cool factor if my mom was around to meet my classmates.”

“But it wouldn’t ruin it if I was here?”

“This barbecue was your idea.”

Jamie was having second thoughts. “I’m just a little. I don’t know what I’m saying half the time.”

“You love trotting that excuse out when it suits you, naughty bear.” She lifted him onto her hip and carried him to the dining room.

“Mel is coming,” Jamie asked. He knew she was, but he wanted to confirm it.

“Yep. I asked her to co-host.”

“Good.”

“You’ve been awfully clingy with her lately.”

“I just ...” He shrugged rather than finish the sentence.

“Tell me,” Manda said, urging him with a pat to his butt.

“She’s gonna find a job, and then we won’t get to hang out as much. That’s how it works. She won’t be around in the middle of the day anymore.”

Amanda knew he was right, though she hadn’t put much thought to it. To her, it seemed like the natural progression of life, exciting and fresh. To Jamie, it was change, and he didn’t want things to change. So much was changing already.

“I know, Baby Bear. I know.” Knowing there was nothing she could do to make that better, she changed the subject. “You wanna go play outside?”

“Mhmm,” he said. She lowered him to the floor, and he toddled off to the sandbox. He’d been working on a new castle, and he resumed his efforts. He was getting pretty good at sculpting sandcastles. It didn’t quite take his mind off the party, though. It had been his idea. When he’d gone to that lecture, he wanted to help Amanda get off on the right foot with her fellow students, but they’d been so forward. Those that didn’t appear to want to study him had acted so strangely, like he was a precious artifact.

He knew unregressed littles were a rarity, but that didn’t mean they were a marvel. He was glad Mel was coming not just because he wanted to see her, like he always did, but because he knew Amanda needed to host, and Mel could be a buffer between him and their guests. It hadn’t taken him long to learn the shyness trick, clinging to one person and pretending to be shy so people wouldn’t mind him not being social. He figured he’d be doing that when they started to get too familiar or too in his face, the way they’d done at the lecture. He was filling his water bucket when Mel emerged from the house with Amanda.

“Jamie!” Amanda quick stepped over to him. “You’re not supposed to lift things that heavy yet.” She bent down and lifted the bucket for him.

“Sorry.” He felt fine lifting it, just a mild tugging sensation where the main incision was, but he knew she was right and he shouldn’t be lifting heavy things yet. His abdomen was still healing.

“That’s okay. Just come get me next time,” Manda said as she set the bucket in the sand. “I’m gonna start the grill.”

“What are we building,” Mel asked.

“Don’t you have to help Manda?”

“I’m helping her help you build a sandcastle.” She looked it over. It was becoming very elaborate. “Where did you learn to do this?” She couldn’t build sandcastles like that.

“Here. Got plenty of time to practice.”

“Do you ever get bored?” She was bored. She was getting some interviews but wasn’t having luck getting a job, being told to get back in touch after she had some experience. How was she supposed to get experience if no one would hire her? Another two weeks and she’d need to get her old job back. She didn’t see how Jamie, with his mind still an adult’s, could just hang out all the time without getting bored.

“Yeah. But you do kind of get into a rhythm with it. Find hobbies to fill your time. Take more pleasure in the people you’re with. The days go by faster than you think when you’re used to it.”

“I don’t think I could do it.”

“You figure it out.” He considered it for a moment. “I still get bored, but I guess when you know there isn’t going to be some big change coming up, you find things to do. Like, just things you start doing or hobbies you pick up that you wouldn’t bother with if you were planning on starting a job soon. Even doing nothing can be its own routine. It’s not as much sitting around as it seems.”

“And you get good at making sandcastles.” She picked up a handful of sand and let it run through her fingers.

“If the party sucks, we should go somewhere fun,” he suggested.

“Like where?”

“I dunno.” He wasn’t really serious, though as the moment the first guest would appear got closer, he felt more like he’d rather have gone with Becky.

“How’s Ella? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She’s good. She’s been spending a lot of time at the therapist getting ready to see her family. But she’s coming over here tomorrow.” He was looking forward to it. He’d not gotten to spend a whole day with her since his surgery. Her family would arrive in just a few days; then they’d go into quarantine.

“Glad to hear that. I’d be a nervous wreck.” She really couldn’t imagine what she’d be like beyond that cliché.

Jamie sighed in response and drizzled water water from his hand on the castle. He was nervous, if not a wreck. He wanted to rehearse the meeting but had been too embarrassed to ask. “I wish these people would get here,” he said instead, meaning Manda’s classmates. “I kinda wanna get this over with.”

“That’s no attitude for a party.”

“You didn’t see the way they looked at me at that lecture. Like I was a specimen.”

“I heard one of them tried to give you a cookie. That’s kind of sweet, in its own way.”

“Just ... could you stay close to me? They make me nervous.” He wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t like they were going to whisk him off to a laboratory. He thought he had gotten used to bigs and didn’t feel anxious around them much anymore unless they gave him reason to. He knew he didn’t need to feel this way, or thought he didn’t, but he couldn’t help it. That’s why they call them feelings instead of logic, he thought.

“Aww. No one is gonna be mean to my Jamie Bear,” Mel reassured him.

“I’m Manda’s bear,” he teased.

“Is that how it’s gonna be? Huh?” She gently pushed him backward and began tickling his armpits. He squealed and tried to not kick or thrash or knock down his sandcastle. “I’ma tickle you until you say it!”

“No!” Jamie cried. “Hehehehee! Stop!”

“Say it!”

“Hehehe! I’m Manda’s bear!”

“Whose bear are you?” She redoubled her efforts, sliding her hands under his shirt.

“Manda’s!” He wouldn’t say it. He was Manda’s bear, and that was final!

“Fine!” Mel stopped and took her hands back, looking away and trying to affect aloofness. “Be her bear. See if I care.”

Jamie sat up and used the little bit of his forearms not covered in sand to wipe the tears from his eyes. He edged closer to Mel and leaned his head against her arm. “Can I be your nephew instead?”

Mel’s artifice collapsed, and she smiled warmly, a contented smile that said she knew how fortunate she was to have this little in her life. She pivoted to pick him up and set him in her lap, hugging him. “Always.” She kissed the top of his head and felt his body sigh and smile as he leaned into her, letting his weight go heavy. “But I’m still gonna tell everyone you’re my bestest bear.”

“Okay.”

She brushed sand off his back. “We’re gonna be in trouble,” she laughed. “I got you all dirty.”

“Manda and Mom like it when I come inside dirty. They say that’s how little boys are supposed to be when they come inside after playing.”

“Even before you have company?”

“Well, not so much then.” She stood him on his feet and started brushing him off, not so easy with some of the sand being wet.

“I think we need to change your clothes.” She stood up and held his hand as they walked inside, passing Manda on her way out. She blocked the door before they could step inside.

“What happened to you,” she asked with a half-smile on her face.

“It’s my fault. I tried to get him to say he was my bear,” Mel confessed.

“And,” Manda asked, cocking her hip, ready to resume his tickling if he’d forgotten.

“I’m a very loyal bear,” Jamie replied. Amanda smiled down at him, glad he was hers always and forever.

“I’ll clean him up,” Mel said, “even if he is technically your bear.” She winked at Amanda.

“Strip him out here,” Amanda suggested, “so the sand stays out here. His clothes can dry in the sun.” She’d shake them out later to keep the sand out of the washing machine.

In the nursery, Mel put Jamie on the changing table. “You’re a wet little boy,” she said as he lay back and let her change his diaper. She was slower at it than Mom or Manda, and he liked that. “What would you like to wear?”

“Clothes.” He didn’t care. Mel picked out a red shirt with stripes and a pair of his khaki shorts. Jamie knew the procedure and put himself in the requisite positions for her to slide them on.

“Wanna wear shoes?”

“No. It’s summer. If I had my way, I wouldn’t wear shoes again until it gets cold.” Becky wouldn’t allow that, though, and he was proud of his sandal tan.

“Ya know what would be funny,” Jamie asked.

“What?”

“If we pretended I was regressed.”

“Don’t they know you’re not?”

“We could just tell them we had it done a couple days ago.”

“Is that how it works?”

“I dunno. Just might be funny to hear what they say if they think I can’t understand. Though they probably think I can’t understand a lot anyway.”

“I think Manda would blow your cover. But! How about we clip a paci to your shirt in case you’re feeling shy?” She got a clip from under the changing table and fished around in the crib until she found his pacifier. She clipped it to his shirt and smiled at him.

“What,” he asked, self-conscious.

“You’re just too darn cute sometimes.” He blushed, then quickly frowned.

“I think I hear someone,” he said.

“We’ll have a fun time. Walk or carry?”

At the first party at their home he’d been at, the one for his arrival, he’d chosen to walk, wanting to seem independent. That thought didn’t even cross his mind now, and he replied, “Carry.” Not because he was comfortable being seen as dependent, but because he wanted to be carried.

“Does Amanda know what a lazy bear she has,” Mel asked as she situated him on her hip.

“I’m husbanding my energy in case of emergency later.”

“Want a drink before we go back outside?”

“Yeah. Some milk, please.” He’d noted the cooler on the patio, and if he couldn’t have a beer, he could at least have some milk.

“You are such a milkhead,” Mel teased him.

“My name is Jamie, and I’m a milkaholic,” he teased back.

She set him the counter on his butt. “Formula or the good stuff?”

“The good stuff, with ice, please.” Mel got Jamie’s tumbler from the cabinet above his head and poured a bottle of breast milk into it, topping it off with ice cubes. She snapped a lid on it. It had been so weird at first handling her best friend’s mom’s milk when she babysat, but she was long over that.

She handed him the glass, lifted him under his arms, and set him in the floor. With a soft smack to his butt, she announced, “You can walk the rest of the way, lazy bear.”

They walked outside, where Manda was with three fellow students, two women and a man. He recognized one of them as the woman who’d tried to apologize by giving him half a cookie.

“I’d like you to meet Mel,” Amanda said, “And this is Jamie, as you probably know.” She’d heard his name was circulating among the students and faculty after they’d left the reception, though details on what that meant hadn’t been so clear.

“Hi, Mel,” the man said, holding out his hand. Jamie instantly sensed, or thought he did, that his man was going to try to flirt with his aunt and took a disliking to him. “I’m Jeremy. Are you in our program?”

“No,” Mel said as she shook his hand. “I’m Amanda and Jamie’s friend.”

“Oh! What do you do?”

“I hunt for jobs,” Mel said. Jamie couldn’t tell if that was meant to be flirty or dismissive. He could never tell when women flirted with him, which had led so many to dismiss him as not interested. If only he’d realized what he a catch he was before he decided to be adopted.

“This is Bethany and Amira,” Manda interjected.

“Remember me,” said the one Jamie recognized and that Amanda had indicated was Bethany. She bent down and held out her hand.

“Yes,” Jamie said, holding out his hand and pasting a smile on his face.

“He shakes hands,” Jeremy asked.

Jamie grimaced, and turning to Amanda, he sarcastically said, “It asks questions?” Mel bit her lip.

Amanda gave Jamie a subtle look to remind him to let her be the one to get grumpy if someone needed to. “Jamie can answer questions about himself, can’t you, Jamie,” Amanda said.

“Yes, and I prefer to.”

Jeremy blushed. “Sorry. I’m not used to, like, interacting with littles.”

“Then why did you apply to this program,” Amira asked. Jamie detected an accent he didn’t know.

“I like littles,” he replied. “I thought I’d be able to figure out something to do with this degree and that it would be kinda fun.”

“Is that would you wrote in your statement of intent?”

“Of course not,” Jeremy said and changed the subject by moving to the cooler. “Can I get anyone a beer?”

“I’ll take one,” Mel replied. Her brief interest in him waned with the revelation of his cavalier, almost disrespectful, attitude.

“Nice to meet you,” Jamie said to Amira. She got down on one knee.

“As am I.” They shook hands. He couldn’t tell if the formality of her response was meant to mirror own demeanor or if that was just the way people spoke wherever she was from.

Soon they were seated around the table, and four more guests showed up, though Jamie was mostly interested in Amira. He rarely got to meet people not from Itali. Even after four years, he didn’t know much about the world he lived in. It was partly on purpose; he didn’t want to know about politics or the economy or world events. He’d left that behind. He was happy for his world to be not much larger than San Siena. But he was still interested in people and their cultures.

“Are there many littles in Tenecao,” Jamie asked.

“In some parts. There is a lot of inequality in my country. Only families with money can afford to care for littles. They are, how you say, luxury.”

“Oh.” Jamie didn’t like that notion. It made humans sound like an item for showing off that you could afford one. “Do you have a little,” he asked.

“Yes, a little girl. Suri. She’s been part of our family for a long time. She’s not like you, though.”

“How so?”

“She’s regressed. She is like a two-year-old. She doesn’t remember anything about her life before.” Suddenly Jamie realized he could be talking to one of those people who mistreat littles. He couldn’t imagine the university letting someone from one of those countries in. Perhaps it was the language barrier, though Amira spoke well, but there seemed to be a subtext to what she was saying, that Suri was different than Jamie in other ways.

Jamie wasn’t sure how to ask. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He asked instead, “Is Tenecao an Alliance country?”

“Yes! For the past seven years.” Amira sounded so proud to say it.

“Oh. And how long has Suri been with you?”

“Since I was little, I think fifteen years.”

“Was …” Jamie looked at Amanda, who was talking to another student, and decided to just ask. “Was Suri kidnapped?”

Amira recoiled from the question. “No! Absolutely not. We adopted her directly from Earth.”

“Did she want to be regressed and all that?”

“Of course! We would never do that to a human.” Her eyes seemed to want to communicate something more to Jamie, perhaps just a yearning for him to understand she was a good person from a good country.

“Can I see pictures,” a student asked. Jamie glanced at the pictures on Amira’s phone out of one eye, wondering what life for Suri was like and whether Tenecao really was a good place for littles. He didn’t know what the actual requirement for membership in the Alliance was. He did know that back home, some agencies worked exclusively with Itali, but that didn’t mean everywhere else was bad. There were likely reasons other than how Itali treated littles that made agencies more likely to work exclusively there, like laws that made the process easier, though Jamie had thought it was a pretty thorough process.

“She’s adorable,” the other student said.

“Thank you. I miss her very much,” Amira said.

Jamie leaned back in his chair. He looked at Manda, who had been talking about him off and on, or at least he heard his name a few times. He didn’t mind her talking about him, but other than Amira, no one had really talked to him. He turned his head slightly and caught sight of Bethany slipping something in her pocket. He thought he’d seen her doing that earlier. It seemed every time he turned, she was doing that.

“What are you doing,” he asked, annoyance creeping into his voice.

“Nothing,” she smiled, “Just enjoying the day.”

“Yes, you are. You put something in your pocket.” Mel joined the conversation by sending a pointed looked at Bethany.

“I just … It’s just a notebook.” She pulled a small pad from her pocket.

“What are you taking notes on,” Mel asked.

“Jamie. I just …” She was embarrassed as though she’d been caught at something. “I was just making some observations.”

“Why,” Jamie asked.

“I’ve never met an unregressed little. I just thought it might be interesting to learn more is all. I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

“Done what?”

“Offended you. I apologize.” The way she said it, the deliberate tone and careful enunciation, got under Jamie’s skin. It was as though she were an anthropologist trying to establish a relationship with a previously uncontacted tribe and falling back on the only phrase she thought she knew to communicate with him. He didn’t like being up on a pedestal.

“I’m just a person.” He he didn’t raise his voice, but his tone caught everyone’s attention. “Stop thinking of me as a specimen … And you know what else? I am not the ambassador from Earth, which is just as diverse as this planet, so stop thinking that I’m some kind of representative sample. I’m Jamie! That’s it. If you wanna get to know me, talk to me. Otherwise, stop it.”

Amanda came up behind Jamie and put her hand on his shoulder. He startled and then settled down when he saw who it was. She bent down and whispered in his ear, and he nodded. She lifted him from his chair and handed him to Mel, who carried him inside.

“Go easy on him,” one of the students said.

“What,” Amanda asked.

“Littles have outbursts sometimes,” another chimed in.

“It was my fault,” Bethany said. If nothing else, she seemed earnest, sincere even, as she had been at that reception. She didn’t mean to offend him. She just felt fascinated yet so lost with an unregressed little. What could she learn from him? What could she learn about littles through him? How should she communicate with him? How should she even begin to get to know him and learn about him and from him?

“He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not in trouble,” Amanda said, wondering if her classmates thought differently, that he should be in trouble for snapping at someone who had been so rude. She was confident he shouldn’t be, and it made her wonder about the type of people her classmates were if any of them disagreed. “Excuse me,” Amanda said. She wished she had a tape recorder so she could hear what they were saying about them as she walked inside. She found Jamie in his room on the floor with Kazoo. Mel was sitting in the rocking chair. She stood up and left.

“Be nice to them,” Amanda instructed Mel before she closed the door behind her.

“I’m okay,” Jamie said.

“Something’s not okay, obviously.”

“Just felt reminded that I’m not a person to everybody.”

“What do you mean,” she asked as she sat down and scratched Kazoo above his ear.

“I’m a little. Amira, I dunno. I wonder if she thinks of me … She made it sound like littles are for showing off where she’s from, and Bethany was taking notes about me like I’m a curiosity. And I kept hearing you talking about me.”

“I’m sorry. I was only saying good things about you.”

“I know. But how come they won’t just talk to me? Besides Amira, I mean. I was worried they were gonna get all handsy, but instead they act all weird. At least I know what to do when people pick me up without permission.”

“They’re intimidated,” Manda told him. “They don’t know how to you.”

“I’m just a person.”

“You can come tell them that, if you want to. Or you can stay in here. Or you and Mel can go someplace.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said.

“For what?”

“For getting angry. For suggesting you do this. For getting you off on the wrong foot with your classmates.”

“I don’t think we’re off on the wrong foot yet. We’re all still getting to know each other. And I think after that lecture we both put ourselves in a bit of a mood about this group, don’t you think?” Perhaps he was projecting his own negative emotions on to them. She hoped that was the case and that her classmates weren’t already forming opinions about her and her little.

“Yeah.”

“But I’m glad we followed through with this.” She moved her hand from Kazoo’s ear to Jamie’s back, giving him a reassuring rub. “What you do you wanna do? Wanna go back out there, or you and Mel can take my car and go anywhere you want.”

Jamie thought about it. He felt tired, physically and emotionally. It was not, so far, turning out to be the great summer he had predicted right up until the day Amanda announced she’d be moving out. He wanted to get in Manda’s car, with her and with Mel, and drive back in time three years to the day he got Kazoo, which seemed in retrospect like the perfect day, when he realized just how well everything had come together for him, how lucky he was to have these people in his life. Or barring that, then drive to the park and play tag until his lungs hurt, and then let Mel scoop him up and place him in the stroller, wheel him to their favorite restaurant, and sit in her lap while the two of them ate queso and colored in a placemat.

But he felt he had responsibilities, first to Manda and helping her smooth over this bump in the road with people who, like it or not, were going to be important people in her life for the next two years. Secondly, to himself and humans, who needed bigs to understand they weren’t so different, that littles are people too.

“Is Tenecao really a good place for littles,” Jamie asked, looking up hopefully to Amanda. Lie to me if you have to, he wanted to say.

“Yes. It really is. They wouldn’t have admitted Amira if she came from a place that didn’t respect littles.”

“Let’s go back outside,” Jamie said.

“You always do what’s hard, Jamie Bear.” She admired that about him. It made them kindred. That’s what she and her mother had done when they brought him into their home. They’d done what’s hard. “Walk or carry?”

“Walk.”

She leaned over and kissed him. “My brave bear.”

They both wondered what Mel had said to them, if anything, because the group seemed intent on pretending as if nothing had happened. Manda suspected it was an affectation, at least from the few who thought Jamie deserved some kind of chastisement for sticking up for himself. She thought she sensed some gentle, misplaced empathy toward herself, as though they understood the burdensome parts of tending to littles. It made her feel defensive. It made her a little angry even, like she was being judged and resented it, but she set that aside to be a good hostess and not let assumptions and insecurity taint brand-new relationships.

Jamie looked around at the group, now conspicuously ignoring him in what he recognized as an attempt to be polite, to not make him feel self-conscious about his snapping at Bethany, as opposed to their inconspicuously ignoring him fifteen minutes ago, except for Bethany and Amira. He reached up and tugged on the hem of Manda’s shorts. She bent down to his level.

“I wanna talk to them like I do with Dr. Stern’s classes.”

“You wanna take questions?”

“And tell them about how I got here.”

That caught Amanda by surprise. Jamie didn’t talk about that much anymore. He’d hardly talked about it when it was fresh, and then mostly to Dr. Mary. She knelt down next to him. “Why do you wanna do that?”

“Because,” he said, “they should know what littles really are. We’re just people.”

And all the messiness that entails, Amanda thought.

“Okay. How about after everyone has eaten we can all sit down in the grass?”

“Okay.”

That is one brave bear, Amanda thought. Braver than they’ll ever know. She was proud of him. He made her proud every day.