This story is fiction. Any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental. It's copyrighted 2020 by The Jordan Project, all rights reserved outside of Nifty. The reader comes first, so I welcome feedback. Please take some time to provide it to JordanProject@protonmail.com. What works? What doesn't work?
Style Note: This book-length story starts out a bit slowly. My goal was not simply to write a gay BDSM tale, but to write a story that succeeds as fiction. To that end, I think credibility in plot, scenes, and characters is critical, and that takes words. Lots of them.
Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey is sex, and the rest is the trimmings. Having made more than a few of those feasts, I can say that the turkey is easy: Throw it in the oven at 350, and wait until it's done. The real work is in the trimmings. Without the turkey, it's not a Thanksgiving dinner, but without the trimmings, it's not much of one.
Reader, your patience will be rewarded. You will find plenty of turkey here. I suggest reading all the way through, and then returning to your favorite parts later.
Synopsis: We follow the training of young Billy Stingler, and later Clifton Yarrow, two military school cadets who are made to confront their weakness, and choose lives of service to those stronger than themselves. Enjoy!
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MILITARY SCHOOL TRAINING & MANAGEMENT
When I look back, I see that everything in my life prepared me to know what I know now: That I am not a Man, that I never had a chance of being a Man, and that I will never be a Man. I will serve Men. I am a stump-dicked, cocksuckin', piss-drinkin', fuck-takin', boot-lickin' little boy. That is what I am. That is what I will always be.
I was the second of two boys born to Richard "Mayhem" Stingler, and his doting robot of a wife, Joanne. My fate was sealed before I was born, when my father's genes mixed with my mother's and gave me more of hers. My father never let me forget it, and that is how the direction of my life was determined. Joe, my older brother by three years, was a big one from the start, weighing in at 9 pounds 11 ounces. "You could have heard your mother scream over in the next county," my father would laugh, accompanied by my mother, who worshipped the ground Joe walked on. "But you, Jimmy boy, she barely even noticed."
I was born at 5 pounds, 2 ounces –- the runt of the litter, never to forget it. My brother Joe is a towering giant to me. Always was, always will be. Six foot three of solid, swaggering military manhood, renowned for his exploits. Today, I stand 5 feet, 5 inches tall. Not five-six-and-a-half like I had claimed on my application to the Andrew Jackson Military Academy. "Fifty-fiver," my kindest nickname around here, burns every time I hear it.
Joe was afraid of nothing. Not spiders, not the dark, not other boys, not thunder, not even dad. "I'd whip you into shape," my father would tell him, "but I'd have to kill ya before ya'd even notice." He was a natural athlete, the best football player the high school had ever seen. He was a fullback, and his rushing records led the Bulldogs to three consecutive state championships. I was almost as good a baseball player as Joe was a football player. I played second base, and was called "Greyhound" for my base-stealing abilities. As a varsity wrestler, I would starve myself to make weight, which put me in the 132-pound class. Girls liked Joe, but they liked me too. Other boys mostly kept their distance. They laughed behind my back and hated my guts, but they knew it wasn't safe to mess with my family.
I was raised by the king of wolves, "Mayhem" Stingler. Not that he had much use for me, mind you. Behind closed doors, he made that clear. Just for fun sometimes, he'd pick me up by the ankle, twirl me around and laugh and shout, "Where should I toss this runt? Over the fence? Into the garbage?" Then he'd throw me into the swimming pool in the backyard, clothes and all. But outside of the house, I was not to be touched. One day, my father learned that I had been bullied into handing over my lunch money to some third-grade boys. He was enraged. "Why the hell didn't you fight back?" he demanded, as I cowered and sniffled. "What are you now, a goddamn little girl? I'd rather have you come home a bloody mess!"
But I was never touched again. My father took Joe aside and had a talk with him. I was told to stay home sick for the next two days. When I returned, two of the bullies were covered with bruises and another's arm was in a cast. Each of them apologized for taking my money, and promised to pay it back. Which they did.
"Stand tall!" My father would say. It was Saturday morning, inspection time at the Stingler household. While I stood as tall as my little frame would allow, my father inspected every inch of my room. "Acceptable!" he would conclude, the closest thing to praise I ever heard. Three hours of backbreaking, dull work for an "acceptable." Which I craved with all my little heart.
"Now listen, and listen good," he would say. "When you leave this house, you are a Stingler, and no one crosses you. Ever. You are a leader, so LEAD!"
In my quest to satisfy my father, I became quite the sniveling little prick. Class tattletale. Team captain, not through peer regard but through petty intimidation and behind-the-back maneuvers. Sometimes, I would pick someone even weaker than me and humiliate him in front of my teammates – half of whom would have wanted to kill me if they weren't so afraid of my older brother and my father.
"Mayhem" Stingler just about ran our little town. Not only did everyone know it, but my brother and I were schooled in it. "The police chief, the mayor, and the principal of that school don't so much as take a piss without my permission," my father would boast at the dinner table. By the time I was a high school senior, and my brother had gone onto Jackson Military, I had mastered the unspoken code of our town. No one dared cross me. I remember a history class where we studied Napoleon. The teacher looked straight at me as she talked about the "Napoleon complex" that described short men who were petty, mean, and vindictive to make up for their stature. I remember that day well. I remember curling my lip at her and chuckling. She didn't return the following year.
When did things start turning against me? I mean, yes, maybe when I was born the runt of the litter. But I had managed to deal with that when I was growing up. I became a petty tyrant. I had a girlfriend, and we were invited to parties, and every now and then I'd screw her to keep up appearances. My heart was never into it, but what the hell. I did what I had to do.
There was never any question where I would go to college. My father was a hero in both world wars, and a third-generation graduate of Jackson Military, a venerable institution that fed its graduates straight into the Army. His war record, and his position in the upper ranks, made my admission a no-brainer. Joe had already been there, and like my father, had made his mark in Korea.
Jackson Military Academy was well known to those who had a reason to know, and almost invisible to everyone else. Its lands sprawled for more than 7,000 acres, and were surrounded by several hundred thousand acres of federal land. Its physical isolation was matched by its admissions criteria: To get into Jackson, you needed to be related to or recommended by its alumni, or a handful of career military men who knew of its existence.
Jackson was revered as a breeding ground for heroes and leaders. Established in the Indian-fighting days of the U.S. Cavalry, its graduates populated the upper reaches of the modern army. Unlike other military academies, Jackson hated publicity. By custom, it was not mentioned in news accounts of its graduates, including those who otherwise famous for their military exploits. "We know who were are, and are known to those who need to know," was one of the many codes drilled into cadets.
Top physical fitness was a requirement for admission. Jackson cadets were drawn from the ranks of top high school athletes with military family backgrounds. They were tough when they entered, and much tougher when they left. The rank structure was complicated, and matched by intricate distinctions among uniforms. First-year cadets were Candidates, vulnerable to harassment on sight by second-year, third-year, and fourth-year cadets. An entry class consisted of 170 Candidates, 80 of whom were expected to wash out by the end of the second year. Usually, it was a matter of temperament rather than fitness, and there were no hard feelings upon separation.
Cadets who remained became corporals, wearing sharp, crisply starched khaki uniforms and caps, and high brown boots, which they were expected to keep shined to perfection. Their utility uniforms, used for combat training, were green and also heavily starched, with lower cut black boots, also shined. At the end of the first year, the academy Commandant announced the members of the Discipline Corps, composed of about a dozen cadets selected from the Candidate class from a list of nominees proposed by class members themselves. The new cadet sergeants, freed from petty Candidate rigors, joined the cadets from the two classes ahead of them. This group of young men wore braided shoulder cords, sergeant's stripes, and a distinctive uniform consisting of gray trousers with a black stripe, a gray shirt, black boots, and a gray cap. The Cadet Sergeants comprised the daily backbone of the Corps of Cadets, leading combat platoons and enforcing various rules among cadets.
A third group, selected at the end of the second year by the Commandant from within the ranks of the Discipline Corps, were the so-called Tops. They carried the rank of Cadet Captain, and were an elite within an elite, within an academy that itself was elite. They wore the same uniforms as the sergeants, but with officer's insignia and a gray hat rather than a cap. They were regarded as figures of mystery and menace, both feared and revered, and distant. When I entered Jackson, there were only eight tops, and when I left there were nine.
In some years, there was a further level, Cadet Major, selected by the Commandant from within the Tops. In many years, there would be no Cadet Major. It was regarded as high honor to attend Jackson while it had a Cadet Major, and an honor to merely have been in the same class that had produced one. A Cadet Major was the closest thing to a god we could ever be fortunate enough to meet. His uniform was the same as that of the other Tops, except for the oak leaf cluster that distinguished a major from a captain. The higher the rank, the better the tailoring.
Then there was the other end of the scale, the Trainees. In their own way, they were the most mysterious of all. They were a handful of cadets who had chosen to stay at Jackson rather than leave when invited. They led miserable lives in every dimension. They were expected to remain silent at all times, not to be spoken to and not to speak, even to each other. They wore baggy navy blue pants and loose-fittitng shirts. The ensemble resembled a Cub Scout uniform, right down to the humiliating yellow neckerchief. The uniforms had no rank symbol other than diamond-shaped "T" patches, one on the chest and the other on one shoulder.
Trainees were invisible and isolated within an invisible and isolated institution. Candidates, for example, saluted and stood at attention for everyone. Corporals saluted and stood at attention for everyone above them. Sergeants did the same for Tops. Tops only saluted, and then only for the Commandant. Lower ranks were first to salute, with salutes returned by higher ranks. Trainees saluted no one, but stood at attention if reporting to someone. Otherwise, such as when passing in a hallway, they looked downward. The message: Trainees weren't Cadets, and in fact were barely even human. They even ate their meals separately.
Oddest of all, they were directly supervised by the Tops, sometimes on a two-to-one basis: Two Tops to each terrified Trainee. No one knew why anyone would ever be willing to stay at Jackson as a Trainee. They were seen as desperate, pathetic, and strange, something I would learn in due course.
I made it through Candidate summer just fine. I knew the drill, and they knew my father's name. If I had been paying a little more attention, though, I'd have seen the warning signs. There was Zack "Rack" Thompson, a powerfully built Cadet Sergeant. Rack took an instant hatred to me. It was as if he saw right through my act. "I don't like the way you run your platoon," he said to me one day. "If you were anyone else, you wouldn't even have a platoon to run. You are what we call a squirrel, and I am what you call a squirrel hunter!"
"Sir, the Candidate does the best he can, sir!" I said. "He will strive to uphold ..."
"Cut that shit," he interrupted. "All I can tell you is you'd better fuckin' watch your back."
But that was the end of it. Didn't hear any more, so I soon forgot about it.
There were glances every now and again. Deke Windom, a lean, square-jawed Candidate from Pennsylvania, would catch my eye and smirk. He'd eyeball one of his buddies, Randy "Bake" Baker, and together they'd glance up and down at all five-foot-five of me and chuckle, and make sure I noticed it. Every so often a Candidate would edge slightly away from me when I sat down next to him at mealtime, in a way that insured that everyone at the table saw. Grins would be exchanged.
In the second half of Candidate year, even though I wasn't selected for Discipline Corps, things loosened up ever so slightly. I was starting to look around and see the males. Tough, angular, muscular specimens in their khaki or gray uniforms, shining brass buckles, and starched shirts lined up precisely with the fly of the trousers. I struggled to put out of mind what I was starting to feel. Often, the ones who liked me the least attracted me the most. In a hallway one day, "Bake" came up close. He smiled and extended his middle finger toward my lips. "I bet you'd like to know where I can put this, don't ya?" he whispered. My heart jumped. "Fuck off before I get you put on report," I snarled. "You know I can do it, too."
So when did things start really sliding downhill? I'd say it was when I thought I would expose Tommy Richards as a homosexual. Yeah, now that I think about it, that was the trigger
On the outside, Jackson's buildings looked every bit like a traditional military academy: old, semi-gothic, sandstone, surrounded by meticulously maintained lawns and parade grounds. Inside, cadets and Candidates were grouped into pods of two sleeping rooms joined by a common area, including a shower and study facilities. Each sleeping room could accommodate three cadets, but in practice one room would house three and the other two. This was to allow for majority voting on small issues, we were told. Five cadets to a pod.
Cadet Sergeant Tommy Richards wasn't just a podmate, but he was also a classmate all the way back to grade school. He had been a rival who I had ruthlessly shoved aside in my zeal to become captain of the baseball team. One day in high school, I had gotten a fleeting glimpse of him and another player grabbing each others' erections. I told the coach, and that was the end of Tommy's campaign to become team captain. Tommy was handsome, tall, and muscular. He stood 6-2 and weighed a lean 190 pounds or so, with a torso resembling an exaggerated "V" rising from compact, muscular hips. I resented him for the size of his dick. It was at almost six inches soft, and it looked to be half the size of a baseball bat the one time I saw it stiff. Mine was barely two inches limp, and no more than four inches hard, a shameful secret I tried hard to never let anyone see.
The other podmates were Gary Hilt, a wiry kid from Indiana; Ritchie Ortan, a big, round-faced guy from Pennsylvania; and Cadet Sergeant Hank "Big Dog" Tinley, the finest specimen of manhood I had ever encountered. He mesmerized me the first time I laid eyes on him. The academy was fond of nicknames, and Hank was "Big Dog" for a reason: He was as tall as my brother, 6 foot 3, and must have weighed 225 pounds. He jaw was square, he had a voice that could be booming at one minute and velvet the next, and he had a dark complexion with placid brown eyes that cast a stare into eternity. His uniforms needed to be specially tailored; the gray pants he had been issued when he was promoted to Sergeant fit like gloves, and I took careful notice that his dick hung on the right, just like Tommy's did.
Tommy never knew that I had sabotaged him in high school, so he thought I was his friend. I might have lusted after Big Dog without realizing it, but he and Tommy had an instant, easy, masculine rapport. They would trade jokes into the night after "lights out," some of them private. I felt excluded, and my jealousy grew. One day, when Tommy was off on drill with his platoon, I was in the pod with Big Dog, attempting to make conversation. "You and Tommy seem to be pretty good buds, sarge," I said nonchalantly, as Big Dog smiled and replied, "Yeah, he's good people."
"Well you'd better be careful, sarge," I said. "You know we're from the same school, and he was on the baseball team with me," I continued. "Tommy's a great guy, but he was a little light in the spikes if you catch my drift."
"What the fuck you mean?" Big Dog said, glaring.
"He was messing around with one of the other players," I said. "I never said anything to anyone of course. I'd never ruin his life over it or anything, but I think he's a little on the, well, you-know-what side," I said, holding my hand out level and wiggling it from side to side like an airplane being rocked in a strong wind.
"You're tellin' me Tommy's some kinda queer?" Big Dog asked.
"Well, yeah, I'm sure of it," I said. "Saw it with my own eyes in fact. He was grabbing the other guy's dick, and vice-versa."
"I'll be goddamned," Big Dog said softly, his eyes wide. "I'll be goddamned."
"He never tried anything on me," I added. "Maybe it was just a passing thing, but I don't think so. I think he and the other guy were doing it regular."
Big Dog burst out laughing.
"No shit, Sherlock," he shouted, his laughter growing. "Are you fuckin' kiddin'? You can barely even find your pecker with a magnifying glass. If some guy was gonna suck dick, it sure as fuck wouldn't be yours!"
It was the first time anyone had ever mentioned my tiny dick. Looking back, I wonder if people talked about it in high school. If they did, it never got back to me. Here at Jackson, showers were in pods, although there were also some gang showers for athletics and military drills. But no one had ever said a thing. People joked about other people's dicks if they were big, but never my little one.
I could barely speak. "What?"
"Oh hell, Jimmy boy, we've all been wondering what raccoons you fuck," Big Dog laughed. "Tell me, can you open doors with that thing? Will it fit in the keyhole, brother?"
"You mean everybody ..."
"Yup, you're known far and wide in our class for havin' the smallest little pecker anyone's seen since the fourth grade," Big Dog said with a laugh. "We've all been hopin' for your sake that it's much bigger when it's hard, 'cause otherwise you've got what we call a manhood issue down there."
I stammered, "Well fuck yeah it gets a lot bigger when it's hard."
"I sure as fuck hope so for your sake," Big Dog repeated. "So Tommy's a queer you say. That's funny, he's never given me any reason to think he wants to chow down on what I got."
With that he grabbed the crotch of his tight uniform pants and pressed them around his dick. Involuntarily, I stared as he let it get slightly hard and tightened a muscle that made it bulge against the crisp gray fabric.
"If anything, Jimmy, I'd have guessed that you'd be the one to wanna do that around here," said, his voice turning soft and sympathetic. "You know, not havin' much there and all. You must wonder what it's like to have a man's equipment and all."
I found myself wanting to pour out my pain and humiliation, and struggled not to.
"I guess I got shortchanged a little bit," I said, mournfully. "My brother's about your size and has a big dick like yours. When I was a little kid I was pretty interested in it. But I'm not queer for it or nothin', just have always been curious."
"Yeah, but you're tellin' me that Tommy's a queer and I should stay away from him," Big Dog said, his voice growing suddenly hard. "Jimmy boy, I been watching some of the little games you've been playin' to make yourself into some sort of power around here. You'd better watch yourself and that little stump dick of yours, 'cause you're in a Man's world now."
"Uh ... uh ... I was just tryin' to let you know!" I protested. "I wasn't tryin' to mess up Tommy. He's a good friend! I just figured you'd want to know, just in case."
"Just in case what?" Big Dog shot back, staring holes through me. "Just in case fuckin' what, little boy? Just in case what?"
I was in full panic, my mind racing. The plan that I didn't really even know I had was in tatters. Here I was, the object I worshipped (without really knowing it) tearing my defenses apart. My stomach was in knots, my mouth dry.
"I ... I ... let's forget about this," I stammered, tears welling up. "I didn't mean any of it. Please, Big Dog, I didn't mean it!"
"I wonder what Tommy will have to say about that," he said.
"You're not going to tell him!" I said, noticing how girlish my whine must have sounded. "Pleeeeeeaaaaase don't say anything!"
"Maybe I will and maybe I won't," Big Dog replied, with a smile. "Anyway, look, little worm, I got a platoon roll call in 20 minutes. Gotta roll."
With that, he moved toward the door of the pod.
"Oh," he said, looking back over his shoulder with a grin. "Better change those trou. Looks like you pissed in the ones you got on. And why don't you shine up my spare pair of boots, too."
I didn't shine those boots, and Big Dog said nothing about it. In fact, things seemed to go much better. Big Dog and Tommy included me in their circle, and some other cadets started palling around with me. I had no idea that I was slowly being surrounded by a big, powerful python. It started slow. Inspections, until now a breeze, started to get tougher. Little things. A loose thread, a missed stain, slightly incorrect marching form. At a military academy, there is no end to infractions that can be manufactured if need be. Most of the time, I was the target, although the others in the pod were also written up. The nature of many punishments made them collective, so others in the pod were paying for my mistakes.
Within a few weeks, tension began building. I think Gary Hilt was the first to say it. "You're a jinx. Stingler jinx," he said one day, as he polished a belt buckle. He laughed as he said it, but there was an edge. Ortan complained later, and soon the two barely acknowledged my presence. Oddly enough, Tommy and Big Dog didn't hassle me.
"Don't worry it," Tommy said one day. "I'm sure this is just a passin' shitstorm."
"Yeah, I don't think it'll be any big deal," Big Dog added. "It's just some shit they decided to throw our way."
The real problem arrived soon enough. Until one Tuesday, all of my infractions, and the others, had been either been debatable or minor. They were irritating, especially to Ortan and Hilt, but it was possible to argue that it was all random, like a passing cloud.
Then, the towel. A towel. I was undone by a goddamn towel! Morning showers are required, but Candidates and second classmen didn't get enough time to do it. So you basically sprinkle some water on yourself, dry off, and make sure to throw the towel into a hamper. For a reason that only God knows, leaving a towel in a shower stall was a five-alarm offense, something made abundantly clear to all of us. It was one of those stupid military academy rules, the idea being that in real war there would be rules that could save your life so you'd better get your head around the idea of rules that can never be broken. Pods would have "towel call" in the morning to be sure that the towels were disposed of. We did it too. We joked among ourselves about "towel patrol," but we made damn sure we did it. Duty rotated, and on that Tuesday it fell to me.
"Towel patrol!" Ortan called out. "Got it, Stingler?"
"Got it!" I replied. And then I failed to check. I will never know why, but I didn't check.
"Well, well, well, look at what we have here," the third classman called out from the shower area. "A towel. Pod 43 left a towel."
We were lined up outside the door for inspection. I could hear the other podmates growling under their breaths. "What the fuck did you do now," Hilt whispered.
The second classman came to the door and called out.
"Towel in Pod 43!"
Three other third classmen, crisp and starched, double-timed up the hall and into the room. The head of the pack, a fiercely handsome, razor-jawed, burly blond Top with a flattop crew cut named "Wolf" Henderson, took the lead.
"Strip!" he barked. "Now!"
In what seemed like a nanosecond, the five of us were naked.
"Right face! Double-time, harch!"
We double-timed down the hall, down three flights of stairs, outside and onto the parade ground. It was February, for chrissakes! We shivered in front of the Commandant.
"Well, fellas, you knew the rules. All of you, no liberty for a month. Punishment drill, three hours after dinner, for a month. That is all."
The third classmen were grinning.
"About face! Double-time, harch!" the blond Wolf shouted. We ran back into the building to our pod and lined up where our uniforms lay.
"Well look at you," the Wolf said to us, as he stroked the riot baton he carried on inspections for its intimidating effect. "Pathetic fuckups, all of you. Now why don't you tell me which pathetic fuckup did it?"
No one said a thing. The biggest rule of all was to never rat on your comrades, no matter what. The flip side was that if you messed up, it was your job to own up to it by stepping forward.
"Tell me, fuckups. Whoever did this is liable to get tossed out on his ass, and if you don't tell us who did it we will assume that each one of you did it."
No one said a thing. I remained silent. They won't expel five cadets, I thought. But if I speak up, they will expel me and my father will kill me.
"All of you will be dishonored."
Silence.
"Okay, have it your way. One towel, five fuck ups. Hope you're happy. Now put your uniforms back on and go to class."
Then the Wolf twisted the knife. He looked at me and spoke.
"You keep standing while the Men get dressed, stump dick."
I stood there as the others donned their uniforms. Soon I was the only naked one in the hallway. He put his face so close to mine that felt his lips brush against my ear.
"Tell me stump dick, your dick is smaller than my 10-year-old cousin's," he whispered, seductively. "What's a 10 year old boy doing in my academy, anyway?"
I turned bright crimson, but said nothing.
"Answer me, little one," he whispered, as he used his baton to jostle my shriveled member. He whispered more loudly now, loud enough for everyone to hear: "Tell me what a little boy is doing in my academy. Is the little boy trolling for some big dicked soldier Men to show him what bein' a Man is all about? Tell me, little boy."
"N-n-no sir," I stammered.
"Then what is the stump dicked little boy doing here?" he asked, smiling. "Does he dream at night hoping his pod mates will fuck his smart-ass little mouth six ways from Sunday?"
The baton jostled me again. I felt his hot breath against my cold skin and saw his handsome face close to mine.
"Is that a little stump I see sticking out?" the Wolf asked, continuing to jostle my small but hardening member, while casting a mocking grin into my eyes. "Just look at you. Your little boy dick is getting stiff at the thought of being manhandled by the Men around here."
He motioned the others to come closer.
"Look at the little boy," the blond Wolf said. "I bet he's the fuckup of your pod, too. Little boys always are. He can hardly wait for all of you. Look at how little his dick is even when it's hard. Little boy's so turned on he can hardly stand it."
It was true. My 4 inches was ramrod stiff, pointing up at a 45-degree angle. The Wolf turned to the others, and smiled
"You'll be walking punishment for a month, confined to this pod for a month, all because of this little boy can't keep his mind off your stiff peckers," he said.
My brain whirled.
"I – I – I'm not a queer!" I cried. "This is disgusting! Stop it!"
With that, my hard on softened, and the color began returning to my face.
"Better get your clothes on, don't you think, little queer?" the Wolf asked, calmly. I grabbed my clothes and put them on, humiliated beyond measure.
Two nights later, my pod mates got their revenge. Sometime after midnight, I woke up with a start. I was wrapped in a thick blanket while blows rained down on me. Fists and boots slammed and kicked me.
"I have fuckin' had it with you," I heard Hilt growl. "You little fuckup, not only did you get us onto punishment and restriction, but you're a little coward who wouldn't even own up to it when they asked."
"Yeah," I heard Ortan add. "Ya little shithead, it's a fuckin' good thing I'm not queer like you 'cause my dick's as big as a telephone pole."
With that, he began kicking me hard. Hilt joined in. It dawned on me that I was being beaten by only two of my four podmates. Not that it felt any better. I was in excruciating pain. Finally, after a half hour of pummeling, they let up.
"Keep fuckin' up and this will be the least of your troubles," Ortan growled. "Now get back to bed."
They had taken me out of my usual room with Big Dog and Tommy. I felt my way back in the dark, whimpering. When I got back and eased myself into my bed, I heard Big Dog's voice in the dark, soft but firm.
"Don't you think it's about time you starting shining my boots?"
I still ignored the command, and once again Big Dog said nothing about it. The next few inspections were uneventful, but Big Dog and Tommy were harder edged. They complained about the punishment drills and room restrictions – to each other, while ignoring anything I said. In the confined quarters of the pod, I noticed that I was being jostled.
"Stay the fuck out of my way," Big Dog growled as he bumped me hard, sending me careening into a wall. "Watch where you're going, little one."
The other four took over towel patrol. When I offered to resume, they refused.
"You've got to be fuckin' kiddin' me," Big Dog said. "Who the fuck would ever trust you again?"
Tommy and Big Dog started to mock me.
"Hey Tommy, maybe Jimmy don't need a towel. With that stump a-his, don't you think a washcloth would do?" Big Dog said.
"Wash cloth," Tommy laughed. "More like postage stamp!"
My own tension rose, and so did my anger. Yes, I had fucked up with the towel, but I had apologized profusely. The two pod mates had no right to beat me, and the jostling and mockery from the other two was wearing on my nerves. Finally, one day I snapped. I was on punishment march with the other four, in full dress uniform, after dark. The first rains of March were falling. As we performed an intricate maneuver known as a cross-hatch, Big Dog tripped me and Tommy pushed me. I flew through the air, and landed face first in mud. Enraged, I struggled to get up.
"Not so fast, stump dick," I heard Big Dog say, his boot planted firmly on my back, holding me down. Turning to Ortan and Hilt, he told them to continue marching, but farther away.
"You had your business with him, now we got ours," Big Dog said, as the other two marched away.
I heard water splashing near me. Some landed on my cheek. It was warm.
"That's right, Tommy, take a good long piss," Big Dog said. "This one's got it comin'. Had it comin' a long time."
A second stream on the other side. Warmth on the back of my head. Then another boot on the back of my head, forcing my face into the puddle of rainwater mixed with piss.
"That's right, little one," Big Dog said. "Open your mouth and drink it."
I struggled against the boots. Filthy liquid entered my mouth.
"Queer little pisshead," Big Dog said, his voice full of disgust.
The pressure on my back and head lessened. They were letting me struggle free. I jumped up, filthy and seething.
"You will regret the day you ever did this," I squealed. "I have taken as much as I will take. You seem to forget who my father is."
Tommy laughed at me.
"Is this the same father who called you a runt in front of my face and said you embarrassed the family name?" Tommy said. "Is this the father who once told me that he wished he could swap you out for a real son? That father, Jimmy?"
Anger and humiliation welled up inside, and burst forth.
"I am going to go to the Commandant, and I swear you will be out of here by the weekend," I said through muddy teeth, the taste of piss lingering on my tongue. "Just wait!"