Page 7 of Sass in the Grass

“Suit yourself,” he said, and the two of them left the cabin.

Finally alone, Jovian looked through his makeup case for his lip gloss, already feeling the effects of the air. His lips dry, his hands too. He liberally applied lotion to his hands, arms and neck before stashing his makeup under the bed again.

Lou came back into the cabin, a young woman by her side, actually flirting. “I’ll catch you at dinner?” the girl asked.

“You’re trouble. You’re gonna get me in hot water, Farrah.”

“Don’t tease me with a good time,” Farrah said back to her.

“Should I leave you two alone or be an ass and ask you to get a room?”

Smirking at Jovian, Lou said, “Shut up. You ready for your tour?”

“What is there to look at, really? More huts in the wilderness?”

“Yeah, more huts, but you’d like to know which hut to take a squat in to shit and which hut you’ll need to find when you’re asked to do a work detail, right?”

“Work detail? What are you on about?”

“What, are you British now?”

As Jovian revved up to scream, she laughed, and it took him completely off-guard. “Are you insane?”

“No, and I don’t think you are, either. Tell me something, though. Didn’t you actually read the brochure? It’s all written there, how you’ll be expected to help, do work assignments, go on survival hikes…”

“Excuse me? Survival hikes?”

“I suggest when we get done with the tour, you read it over and then we can hash this out. Right now, I have a ton more campers coming.”

It just kept getting worse, and Jovian was on the verge of tears, but he refused to give any of them the satisfaction of his tears.

They took off into the larger camp, and he found where the shower rooms were, along with the restrooms first. “This is the first place everyone needs to find,” Lou said. “They’re all co-ed. We don’t have gender specific restrooms here, for obvious reasons. If you want privacy from anyone, you can schedule a time to be in here, but know that the more that do that, the lesstime we all have for showers and such. And you can’t take over ten minutes, whether or not you’re here alone.”

“Ten minutes? Who can take a shower in ten minutes?”

“You will, believe me. Try to take one minute longer, and you’ll be in for a very nasty surprise. The hot water stops after ten minutes.” She turned around and smirked again as she confessed, “We had to get timers after a few princesses tried to use all the hot water in the camp.”

He felt that was directly pointed at him. “Well, I’ll try to remember that.”

Next, he was shown the offices, the boathouse and the Mess Hall, then to the edge of the lake where a few of the campers were swimming. “See the buoys?”

They were hard to miss, big orange things with orange rope connecting them to make a large square. “If I didn’t, I guess I’d have to be blind.”

“For your information, we have three people legally blind here. I ask the same questions of everyone, so no one feels targeted.”

“Sorry,” he said without a bit of remorse.

With more exasperation, she pointed to the buoys in turn. “From the shore to that one, across to that one and back to the shore is swimming. Anywhere else is off limits. This used to be a town under this lake, so there are dead trees, all kinds of things that could snag you and help you get a lungful of water.”

Believe me, when I swim, it’s in a pool, with chlorine and disinfectants. I won’t be swimming here.”

“Right. Well, if the urge ever hits, you know where you can and cannot take a dip.”

Back at the Mess Hall, he found rows of tables, at least seven or eight feet long, some people sitting, chatting together, eating the chips and salsa they had out for the snack.

Jovian didn’t eat chips and salsa. “Is there food that…that won’t add forty pounds to my ass?”

“Sure, we have food for all dietary restrictions, but I promise you, you’ll want a few carbs. The work is taxing and so are the hikes. No, not everyone has to go on the hikes, but it’s highly encouraged.”

---