“It sounds like you are.”
“I’m not mad at you, Kitten, but I’d rather have been there with you, in case you had a bad trip.” His mouth opened to argue, so I continued before he could interrupt me. “Before you point out that I do drugs all the time, I already know the rules are different. As I said before, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I don’t want you to be careless either. I can handle some bad shit, but I cannot handle bad shit happening to you. So, you can stomp your feet and be pissy about it all you want, but if you intend to do drugs in the future, you’d better include me in your plans.”
“Or what?” he asked, always testing me.
“I’ll spank your ass,” I snapped. His nostrils flared and his eyes widened. Fuck, would he be into that? Would I?
“I’ll do what I want,” he said and squared his shoulders.
“Of course you will,” I said with a scowl.
“So, are we fighting?”
“No.” I passed him a few pieces of jerky to take the edge off his hunger. “I’m romancing you, Kitten. We’re going to spend the afternoon lounging around and stuffing our faces with all our favorite foods while we gaze upon the masterpiece that is the outdoor stage.”
“You just want to impress me with your carpentry skills,” he said with a smile.
“Busted.”
An hour or so later, after I’d stuffed him full of cheese and crackers, cured meats, spicy pickles, and fresh fruit and jam, we lay on our backs with his head resting atop my stomach so that I could play with his hair while he pointed out all of the shapes in the clouds.
“That one’s an airplane,” he said.
“Looks like a dick to me.”
He laughed. “They all look like dicks to you.”
“Some have balls too,” I said and tickled him until he was giggling.
“Have you ever been on an airplane before?” he asked.
“Yes. Have you?”
“When I was a baby, coming from Brazil to America, but I don’t remember it. Where did you go?”
“One summer we went to Japan and then South Korea to visit our relatives. My dad was Japanese and my mother was Korean. Did I ever tell you that before?”
“No. I didn’t know that you were Korean too. What’s it like over there?”
“I was pretty young, but I remember that the cities were very crowded and the countryside was very beautiful. There was a lot of food too. It seemed wherever we went, people were feeding us. I wonder how many family members I may still have left.”
“I’ve wondered that too. I never really cared to find my birth parents before, but now, I don’t know. Could be cool.”
Or it could be devastating,I thought, to go looking for a lost relation only to find that they were dead too, likely from some tragic circumstance, but rather than dwell in darkness, I opted to match his mood. “So what do you think of my stage?”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s not done yet. We still have to add the shell for acoustics and frame out the backstage.”
“I wonder what the first performance will be,” Kitten said.
“I happen to know there will be a talent show. The Council has already decided.” It was a fun fact that I’d learned from Brother Larry and had immediately dismissed it, that is, until he told me that he’d like for me and my friends to come up with an act.
Kitten’s expression brightened then dimmed. “I wish I could play an instrument.”
“You play the skin flute pretty well,” I teased. At the confused quirk in his eyebrows, I said, “That’s another term for a dick, sweetness, specifically mine.”
“Oh,” he said with a chuckle and rolled onto his side so that I could see all of his gorgeous face. “I wish I had a talent.”
