sleep away at Camp Wiŋtke

Chapter 17

"This dress is too long," Julie complained, as she freed the hem of her dress from a thorny weed. "I can't walk through the tall grass and stuff."

"We won't go too far," Terry urged in a whisper, "just far enough to see where they're going."

"Why do you care?" Belinda quietly asked.

"I don't know," Terry answered. "I just feel like I gotta see."

The boys fell in line behind Terry trying to look like they were just casually walking in a random direction.

As they finally managed to find a spot where their dresses wouldn't tangle in the brush, they spotted the other two campers behind a tree.

One camper, in a short green dress, was pinned aginst the tree by the second camper, in a long blue gown. He stepped forward pressing his body into the other. The tail of the first camper's dress was gathered up around his waist and he had one knee bent, his foot propped against the tree.

They were making out.

"Oh," Belinda gasped, quickly averting his gaze. "Um, I think we ought to go."

What? You got a problem with seeing two girls make out," Terry asked.

"First of all, it's two guys, not that it makes any difference. I just think we shouldn't be spying on them, that's all. Let's go."

"Not yet," Terry whispered, edging a bit closer.

The first camper lowered his leg and the second camper, without breakng eye contact with the first, reached down with both hands and began relifting the tail of the first camper's short green dress.

From their vantage point, the three couldn't see clearly, but they could make out that the one in the blue dress was trying to reach into the now exposed panties of the other.

"I really don't think I want to see what I think is about to happen," Belinda exclaimed, turning away.

"I do," Terry enthusiastically answered. "I need to."

Julie, having already turned away, looked back as the camper in blue squatted lower. They couldn't see what came next, for the green dress fell over the back of the other camper's head, blocking their view, but from the rhythmic movement underneath the green dress, they could all guess what was happening.

"I - I'm going to the cabin. I'm gonna be sick," Belinda stuttered as he turned and began walking away as quickly as he could in his heeled shoes over the uneven ground.

"Interesting, very interesting but I don't feel right knowing I'm spying on them. I'm with you, Belinda," Julie turned and followed.

"Yeah, okay, I'm coming," Terry sighed, before reluctantly following Julie and Belinda as they headed back.

"Why did you want to watch that?" Belinda asked Terry, just before they entered the cabin.

"There are others like me here," he tried to explain. "Aside from the couple boys that are trying to become girls, I thought everyone just wanted to pretend they were girls for a week, but this, this changes everything. For me it means there are also others here that are just boys that likes boys. Maybe they like pretending to be girls, or maybe they want to be girls too, but still they are just as much a boy as me and they like boys. It made me feel better knowing that I wasn't alone."

"Did you know that was what they were doing when you followed them?" Julie asked.

"Maybe," Terry shrugged. "I thought they might be going to make out, but I didn't expect all that."

Once inside the cabin, Julie went straight to his closet. He opened the door and saw his gym bag and the jeans and t-shirt he had worn that first day, when he boarded the bus. He heart sunk. He was saddened by the thought of this week being over.

Julie stood in front of the closet and allowed his thoughts to wander as a memory flashed across his mind. In that moment all the feelings he had felt when, earlier in the week, he had imagined being made love to, all flooded back. His body was once again consumed by a warmth that enveloped him and reassured him that, yes, later in life, being some guys dream wife was absolutely exactly what he wanted.

He allowed the scene to play out in his head and before long several new scenes had formed. In every one of the scenes he saw his vision of what he had always imagined as the perfect girl, the perfect wife, only instead of being married to the girl, he was the girl.

When Julie finally snapped out of his daydream he realized his breathing had increased, his heart rate was elevated, and his toes were curled.

Reluctantly, he bends his knees and squatted down to unbuckle his shoes.

He stepped out of the heels and placed them back in the bottom of the closet. He then peeled off the dress and hung it up, folded the slip and put on a nightgown for the last time that week. He pulled out the cotton balls and nailpolish remover they had been given when they painted their nails in class and proceeded to clean the color off his fingers and toes.

Belinda laid down on the bed, consumed with the thoughts about how he didn't want to go back to having to be a boy. Before long he had fallen asleep, still in the dress.

Just as Julie crawled into bed, a counselor entered a cabin and announced lights out, before flipping the lights off and exiting amid complaints from several campers that weren't quite ready for the lights to go out yet.

Lying in the semi-darkness, moonlight streaming in from the window across room, Julie prayed himself to sleep, the tears flowing much longer than any other night.

The next morning Julie got up and dressed in the clothes he has arrived to camp in. It felt strange putting on pants after a week in skirts, skirts, and  dresses, and, strange as it may sound, not wearing a bra left him feeling a bit out of place.

He did not want to go home and in fact, dreaded returning to his male life.

"Ah, this is better," Terry called as he approached.

"Speak for yourself," Belinda chided him in a friendly tone.

After dressing, the three went to the big house for breakfast. They saw counsellor Amy and unlike all the campers, and most of the other counselors, she was dressed in her usual skort and workout top.

"Nobody sees me as anything but the girl I am when I'm here," she informed them, responding to their question about why she wasn't in boy clothes. "I'll go back to my male life when I get home."

A couple hours later they were sitting together on the bus watching out the back window as the camp fade away out of sight.

"I just want to know you as Terry and Belinda," Julie told them when that started talking about whether they should exchange real names along with their phone numbers.

"Yeah, I think you're right," Belinda agreed.

Terry was the first to be dropped off. They all hugged and wished him well. A short time later Belinda's stop came up. Both boys had tears in their eyes as they, hugged, exchanged a kiss on the cheek, and bid one other goodbye.