STORY TIME WITH SAM

Week ends at Blaine's are always something special. They could mean dancing all night long at the Prince of Persia until they can't feel their feet anymore, or talking for hours on end with Blaine's friends about crazy things happened to them in this or that part of the world; both options are equally exciting for Leo, because he would not do either of those things back home.

It's not that he doesn't like what he does at home with his best friends – and when he spends time with Adam and Annie, he's more than happy to do things kids his age do all the time – but Blaine gives him access to a world that would kick him out otherwise, and he likes to take advantage of that every time he can.

This time Sam, officially Blaine's best and only friend, is entertaining them with the story of how she unintentionally flashed her dildo to a group of old ladies at the doctor. The story, obviously, is particularly juicy not only because it's comical, but also because it's about a dildo. Leo knows a thing or two about sex toys, he even went with Annie in a sexy shop once, but that doesn't mean he is mature enough to deal with this matter like an adult. So, at fifteen, the mere word make him laugh like an idiot.

“I was sitting there,” Sam goes on, sitting down on the couch. “It's me, a young woman with a newborn baby in a pram and a group of old ladies. None of them is minding their own business and all of them are complaining about their lives, their problems and obviously the government. I didn't pay them any attention. I just wanted to wait my turn and get in the doctor's office. I had a very nice evening planned out, you see, I couldn't care less about their bad knees and their nieces who didn't want to get a degree.”

Blaine finally joins them in the living room. He just finished studying his new role and he looks satisfied, that's probably why he gives Leo a slow kiss before sitting down next to him. “Would you mind? I'm telling a story,” Sam frowns, throwing a pillow at him. “You can kiss him later. You know what happens when you kiss him, he gets distracted and stop listening to everyone for the next twenty minutes.”

“Say two hours,” Blaine grins at her. “I'm way better than that.”

“Show off!” She laughs, throwing him another pillow. Leo watches them laugh happily and laughs too. “So, as I was saying before your annoying boyfriend showed up, I'm there minding my own business, but at some point the newborn baby starts fussing about and his mother seems quite upset. I ask her if everything is alright and she says she forgot her paper tissues at home. Fear not, I say, I've got you covered. So I open my purse to find one, but I forgot I had my dildo in there.”

“Why would you even have one in your purse?” Blaine asks, amused. He looks like he knows this story already but he's enjoying hearing it again.

“Well, the day before I had come back from London and they had checked my suitcase. For bombs, I guess, I don't know. And they had made a big mess of my clothes. So, I had to put everything back inside the suitcase in a rush, leaving my dildo out. Long story short, I put it in my purse and completely forgot about it.”

Leo laughs. “How does it look like?”

“Oh, baby, it's bright pink with Swarovski diamonds all around the handle. Sassy but classy, that's what I say. A true masterpiece.”

“Right. Princess-like,” Blaine comments with affection. His dildo, Leo knows it, is slick and steel-silver, sophisticated and a bit stuck-up like him. Maybe it's like in that old Disney Classic, 101 Dalmatians, where every dog looked like its owner. Except that these are dildos.

“Please, queen-like,” Sam corrects him with one of her patented glares. She's beautiful and always perfect, and she can kill you just looking at you. “Anyway, I open my purse and the dildo comes out. The silence that follows is so heavy that is probably about to crash all of us to the ground.”

“Were you embarrassed?” Leo asks. He would have been. One thing he's goofing around with a battery-powered giant dildo in a sexy shop. Another is flashing one at a doctor's office.

“Oh no, teddy bear, that would have been a Samuel thing.”

Leo frowns. “Who's Samuel?”

Sam slowly turns to look at Blaine with pure shock in her eyes. “Didn't you tell the kid?” She asks him, in an accusing tone.

Blaine rolls his eyes. “Why would I do that?” He says, equally shocked. “Have I ever told anyone, Sam?”

“No, but this is different!” She exclaims, shaking her head. She wears her long blond hair in hundreds of tiny braids today, and she did a ponytail with them on top of her head. “I think you should have. This is part of his education on the history of his people!”

“Please, would you stop treating him like he's the last survivor of a dead tribe?” Blaine asks with a sigh.

“We're not dead, but we are a tribe, Blaine. And you should educate him, every once in a while, other than give him pleasure. It's your duty. He even has the double disadvantage of being white and rich.”

Leo looks from her to Blaine and back. He feels like he should be offended, but he knows better than saying he's offended in front of a black activist woman without exactly knowing what she meant first. “What's wrong with me being white?” He asks, hesitantly. “Also, I'm sorry, but you're both richer than me, so I don't think that counts.”

She turns to look at him with the usual contrite face she reserves to tragic situations that are actually far from being tragic, like this one. Or that time Leo matched red tennis shoes with blue pants and she was about to cry for reasons he actually still doesn't understand to this day. “Oh, honey, there is absolutely nothing wrong in being white, or rich for that matter,” she says in her calm explaining voice. “The fact is that, statistically speaking, kids your age, race and social status don't get an adequate education on this, and have very few occasions, almost none actually, to meet people like me.”

Leo tries to understand what she means by that. Women? Black women? Well, it's actually true that he knows very few black people because his school and neighborhood is mostly white. Now that he thinks about it, he can't count more of ten black friends, including her. Or maybe she means people that works as entertainers in gay clubs? “I don't think I understand,” he finally says.

She sighs and sits straight, her hands on her lap. Her fluffy skirt takes up half the space on the armchair but leaves her long legs naked. She's wearing a pair of pink pumps so high that Leo wonders how she can walk on those – or even how she was able to drive. Maybe he should have asked himself that when she showed up at the station, instead of Blaine, to pick him up. And he doesn't even know why he's focusing on these details now, maybe because he senses that the moment is somewhat important, that some sort of knowledge is about to be bestowed upon him and he feels excited and nervous all of a sudden.

“Samuel,” she finally answers him, “was me before I became myself.”

Leo looks at her, at Blaine, and then at her again, blinking. He's not sure he understands what she's saying correctly. “How...?” He tries.

She chuckles. “I was born a male, a vague amount of years ago,” she explains.

“What? When? How?” Leo says in shock. “But you look real!”

“Leo!” Blaine scolds him, instantly, but Sam doesn't lose her smile.

“That's because I am, teddy bear.”

“No, I mean, I didn't—Like, I didn't want to offend you or anything,” Leo quickly corrects himself. “What I mean is that I would never have known. Can I say this? Is it appropriate? I don't know, I'm sorry. You're, like, beautiful.”

He's suddenly so flushed and anxious that she chuckles some more. “Thank you, darling,” she smiles.

Leo can't look away from her and he feels bad for that because it's probably rude. But he's not looking at Sam like a freak or anything. He just had no idea that she could have had a male body once upon a time because she's gorgeous and so feminine – this is probably very offensive too? – and it's just the marvel of her that prevents him from looking away.

“Was it hard? I mean, I suppose it was but...” He has no idea what questions he's supposed to ask and which of the questions he would like to ask are appropriate.

“It was very hard,” she confirms. “In different ways and at different times of my life. At first, I just felt wrong in my own skin and I didn't know why. And when I understood that that wasn't my skin at all, I had to change it, one step at the time, each of them painfully slow. And then I had to re-learn myself and become what I was supposed to be. Samuel didn't become Sam by losing three letters. It took a lot of time and a lot of work. Luckily, I had my best friend with me.”

Leo follows her eyes to Blaine, who is smiling with affection. Leo knew they were best friends, but this is the first time that he sees such connection between them. “Did you two meet while you were transitioning?”

“Mh-mh. Before, actually,” she looks at him and smiles back, as if sharing memories of a time when Leo was probably not even born yet. Or he was very little.

“I met Samuel before I met Sam,” Blaine confirmed. “Even tho she was already there, sometimes.”

“Can I ask what he was like?” Leo asks, hesitantly.

“You can ask whatever you want, teddy bear,” Sam says. “It's not always easy for people to talk about it, and it wasn't for me either at the beginning, but I'm strong enough to do it now and I made a promise of helping people understand if they want to. Not me, of course, I'm unfathomable, but the process behind it. When you know something, it doesn't scare you anymore, right?”

“You could never scared me,” Leo says honestly. “Well, then, what was Samuel like?”

“Less outrageously loud,” Blaine answers. “He could stay quiet longer than two seconds. A skill she unfortunately lost.”

“Shut up!” She laughs, but she can't actually hit him like she wants too because she run out of pillows. “I was shy and afraid of being seen. I didn't want to be in the spotlight, not because I didn't like the idea, of course, but because I didn't want to be there with the body I had back then. It didn't feel right at all.”

“And you are, like,” Leo clears his throat, “I mean, you did the whole thing.”

“I did the thing, yes,” Sam nods, chuckling. “And everything's working.”

Blaine sighs, closing his eyes for a second. “Sam, please.”

She laughs a little louder. “I was just answering the question!” She says, happily. “Anyway, teddy bear, it wasn't necessary for you to know who I was before, because that has been over for as long as you are alive, I think, or very little less. But it was important in a more general sense. Your part of our world now, and with our world I mostly mean mine and Blaine's, you're family now because the man is a little perv. “

“I'm nothing of the sort!”

Leo and Sam both laugh and then she adds, “Anyway, I wanted to let you in on the secret, that's all.”

If there is something that always upsets Leo is being left out, in general but especially from Blaine's life, so this gesture means a lot more to him than Sam could even know. It's a part of Sam's life, and Sam is the only other thing in Blaine's personal life apart from Leo and the cat. Now he feels part of something he wasn't part of before, and it feels good.

“Thank you.” He stands up to hug her and she makes all these aww sounds that make him more embarrassed and make Blaine laugh. “But I still want to know how the story ends!” He says eventually, sitting down again.

“Oh! Right!” Sam says. “So, I open the purse and the dildo rolls out on my legs. Everybody sees it. The old ladies look at it as if I had taken out an AK-47 from my bag. Basically, I'm already a terrorist and I've already killed several people, possibly changed religion and, of course, I'm suddenly more black than I was before. They turn towards the young woman, who's invested by the sanctity of her motherhood to their eyes, and wait for her to be as judgmental as they are. Instead, she looks me straight in the eye and she goes, “I have the same model, but in black. Honestly, I can't wait to use it again.” I've never seen so many old ladies stand up and walk out so fast from the doctor's office, leaving their place to other people.”

All three of them burst out laughing.
Ten years down the line, Leo will still remember this moment as one of the most precious he shared with both of them.