Fraternity Captives

Fraternity Captives

m/m erotic story by Mark Apoapsis

[This story contains M/M erotic contact— not entirely consensual, and some of it mildly sadistic.]

It was a pretty good party. Some of our fraternity brothers complained about the scarcity of females, so I was doing my duty to them by not using any up. Instead, I was having a good time hanging out in the hallway upstairs with my roommate Josh and three really cool guys from the dorms that we’d struck up a conversation with.

A hand grabbed each of our collars from behind. “We need you downstairs, guys,” a cheerful voice boomed.

I groaned. Barry always came along at the worst times, to make me and Josh do some menial duty. “Can’t it wait, Barry? It’s the middle of a party.”

“This will be fun. I promise.” He spun us halfway around so we were facing each other and could look at him.

“We just got through midterms,” Josh protested. “We deserve a break.”

“Don’t make me embarrass you guys in front of your new buddies,” he said with a grin. Without giving us a chance to heed his warning, he expertly grabbed each of our heads, banging them together and holding them locked against his chest. When would we learn not to stand so close together when he’s around? It always takes him longer to get us both in a headlock when he has to drag the first guy around the room while chasing the other. But I’ve never been willing to just abandon Josh and run, and he’s never abandoned me, so Barry always winds up getting us both. Anyway, this time he’d managed to grab our shirts before we’d seen him coming.

Under his usual musky natural odor, Barry smelled of beer, as if it were oozing out of his pores. Probably it was just coming from his breath, or maybe he’d actually spilled some on his shirt, though the flannel seemed dry enough against my ear and cheek.

“Sorry, dudes, we gotta go,” Josh said to the guys from the dorms, his voice muffled by a mouthful of Barry’s shirt. “Fraternity business.”

Unless Barry just wants some menial personal service, I thought, like the time that he’d made us wash his car on a hot day while he sat in the shade sipping beer. (Though, admittedly, he had such an awesome car it was almost a privilege to get a chance to slather soap over it. And he hadn’t tried to stop Josh and me from goofing around a little. How could I resist, with a hose in my hand and Josh already stripped to the waist? He really hated being squirted with cold water, and had paid me back later.)

But usually it really was fraternity business. Since he’d made Mitch and John scrub the bathroom floors before the party, I guessed it was our turn to deal with whatever else had come up. I just hoped it wasn’t something disgusting, like cleaning up someone’s puke.

It wasn’t. He’d told the truth. It actually was a fun task, at least by Barry’s definition of fun. He was even going to help us with it. A lone member of Tau Beta Delta, our traditional rival fraternity, had crashed our party. Barry pointed him out to us from a vantage point at the top of the stairs, where the three of us were crouched like conspirators. Barry had marched us there with our heads still crushed against his chest. Josh and I were pretty good, by this time, at walking sideways and bent over. He loosened his grip, or we wouldn’t have been able to see anything except a close-up view of thick black chest hair sticking out of plaid flannel. He left his hands loosely around our necks in what probably looked like a friendly gesture from a distance.

The interloper was a good-looking guy with light brown hair, a few inches shorter than the guys he was drinking beer with, who I knew were about my height. He looked fairly slim. I couldn’t see any obvious muscles bulging under his button-down shirt — the way I could under Barry’s, even if Barry had bothered to button his all the way up. Probably not as strong as Josh or me, I judged. The two of us together would have no trouble throwing him out, and with Barry helping us the guy wouldn’t stand a chance.

“So why do you need three of us for that wimp?” I asked. “Can’t you take him yourself?”

“Sure. Even one of you shrimps could do it alone, probably.”

“He probably just wants him thrown out quietly without a big struggle,” Josh told me. We both ignored Barry’s typical and inaccurate jibe about our sizes; I was taller and stronger than most of the guys in our fraternity, which tended to pick big pledges, and Josh was almost my height and worked out regularly. But it’s all relative.

“No, I don’t just want him thrown out. I want him taught a lesson.”

“You want us to beat him up?” Josh said in alarm.

“No, c’mon, you know me better than that. A more creative lesson.”

I already felt sorry for the poor guy. Josh and I looked at each other. We knew we’d have to go along with whatever Barry wanted. One time when Stuart had tried to resist him, he’d dangled him by his feet from a second-story window until he promised to do anything Barry wanted. The last time Josh and I had disobeyed, he’d left us tied back to back on the balcony for an hour, shirtless in the chilly autumn weather. Not one of our fraternity brothers had dared to come out and let us go until Barry said it was okay. Whatever Barry had in mind for this poor schmuck, he’d do it to us instead, if we refused. I would rather have it happen to a stranger than to Josh. Or me.

“What do you want us to do?” I asked wearily.

“Nothing too complicated. I figured we’d strip the guy to his shorts in front of the crowd, then drag him out to the patio and squirt half the keg over him. If he wants our beer so much, he can drink as much as he can swallow.”

“But—!”

“Don’t worry,” Barry assured Josh. “We can spare it. We have another keg we haven’t even tapped yet. Then all we have to do is decide whether to make him walk home wearing nothing but his sopping wet shorts, or send his clothes back to Tau Beta Delta with a ransom demand.”

I had to admit, it did sound like fun. I wouldn’t want to take responsibility for a prank like that, but since Barry was forcing me into it, I might as well enjoy it. I think Josh saw the gleam in my eyes, because he looked at me reproachfully. But neither of us objected. Barry gave us some more detailed instructions and hauled us to our feet, and the three of us walked casually down the stairs and approached our victim.

The poor guy must have had no idea what we planned for him. As we approached him, he glanced at us and smiled, maybe thinking he was going to meet some new friends. Barry gave us a slight push as a signal, and we leapt forward and grabbed him. Barry and Josh each grabbed an arm while I caught his beer before too much of it sloshed on the carpet, and set it aside.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asked one of the guys the interloper had been talking to.

“Just stand aside,” Barry told him. “This guy knew he wasn’t invited.”

I started unbuttoning the guy’s shirt, stepping on his feet to keep him from kicking, as he struggled helplessly in Barry and Josh’s grasp. This was exciting, and kind of fun. I had time to get two buttons undone — exposing a chest that was as smooth as Josh’s, but not so well tanned — before I felt myself grabbed from behind. Josh and Barry were also being pulled off our victim by some of the guys he’d been talking to, even though they were from fraternities supposedly friendly with ours.

“You idiots! Let us go!” Barry yelled. Our victim ducked through some people and made a dash for the door. Barry elbowed the guy who had grabbed him, causing him to grunt and double over. Barry grabbed a fistful of shirt and hauled him up, pulling his shirt half off in the process. Our fraternity brothers pulled the other guys off of me and Josh. Barry glared at the terrified guy he was holding, glanced at the door, which the Tau Beta Delta guy was running out of, looked back at the guy he was holding, and threw him to the floor with a growl.

“Let’s go after him,” he told me and Josh. Over his shoulder, he told our fraternity brothers, “Take care of these bastards. You know what we do with guests who interfere with our business.”

I didn’t know myself, and wanted very much to stay and find out, but I followed Barry out the door, with Josh at my side.

He was still in sight, running like hell, when we got outside. As we took off after him, I saw him glance back and put on a burst of speed to get to the corner and out of sight. But he didn’t manage to lose us; he was still in sight when we reached the corner. He repeated this a few times, and I was beginning to get lost. I hoped Barry knew the back ways of the campus better than I did, having been here a couple of years longer. Finally the guy cut through the woods and we followed. It took us a minute to find our way through, and I thought he’d lost us by hiding in there somewhere. But luckily we spotted him, panting to catch his breath, leaning against a lamppost, buttoning his shirt up over his heaving chest. Stupid of him to rest right under a street lamp. I would have tried to hide in the shadowy trees. But maybe he wanted a vantage point where he could see us coming. Before we could sneak up on him, he was running down the street again. By now I had no idea where we were.

Josh and I were panting ourselves now, but had no trouble going after him. Barry, jock that he was, wasn’t even breathing hard yet. Our prey was definitely getting winded; we were closing the distance. Barry caught up to him as he was cutting through a sandbox with a volleyball net between two dark looming houses. He tackled him and pinned him down on the sand. I caught up a few seconds later.

“Okay, Mike,” Barry ordered me as he stretched the guys arms over his head, “finish what you botched the first time.”

Josh caught up and got the guy’s flailing feet under control. I sat down on his hips and reached for his shirt buttons. The little twit had buttoned it all the way back up, even further than he’d worn it before I started on him, as if exposing even that much skin now made him feel vulnerable. Well, that hadn’t lasted long. In a few seconds I had his shirt completely open and spread out on the sand before me. His smooth chest looked pale in the moonlight, but he was actually in better shape than I’d guessed. He wasn’t wearing a belt, so I my next step was to unbutton his pants.

“Wait,” Barry said as I was fumbling with the fly. “Let’s make him pay for running away, before we finish stripping him. See if he’s ticklish.”

“What if someone hears him laughing?” I asked. I was worried about passers-by, even though I hadn’t seen any on this side of the woods. I also figured he’d been running in the direction of his house and wasn’t sure how close he’d gotten before Barry tackled him. I only knew vaguely where the Tau Beta Delta house was, and I didn’t have a clue where we were now. Then again, he hadn’t tried calling for help, so he probably hadn’t made it into earshot.

“Here, dude, stuff a sock in his mouth first,” Josh said, holding a sock over my shoulder. I took it and glanced back. Good old Josh had managed to get one shoe and sock off him already.

Once the sock was firmly in his mouth, I began experimenting. Running my fingers lightly under his ribcage made him squirm. Digging into his armpit produced an even bigger reaction. He was going to bite right through his own sock at this rate. I let him catch his breath for a few seconds and was just reaching for his other armpit when he started thrashing wildly. I thought at first he was desperately trying to avoid my touch, but it turned out that Josh was tickling his feet.

After a few minutes, Barry told me to switch places with him. Our captive struggled wildly as we made the changeover, but we had no trouble getting him back under control. Now I stretched his arms out for Barry while Barry attacked his armpits. He loves to tickle other guys, and will keep at it forever without mercy. I should know. And Josh is almost as bad, although he always stops when I beg him humbly enough, and I’ve never seen him pick on anyone but me. Until now. He was taking a savage joy at working on our captive’s bare feet, which he had tied with the guy’s own shoelaces and was holding imprisoned between his own legs. Normally by now he’d be complaining about the cold and suggesting we head back. It wasn’t a very cool evening by my standards, even without jackets, but it was cold enough to pucker our captive’s nipples, and usually my roommate is very sensitive to cold. He must be really into this not to notice.

I was so intent on watching what they were doing that I myself didn’t notice what was happening around us. I don’t know if I could have warned them in time, or gotten away myself. But suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed motion where there shouldn’t be any. I looked up and saw that sand was spilling off of something all around us in a grid pattern. I had just enough time to say “What the hell—” when there was suddenly sand flying everywhere, and I felt something stir directly beneath me.

“Guys—” I began, and then I saw what was happening. I could just make out a net silhouetted against the dark. I whirled around to look behind me, forgetting all about holding onto our captive’s wrists. The net was all around us. I leapt to my feet, but was knocked off-balance and fell to my knees. The huge net was buried beneath the sand right beneath our feet and was beginning to lift up. We were all tossed around, knocking against each other. In seconds we were suspended high above the ground. I wound up with my cheek pressed against our former captive’s ribs. He grinned triumphantly at me, and I began to suspect we’d been set up.

There were figures running out of the house and doing stuff below us. I think they were cutting some lines that strung the net between the trees, because the net jerked a few times and drew closed above us. The last cut slammed us against the wood-shingled side of the house, and the net tightened around us. The back of my head was now resting on our former captive’s stomach, I think. My face was pressed into someone’s leg. Some other guy’s chin was pressing against my balls. One of my arms was trapped above my head by some other limbs, and the hand was tangled in the netting. Josh’s face was mashed against my exposed armpit, his breath tickling me even through my shirt. My other hand was touching flannel and hairy skin. Obviously Barry, who owned most of the chest hair in this net, all of it, in fact, that wasn’t on my own chest.

“Which of you faggots has his hand down my shirt?” said a loud voice that I could feel against my balls.

“That would be me,” I said, annoyed. “What are you gonna do about it, tough guy?” I dug my hand deeper into his shirt and ran my fingers through his chest hair, searching for a nipple. I normally wouldn’t dare taunt Barry that way, but there was something empowering about us all being equally helpless together.

What he did about it was to curse loudly and call me more names. That was about all he could do. His hands were probably pinned, like mine. His loud mouth alone couldn’t hurt me. Then I thought about where his mouth actually was, and stopped moving my hand, wondering if I should pull it out or leave it where it was.

Meanwhile, the net was swinging wildly. I was glad I couldn’t see the ground below us. I thought I caught a glimpse of a brightly lit room above. It seemed pretty close. Maybe we were being hauled up into it.

A while later, we tumbled painfully over a window ledge and through an open window. The hands that had hauled us in grabbed us as the net was opened up. Someone rolled me off of our former captive and helped him to his feet.

“What took you jerk-offs so long?” he demanded. “Didn’t you see what they were doing to me down there?”

“Sorry, Dan,” one of the guys said. “Tom and I got to playing cards, and we didn’t know what time you’d be leading them here. Um, my back was to the window...”

Dan, the little jerk who’d crashed our party and led us here, walked up to a grinning blond guy who had to have thirty pounds of muscle on him, and looked up at him. “You enjoyed watching that, didn’t you, Tommy?”

“I figured I owed you that, after what you did to me last week,” Tom said, laughing.

“Lucky for you I’ve got someone else to take it out on,” Dan said.

“I never knew you were that ticklish,” Tom said, undaunted. He reached out to Dan’s exposed ribs. Dan jumped back.

“Get ’em on their feet,” he ordered, buttoning up his shirt before anyone else got any ideas.

The guys who were holding us — two each on me and Josh, three on Barry — hauled us to our feet and held our arms.

“Welcome to Tau Beta Delta, gentlemen,” Dan said.

“What do you want us to do to ’em, Dan?” one of the guys holding Josh asked.

“Hold onto them for a minute. Where the fuck are my shoes?”

One of our erstwhile captive’s fraternity brothers dug through the net and found one of the shoes we’d removed. “Here’s one, Dan. I guess the other must still be down there.”

“Go and find it,” Dan ordered. “And my socks. In fact, get me a fresh pair of socks. They probably have sand in them.” The other guy hurried to obey.

It looked like the little twit who’d crashed our party and led us into the trap was in charge here. I wondered if he had some official role or if he was just good at bossing people around, like Barry.

We waited nervously, wondering what they were going to do with us. The guys holding us seemed to be waiting for Dan’s orders. He let us sweat, looking us up and down speculatively, while he waited for his shoe and socks to be fetched. When they arrived, there being no chair in the room, he leaned on one of his fraternity brothers while he put them back on. Then he looked back at us and the guys holding us.

“Take their shirts off,” he ordered. “Let’s see how ticklish they are.”

They got Josh’s off right away, maybe because he didn’t put up much of a fight. He was proud of his well-muscled and nicely tanned torso, and I knew he had nothing to fear from tickling.

I resisted, but I realized it was hopeless, with two strong guys holding my arms, another stripping off my shirt, and more standing all around me watching. They had me bare-chested in less than a minute.

I watched them still trying take off Barry’s shirt. It was half unbuttoned now, which meant that they’d only managed to undo one or two buttons from the way Barry always wore it. He struggled fiercely, but the guys holding him were as big as he was. They now had two guys holding each arm, straight out to his sides, plus one pressed behind him with his hands around his waist and his legs immobilizing Barry’s legs. A fourth man, ignoring Barry’s curses, stood in front of him and slowly unbuttoned it, revealing first his bulging pectoral muscles, and then his well-developed abs. No wonder Josh and I had never been able to break free of his grip by punching him in the gut. He lived on a different floor and usually showered before I got up, and I’d actually never seen his bare torso — beyond the amount of chest he liked to show off, which I regularly saw close up. What surprised me was that I’d always pictured his thick black chest hair going all the way down, the way own my sparser hair does. Barry’s covered most of his broad chest, but stopped well above the bottom of his rib cage, except for a thin wispy-looking trail that crossed his navel and went straight down into his pants. On either side of that trail was perfectly smooth, pale skin that somehow looked very naked and vulnerable by contrast with his hairy chest above.

The guy who was stripping him seemed to think it looked vulnerable too, because he didn’t even wait to get the shirt all the way off. As soon as it was completely open, he immediately began running his fingers along that skin. Amazingly, Barry instantly stopped cursing and doubled up in laughter. The big guy was more ticklish than I was! I exchanged a look with Josh. All we had to do from now on, if Barry grabbed us, was to get our hands inside his shirt and tickle him where he was most sensitive, and he’d be at our mercy.

But for now we were all at a rival fraternity’s mercy, and there was nothing we could do for our fraternity brother as we watched him being ruthlessly tickled. To his credit, he never begged for mercy, just cursed them whenever he had breath to spare.

Finally Barry hung limply from his captor’s hands, panting, and they began pulling his shirt off his shoulders. He resisted, but there were too many of them, and he must have been too exhausted from the tickling. They removed his shirt entirely, revealing impressively bulging biceps, and the hairy forearms that had been covered tonight because he hadn’t rolled up his sleeves. He sagged in their arms again, his bare chest rapidly expanding and contracting as he caught his breath. Then, just when I thought they’d leave the poor guy alone, they started tickling him again. I actually felt sorry for him, even though if any of my fraternity brothers deserved to be treated this way it would be Barry.

Finally they got tired of playing with him and moved on to Josh. Right. Good luck, I thought. They were very thorough, trying his ribs, every inch of his belly and chest, forcing him to his knees while they dangled him by the arms and dug into his armpits. They even got out a feather and started all over again. Nothing worked. I could have told them that. Frustrated, they removed his shoes and socks and tried tickling the soles of his feet, but that didn’t work either.

Then it was my turn. I gulped, knowing that I was going to make up for their disappointment with Josh.

“Leave him alone, you fuck-heads,” Barry called. “I’m the one who told these guys to grab your sissy little fraternity brother in the first place. Whatever you’re gonna do to us, take it out on me.”

I was flabbergasted. If anything, I’d have expected Barry to give them pointers on where my most sensitive spots were. Then again, I guess I’d never been in a situation with him where someone outside the fraternity was trying to torment me. I’d never have guessed he’d stand up for me like that, or take responsibility for his own actions. But they barely glanced at him, though, and started tickling me anyway.

There’s something uniquely humiliating about being tickled by total strangers while both of the guys who have tickled you the most in the past are looking on helplessly. They rediscovered all my most ticklish spots, then discovered some I didn’t even know about. Fingers digging into my armpits had their usual effect, but no one had ever tried a feather on my nipples before.

As I caught my breath, I noticed that Dan had brought in a bucket of ice. He carried it over to Barry, took out a piece and showed it to him, saying “This is for calling me a sissy.” He ran it down the center of Barry’s chest. I could tell by the way Barry’s eyes squeezed shut that he was trying hard not to react. Then he stuck it in each of his armpits, and touched lightly it to a nipple. Barry was clenching his fists and his chest and stomach muscles now. Then Dan walked around and ran the ice down the length of his spine. Barry gasped, and his entire body arched in response.

“I wasn’t going to do that. It’s a special punishment for the name calling. Your buddies are getting it too.” He headed for me.

“What for? They didn’t call you anything.”

“But you did. You’re going to watch them suffer.”

“Leave them alone, you little shit!”

Dan had one of the other guys do me so he could watch Barry’s face. I couldn’t help jumping as the ice touched my chest. I tried to follow Barry’s example and react as little as possible. Biting my lip helped, but I’m pretty sure I whimpered, just a little.

Josh was the only one of us to actually cry out when the ice touched him. My buddy is no wimp, so he must be especially sensitive to ice.

When they started on Josh, Barry struggled even harder against the guys holding him, the muscles in his chest and arms rippling. Amazingly, he actually yanked one arm free of the two guys holding it and started wrestling with the other three guys, trying to get loose. A whole bunch of guys who had been standing around now piled on top of him and overpowered him. Dan ordered him taken away. It took five big men to control him, but they picked him up bodily and carried him out of the room, still screaming in rage and struggling uselessly. The guy who had been tormenting Josh followed them out of the room, ice bucket in hand.

I didn’t have any time to worry about what they were going to do to Barry, or whether he deserved it. I was fixated on the sight of my best friend being stretched out spread eagle, shirtless and barefoot, on a ping-pong table they’d dragged in from somewhere. They knew by now that tickling him was useless, so I didn’t think they had anything quite that harmless in mind.

They dragged me over to the table, as if to give me a front row seat for whatever they were going do to Josh. They all gathered around their captive and looked him up and down, but nobody touched him, except for the guys at the corners of the table who were pinning his wrists and his bare ankles. Maybe they were pausing to savor my friend’s helplessness, but I had a feeling they were waiting for something. I didn’t see Dan in the room anymore. He must have slipped out while I was watching them stretch Josh out on the table. Come to think of it, Tom, the big blond lookout who’d let us have our fun with Dan for a good five minutes, seemed to be missing too.

My imagination worked overtime as I sweated out the wait. Maybe they were getting a big wooden paddle. Or whatever they used on captured members of rival fraternities. How crazy were these guys? The worst we’d ever planned for Dan was to make him walk home in only his beer-soaked undershorts. And the worst we’d actually done to him was a little tickling. They’d already paid us back for that, and then some. How much more were they planning to do to us?

Dan walked in, carrying a serious-looking whip coiled in his hand. I instinctively tried to step between him and my buddy, but I was still held fast by two guys pinning my arms behind my bare back. “Are you out of your mind?” I yelled at Dan.

Dan approached the table, but he only tossed the coiled whip onto Josh’s chest. Josh stared at the braided leather as if it were a snake. “We won’t use it if you cooperate,” Dan told me.

Three more guys entered the room — Tom, a second guy who I’d noticed around watching us get tickled, and a third guy even bigger than Tom who I’d last seen holding Barry’s legs as he was carried kicking and screaming out of the room. Tom was carrying a container of French vanilla ice cream, and the others were carrying towels and a scoop. Maybe they were used to enjoying a late night snack together, and they were going to go on with their routine, prisoners or no prisoners. I doubted they were going to offer us any. My mouth watered. French Vanilla was my favorite flavor, and this was a good quality brand.

“Danny,” Tom said, “are you sure we’re not taking this a little too far, man? These guys were just having a little fun.”

“That’s not the point. We’ve got to teach them a lesson. Remember what they did to our pledges this year?”

Oh, come on, I thought. That wasn’t so bad. And that was months ago.

“Well, okay, but I’m not gonna stay and watch.”

“What, you didn’t mind watching while they tickled me to within an inch of my life, but you can’t stand to watch something like this?”

“It’s just that—”

“You’re gonna stay, Tommy.” He picked up the whip that he’d tossed onto Josh’s chest. “In fact, you’re gonna be the one to put it on him.” I was confused, wondering whether they were going to dress Josh up in something humiliating. Then it occurred to me that they hadn’t brought in any plates or spoons for the ice cream.

Tom walked up to the table and took the lid off the ice cream, looking really unhappy. He accepted the scoop the other guy traded him for the lid, but then he stood there holding it, looking down at Josh’s chest, which was rising and falling quickly with his panicked breathing. I remembered how sensitive he’d been to the ice cubes a few minutes ago, and tried to work up the courage to volunteer to take his place. I doubted they’d listen to me anyway.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Danny.”

“John, Rob,” Dan said quietly, and the guys on either side of Tom looked up. A look of relief crossed Tom’s face, and he started to hand the ice cream over. But Dan continued quietly, “take off Tom’s shirt.”

They complied, grinning. Tom put the ice cream down beside Josh, its frosty exterior not quite touching his bare skin, and let them pull his shirt over his head, not exactly cooperating but not really resisting either. His well-developed chest muscles were accentuated by a barely visible dusting of reddish chest hair. Dan came up and stood close behind him. He draped part of the whip over one bare shoulder, and reached over the other one to pick up the ice cream container from the table and hold it against Tom’s chest. Tom cringed, as if it were touching one of his small nipples, and took the container. Dan silently backed away, pulling the whip with him so that it slid lightly across Tom’s chest and then down his back. He didn’t make any verbal threats. He didn’t have to.

Tom dug out a scoopful of ice cream. He hesitated, leaning over Josh, who could only stare wide-eyed at the scoop, with all the guys holding him down. “Start with the center of his chest,” Dan ordered. Tom licked his lips nervously. The delay was only making it worse for Josh, I could tell. Finally Tom planted the big scoop of ice cream on Josh’s upper chest. Josh managed not to make a sound, but his entire body arched up in reaction, then thumped back down onto the table.

“Smear it all over him.”

Tom slowly drew the scoop up and down the center of Josh’s chest. The off-white ice cream made a nice visual contrast with the tanned skin. Josh whimpered softly. Tom let some of the ice cream pool at the hollow at the base of his throat, then trailed the scoop down to his stomach, and finally stopped at the navel.

Tom then backed off, and some of the tension went out of his muscles.

“Now, you,” Dan said, pointing at me. I thought his next words would be something like “get on the table, it’s your turn,” but he surprised me. What he said was, “Lick it off.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You have two choices,” Dan said. “The ice cream, or the whip. And I don’t mean Cool Whip. Lick your buddy clean, or both of you get the lash.”

I figured I had no choice, but I at least had to make a point of resisting. If I jumped to obey, Josh might think I wanted it or something. So I said “Like hell I will!” and struggled against the guys holding me.

“For God’s sake, Mike, do what he says!” Josh pleaded. “One lash from that kind of whip can break the skin.”

“Oh, man,” I said, making a show of holding out for a few more seconds. “All right,” I said, and the guys holding my arms loosened their grip enough to let me lean over my buddy’s helpless form. I saw Dan come over and stand behind me with the whip.

“Let him go,” Dan told them. “He won’t try anything.” And he was right. Even without the whip, I wasn’t stupid enough to try to make a break for it with all these guys around me. Did they select their pledges for size? Except for Dan and a couple of others, they were all at least as big as me. And even if I thought I could escape, there was no way I was going to leave Josh at their mercy.

I climbed halfway onto him, half hoping the ping pong table would collapse under us. Unfortunately, it was sturdier than it looked. Not unlike Dan. I put my hands on Josh’s shoulders for balance. “Sorry, man,” I whispered, then touched my tongue to my best friend’s smooth chest and began licking off the ice cream, working my way up to the base of his throat. Damn, but it tasted good! As a starving student who could barely afford tuition even with the help financial aid, I always bought the artificially flavored store brand when I treated myself at all. This was the real stuff.

I felt guilty for even noticing. Here I was, helping to humiliate my best friend, and myself. I should be disgusted by every aspect of it. I shouldn’t be enjoying the forbidden pleasures of French Vanilla. It shouldn’t taste this good in the first place; it had a guy’s sweat mixed into it!

I felt, more than heard, his low moaning as I lapped up the pool of melted ice cream from the hollow at his collar bone. Whenever I glanced up at him, Josh’s soft brown eyes were watching my progress. There was no anger in them. He obviously understood, and didn’t blame me. I began licking my way back down.

Finally I reached the ice cream pooled in his navel, and dipped my tongue in that, lapping at this last bit of creamy sweetness. At least I didn’t get any noticeable amount of belly button lint on my tongue. Josh had showered right before the party, maybe hoping to get lucky. Which would have been a first. Instead, he’d spent the evening talking to those guys from the dorms, and now this. Not exactly what he’d had in mind, I would bet.

Finally I had every trace of ice cream licked off him. I realized I’d been grinding my nose against his belly, with my hands laced behind the small of his back, as I’d probed his navel with my tongue. I let go and stood up, feeling utterly embarrassed at what I’d been forced to do. I saw the shiny path of saliva I’d left all down my roommate’s torso. Would I ever be able to look him in the eye again? He must feel the same way. Right now he had his head thrown back and his eyes closed, unwilling to look at me.

“Horizontally across his chest, next,” Dan said. What? When he’d told Tom to “start with his chest,” I hadn’t realized that meant it was only Round 1.

Tom reluctantly approached the table again and touched the scoop to Josh’s far side, just below the armpit, eliciting a gasp. He then drew it toward him, and Josh cried out as the ice cream touched his sensitive nipple. It continued across the wet line I’d left between his pecs, up the other side, and this time Josh managed to hold his tongue, but tears squeezed out of his closed eyes.

The second the scoop left his skin, Josh groaned, “Get it off me, Mike, quick!” I went straight for the nipple, and my buddy moaned in relief I gave the hard nipple a few quick licks, leaving it still as shriveled and puckered as if he’d just stepped out of a cold shower, and moved to the other one. This one I lingered over longer, as Josh whispered, “Ohhh! Warm! Nice and warm!” When it began to soften under my tongue, I started removing the line of cold between the two nipples.

For the next round, Dan ordered scoops of ice cream stuck directly into my friend’s exposed armpits. I could see the muscles work in Josh’s arms as he tried to bring his arms to his sides to protect himself, but he was being spread out by too many strong men. This time, without being prompted, I grabbed his biceps and stuck my mouth in his near armpit. This scoop tasted more of Josh than of vanilla, and also very salty from the mineral rock he uses for deodorant, and from his own sweat. The contrast made a tasty combination: sweet and salty, creamy and musky. His armpit took more work to get clean than his completely smooth chest had. Rolling him a partway onto his side to get a better angle, I swirled my tongue around in the silky hairs, trying not to leave any trace of stickiness behind. Some of the ice cream had dripped onto the table even before I started, but to my relief, when I stood up to move to the other side, they cleaned up the melted puddle on the table with towels instead of telling me to lick it up. I guess they figured that making me lick out my best friend’s armpits while they held him down was humiliating enough. I reached his other side, grabbed him and adjusted his position, dug my shoulder into his side and my tongue into his armpit, and got back to work. Josh moaned softly in despair throughout it all. I wondered if we’d ever fully regain our self-respect, and how badly this would mess up our friendship.

“Flip him over,” Dan ordered when I’d finished. They picked up my friend’s limp and unresisting body and quickly flipped him and slapped him chest-down onto the table. I think he’d have lain there with his arms dangling over the sides if they hadn’t grabbed them to restrain him again. He looked utterly defeated.

“Right down his spine, Tommy, in case you can’t guess.”

Josh’s eyes flew open at that. “No!” he said, and he would have levered himself up if he weren’t being held down. He screamed as the ice cream was applied to his spine. I felt him shivering as I placed my hands on his back and lowered myself down. I licked it off him as fast as I could, then went back and did a more thorough second pass. He was still shivering, even though the skin above his spine no longer felt cold as I ran my tongue over it. I was lying on him, with my chest pressed again his back skin-to-skin, because it was the easiest position and because I hoped it would keep him warm. I kneaded his back muscles in a friendly way as I worked, trying to communicate to him how bad I felt about being forced to do this to him. I was afraid he’d never talk to me again after this shared humiliation, and I couldn’t stand that.

Finally I climbed off him. I thought they must be done with this little game, since they’d attacked just about every exposed skin surface. But I’d forgotten about his feet. They bent his knees, placing his feet at face level, and oozed ice cream between his toes. I had to suck my buddy’s toes and run my tongue between them. This seemed to drive him nuts, and he kept trying to get away. Our captors left it to me to restrain the foot I was working on. A little ice cream dripped onto my chest in the process and clung to the hairs. I didn’t dare look at it and call attention to it for fear they’d make Josh lick it off me. Of course, they might very well make us switch positions now that I was done with him. And I assumed that I must surely be done with him now. They’d made me lick just about every square inch of exposed skin, from his throat down.

Duh. Their plan was to expose more. Dan had Tom pull off Josh’s pants and then put ice cream in the backs of his knees and all along his legs. After I’d licked that clean, they flipped him onto his back again and did the fronts of his legs, and I obediently got to work slicking down all the hairs that grow sparsely on his legs. His knees were bent, and while working on his upper legs I noticed the ice cream running downhill just in time to keep his soft cotton boxer shorts from getting soiled. I pushed the material out of the way, bunched almost up to his balls, while I dealt with the dripping ice cream. Our captors thought that was hilarious to watch, so they made Tom apply some more ice cream to Josh’s belly below the navel, and propped him up enough for it to run down his flat belly toward his shorts. I got it licked up before I had to push the waistband down too far, managing to leave him a shred of dignity. It was pushed well below his tan line, but his pubic hair was still covered. Not to mention his erection. That was a strange effect for the cold to be having on him.

I don’t know why I bothered, because of course the shorts came off next. Bastards. We’d never done more than unbutton Dan’s shirt and take his shoes and socks off, and even in our original plan we were going to let him keep his shorts. Worst of all, I knew they weren’t just going to expose Josh, they were going to smear ice cream all over his crotch. This was going too far. I tried to stop them, grabbing Tom from behind when we went for the shorts, but I felt Dan’s whip flick against my back, and it hurt like hell, even though I realized it had barely touched me. I let go of Tom and watched as my buddy was stripped of his last scrap of clothing. Once his legs were spread wide again, Tom went straight for the balls.

“Please, no. No there,” Josh whispered.

Tom paused before he actually dumped the ice cream on them, turning to day and starting to say “Look, Danny, I—” but Dan brandished his whip and Tom shut up fast and applied the ice cream. Josh cried out almost like he was in pain.

“Hold it there for a few seconds, then smear some on his shaft,” Dan said.

Josh sobbed as the cold seeped through his rapidly shriveling ball sack. A few seconds later Tom moved the scoop up the underside of his still-hard shaft, and his hips bucked. Then Tom backed off, and it was over.

All except my part. I stared down at my naked buddy, spread-eagled on the table, knowing that I would have to lick his balls or get us both whipped until we were bloody. If I’d realized at the beginning that it would go this far, I might have decided there were worse things than losing a little skin off my back. But there was no turning back now. I hadn’t cooperated this far only to get us both whipped anyway. Besides, I didn’t dare let Dan use that whip on Josh now; there was no telling where he’d aim it. I moved to the foot of the table and bent forward with my head between my friend’s legs. Feeling my tongue contact his balls, he let out a moan, voicing all the despair and humiliation he must be feeling at having another guy manipulating his most vulnerable parts. And not just any other guy, but his best friend, someone who he’d trusted...

Demeaning as this situation was, a weird thought crossed my mind: What it would be like if we’d been alone in our room and Josh had voluntarily let me this close to him? Letting another guy touch your balls, let alone practically put them in his mouth, would take a lot of trust. You’d only do it with someone you were sure would never hurt you. There was something appealing about that idea, exciting in almost a physical way. It would be like saying you trusted him with your life, your very manhood. I’d like to think Josh and I trusted each other that much, but we’d never been in a situation that gave us a chance to prove it.

His balls were as hairless as his chest, something I’d never noticed before, only having gotten a few glimpses of them, and never this close of course. It was easy to get them clean of ice cream. Some had dripped down on one side into the fold between his legs, and that part definitely tasted like Josh-flavored ice cream and not vanilla. Finally all that was left was his cock, which was fully hard and twitching. The ice cream on it had been completely melted by the heat, but I couldn’t pretend not to notice that it was there. I sure wasn’t going to take his cock in my mouth. I would limit myself to carefully licking the underside.

I was on my third lick, and almost had it clean, when the inevitable happened. Josh’s cock responded to all that physical stimulation, unaware that it was his owner’s best friend doing the licking and not a more appropriate partner, like someone he might have met at the party if Barry hadn’t dragged us away. The milky white jism mixed with the white ice cream. I decided that Dan could flay me alive before I licked any of that up.

I remembered one time when Josh had suggested we jack off in front of each other. I’d been totally embarrassed by the idea, and he’d never mentioned it again. Now it seemed like such a trivial thing, compared to the intimacy that had been forced on us by the enemy fraternity.

Dan seemed to know just how far he could push me, and didn’t tell me to lick up the cum. They gave me a warm wash cloth and made me clean my buddy up while they continued to hold him down. His softening cock stiffened again at my touch, and I think the wash cloth alone would have gotten him off, if he hadn’t just come already. I finished up and patted him apologetically on the belly.

Before I gave the wash cloth back, I took a quick swipe at my chest, trying to get the ice cream drops off of my chest hair, without smearing my buddy’s cum on it in the process, before someone got the idea they should make Josh lick my chest. I was afraid they were going to make him to that next anyway, with fresh ice cream. But I was wrong. They had something different in mind for us.

They let us take a bathroom break, one at a time. Someone stood at the door making sure I didn’t try to escape, but it really wasn’t necessary while they had Josh as a hostage. Who knew what they would do to him in the time it took me to get help. I also had a long drink from the sink. I was very thirsty from the salt on my buddy’s skin.

After our break, they had me take Josh’s place on the table. It looked like it was my turn to get ice cream smeared over every part of my body and Josh’s turn to lick it off. The idea didn’t disgust me nearly as much as I would have expected. I was just scared that forever afterward he’d be ashamed to be seen anywhere near me.

But it turned out they had something else in mind. They wanted to watch Josh exploit my own personal weakness. Dan ordered him to tickle me. That was nothing new for the two of us, but of course Josh normally did it because he wanted to, and always in private... well, occasionally in front of our own fraternity brothers. But that was different. Being forced to do it with half of a rival fraternity watching must have been almost as humiliating for him as it was for me — even if he’d been fully clothed. Being naked couldn’t have helped.

Those weren’t the only things that made this different from just the two of us kidding around. Usually, if he took me by surprise, he’d only have a chance to get in a few seconds of tickling before I’d break away. Of course, we also used to playfully wrestle a lot, and if he managed to pin me he’d often take advantage of his victory by tickling me as long as he wanted, or until I begged for mercy. But in that case he usually wasn’t in a position to get to my most sensitive spots; his arms would be busy pinning me and he’d have to dig his fingers into whatever he could reach, usually at an awkward angle. Never before had he had my whole body spread out before him, with four guys holding me down spread-eagle for him. None of the usual struggle to force my arm away from my body far enough for him to get his fingers in; my arm pits were completely exposed. No need for sneaking up on me to yank up a T-shirt or slip his fingers between shirt buttons; I’d already been stripped to the waist. Only my feet were safe for the moment, and I was sure that wouldn’t last long.

“Sorry about this, dude,” he whispered as he loomed over me, placing his hand on my bare chest but not yet tickling.

“Yeah, right,” I whispered back. “You’ve been waiting for a chance like this as long as I’ve known you, haven’t you?”

“How was the ice cream?” he retorted.

I felt myself blushing. “I had no choice, man! You know that. I’m sorry, but what can I say?”

Josh jumped as Dan cracked the whip in the air, not far from his naked back. “Here goes, dude.”

He started with the ribs. I started laughing almost instantly. He moved slowly up my sides. He took his time, knowing I wasn’t going anywhere. When he reached my armpits, I managed to gasp out, “Not there! Anywhere but there!”

He paused and looked back at Dan, who said, “There.” He started lightly tickling my armpits.

It went on and on, long past the point where Josh would have relented if he’d had any choice. My lungs were burning, and my sides ached, by the time they let him stop. To my shame, I had laughed so hard my face was covered in snot. They gave Josh a tissue and made him wipe it off. He did so tenderly, whispering, “It’s okay, dude. It’s over now.”

“While he’s catching his breath,” Dan said, “take off his shoes.” So Josh untied my shoes and gently tugged them off, then peeled off my socks. My sides were still hurting when Dan ordered him to start tickling my feet. They gave him a feather, a hairbrush, and a few other things I didn’t see, but all of them were pure torture. Then they made him use the feather on my nipples, remembering how well that had worked earlier.

Next they made my buddy pull off my pants, leaving me clad only in my white briefs. They had him try his fingers and the feather on the backs of my knees and the insides of my thighs, and that forced a couple of laughs out of me, but my legs aren’t nearly as ticklish as my torso or armpits or feet.

Inevitably, Dan finally ordered him to strip me of my shorts. Josh hesitated, then grabbed the waistband and started tugging them down. “Not with your hands,” Dan said. “With your teeth.”

Josh struggled to get my briefs off using only his teeth. First he tried tugging from the bottom. I felt his hot breath through the cotton and his lips on my skin, and a few times his nose poked me in the balls through the underwear. He didn’t get it very far down that way, possibly because it kept hanging up on my erection. Finally he gave up and grabbed the elastic in his teeth, peeling the briefs down from the top. This meant practically dragging his nose through my pubic hair all the way down, which I guess was why he’d tried the other way first. A few times his teeth lost his grip and the waistband snapped down on my cock, and he had to nose around trying to get a hold of it again, his lips touching my exposed cock, his hands resting on my belly.

They made him drag it all the way down my legs, with their guys holding my ankles together. That part went faster. Once he had my briefs around my ankles, our captors took it from there, expertly slipping it over each foot without letting me go.

Now we were both completely naked, both with raging hard-ons for some reason, surrounded by Tau Beta Delta guys who were all fully clothed. Except of course for Tom. Dan had never let him have his shirt back, even after he’d finished his job. He was the one holding my left arm; I had a foreshortened view looking up his muscular form whenever I glanced up. I noticed that he had a bulge in his pants, and now that I thought to look around at all the crotches at my eye level, so did many of his fraternity brothers. The bastards were really getting off on this.

They made Josh use the feather to tickle me in places I normally would have socked him if he’d tried to touch. I found myself instinctively bucking my hips, but that didn’t keep him from tracking my balls with the feather There was no escape. My cock was oozing pre-cum from all the stimulation. Josh was really getting into this, wielding the feather delicately to just lightly brush it along the length of the underside of my cock. He had a half smile on his face. My best friend was about to make me come, and there was nothing I could do about it! Somehow the thought made the sensations feel even more intense, and I felt an orgasm building. Josh grabbed my cock at the last second to tilt it a few degrees so I spurted over myself instead of in his eye. Judging by the intensity of the orgasm, it should have blasted the guys behind my head, so I was a little surprised to see an ordinary-size puddle that had only reached my lower belly

Josh still had his hand on my cock, stroking it a little in an absent-minded kind of way. My best friend’s hand was on my cock, and he had just made me come! This was too much. I groaned, but Josh left his hand there for a few more seconds.

They made him clean me up — with a wash cloth, fortunately, not with his tongue, but his gentle touch on my sensitized cock head was almost too much to take — and then they finally let me up. I couldn’t meet my friend’s eyes. I swung my legs off the table and stood up shakily. Then my knees buckled, and Josh grabbed my arm and steadied me with a hand on my back. I finally looked at him, and nodded my thanks. He smiled and looked away.

“Should we give them their clothes back now?” asked the guy who’d been collecting our clothes in a pile as each piece was removed.

“I guess we can let ’em have their shorts, anyway,” Dan said.

The guy tossed me Josh’s boxers and tossed Josh my briefs. We were about to exchange them when Dan said, “No, take what you were given, or you get nothing at all.” So I put on Josh’s boxers. They were made of soft knitted gray cotton, and as I slipped them on I almost understood why he felt they were more comfortable than briefs, but it felt weird having my balls hanging there with nothing to support them. I watched Josh pull on my briefs. They were a little tight on him, but they looked great, with the brilliant white cotton really setting off his tan.

“Thanks for the show, guys,” Dan said. Then he turned to someone who must have come in the room while I was, um, distracted. “Okay, what did you come up here to tell me?”

“They’ve got him ready for you.”

“About time. I hope they left a little fight in him. I liked his spirit.”

“Um, I wouldn’t count on that.”

“Too bad. Well, I can’t be everywhere, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss watching these two guys. Hey, is that a bruise on your chin?” He reached out to touch the guy’s chin, which did seem to be darker on one side.

“Yeah, well, we got a little careless and he got an arm loose and took a swing at me. But we got him under control again,” he said with relish. “Totally, utterly under control, like I said.”

I couldn’t imagine Barry ever being totally under someone else’s control. But then, I’d never seen him throw a punch before, either; he usually relied on intimidation. He must have been feeling really trapped.

Dan turned to instruct the men holding us. “Okay, put these two to bed. I want them fresh for tomorrow.”

Bed? I guess I had expected them to let us go when they’d had their fun for the night. Were they going to keep us here the whole weekend? Surely they couldn’t enslave us forever. We’d be missed, and our fraternity brothers would come looking for us, if the administration didn’t send the police first. They couldn’t just make three students disappear, could they?

They led us to an unfurnished carpeted room and gave us one blanket and one pillow, then left us without a word. I tried the door in the dark. The knob turned, but they’d somehow locked it from the outside. From the shadows in the light leaking under the door, I got the feeling that someone was even standing guard.

I was alone with my best friend. I faced him, unable to see the expression on his face in the dark, not knowing what to say, and half expecting him to punch me out for helping to humiliate him. I figured we were even, but he might not agree.

“I’m exhausted,” Josh finally said. “You ready to sleep?”

I decided to follow his lead and pretend nothing was wrong — that we hadn’t just been forced to completely humiliate each other, and that more torment wasn’t in store for us tomorrow. “Yeah,” I said. “I wonder what time it is.” Neither of us wore watches, nor did Barry. If we had, they probably would have been taken away at some point during the stripping.

“I don’t know. Late. It’s been a hell of a night.”

“Yeah. Look, man, I’m really— um...”

“Let’s talk about it in the morning, okay?” I heard him yawn.

“Sure. You can have the blanket if I can take the pillow.” This room wasn’t very well heated, and the air felt cool on my bare skin. It was all right for now, but I knew we’d be chilly once we were inactive. And Josh always felt cold before I did.

“I assumed we’d share them,” he said, sounding surprised.

“The blanket didn’t look all that big.” And we were both fairly big guys.

“I think it’ll cover us.”

I wished I could see his face, but all I could see in the dim lighting was his white briefs. My white briefs, I mean. I wondered if it was safe to trade now.

“Well?”

“We’d have to get pretty friendly,” I said doubtfully.

“We’re best friends, aren’t we? How much more friendly can you get?”

“Well, sure, but you know what I mean. ’Friendly’ was just an expression. I guess the word I’m looking for is ’intimate.’”

“Dude! You just had my balls in your mouth an hour ago, and now you’re afraid of sleeping next to me? C’m’ere.”

He got me in a headlock and pulled us both to the ground, with me on top of him. Laughing softly, we wrestled, just like old times, though we’d rarely done it wearing only our shorts. Let alone each other’s shorts. Finally Josh got his legs wrapped around mine, immobilizing them. Once I stopped struggling, his free hand pulled the blanket over us. It covered both of us easily. It could have covered three guys, if they were willing to sleep this close. I sighed in resignation and relaxed a little.

“See? It’s no so bad,” he said. Maybe he mistook the sigh for a sigh of contentment. Maybe it was. This did feel like a kind of cozy way to spend the night. And no one could blame it on me. His skin was smooth and warm against mine. I snuggled a little closer.

“What do you s’pose they’re doing to Barry?” he asked sleepily. I could feel his warm breath against my forehead, we were that close.

“Dunno. But it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

“Yeah, he deserves it, the bastard,” he chuckled.

“Although he did try to stand up for you,” I pointed out.

Josh made no response. Maybe he was thinking it over, or maybe he was already half asleep. I relaxed completely, pillowing my head against my roommate’s chest. His strong heartbeat became slow and regular, as did his breathing. Predictably, he started snoring softly. At home, his snoring from across the room had never bothered me. I’d gotten so used to it that I actually had trouble getting to sleep when he was away. Now, even at close range, the familiar sound was comforting, reminding me that my buddy was there beside me. As if I needed a reminder, with his bare flesh pressed warmly against mine. I felt myself starting to drift off.

The sound of the door opening must have woken me up, because a widening shaft of bright light was spilling into the room. Josh was still sound asleep. He always was a heavy sleeper.

Barry stumbled into the room, pushed by two pairs of hands I saw disappearing back through the door. The door closed, and I heard them locking it.

Barry fell to his hands and knees on the carpet, looking a little dazed. He sat down on the floor and drew his knees up to his chest. After a minute, he slumped forward, crossing his hairy forearms across his knees and burying his face in them. He’d been stripped, just like us, and was wearing only boxer shorts. His own, I assumed.

“Barry?” I called softly.

He raised his head and looked in my general direction. I realized the room was very dark, and his eyes weren’t adjusted like mine. He probably had thought he was alone in the room. “Mike?” he said. The mixture of surprise and hope in his voice, like he’d been afraid he’d never see me again, really startled me. I was not used to hearing him say my name in that tone.

I finished disentangling myself from Josh, who mumbled sleepily in protest but didn’t wake up. I covered him with the blanket, then scooted over to Barry and put my hand on his bare shoulder. “You okay, buddy?” I asked gently.

“I guess,” he said, with a nervous laugh that sounded like it was on the edge of breaking into a sob. To my surprise, he threw his meaty arm around my back and drew me into a hug, resting his forehead on my shoulder. I hesitantly slid my arm around his back. He was shaking, even though his skin felt warm. I could swear I felt tears leaking onto my shoulder. I stroked his hair and the back of his neck. He clung to me even more tightly, like I was his last link to anything familiar.

We silently held each other like that for a few minutes. It occurred to me that this must be a dream. Barry would never act this way in real life. But the rich detail of every sensation — the feel of Barry’s arms on my bare skin, his chest hair flattened against my chest, the roughness of his chin against my shoulder, the sound of his breathing and Josh’s snoring — convinced me that I had to be awake. I noticed that his familiar and not unpleasant musky scent was muted and that he smelled of soap, exactly the same way he smelled when he’d recently stepped out of the shower. His hair was a little damp under my hand, come to think of it. I was almost jealous; they hadn’t let Josh and me take a shower, even after the ice cream.

“You smell really clean, pal,” I murmured.

“They ... gave me a bath.”

The shame in his voice told me that he’d had no choice about it. He’d tried to resist, I was sure, but I got the idea that by that time all the fight had gone out of him. I imagined several big guys stuffing his naked and weakly struggling body into one of those huge old-fashioned stubs they still have in some of the fraternities here. In a way I liked that image. If anyone deserved a little humiliation, it was Barry. Now he knew what it felt like. But at the same time I felt sorry for him. I pulled his head against my shoulder again and stroked his hair some more. I resisted asking any of the questions I wanted to ask about what they’d done to him besides the bath. I sensed he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Where’s Josh? Is he okay?” I was touched by the concern in his voice.

“He’s over there, sleeping,” I told him, relieved that he hadn’t seen us sleeping together. I mean, it’s weird enough to hold another man like this to comfort him, but to be caught sleeping wrapped in my roommate’s arms would have looked really bad. Saying “over there” so off-handedly should cover the truth up nicely.

“Would it be okay if I slept with you guys tonight?” Barry asked hesitantly.

So much for secrecy. I don’t know how much closeness he was picturing, but he wouldn’t feel he needed permission to join us if he had thought we were just two guys who happened to be sleeping in the same room. After all, he was already locked in the same room as us. Come to think of it, it wasn’t like Barry to ask permission at all, for anything. Normally, he just took what he wanted. If for some strange reason he wanted two guys in bed with him — not that that’s something he normally would want, of course, but let’s say hypothetically it was really cold — I’d have expected him to roust us out of our own beds, drag us to his room, and just hold onto us until we fell asleep. That was more Barry’s style.

“Uh— sure. No problem. We even have, um, a blanket and pillow. Just one, so we need to sleep kind of close.”

Together, we crawled over where I had left Josh sprawled out on the floor, and I pulled the blanket off him. I probably would have shaken him awake just to ask if he minded Barry joining us, but Barry lay down between us and scooped my sleeping buddy up with one arm and rolled him onto his chest. Then he snagged me with the other arm and drew me in, until my head was resting on his chest, almost touching Josh’s head. This was a familiar position, except that usually we weren’t lying down and were usually wearing more clothes. And... this time it felt friendly. Maybe it had always been friendly, in a way.

“I’m sorry for getting you guys into this,” Barry said, his voice rumbling against my ear. It was the first time I could remember him apologizing for anything. I wished I had a tape recorder right now. But not a camera.

“Do you think our fraternity brothers will try to, you know, mount a rescue?” I asked, suddenly worried about them finding us like this.

“Um, I don’t think any of them know where we went.”

“You didn’t tell anyone the guy we were trying to punish was from Tau Beta Delta?”

“Just you and Josh. I’m sorry.”

Two apologies in one minute. And he actually did sound sorry. He sounded almost like he was about to cry. I squeezed his shoulder. “’S’okay, big guy.”

He sighed, and after a few minutes I could tell by how slowly his chest was rising and falling under my head that he must be asleep.

I should have been uncomfortable with my nose buried in Barry’s chest hair and Josh snoring right in my face, but I was sound asleep about thirty seconds later.

I woke up with my human pillow shaking under me. Barry was holding Josh’s head clamped against his chest right beside mine, while Josh cursed him and tried to get loose. “What’s the matter, Josh?” he taunted.

I sighed. Barry seemed to be back to his old self after a good night’s sleep. “Let him up, Barry,” I said.

“It was self-defense, man. He was punching me.”

“I was just startled to wake up and find you here, that’s all,” Josh said, his voice muffled because his mouth was buried in Barry’s chest hair. “I was confused. I was just trying to get away.”

“Say you’re sorry,” Barry ordered.

“You forget that we know your weakness now, buddy,” I told Barry, and started running my fingers lightly up and down that smooth bare skin next to his abs. It worked just as well as I hoped. Barry let go of Josh and grabbed my wrists with both hands, laughing helplessly. Josh sat up and immediately attacked Barry’s other, undefended side. In a minute he was so weak from laughter that I was able to break free of his grip, and then it was all over for him. I got one arm pinned under my leg, Josh grabbed the other one, and then he had four hands attacking him and not a thing he could do about it.

The thing about Barry is that he never begs for mercy. At least not from Josh and me, not then and not anytime since. He just lies there and takes it, until he couldn’t gasp out a plea even if he wanted to. What saved him this time was the door opening.

They let us take turns using the bathroom again while the other two were closely guarded. I wondered if Barry would try to squeeze through the little window and leave Josh and me at the mercy of Tau Beta Delta, and if he did, I wondered if he’d bother to come back with reinforcements and rescue us. But he didn’t try to run away.

They took us downstairs to the big common room, where the Tau Beta Delta guys had just finished breakfast. Pancakes, by the look of the plates they were clearing from the table.

“I don’t suppose you guys saved any for us,” Barry said sarcastically.

“Let me find out,” said Dan, who was standing near the table. He was wearing a T-shirt today with his fraternity’s Greek letters across the chest, and the same shoes we’d removed yesterday. And the same pants we hadn’t gotten a chance to. “Any pancakes left, guys?” he called. His voice made it clear that he was taunting us and wasn’t planning to feed us anything.

“No, and the cook’s already left,” someone answered. “But we have gallons of syrup left.”

“Where are my manners?” Dan said. “You guys must be starved. We haven’t offered you any food. Well, except ice cream.” Josh blushed at this, and I’m sure I did too.

“Finish getting that table clear! We’re gonna need it!” The last few plates were hurriedly removed, and someone wiped the crumbs off the giant varnished wooden table. Then about six guys suddenly grabbed Barry. He struggled fiercely, every muscle in his body flexing, but it did him no good.

Soon he was stretched out on the table right in front of me, breathing hard, and I found myself staring in fascination at that fine trail of hair that ran from his chest down the middle of his stomach and disappeared down his boxer shorts.

It went all the way down, I found out a few seconds later, as someone hooked his thumb under the waistband and tugged. I tore my eyes away and saw that someone was holding a pitcher of syrup above my helpless naked fraternity brother. He poured a few ounces of it onto his neck and chest, then drizzled a thin line zigzagging across that trail of hair, finishing up by dripping some of it onto both sides of his cock, which was standing up. Despite how much Barry likes to brag about how well endowed he his, I wasn’t convinced now that he was any longer than me. It was close, and might actually be shorter. Next time he bragged to me when we were alone, I decided, I would make him hold it against mine to measure.

“OK, you two, you know what to do.”

Josh and I just stared open-mouthed.

Dan produced a fork, made sure Barry saw what it was, and used it to lift up Barry’s balls. Barry gasped, hopefully in reaction to the cold, or the implied threat, and not because the tines were poking him.

“One of you start at his throat and the other at his cock.” When we hesitated, he added, “Now. Otherwise we may just have to fry up some sausage for you.” He jiggled the balls with the fork.

Josh took his cock while I started lapping at the syrup that had pooled in the hollow at the base of his throat. To my surprise, Josh actually put the whole cock in his mouth and slid his lips around it like a popsicle stick. Just once, to get it clean. Then he moved on to the pubic hair. Tired of bending over the table, I climbed onto it and worked on my hands and knees, with my bare feet right between the guys who were holding Barry’s arms. I hoped they didn’t decide to risk letting go with one hand in order to tickle me. But I shouldn’t complain about feeling vulnerable, not with Barry stretched out naked beneath me. I finished his throat and worked my way through the soft thick hair covering his muscular chest. In time with its heaving, I could feel his warm breath stirring my own chest hair.

Josh was up to the bottom of that trail of wispy hair, and I hurried to catch up before he traversed the whole thing. But I needn’t have worried, because he was taking his time now, licking the sensitive bare skin very thoroughly on either side. It made Barry squirm, and Josh seemed to like that. Meanwhile, I had worked my way down to where the hair petered out into that little stream, and it felt just as soft on my tongue as it looked. The dry parts that the squiggle of syrup hadn’t touched fluttered with my every breath until my tongue slicked them down.

Finally Josh and I met up. When our stubbled cheeks rubbed against each other, I climbed off and let him finish. He licked up the last of the syrup, overlapping by a good two inches the wet trail of slicked-down hair that I had left, to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

I had been as thorough as I could, but I suspected Barry would feel sticky all day until they let him get a shower or bath. Even I felt sticky, though that may have been my imagination. I was sick of that sugary imitation maple syrup, which was the same cheap kind they our own fraternity bought from the commissary by the gallon. Not high quality stuff, unlike the French vanilla ice cream last night.

They actually were nice to us for a change and took us immediately up to the room with the bathtub and shower. But Barry looked as if he were being led to the gallows. When we got there, there was a freestanding tub already filled with steaming water. It looked very inviting. Just as I’d guessed, it was the huge old-fashioned kind, the kind that actually lets a full-grown man, even one as big as Barry, immerse almost his whole body in water. What a concept. They haven’t made that kind during my lifetime, but some of the fraternity houses at our college are almost a hundred years old.

Barry looked around at the guys waiting there, a trapped expression on his face. But when Dan said, “This time your friends can give you your bath,” he looked relieved.

Then he quickly masked it with a look of distain and said, “I don’t need any help from these two fuckfaces” and tried to take a step toward the tub. The guys holding his arms wouldn’t let him, of course.

“Okay, just thought I’d offer,” Dan said. He nodded to the guys waiting. “Grab him.”

“Nooo! No, please! Let my buddies do it.”

So Josh took his legs and I put my hands under his armpits. I heard Josh whisper to him, “Buddies, huh?” as we carried him over to the tub. I was surprised that Josh and I between us had no trouble at all carrying Barry’s naked and unresisting form. I made a mental note of that for future reference.

It was a little more of a strain on my muscles to lift him over the edge of the tub-and I saw Josh’s muscles standing out too-but we managed, and gently lowered him into the water. It rose almost to the rim of the tub as Barry’s big body displaced it, but it didn’t spill, and the overflow drain started lowering the level.

They gave each of us a bar of soap and made us rub it all over him. Barry closed his eyes and relaxed as I ran my hand over his chest above the waterline, running my fingers through the hairs as I rubbed soap into them. I dipped below the waterline and worked on the rest of him, even running my hand over his cock, which hardened under my brief touch.

Then they made him stick his feet out, leaving him submerged up to the neck, and handed Josh a scrub brush to use on the soles of his feet. That drove him wild, and I had to stick my arms underwater and hold onto him to keep him from thrashing. I was afraid he’d get us in trouble for splashing, or even drown himself. If I’d been wearing a shirt it would have been soaked by this time. As it was, my shorts, or rather Josh’s, were beginning to get plastered against my crotch.

After we’d drained the tub and helped him out, pink and clean, they had Barry peel off our shorts and then made the three of us get into the shower together and take an ice cold shower. I hate cold showers, but not the way Josh hates them. When the cold water hit his shoulders, he yelped and tried to get out of the shower. The guy guarding us pushed him back and said, “Stay under the water.”

“Bring me the whip,” Dan said to someone behind him.

We wound up physically holding poor Josh under the spray, Barry and I. Josh clung tightly to me to shield himself and to borrow some of my body warmth.

“I don’t see you washing in there,” Dan called. So Barry started washing Josh’s back. When he finished he came around and did my back. They still didn’t let us out, so we turned Josh around and Barry held him from behind while I ran soapy hands over his chest and down his belly.

“Don’t forget his crotch.”

“If we let you go,” I asked Josh, “will you stand still and wash your own crotch?” I asked.

“N-no,” Josh said with his teeth chattering. “You let me go, I’m outta here.”

So I soaped up his pubic hair and ran my soapy hands lightly on over his shriveled nut sac and all around his crotch, and very quickly over his cock. I stood up and squeezed his shoulder in apology, then quickly washed myself. Only then did they let us out. They wrapped us each in a big white towel and let us dry ourselves off and stop shivering.

We all needed a shave, especially Barry, and they gave it to us, Josh first, then me, and then Barry. Standing up, with a towel wrapped around our waists, and someone holding our arms. They wiped our faces with a hot wet towel when they were done, which felt very nice after the cold shower.

They gave us our shorts back. They mixed them up again, so that I got Barry’s boxers and he got Josh’s, while Josh got my briefs back again. Usually it didn’t feel right to me to take a shower without putting on fresh underwear, but nothing felt right here. They took us back downstairs in our shorts.

“And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Dan announced to his fraternity. “The big guy’s gonna give us all blowjobs.”

A few of his fraternity brothers rolled their eyes and left, but most of them stayed, most of them grinning in anticipation.

“Like hell I am!” Barry said.

For some reason the guy who had shaved us had brought the shaving cream and razor down with him. Dan took the can from him and walked up to Barry with it, squirted some shaving cream into his own hand, and casually dabbed it on Barry’s chest. “What did you say?” he asked mildly.

“I’m not putting up with any more of this shit.” He paused as he watched Dan’s hand spreading a second glob of shaving cream over his chest, slicking down the hair. “You can do anything you want to me, but I’m not cooperating.” His brave tone might have fooled someone who didn’t know him so well, but I sensed that his bravado was a fragile thing.

“You know,” said Dan, “we have a rule that we’ve never broken, that any punishment inside these walls is never spoken of outside. That applies to fraternity brothers, to our pledges, and even to prisoners like you. Do as we say, and no one will ever hear about it from us. You have my word of honor.”

“Yeah, like that’s worth anything to me.”

“If we wanted to humiliate you outside, we could be doing a better job of it. Have you seen one camera? We could have had your picture in this morning’s campus paper. ” He continued to cover Barry’s chest with foam.

“Okay, so maybe I do believe you.” He looked down again at his chest hair being plastered against his chest with shaving cream, and gulped visibly.

“Whereas, if we shave your chest, everyone will know we did that to you. Without our saying a word.”

“I can wear T-shirts for a few... for however long it takes to grow back,” Barry said uncertainly.

That was a bluff, I knew. Everyone would know something was up. I don’t think Barry even owns any T-shirts. I’d sure never seen him wearing one under his shirt even in the middle of winter-or by itself, no matter how hot it got. He always wears shirts with buttons, and usually leaves them unbuttoned halfway down his chest if he can get away with it. He loves showing off his chest hair.

“We’ll shave your arms, too. And what about showers?”

“You think I’d go down on you just to avoid that?” But his nerve was giving out. Anyone could hear it in his voice now.

Dan didn’t answer, but kept matting down Barry’s hair with shaving cream, working slowly. By the time the can was empty and his chest was uniformly coated, Barry was blubbering. “N-no. Please. I’ll do what you ask. Don’t... don’t shave me. Please.”

“OK, so here’s how it’s going to work,” Dan said, as if he hadn’t considered any other outcome than Barry’s complete capitulation. “You’ll be blindfolded, and two of the guys you’ll be sucking off will be your buddies here. That way we’ll know you won’t try any funny business. We’ll gag them with their own shorts — if those are their own shorts — so they can’t warn you. And if they try to make some sound anyway...” he pointed to the corner where one of his fraternity brothers had quietly entered holding the whip.

Before we knew it, they had Barry blindfolded and on his knees, and my shorts were in my mouth, leaving me totally naked. Except they were Barry’s shorts. I can’t say they tasted strongly of anything but cotton, but they definitely had a musky smell, similar to the familiar smell of Barry’s chest, but different. Presumably what I would have smelled if I’d stuck my face in Barry’s crotch, which of course I never had. Already I had a growing erection, as if the strangely exciting thought that Barry would soon be sticking his face in my crotch instead was turning me on.

The first guy in line unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, which was half erect already. Then he looked at Barry and he shrunk back. So did his cock. Barry was making biting motions with his teeth.

“You’re bluffing,” Dan said. “What makes you so sure this isn’t one of your own fraternity brothers first in line?”

“I heard him unzip his fly. Anyway, did you really think I wouldn’t feel his pants by the time I was sucking him off? I know my guys aren’t wearing any. Also, I could tell by the sound of his footsteps that he’s wearing shoes.”

There was a pause, and then every guy in the room started taking his clothes off. I had to hand it to Barry. With a few words, he’d intimidated our captors into stripping naked. Not bad for a guy kneeling blindfolded in his shorts with his arms pinned behind him. He couldn’t see it for himself, but he was now wearing more than any other guy in the room. And the situation suddenly felt very different to me, being surrounded a bunch of other guys who were also naked, instead of being the naked prisoner of an enemy fraternity. I found it amusing that Dan, who was short and scrawny compared to Barry, had a longer cock than the one Barry was so proud of, although not the longest in the Tau Beta Delta fraternity.

When they were all naked and a different guy had stepped up for the first blowjob, Barry said suddenly, “Mike and Josh are both circumcised, right, guys?” Although we couldn’t answer, we quickly found ourselves standing in a much shorter line, now composed only of the guys who were circumcised, white, and no more than a few inches taller or shorter than us. He’d really got them worried. Dan himself stepped out of line when he saw he was by far the shortest guy left, and started getting dressed again, looking really pissed off.

Barry behaved himself now, and one by one our enemies stepped forward and got a blowjob. I could hardly believe it. He’d never live it down, if Josh and I let anyone else in our fraternity know.

Some of the guys just stood there and enjoyed it, with closed eyes and open mouths, while others thrust their hips forward in the rhythm they wanted, but none of them tried to grab Barry’s head. That would have given away the fact that they weren’t Josh or me. In fact, they carefully had two big guys flanking their own fraternity brothers and holding onto their arms, just to be sure Barry couldn’t somehow sense they were free. The guys they chose as guards were big enough that they’d had to step out of line, and had gotten dressed again, although they hadn’t yet bothered to button their shirts up over their massive chests. Josh’s handlers quietly passed him over to those guys when his turn came. I was surprised to see the fiendish delight in Josh’s face as Barry took his cock in his mouth. Josh was one of the ones who kept thrusting his cock aggressively down Barry’s throat. He really seemed to be getting into his chance to have his nemesis forced to service him, and to being able to dominate him anonymously.

I was one of the stand-there-and-enjoy-it kind of guys when my turn came. Um... I have to admit here what I’d never told even Josh. Even though I was almost 20, I was still basically a virgin. Having my cock enveloped in something warm and wet was such a good feeling that I could close my eyes and not even care that a guy was doing it.

Oh, who was I kidding? I was getting off on knowing that my cock was in the mouth of a guy who’d always pushed me around. I couldn’t even think of it the way Josh seemed to view it, not to mention all the Tau Beta Delta guys. I know, the guy getting sucked off is supposed to feel like he was the one in control, and the guy doing the work was the passive one. But I didn’t feel in control at all. It wasn’t just that my arms were being held. It was that Barry had his mouth on my cock, and he could do anything we wanted to it, but what he was choosing to do was to use his tongue and lips in a way that was driving me crazy, and was going to make me come in a minute whether I liked it or not. I was in about as much control as I was whenever he got me in a headlock back at our fraternity and started tickling me, or running his fingertip around my ear, or grabbing my balls to show he had me under his control. Only this time he was manipulating my most private parts to force me to feel pleasure whether I wanted to or not. Up until yesterday, that would have infuriated me, because I’d thought he despised me and just enjoyed dominating me to make him feel like a bigger man. But last night I’d gotten the feeling he actually had a need for friendship, and I wondered if all his roughhousing might have been his way of showing affection. And he’d picked on me and Josh more than anyone else — what did that say about how he felt about us?

I ignored the little detail that he was blindfolded and was sucking off some anonymous guy who was probably one of his captors as far as he knew. I was convinced that he somehow sensed it was one of his friends, and was trying to make the best of it and make me feel as good as he could. The way I had with Josh last night, I realized. I think part of me had enjoyed holding my buddy against me, skin to skin, and working him over with my tongue, lingering over his nipples and armpits and his even more sensitive and private spots, listening to him make soft sounds that might have been pleasure, feeling shivers run through his body that might have been delight. Barry was making me feel like that now, and I wanted to think he it was because he enjoyed making me feel good. That thought was really exciting somehow, and along with the physical stimulation...

When I came, my knees gave out and I sagged in the arms of the guys who were holding me. The second of the two most incredible orgasms I’d ever had, both in one weekend! I guess it really does help to have someone else do it for you...

Grinning in amusement, the guys handed me back to my original handlers, who half carried and half dragged me over to where Josh was sitting on the floor and dumped me next to him. I leaned on his shoulder, and he didn’t seem to mind, and even put a friendly arm around me. I felt incredibly relaxed, leaning against him skin to skin like this. I wondered, once we got out of this, if he’d ever be willing to try... no, I shouldn’t be thinking that way about my best friend!

I drowsily watched Barry finish with the few guys remaining in line. Then they removed our gags and Barry’s blindfold. He looked tired, but not really defeated. I noticed that even the rag they’d used as a blindfold looked suspiciously like it had been torn from some guy’s shorts. Of course, that didn’t mean anything. No doubt they just used worn-out clothes for rags, although in this fraternity you never know...

“Where’s Tom this morning?” Dan demanded.

“He was still sound asleep when I got out of the shower,” said a dark-haired guy, who must have been Tom’s roommate. He was as broad-shouldered as Tom, although not quite tall enough to have disqualified himself from getting sucked off by Barry. His loose T-shirt hid the impressive muscles of his hairy chest, now that he’d gotten dressed again, but still showed off his biceps.

“Get him in here, even if you have to drag him in. He’s missing his blow job.”

His roommate looked for a minute like he was going to argue. Then suddenly he grinned and headed upstairs. Two other sturdy guys followed him. The three of them would be more of a match for one beefy sleepy blond.

The three beefy Tau Beta Delta brothers came back a few minutes later escorting Tom. The big blond was barefoot and dressed only in his pajama bottoms.

“Sleep well, Tommy?”

“Danny. I might have known it was your idea to drag me out of bed. No, as a matter of fact. I couldn’t get to sleep. I think I dozed off about 4am, but I still didn’t sleep well. And frankly, I was hoping you’d’ve let those poor guys go by the time I got up.”

“The big one just gave us each a pretty good blowjob, and you almost missed it. It’s your turn now.”

“You know how I feel about forcing—” His arms were grabbed by his roommate and the other two guys, and he seemed to realize he didn’t have much choice himself. “Danny, please! Don’t do this.”

They muscled him over to the dining room table. I was close enough to hear Tom tell his roommate, “I’ll get you for this, Rick.”

“Yeah, I still remember the last time you ’got’ me, pal. Why do you think I’m going along with this?”

“That was two months ago! You’re not still mad, are you?”

“Mad, no. Still paying you back, yes.”

Once they had him stretched out helplessly, Barry walked slowly over to him.

“You don’t have to do this, man,” Tom told him.

“Yes,” Barry replied glumly. “I do.”

“Let me guess,” Tom said, eyeing the half-dried shaving cream still matting Barry’s chest hair. “Dan threatened to shave your chest if you didn’t do whatever he told you.”

Barry hung his head and didn’t answer.

“I wish I could tell you he was bluffing, man, but I saw him do it to this guy, once.”

“I can believe it,” Barry said. He reached for the fly of Tom’s pajamas.

Tom sat bolt upright, despite the guys trying to hold him down, and said desperately, “Is a little chest hair really more important to you than this?”

Before Tom’s roommate and his other fraternity brothers reacted and got him back under control, Barry planted his palm in the middle of Tom’s chest and pushed him down. “What would you know about it, Peach Fuzz?” he growled. “Now lie back and enjoy it.” Roughly, he grabbed the waistband and yanked Tom’s pajama bottoms down. Tom’s cock sprang out, half erect. It slowly rose as Barry pushed the pajamas bottoms all the way down to his ankles and ran his hands along the inside of Tom’s leg.

I didn’t know it then, as I watched Barry put his mouth around the helpless man’s cock, but I’ve since heard that what Barry was doing was called the “passive” or “bottom” role in oral sex, in personal ads language, while the guy being held spread-eagle beneath him would be considered the “active” or “top.” I laugh whenever I read those terms now, because they always remind me of that moment. But despite his protests, Tom seemed to be enjoying the whole thing, maybe even more than any of the guys Barry had just done while on his knees. Maybe he actually got off on being held down by his own buddies while a guy from another fraternity went down on him. But watching Barry, I suspected he was giving him an especially good blowjob, maybe because Tom had tried to be nice about it, or maybe as a way of thanking him for last night, when he’d given us time to do whatever we wanted to Dan before they’d turned the tables on us. The thought of a blowjob better than the one I’d gotten was unimaginable.

Barry brought Tom right to the edge a few times. I could tell by the way he was arching his back and moaning, and flexing every muscle in that big naked body. But each time Barry would remove his mouth at the last minute and move up to lick Tom’s belly or his nipples. Finally, after repeating this torment several times, he closed his mouth over the twitching cock, and in seconds it was obvious to all of us watching that Tom was coming.

“Don’t swallow it this time,” Dan said as Tom gave one last moan and relaxed limply on the table. “You were such a good sport, and Tom was such a bad sport, that he deserves to eat his own cum.”

Barry paused in his sucking, then seemed to figure out what Dan meant. When he stood up, he was obviously holding most of the cum in his mouth. He moved up to Tom’s face and planted his lips on Tom’s. After a second he pulled back, mouth still closed, and pinched Tom’s nose shut. Tom held his breath for a few seconds, then gave in and opened his mouth. Barry put his mouth back on Tom’s and let go of his nose. I can’t imagine how he forced him to keep it open, unless it was with his tongue.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have said that Barry kept his lips locked on Tom’s for a whole lot longer than was strictly necessary to carry out Dan’s order. But then, I’m not exactly an expert on how long it takes to transfer a mouthful of cum to an unwilling recipient. There was probably an unseen wrestling match going on between the two men’s tongues. When Barry finally lifted his head, I thought I heard him say softly, “You okay, man?” Tom nodded silently, staring up at Barry with a dazed expression, and Barry ruffled his blond hair and straightened up. Rick and his helpers didn’t let go of Tom’s arms immediately; they were staring slack-jawed at Barry. As an afterthought, Barry pulled Tom’s pajama bottoms back up, then patted him on the belly and stepped back.

“I guess we won’t need that shaving cream after all. Wipe it off him, Tommy. Rick, get him a wet towel.”

Rick went into the kitchen and came back with a dripping wet towel. As soon as he handed it to Tom, Tom grabbed Rick by the neck and scrubbed his face with it, then stuffed it down his shirt. I could tell by Rick’s reaction that he’d soaked it in cold water, maybe even ice water.

“Try again, pal,” Tom told him. “Only this time use hot water. Got it?”

“Okay, okay! Just let me go!”

When Rick came back, Tom accepted the towel and used it to wipe the drying shading cream off of Barry’s chest with slow, gentle-looking strokes. Barry stood there with his eyes closed and his head thrown back, mouth half open, obviously enjoying it. A good five or ten minutes later, his chest hair was completely clean and slicked against his chest, which looked ruddier than usual from the heat of the towel. You wouldn’t have known from the way he and Tom were looking at each other that they were members of rival fraternities and that one of them was a prisoner.

“You look like you want to keep him, Tommy,” Dan taunted. “Want us to chain him up in your bedroom for a few weeks?”

I thought Rick’s eyes lit up at the prospect, but his roommate looked embarrassed. “Go to hell, Danny.”

“Just kidding. You can’t have him all to yourself even if you want him. But we are keeping him for a while. His friends can go, though.”

“What?” I said. I didn’t expect him to let us go, just like that.

“You two can go. You’ve learned your lesson. Someone get their clothes.”

“What about Barry?” I asked, walking past Tom to stand next to my fraternity brother.

“Weren’t you listening? We’re keeping him.”

“No way! We’re not leaving without him.” I threw my arm loosely around Barry’s broad shoulders.

“Thanks man,” Barry whispered to me. “You don’t know the kinds of stuff they do to me when you guys aren’t around.”

“Dude, what are you doing?” Josh said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Not without Barry,” I said firmly. “But you go ahead if you want.” I hoped that came out as sincerely as I meant it. I didn’t want to shame Josh into putting up with more torment on our account.

“Yeah, right. Like I’d leave without you,” Josh said hoarsely.

“This is very touching, guys,” Dan said, “but you’re acting like you have a choice. Get them their clothes and throw them out. Not necessarily in that order.”

The guys around us started closing in.

In a few seconds, the guys surrounding us were going to pull Barry and me apart and throw me out, probably in my shorts. And what did they have in mind for Barry that he was so scared of? Was it that much worse than what I’d just seen them put him through?

As they shoved Tom aside to reach us, I acted instinctively. I pulled Barry into something between a bear hug and a wrestling hold and tripped him up, taking us both down to the floor. We hit the carpet none too gently, but we rolled and avoided any serious injury. I interlaced my fingers together behind Barry’s back, holding him tightly against me, and I felt him do the same to me. The guys tried to pry us apart, but they couldn’t break our hold, and when more of them tried to crowd in they just got in each other’s way. Then they picked us both up as a unit, by our legs and our shoulders, and started carrying us somewhere. I could feel Barry’s heart pounding in his chest. They carried us into some other room — I couldn’t see clearly because I had my face pressed against Barry’s neck — and set us down on what felt like linoleum tiles against my bare skin.

The ice water came as a shock. I loosened my grip for a split second but then quickly tightened my arms around Barry again before they could pull us apart. My skin was wet and freezing cold except where it was pressed against Barry’s warm skin. We clung to each other, shivering, as they tried without success to pry our arms off each other. Then they backed off and left us alone, and for a minute I thought this might actually work.

“No! What are you doing? You’ll kill them!” I heard Josh shout. I looked up and saw a plastic garbage bag coming toward our heads. They wrapped our heads together in one bag and twisted the opening around our necks, cutting off most of our air.

“Fuck, what’ll we do now?” Barry muttered, his breath hot against my ear. I had no answer. We kept on stubbornly holding each other as we took turns breathing in the air that the other guy had just exhaled. I felt Barry’s breath growing ragged, along with my own, as our lungs labored to suck out the last of the oxygen. I began to see dark spots swimming before my eyes against the dark green background of light filtering through the plastic. I felt Barry’s grip start to loosen as the strength was sapped from his strong limbs. By the time his head lolled against my shoulder, I barely remembered where we were or what we were trying to do.

The next thing I knew, I was being stretched out on the big dining table, gulping in lungfuls of cool fresh air. I looked past the guys holding me and saw Barry’s limp form being carried up the stairs by Dan and four big guys. Most of the others followed them, but a bunch of them stayed with us, including Tom, still dressed only in his pajama bottoms, his roommate Rick, and three guys who were holding a struggling Josh, who calmed down when he saw I was awake.

“I’ll let you get dressed if you want to, Tom,” Rick said. “On one condition: you have to promise never to try to get me back for today.”

“Forget it, pal. No deal.”

“Okay, then just promise not to do anything to me while I’m asleep.”

“All right. Fair enough.” Tom turned to go upstairs, then turned back. “Wait. What are you gonna do to these guys while I’m away?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt ’em.”

“You guys okay?” Tom asked us.

“Kind of hungry, that’s all,” I said. I knew it wouldn’t do any good to complain that I didn’t like lying on a table in my shorts with hands all over me.

“What about it, Rick? Will you give them something to eat?”

“Sure, Tom. I promise. Go get dressed, buddy.”

As Tom went upstairs, I thought I heard Barry’s voice filtering down through the floor, pleading with his captors. But I must have imagined it. Barry never begs.

“Remember those leftover lasagna noodles Cook left in the fridge last night?” Rick asked someone. “Go find ’em. Wait! Nuke ’em for, oh, ninety seconds.” Man, pasta sounded delicious right now, with or without sauce.

“Afraid of what Tom will do to you if he catches you using ice cold noodles?” another guy asked Rick, poking him in the ribs. Rick flushed.

Cold noodles would have been fine with me. My stomach was growling now that it knew there was going to be food in it soon.

You’d think I would learn. Josh was going to get to eat before I did. And before my stomach was going to have pasta in it, it was going to have pasta on it. I suspected something was up when they stretched me out spread-eagle. I finally figured it out when Rick took a noodle out of the bowl with his fingers.

I’ve had pasta stuffed down my shirt front once before, during a food fight, but that time I was fighting back, grinding some mashed potatoes into the other guy’s face. This felt a little different, being held down on a table by four guys while a fifth laid strips of wide lasagna noodles across my naked chest and belly as carefully as if he were planning to add a layer of sauce and a layer of ricotta on top and stick me in the oven. And it felt even more different having my best friend reluctantly bend over and eat it off of me. Josh took his time at that, carefully cleaning off the little bits that clung starchily to my chest hairs. And if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he deliberately chewed on my nipple before he ran his tongue across it.

Then it was his turn to be held down while noodles were laid across his torso. They made a nice contrast with his tan, almost as good as my white briefs he was dressed in. But I was too hungry to admire the visual appeal for too long, and quickly ate down to the bare skin. His smooth chest was easy to lick clean, but I bit one of his nipples when I got to it, just for revenge, and was rewarded by a groan.

When I looked up, I saw that Tom had returned, fully dressed now in a T-shirt and jeans and sneakers, his blond hair combed. He was watching our latest humiliation with a wry expression of sympathy. When our eyes met, he looked away. He seemed about to say something to Rick when we heard a man screaming upstairs. Tom glanced at the ceiling, then stared at his feet. Many of his fraternity brothers looked almost as uncomfortable.

“See, Tom, I’m being really good to my prisoners,” Rick said. “Not like whatever the hell Dan is doing up there to their friend.”

“Rick... maybe it’s time to let them go.”

“They had their chance, man. They decided to stay with their buddy.”

Tom glanced at the ceiling and bit his lip. “Yeah...”

“Anyway, do you want to be the one to explain to Dan that we let them go when he left me in charge of them?”

“If you were there to back me up, sure.”

“Forget it. But if you want, you can pick the next thing we do to them.”

“Yeah, right. I asked you to feed them, and you fucking turned it into another game.”

“This time you’ll be here to keep me in line.”

“Game...” Tom muttered. “I know! Hang on a second.” He ran over to the side of the stairs and opened a small door that led into a closet, and crawled halfway in to rummage around. “Found it!” his muffled voice said. He returned to us holding up a long box and grinning. It was hand-labeled “FF Supplies.”

“All right!” said one of the guys.

“We haven’t done that for what? Six months?” said another.

“This’ll be good!”

Suddenly Josh tried to make a break for it, but two of the guys surrounding us grabbed his arms. He struggled, wide-eyed. What was he afraid of? What did “FF” stand for?

“I want to do them first!”

“No, we’re gonna set them on each other,” Tom said. He opened up the box and took out the supplies: two feathers. Not ordinary little feathers like the one they’d given Josh to tickle me with the previous night, but huge fluffy ones that had to be at least two feet long. Ostrich feathers, I guess. Nothing else could be that big. I glanced at Josh, who had stopped struggling, although he was breathing hard and sweat was running down his chest. He looked more puzzled than panicked now.

“Those aren’t for outsiders, Tom,” Rick objected.

“Who says?”

“We usually use them for pledges.”

“Bullshit,” said one of guys holding Josh. “We all had a big tournament with them two years ago, at the end of the school year. And guys used to bring their friends over for this all the time.”

“Yeah, and my freshman year I heard there was an organized game against the Delts,” said the guy who’d stripped off my shirt the night before. “That was how I first heard of this fraternity.”

“Well, okay then,” Rick said.

Tom handed me one of the feathers and gave Josh the other one after his fraternity brothers had let go of his arms. Josh no longer seemed interested in running away. All the Tau Beta Delta guys formed a circle around us, as casually and without discussion as football players forming a huddle or basketball players lining up for a free throw. They gripped each other’s forearms, making a solid unbreakable ring.

“The rules are pretty simple,” Tom told us. “You can probably figure it out. Officially we stop after fifteen hits, but in your case I don’t know if we’ll be that merciful.”

The game — I eventually figured out it was called “feather fencing” — was actually a lot of fun. I knew I didn’t stand a chance against Josh, but I think I got as many hits on his unguarded ribs as his did on mine, if anyone was keeping score. They just weren’t as effective. It went on for a long time, but after awhile we were both out of breath and I was doubled over from laughter after a quick series of soft brushes along my sides.

At that point, Rick jumped into the ring, quickly pulling off his T-shirt like someone who’s been watching other guys swimming on a hot day and can’t resist the cool inviting water for one more minute. He grabbed the feather from me and started attacking Josh with it, but he had no more luck than I had. Rick was a little less ticklish than me, it seemed, but Josh slowly wore him down. Pretty soon he was rolling on the floor laughing, and trying to protect himself with his arms. I couldn’t resist grabbing his free arm, even though it was probably against the rules, and Josh stood over him and attacked his undefended ribs and armpit.

Tom then jumped in, also pulling off his T-shirt. They guys still in the ring expanded to arm’s length to give the four of us enough room. I thought Tom was going to punish me for illegal holding, or at least rescue his fallen roommate, but instead he pinned Rick’s other hand and grabbed the feather out of it. Both he and Josh ganged up on his helpless roommate, with me lying beside him and helping to pin him. We all were laughing almost as hard as Rick was. It was a blast! The guys surrounding us seemed to be enjoying it too.

Suddenly we became aware that some of the spectators had stopped laughing and were looking in the direction of the stairway. A few seconds later, Dan pushed apart two of the guys in the ring and glared down at us. Rick opened his eyes to see why we’d stopped tickling him, and whispered “Oh, shit.”

“I’m disappointed in you, Rick,” Dan said. “I thought you could keep them under control.”

I belatedly took my hands off of Rick’s bare shoulder and arm and tried to look like I was under control.

“They are! We just decided—”

“Who’s ’we?’ You and Tom? Where’d you even get the idea that Tom was allowed to get dressed?”

“It was all my fault, Danny,” Tom started to say.

“Stow it. You’ve both lost clothes privileges for a week.”

“’Clothes privileges? What the hell does that mean?” Rick asked.

“It means you guys aren’t allowed to wear anything inside the house,” chuckled one of the guys who’d remembered the precedents for letting outsiders feather fence. “No underwear, no robes, no towels, nothing.”

“What about Monday night when the guys always come around to watch the game?” Rick asked, sounding stunned.

“I guess you’ll have to choose between hiding in your room all night,” Dan said, “— if we let you — or coming down and following the rules.”

“What about meals?” Tom asked.

“What do you think?”

“You can’t treat us like pled—” Rick started to say, but at that moment he and Tom were grabbed by their fraternity brothers and roughly stripped. Not just the ones who had come down with Dan; even the ones that had been standing around enjoying the feather fencing match were helping to forcibly pull their clothes off. They were very efficient about it, like they overpowered and stripped men every day. Of course, the two roommates were already bare to the waist, which made it easier since they could keep their arms pinned. One guy grabbed each of them from behind and wrapped his arms around him. As soon as his pants were around his ankles, he was lifted off the ground while someone tugged his shoes and socks off and pulled his pants completely off, and by that time another guy had taken a hold of his shorts. They had both of the big men naked in thirty seconds flat.

Rick looked a lot less self-confident this time than he had this morning when he’d been waiting in line with a bunch with of other naked guys for a blowjob. Now he and Tom looked very vulnerable, surrounded by dozens of fully clothed men, and they knew it was going to be like that all week. I felt sorry for them. I’d been getting to like them, almost.

“Jim and Andy, your room is closest to the front door. Go up to their room and impound every scrap of clothing they’ve got, to make sure they don’t try to cheat. Dressers, hampers, on the floor — check everywhere. Whenever they need to leave the house, they can ask one of you for some clothes.” He tossed the clothes Tom and Rick and been wearing a minute ago to one of the guys he’d addressed. Someone else passed them the shirts the two men had taken off voluntarily when they’d waded into the fencing match.

“Danny,” Tom pleaded, “I’m sorry about last night. Don’t take it out on Rick.”

“So, anyway,” Dan said, pointedly ignoring Tom, “it looks like we don’t need these guy anymore. We’re all set for entertainment for the next week.” There was general chuckling at that, from everyone who was wearing more than underwear. “You’re free to go,” he told us. “John, go get their clothes.”

“Not without Barry,” I said. “What have you done with him?”

“He’s free to go too,” Dan said with a shrug. He nodded in the direction of the stairway, and I saw that Barry was standing near the foot of the stairs. Somehow I’d been too distracted to even notice when they brought him down. He was still dressed in Josh’s boxer shorts. Or maybe they had just put them back on him, for all I knew.

When I say “standing,” I use the term loosely. He was leaning on the shoulder of one of the bigger Tau Beta Delta guys, grinning broadly and obviously very drunk. Leaning on him so heavily that he was pulling the guy’s shirt askew, revealing curly brown chest hair and a dark nipple. But the guy didn’t seem to care; he was too busy laughing at Barry’s unsteady balance. I found myself laughing too. Partly out of relief that Barry wasn’t visibly damaged by whatever they’d done to him up there, but mostly out of delight at seeing him drunk. Oh, sure, he got drunk almost every weekend — but not anywhere near this drunk. Just enough to lower his inhibitions against pushing weaker guys around. For Barry, that took about half a can of beer, and usually he didn’t even need that. I’d never once seen him drunk enough to need another man to lean on, trying and failing to stand up straight.

“It’s not funny, dude!” Josh told me. “I heard this one fraternity actually killed a guy by making him chug too much.” I’d heard that too. Not at our school, but somewhere else. And they hadn’t even had to hold the guy down and pour the liquor down his throat, the way I suspected they’d done to Barry. I tried to choke back my laughter as best I could, but I still had trouble taking it seriously.

Josh glared at me and went over to Barry and put his hand on his shoulder. “You okay, dude?”

The guy Barry had been leaning on now gave his shoulder a little push, tipping him over so that he collapsed into Josh’s arms. Barry just laughed at this, grabbing Josh by his bare shoulders and trying to right himself. I gave up on trying to not laugh, and stepped up beside Josh to help support him.

“Your clothes are over by the door,” Dan told us. “Now get out of here before we think of something else to make you do.”

We each supported our drunken comrade with one hand under a hairy armpit and the other arm across his naked back, and walked him over to the door leading to freedom. “I love you guys, you know that?” Barry said, his voice slurred. We didn’t bother to reply.

“Hey, cut it out!” I heard Tom say behind us. I glanced back in curiosity. I couldn’t see what had happened, but the two naked men were still surrounded by a dozen of their fraternity brothers. They were in for a hell of a week. We did find our own clothes in one big pile near the door.

“You’ll probably have to help him get dressed,” Dan pointed out unnecessarily. “Unless you want to take him home that way, of course. Your call.”

“Josh, do you want your shorts back?” I asked half seriously, sliding my fingers under the waistband of the boxers that Barry was wearing.

“No, dude,” Josh laughed. “Let’s get dressed and get out of here before they change their minds.” So we set Barry down on the floor while we untangled our clothes from each other. We each found our pants and pulled them on. Even my wallet was there, but I didn’t dare insult them by checking its contents now.

Barry sprawled back and made no attempt to get his own pants on, so we hauled him to his feet and Josh lifted him off the ground from behind while I picked up one leg at a time and got his pants on. Pretty much the reverse of what we’d just seen done to poor Tom and Rick, but it wasn’t as easy as the Tau Beta Delta guys had made it look.

No one stopped us as we put our socks and shoes on our own feet and then Barry’s. As soon as we all had our shirts on, we dragged Barry out the door without buttoning them, afraid to push our luck. But when no one came after us, we tucked them in and buttoned them up before going out around front to the street.

I’ll say that much for Dan. True to his promise that Tau Beta Delta doesn’t brag outside its walls about what it’s done to its enemies — or to its brothers, it seems — he let us walk out of there fully dressed and unescorted, as if nothing had happened. That much, at least, was better than what we were originally going to do to him if he hadn’t escaped from our fraternity. I wonder if he’d have been so generous if he’d known that Barry had planned to make him walk home wearing nothing but beer-soaked underwear.

We got a few curious glances on the street, but as far as anyone could tell, Josh and I were just helping a drunken fraternity brother stagger home from a bar or a party or something. We got some more stares from when we got back to our own fraternity house, of course, since everyone knew perfectly well that Barry was the last guy we would have gone out drinking with, but we refused to explain and no one pressed us. We helped Barry up to his room, and since he looked ready to pass out, we laid him down on the bedspread, and took his shoes and socks off.

“We should probably get some food into him before we let him sleep it off,” Josh said.

“How about that box of whole wheat crackers we’ve got in our room?” I suggested.

“Yeah, that should be perfect. Why don’t you go down and get it.”

When I got back with the crackers, I was startled to find Josh in the process of getting dressed again, pulling his pants up over his own shorts. Barry was asleep under the covers, with the sheet pulled up to his bare shoulders, and his clothes were scattered on the floor. Josh tossed me my briefs, saying, “I don’t know how you stand these, dude. Having fabric touching my balls all the time makes them itch.”

He seemed to expect me to change into them right there in Barry’s room. He waited, with his arms folded across his bare chest, making no move to finish getting dressed. I wondered why he’d needed to take his shirt off to change shorts, but then, Josh has always been very particular about the order in which he gets dressed and undressed. He acts like he’d feel silly wearing a shirt with no pants, even for a few seconds. Or, come to think of it, maybe it’d the other way around; maybe he feels sexy wearing pants and no shirt. Anyway, I followed his lead, and took my own shirt off before removing the rest of my clothes.

Even after all we’d been through together, it felt strange, stripping naked in front of my roommate in someone else’s room, with our customary tormentor naked and unconscious under the covers. I wasn’t sure whether I found it embarrassing, or titillating.

It’s funny, the kinds of stupid little things that used to seem weird to me when they were still new experiences.

One Friday evening a few weeks later, Josh and I were sitting beside each other on my bed, dresed in t-shirts and shorts for the moment, stroking each other’s cocks, when a knock came at our door. “Go away, we’re busy!” I yelled.

The door opened anyway. We jumped and tried to cover ourselves, but it was only Barry. Who else would barge in like that?

“Dude, we told you not to interrupt us when we’re jacking off,” Josh said.

“This is your last warning, buddy,” I added. “Remember what Josh and I said we’d do to you next time? That was no idle threat.”

Barry’s hands reflexively moved to protect his belly, but he said, “Sorry, guys, but I didn’t want you to miss out on the fun.”

“The movie’s not for two hours at least, dude,” Josh said. “Quit bugging us. If you’re that worried about getting tickets, go on without us and we’ll meet you in front of the theater.”

“Fuck the movie,” Barry said cheerfully. “I’ve brought home some much better entertainment. Ought to keep us busy the whole weekend. Come up to my room.”

“When we’re done,” I said firmly.

“You’ll want to see this right away. I promise.”

“Then bring it here,” Josh said wearily. After Barry shut the door, he told me, “I think the poor dude likes to watch us, and won’t admit it. Maybe we should invite him to join us sometime. Hey, I see part of you likes that idea a lot!”

We were just getting back into it when we heard Barry’s footsteps thumping as he struggled back to our room, apparently with a heavy burden. He’d left the door a little ajar, and bumped it open with his shoulder.

He had a guy slung over his shoulder. Josh and I cursed in surprise and hurriedly stuffed our cocks back into our shorts. We took a closer look as Barry carried him to the middle of the room, between our beds. His burden was a man with light brown hair, trussed up, hand and foot. His t-shirt had ridden halfway up his back from the way he was being handled. When Barry dumped him unceremoniously on the floor, I recognized him the second I saw his face. It was Dan, the bastard who’d lured us to Tau Beta Delta a couple of weeks ago and then presided over our humiliation. He was gagged, and he looked gratifyingly terrified.

Josh jumped up and threw his arm around Barry’s neck, pulling his head down and playfully tousling his hair. “You sneaky bastard! How’d you do it, buddy?”

“This is gonna being an interesting weekend,” I said as I knelt down beside Dan’s helpless form and started pulling his shirt up as far as I could, with his arms bound behind his back. “Do we have any ice cream?”

The End