I groaned as a caregiver shook my shoulder lightly. I nodded as he told me it was time to wake up and slowly sat and put my feet on the floor. I looked over at Darien's bed and saw that he was still asleep. I decided to go ahead and wake him up, seeing as though the caregivers hadn't gotten to him yet.
I leaned down and shook him, gently, and blew in his face. His nose wrinkled and with his eyes still closed, he brought his hand up from under the covers and flipped me off. "Get up. Did you know we have classes today?" I waited for him to respond, wanting to see how old he was. I assume he's his usual self, but I don't technically know how any of this works. He hummed in response before opening his eyes and squinting up at me.
"Bro, chill. I'm normal right now." He said it harshly, and I felt bad for making him think I was being judgy. "What d'you mean?" I raised my eyebrow at him, and he looked away. He seems shy again. "You look like you're waiting for me to do something. I slipped, but I slept it off. It's over now." I frowned, not wanting him to feel bad about anything. "Jeez, I just wanted to see how old you were or whatever. 'Normal' is unnecessary. C'mon, the leaders are starting to circulate." I sarcastically widened my eyes and stuck my hand out to help him up. He nodded, looking apologetic as he took my hand and sat up. "Wait, what do you mean by classes?"
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I grinned as I watched Darien talk to Ms. Sammy across the cafeteria, waiting to see what would happen. I didn't look away as I felt two people sit next to me at our table. "What're you staring at?" I was too interested in Ms. Sammy's response to feel flustered when Ezra rubbed my back as he tried to follow my gaze. I still maintained my focus as I pointed over at Darien. I heard the two other boys chuckle and we all sat and watched the interaction anxiously.
"I'm assuming this is about soda?" Jayden asked, and I nodded still without looking away. We were silent again until we all witnessed Ms. Sammy nod her head yes and send him back to our table, and after we all say his grin and his triumphant pose, we all burst into a small fit of cheers, causing other people to stare at us. As he came over we all sarcastically/jokingly clapped him on the back and shook his hand as we congratulated him on his success.
"I now officially get one carbonated drink at dinner, and on 'good behavior' at breakfast or lunch." He seemed pretty proud of himself as he began shoving pancakes into his mouth and we all clapped for him jokingly. "I mean, she said at least until I get a dom. For now that's just my general rules from her." He said this casually, taking a sip from his orange juice. We nodded, and I realized that made sense because once we are matched, our rules will be totally up to our dom I guess. Which reminds me, somewhat unfortunately.
"Uh, Ezra." I looked down at my plate, feeling my ears heat up. I felt his gaze shift to me quickly and I wondered if I regretted bringing this up. "Yeah?" He seemed casual but interested in what I had to say, and it dawned on me that the other two didn't know what we were planning to do. "Did you want to go to Ms. Sammy or whoever now?" I looked up this time, and noticed Darien giving me a very questioning look and Jayden still eating his breakfast while glancing at us like he knew this was going to happen. Which then made me realize that he probably did know that this was going to happen because Ezra surely told him. This made me feel really guilty because I realized that I probably should have told Darien about this this morning, but I forgot because all of this is still very new to me.
"Yeah, sure. Now's good." He places his fork down like he was waiting for me and I took this time to look over at Darien, trying to be casual, to tell him that we were going to be paired up today. He widened his eyes before smirking at me and giving me a cheeky 'congrats.', which caused my ears to heat up again. I accepted this and stood up, followed by Ezra and walked over to Ms. Sammy.
"Hello, Jasper, what can I do for you?" She saw me and clasped her hands together, using her sickening childish tone while I kept my face blank with annoyance. "We were wondering if we could talk to someone about... uh... matching?" I felt slightly embarrassed again, which was only worsened when Ezra stepped in to clarify, asking if we can talk about being partnered after Ms. Sammy gave me a confused expression.
She gave us a surprised smile and asked us to follow her. We were silent as she led us out into the white hallway and back to the first office I went to when we first arrived and filled out the packet with Ms. Lindsey. She knocked and we all heard a quiet 'come in!' before she opened the door to Ms. Lindsey on her computer at her desk.
"Hey! What can I do for y'all?" She smiled warmly and I briefly remembered my frustration from the last time I was here. "These two were wanting to be partnered, actually!" Ms. Sammy replied, causing Ms. Lindsey's smile to widen. "Oh! Already? How exciting!" She clapped her hands together and asked us to take a seat. We sat down and Ms. Sammy waved us goodbye as she left and closed the door behind her.
"Okay, I know you, Jasper, but I don't think you and I have met before. What's your name?" Ms. Lindsey looked over to Ezra politely as he told her his name and stuck out his hand. She smiled as she took his hand and shook it before looking back at both of us. "Okay, it's nice to meet you. To go ahead and get started, what category are you guys in?" I suddenly felt a little shy so I waited for Ezra to answer rather than saying it to her myself. "Uh, blue. I'm dark blue and he's light." I nodded, thankful he just used the colors terminology instead of saying it outright. It's still embarrassing to me to say it out loud. She nodded at his answer and leaned over to a drawer on her left and rummaged for a second before pulling out a light blue and a dark blue paper folder.
"Alright, these are kind of important. I'm going to keep these here in my office but they are the folders that will contain all of your partnering information for the rest of your time here. Such as preferences, experiences, past partners, current partners, etc." We nodded and she continued. " So the first thing we need to put in here for each of you is your own personal preferences. You will each get one questionnaire based on your classification and I don't want you to see what the other one is filling out. This is all about you and what you like or don't. Normally, you would get one of these in the first few days here but since you guys want to go ahead and be partnered now we will just make yours today so that we can do your partnering process. Okay?" She waited for us to nod again before handing them to us. "Take your time and answer accurately because we kind of want this to be as accurate as possible, okay? Only I or another possible leader will see this unless you want the other one to see it when we do the partner process. And keep in mind these documents can be altered at any time. So just be honest." Her words made me feel a little nervous, but I nodded again. She told us to go ahead and get started and asked one of us to go and sit on her little couch while the other one stays at the desk so that it will be more private. Ezra politely said I could have the couch and so I went over and plopped down as Ezra and I began reading and Ms. Lindsey went back to clacking on her computer.
I felt my ears turn pink as I read over the questionnaire, reminding myself to be honest with my answers. As I had started to suspect, the questions included a lot of intimate descriptions and answers and so I took a deep breath and started writing. I wanted to try and make this work.
First I filled out my personal description, with my age and name and classification before reading over the rest of the packet. A lot of the questions were fairly regular, but some of them stuck out to me a little more:
Do you wish for your relationship with your partner to be romantic?
Most likely.
Do you wish for your relationship with your partner to be sexual?
Possibly.
Have you experienced this type of relation before?
No.
Do you prefer a more strict or comforting dominant?
I don't know, but probably comforting.
What are your strict limits for any dominant you have?
Don't undermine me, don't hurt me, tell me the truth, don't tell others things I want private, don't yell at me for no reason, always listen to my side before getting upset, don't excessively punish me, let me curse, don't force me to do things I don't want to, listen to me when I tell you I'm uncomfortable, don't do intimate things without my permission, talk to me when you're upset, be nice to others, don't make fun of me.
I finished filling out the rest of the questions before standing up and going over to the desk to place the packet down. I sat and waited for Ezra to finish his for a couple minutes before he placed his next to mine. "Okay, I know that was a lot so thank you for doing your best with those," Ms. Lindsey praised as she placed her reading glasses onto her head and turned away from her laptop. "Okay, don't relax yet, I'm afraid we still have a joint packet to fill out now." She gave us a half apologetic smile and we both sighed and I started feeling my missing cup of coffee.
We waited as she rummaged in her file cabinet again and emerged with a whole new folder. "This is a lot to do at once, but basically the packets you just filled out will go and stay in your personal folders for any partnership or other things that it could be needed for about each of you, and this new packet that you will fill out together with me will go in your joint file that is more specifically for your partnership." We blinked at her and then slowly nodded, still probably both feeling tired. "Now I will go through each question and I will help both of you come to a mutual answer. This packet is also known as a contract. Do either of you know what a contract is in BDSM?" I shook my head while I looked over to see Ezra nodding confidently. For some reason it put me at some kind of ease to know that at least he knows what we're supposed to be doing.
"Yeah, so it's sort of like a rule book for a relationship that's filled with expectations, limits, things you both want to try, or sometimes promises you want to uphold. But that is not what we are doing right now, because of course we don't just rush into contracts, which is something I wouldn't advise to anyone." She gave us a more expectant stare, and we nodded before she continued. "So this is a practice agreement with an expiration date. We will decide a time for us to revisit this and go from there. For now, we will go through these together so that you can take the first step in your partnership!"