Page 39 of Thwack!

“He’s scared,” someone halfway down the line called, bringing him back to the present and this particular birthday gauntlet. But he wasn’t scared. He was terrified.

Just look at Bubba, those meaty thighs and giant hands, waiting for him at the end of a long line of temptation. Hayden’s vision blurred around the edges until all he could see was Bubba and the tunnel of masculine flesh separating them.

“Let’s go, little brother,” Bubba called. “You want cake, right?”

Hayden didn’t want cake. He wanted… that.

“Then come and get it,” Bubba said, as if he’d read Hayden’s mind.

Hayden felt himself sink to his knees, the movement slow and controlled. He put his hands on the floor, getting into position, and closed his eyes, unable to watch himself live out such a shameful fantasy in public.

Go fast, he told himself. They’ll expect you to move fast. Because you don’t want this, right? You don’t want this.

He shuffled forward without opening his eyes and blundered straight into the thigh of the man in front of him.

“Down the center, newb.” The guy leaned over to whack him on the ass—the ass he’d covered with nothing except a thin layer of nylon. Fucking Bubba. He’d known. But it was Hayden’s own fault he was only wearing a jock beneath his track pants.

The swat stung so badly he froze, allowing the first guy time to administer a second and third.

Move fast, he reminded himself.

His hands and knees churned with uncoordinated speed as he squeezed between the legs of his brothers, racing to the end. To Bubba. Blows rained down on him, some directly on target, others bouncing off his thighs. Some of the guys delivered token smacks. Others seemed to wind up for it. His journey couldn’t have taken more than a minute but it felt like an eternity of mixed joy and terror.

His head bumped off legs and asses and occasionally a ball sack. He swore he could smell the musk of two dozen men lined up crotch to crotch, so much testosterone so close to his nose. His own cock swung in the jock, which was too small to contain a full erection. He was hard and hurting and blissed out and sure everyone must know, and then he was at the end.

His face ran smack into Bubba’s thighs, which were as hard as iron and no longer splayed wide. Bubba braced one hand on Hayden’s back and used the other to deliver the hardest blow yet, directly to his right ass cheek. Hayden nudged at Bubba’s thighs, trying to part them with his head, to pass through to the end of the gauntlet, but Bubba wasn’t having it and Hayden’s forehead was no match for Bubba’s quads.

Bubba laid down one swat after another, laughing the whole while. He crouched lower, so that now it wasn’t his thighs Hayden was head-butting, but his cock, which was as hard as Hayden’s and too big to ignore.

Hayden tilted his head up, meaning to protest, but that only put his mouth where his forehead had been, and now Bubba was grinding against him as he peppered Hayden’s ass. Hayden took deep inhales of the groin in his face, his mouth watering with want. His ass was on fire, every blow adding to the heat and the need, and tears prickled at his eyes as he relished this too-brief moment.

“Get a room,” someone called.

Everyone laughed, making him realize he was no longer in a gauntlet, no longer in a one-way tunnel he was blocked from exiting by Bubba’s mass. The two of them were now at the center of a circle of sneering gawkers with nothing preventing him from moving left or right or backward.

Bubba separated his thighs, and Hayden passed between them.

“Congrats.” Suddenly Aaron was there, reaching down to give him a hand up, helpful now when it was too late. “You survived your first gauntlet. Don’t mind Bubba. He’s always like that.”

Hayden pressed his lips together to hide the way they were trembling.

“It’s just a game. A sort of tradition.” Aaron squeezed his shoulder. “Maybe we should’ve gotten rid of it with the rest of the hazing. You’re not hurt, are you?”

Hayden shook his head, though his ass throbbed and his balls ached. He tried to discreetly wedge his cock back into the jock, but the motion probably wasn’t all that discreet. Aaron politely ignored it.

“Here.” Bubba thrust a piece of cake at him. “You earned it.” Then he disappeared before Hayden could even say thank you.

The cake was chocolate, like he’d asked for, and tasted better because Bubba had handed it to him. Bought it for him, even, though apparently that was only because Bubba had wanted to spank his ass. Hayden wished Bubba really did want to spank his ass. The two of them alone somewhere with his pants down and Bubba’s huge hand groping him between swats.

He ate cake, trying to smile. Just a game. A lark. A little hazing. It’d been a dream come true but, hey, it wasn’t that serious. At least he was making friends. Everyone wanted to come up and slap him on the back, say happy birthday and tell him he was a good sport. No one seemed to realize what had really happened, and he started to relax. Just a memory for the spank bank. No harm done.

Once the cake had been demolished, the brothers started to fade away, returning to their studying or girlfriends or video games. Hayden moved around the room, throwing away the plates and forks they’d left behind. He smiled to himself as he returned an arm chair to the center of the room from where it’d been pushed aside to make room for the gauntlet. Hopefully the frat wouldn’t nix this tradition and he would get to do it again next year. Shame about Bubba being a senior though.

He gave the room a last once-over, then headed for the door. Time to spank to that memory he’d banked. But he pulled up short when he found Bubba blocking the doorway in much the same way he’d blocked Hayden’s way out of the gauntlet, his wide shoulders filling the doorframe, his thighs braced to prevent Hayden’s exit.

“How’s your ass?”

“It’s fine.” He reached back to check, wincing only slightly at the pain his gentle pat stirred up. “Nothing I won’t survive.”