The Bear Cap: Jonathan

The Bear Cap: Jonathan

This is dedicated to my friend @amysticbearperson​! He also convinced me to get on Twitter. Give me a follow, friends?

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Jonathan didn’t even want to go to the dinner in the first place. His parents kept telling him that the Hills’ son Tyshawn would be there, and that was why he needed to go, so that he and Tyshawn could catch up - plus, the Hills wanted to see how Jonathan had grown up.

Jonathan remembered the Hills - they’d lived next door when he was really little - and he’d played with Tyshawn a few times in the backyard, but that was the extent of their relationship. He knew it would be like most boring dinners with adults, talking about work and the stock market or whatever. And the Hills had gotten reservations at Charme, the fanciest restaurant in town, which excited Jonathan’s parents, but not Jonathan. He wasn’t a food guy by a long shot, and Charme was the kind of place that didn’t even have a menu - or at least not one you ordered off of. Whatever you were served, you ate, and Jonathan wasn’t yet old enough to have the option of washing it all down with wine. He’d asked his dad if Charme would have cheeseburgers or anything a picky eater would like, and his dad had laughed. Not a great sign.

“You need to dress nice,” Jonathan was told, and his first choice of a polo and jeans was vetoed as not formal enough. Charme required jackets. So, grumbling, he went back to his closet to cobble together an outfit from whatever stuff he hadn’t outgrown over high school. He’d never attempted to organize it, which resulted in a mishmash of clothes he liked, clothes he hated, clothes that didn’t fit, and clothes he didn’t even recognize. The black cap - found buried under a pile of forgotten sweatshirts and jeans - belonged in the latter group. It had the word “BEAR” on the front in tall white letters, which probably stood for some dumb anti-drug thing at school. He plopped the hat on his head while he continued rummaging for acceptable clothes. Most of the clothes were chucked into piles deep enough for Jonathan to bury his entire arm in, so the search became a game, as Jonathan tried to guess what forgotten item of clothing he’d produce from the heaps next.

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First Responder

Buy me a protein shake so I can get as big as this guy’s about to?

Eugene Meyers never liked high school. He didn’t like it when he was in it, and now that he’d graduated, he didn’t like running into people who’d experienced it alongside him, because for some reason it was still all they wanted to talk about.

So when Eugene saw Gabi Fortescue on the other end of the strip mall, walking toward him, he hoped she wouldn’t talk to him. Maybe she wouldn’t even recognize him. After all, his hair was down to his shoulders now, and he’d gained ten pounds, notable for someone as thin as he was. She was in flip-flops, so she was walking slow, and maybe he’d get to Serene Planet before she reached him…his hand was resting on the door of the shop when she walked past him.

Whew.

“Hey, we went to high school together, right?”

Shit.

Eugene turned around. “Yeah, hey.” He tossed a long blond bang out of his eyes. “I’m Eugene.”

“I remember you! We had Statistics together. I’m Gabi, if you don’t remember,” she smiled. She had a round face, big eyes, white teeth. Not the kind of girl who was going to rock a full tattoo sleeve, meaning she wasn’t Eugene’s type, but she was pretty enough that he hadn’t talked to her in high school. “You going into work?”

“Work…? Oh, no,” he answered. “I don’t work here, I just uh, smoke a lot.” He remembered Gabi as a good girl - not that good girls didn’t smoke weed, but she didn’t seem like the type - but if this statement scandalized her, she didn’t show it.

“Oh, cool. I work at the tanning salon down there. Funny since I don’t tan.” She raised a pale arm up to her side as proof, and Eugene laughed politely. “Are you in school?”

“Nah, I think college is…kind of a scam?” Eugene shrugged. “I dunno. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and it felt dumb to throw a bunch of money down the toilet while I figured it out. But I’m not working right now either, so… I don’t know, I just don’t really care. I probably should. I really like doing nothing.”

“Long as you’re happy,” Gabi smiled. “Hey, I gotta run before I clock in late, but it’s nice to see you.”

“Good to see you too, thanks for saying hi,” Eugene said, not meaning it. But he did appreciate that she hadn’t brought up high school.

The bell above Serene Planet’s door chimed as Eugene walked in. He was immediately hit with the overwhelming smell of incense, which was burning in at least four places that he could see from where he stood. He went to the hippie shop so frequently that he’d gotten to know a lot of the staff, but the clerk today was a white girl with hot pink dreads that he didn’t recognize.

Eugene always looked at the hand-blown glass pipes first, which were such a temptation and so damn pretty. But he already owned several, and since he wasn’t working and his parents were starting to make threats about paying rent, it wasn’t a great use of money. So he poked around more, just killing time - the only thing he did nowadays - perusing the handmade clothes and weird tchotchke that were staples in every head shop he’d ever been in. He skipped over the Wiccan shit and then moved onto a glass case full of jewelry. Mostly navel rings, but there were a few other options, like a cool glass ring that caught Eugene’s attention. The inside of it was layered with orange, red, and yellow that made it look like it was literally on fire. “Dope,” Eugene muttered. He turned to the girl behind the counter. “How much is this one here?”

She flipped up the hinged counter and walked across the store to where he stood. “That one’s fuckin’ cool, right? It’s thirty bucks.”

Eugene’s checking account had $42 in it at present. Eh, worth it. “I’ll take it.”

She nodded and unlocked the case, retrieving the ring carefully and holding it as she walked back to the counter. “It was handmade by this really cool chick who lives up in the woods. She has like fifty chickens and just stays up there making jewelry. She’s my hero,” the shopgirl explained as she dropped the ring into a small plastic baggie.

“Oh, I’ll wear it,” Eugene said, so the girl took it out of the bag and gave it to him. As he wriggled it onto his bony finger, he noticed a sign taped to the counter under his hand. “First responder discount?”

“Yeah, we give 15% off if you’re a first responder. Just started doing it.”

“I’m a first responder,” Eugene said quickly.

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Just recently subscribed to this man's patreon and you should too! it's totally worth!

That first story alone is f i r e !!

First story up on Patreon

Do you like transformations where unsure young lads blossom into confident, hulking, well-dressed men? Well have I got the story for you!

CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN is now on Patreon, where it will live for the time being. It's 24 hot and heavy pages, and you can be among the first to read them for as little as three bucks.

Oh, you'd like a synopsis? Sure! "Dylan wanders into a menswear store in search of a makeover, and the salesman turns out to be extremely good at his job..."

And here's a little tease:

“I know you’re thinking you want a smaller chest, but it’s actually just the opposite,” Bernhardt said into Dylan’s ear. “You want a bigger chest. That’s what will look the best on you.”

“Really?” Dylan said unsurely, feeling bits of his flesh squeezing through Bernhardt’s fingers. “I’m not...I don’t know. I don’t want boobs like a girl.”

“That’s why you want them bigger. When they’re bigger than any woman’s, nobody will compare the two.” Bernhardt’s fingers were being forced further apart. Dylan’s shirt began to tighten at the base of his chest.

“But...that’s big...if they’re bigger than any girl’s…”

“But isn’t that what you want? The biggest, manliest chest possible.”

Dylan’s legs buckled. His eyes rolled back. “Yes, I...I do want a manly chest, as long as it doesn’t look like a girl’s-”

“We’ll take care of that. For now, just focus on your chest growing. Can you feel it?”

The Broadcast

The car sputtered to a stop just as it finished rolling into the parking space, emitting a wheezing noise that made it impossible to tell whether it had been turned off or simply died. The car’s driver, a teenage boy with porcelain skin, heaved himself over the passenger seat and crawled out the door on that side, sending three wadded up hamburger wrappers spilling onto the pavement. He picked up two of them and tossed them back into his car.

“Are you…Jace?” asked a man standing near the curb.

“Yeah, hi.” Jace flicked his long hair - meant to be electric blue, but closer to the color of an old swimming pool - out of his eyes. “The driver’s side door is stuck,” he explained, picking a McDonald’s Monopoly sticker off his pants.

“All good. I’m Robby Telek, I’m a producer here at KPEC.” Robby extended his hand, and Jace shook it limply. “I’ll be taking you around today.”

“Cool,” Jace said, eyes and mouth covered by the hair blowing in his face. “I didn’t think I was gonna win.”

“Yeah? Pretty exciting!”

“I guess,” Jace shrugged. “I didn’t enter myself actually, my friends did as a joke. I knew they were doin’ it though.”

Robby’s smile shrank. “Oh. Your entry said you wanted to be a journalist-”

“I mean, I do. Just not the TV kind.” Jace followed Robby, who’d turned to walk toward the doors of the news station.

“What kind then?” Robby held the door open for Jace. “After you.”

“I dunno, I used to want to write for Vice but they kinda suck now. New goal is just to figure it out in college.” Jace stopped at the metal detector and looked back at Robby. “Shit, I have a lot of metal on me.”

“If it beeps a lot I’ll just pat you down,” said the security guard sitting nearby.

“Do I need to take these out?” Jace tapped his finger against the snakebite piercings bulging from his lower lip.

“Should be fine,” the guard said, visibly wincing. “Those hurt?”

“I got over it.” Jace lifted his long t-shirt to remove his grommet belt. He dumped it on the table along with his wallet and chain, phone, and keys. Even with all these things removed, the detector still beeped. “Oh, necklace,” Jace mumbled, removing two long silver chains from around his neck. He dropped them on the table along with a silver ring from his finger. The next walk through the detector was a success. “You guys get a lot of threats around here?” he said, eyes showing genuine excitement for the first time that day.

“Not too many,” Robby said, “but you know how it is.”

“Yeah. Well don’t worry, I know I’m a white teenage boy but I’m not gonna shoot the place up.”

“I’m…glad to hear that,” Robby said, filling the silence that followed. He clapped his hands together and plowed on. “Anyway, uh, we’re gonna try to make this fun for you today. Give you a tour, introduce you to the team, then get you all set for your segment.”

“How long am I gonna be here?”

“Should be a few hours.”

“Will there be a tape of it? For colleges and YouTube or whatever.”

“Of course, we’ll sort all of that out,” Robby smiled.

“Do I need to change clothes? I don’t-”

“Don’t worry about that, we’ll take care of everything.” Robby clapped his hand on Jace’s back. “All you needed to bring was yourself and we’ll figure out the rest as we go, sound good?”

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The Romans, and the Greeks

Words by Aardvark and AgingTime

Twitter | Support Aardvark | Support AgingTime

It wasn’t that the trip to the art museum was entirely boring. There was some really cool stuff in here, Roman and Max agreed. They were super into the room that had the sculptures that looked like balloon animals. The issue was that seeing all the interesting stuff took roughly fifteen minutes, which left them five hours to kill.

“Five…hours…” Roman grumbled dramatically, dragging his feet behind him like he was on invisible crutches. “I’m not gonna make it, man. Tell…tell Livi…I always thought she was hot as hell.”

“Man, I would, but I’m definitely gonna die of boredom too,” Max replied. “At least there’s food right?”

“I guess. Mmm yum, museum food,” Roman snorted. He pushed the mushroom fringe of his bangs out to the side even though he was fully aware it would flop right back over his eyes, which it did. “When do we have to meet the group? Like 40, 45 minutes from now?”

“Yeah, for the tour.”

“I can’t believe they’re letting us run wild here. Someone’s gonna break something.”

Max looked witheringly at Roman, who was grinning from ear to ear. “You mean YOU’RE going to try to break something.”

“I never try, it’s not my fault that I’m clumsy.” It was a running joke at school that Roman’s hands and feet didn’t match the rest of his body, at least not yet. He and Max were the same average height, yet Roman’s feet were four sizes bigger, and he tripped over them constantly.

Roman and Max were best buddies. Equals. Instead of a leader/follower dynamic, they were competitors; willful young men who didn’t take anything seriously except for their own opinions. They’d been friends since middle school, after a knockdown, dragout fight over a loose basketball, quite counterproductive since they were on the same team. But they both thought it was hilarious, and after that, they were almost always together, picking the same classes and ensuring they had the same lunchtime.

Their first jaunt was through a textiles exhibition, which they thought might be cool because it could be about texting, like some kind of digital art. It turned out textiles were fabrics, which was intensely uninteresting. “It’s…rugs,” Roman deadpanned, looking around the room. “Rugs and blankets. Dope.”

“Dude, you know who’d like this stuff? My mom,” Max said, which was the most damning assessment possible, and made them both laugh until a massive security guard glared at them. That was their cue to go, and as they headed out of the exhibition, Max’s phone vibrated. “Miller says he’s hiding out in some movie room. I think I’ll pass.”

“Nah, if I watch something I will definitely fall asleep, and then you’d both leave me there and I’d wake up seven hours later, and the museum would be closed, and I’d never be able to leave and that would be my life.”

“That makes complete sense, you’re exactly right,” Max said. “Hey look, Greek stuff.”

“I prefer Roman stuff.”

“God, shut UP,” Max groaned, giving Roman a shove that roused a “Hey!” from another huge guard nearby.

“Ah man, we gotta go in here,” Roman said, pointing to an exhibit entrance framed by multicolor stripes painted elegantly on the walls. “Rainbow Rebellion: Queer Coding Throughout the Ages,” he read out loud before turning serious. “I think this will be really good for you, to see the art of your people.”

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