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[Sorry it has taken so long for this chapter, but life has a habit of getting in the way. There is more to come, but it is going to be some time before the next chapter is out]
The Contract Chapter 7 By The Mangler
Ethan finished folding the laundry and put them away. He had completed one full load of laundry for Sam and had the second in the washer, so he set up the third and final load. He looked at the clock and it was approaching 10:30. This would be a long night.
Picking up the wet cloth, he dropped to his knees and returned to scrubbing the floor. He cursed out loud as he went over the area where his two tormentors had walked over his already clean floor. After finishing the floor, he turned to dusting and organizing the rest of the room.
As he finished the organizing, he looked up at the clock and said, "Goddamn it."
The clock showed 12:30, which meant the last load of laundry had probably been sitting in the washer for 30 minutes. He yanked open the door, exited the room, and started to close the door when he remembered his keys. Turning, he picked them up and exited the room, slamming the door.
"Ooh, it looks like we are getting a show," one of his hallmates opined. Others just laughed. Ethan had forgotten to check who was in the hallway, so he was greeted by about four of his friends as they headed toward the elevator.
"Having an exhibitionist fantasy?" one asked.
"Just shut the fuck up," Ethan yelled as he turned and entered the stairway.
"Wow, for someone dressed like a two-bit whore, he seems grumpy." Everyone laughed as they entered the elevator.
Halfway down the stairs, Ethan realized that while he had his keys, he had forgotten to get quarters, so he stormed back up the stairs. He looked out into the hallway and found it empty, so he scurried to his room. Once inside, he took several deep breaths.
"Okay, you need to stay calm and keep it together," He thought. "Or just moon the whole goddamned world," a deeper part of his brain responded.
Shaking his head, he grabbed the quarters, checked the hallway, and found it clear. He headed for the basement. No one was in the basement this time, as most normal college kids were out for the night celebrating. Which is where he should be, but his ego had gotten in the way.
He moved the clothes to the dryer, inserted the quarters, started it, and returned to his room. Again, he met no one. Seeing that his room seemed to be in decent shape, he walked across the hall to Brad and Marc's room. Fortunately, he had a key on his keyring. They had exchanged keys at the beginning of the semester in case anyone locked themselves out. Fat lot of good that had done him tonight.
He opened the door and walked into a major disaster. Prior to leaving for the evening, Brad and Marc had spent some time deliberately trashing their room, knowing it would prolong Ethan's adventure in cleaning it.
"Fuck, fuck, and fuck," Ethan murmured as he stood there examing the disaster in front of him.
Taking a deep breath, he launched himself into organizing the clothes into piles for washing. He had thought he could combine loads for both men to reduce the number of loads he had to do. However, it looked like they had anticipated this maneuver, so they made sure there were enough clothes strewn about that combining them would not be possible.
By the time he finished organizing them, he found that he had managed to combine two loads so that there was only a total of 5 instead of the anticipated six. Checking the clock, he saw that the last load should be done in the dryer. He started to go back to his room to grab the next load to take down with him but was concerned that the guys might come back and catch him, so instead, he went to the laundry room, changed the clothes to the dryer and returned to continue trying to straighten out the mess.
He had made a decent dent in the clutter when he realized it was time to take the next load out of the dryer. Walking down to the basement, he had passed some of his dorm mates who were returning from their nights out. He ignored most of them as they were so blitzed they didn't make much trouble.
After folding the clothes, he gathered them and returned to his room. As the key unlocked the door, he pushed it open only to find that the chain was in place, stopping it from opening.
"What the fuck," he said.
Suddenly, the door closed, he heard the chain being removed, and the door opened. Standing in front of him was a nearly naked Sam.
"Sorry, man," he said unconvincingly. "I just got back and was hopping into bed. It looks like you got a load of laundry to put away. I really should insist that you come back in the morning, but since I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you put them away."
"Nice guy," Ethan began to snark, but seeing Sam's change in facial expression, he changed tactics. "Yes, you are. It will only take me a moment to put these away and get the next load."
Sam laughed and carefully observed Ethan as he put his clothes away.
As he went to grab the next load, Sam intoned, "Just leave those."
"What?" Ethan asked.
"Just leave those. You can finish them in the morning."
"But, I want to..."
"I couldn't care less what you want. Just leave the damn clothes and get the fuck out of here. I want to go to sleep."
"Get out?" Ethan enquired.
"Yes, get out. Remember, you are sleeping in the lounge tonight."
"Come on, Sam, enough is enough," Ethan whined.
"So, Brad was right. You are wussing out on your bet?"
Ethan wanted to scream at and/or hit Sam but instead said, "No, but I am asking for a little consideration."
Sam laughed. "It looks like you are wearing your little consideration, so bye." Sam opened the door and indicated that Ethan should leave.
Ethan stared at Sam before exiting the room. As he did so, he ran into a large group of returning hallmates.
The group was feeling no pain, so they immediately started harassing and cajoling Ethan. Ethan chose just to ignore them as he headed down toward the lounge. Seeing the fading handprint on one of his ass cheeks, one of the group reached out and slapped the cheek.
Ethan turned a sour look on his face, grabbed the miscreant by the neck, and threw him up against the wall.
"Hey, hey, no offense, Ethan," the guy whined as he threw his hands up in surrender.
"KEEP. YOUR. FUCKING. HANDS.TO. YOURSELF.," Ethan hissed in a low grumble.
Another guy who was friendly with Ethan stepped up and placed his hands gently on his shoulder.
"Come on, Ethan. Kyle meant no harm. He was just joking around."
"Well, he shouldn't be."
The guy laughed as he said, "Ethan, if Kyle were dressed the way you are, you would be the first in line to give him a hard time. So lay off."
Ethan released Kyle, looked at his friend, then turned and stalked down to the lounge without saying another word. The group of guys mumbled some insults, but he chose to ignore it.
Entering the lounge, Ethan encountered a group of guys playing Dungeons and Dragons.
"Oohh, a half-naked man ogre storms into the room," the dungeon master states.
The other players looked confused until they turned around and saw Ethan. They laughed but quickly turned their attention back to the game, seeing the look on Ethan's face. Ethan stomped over to a couch and plopped down. He knew he needed to get his temper under control, but it had been a stressful night, and his nerves were getting the better of him. Being nearly naked around other guys wasn't a strange thing to him, and he knew he should ignore it. But doing it voluntarily and doing it because he had to were two different things, and he was surprised at how uncomfortable this was making him.
Deciding he just needed to get some sleep, he turned the couch against the wall so that the back shielded him from the view of others in the room. When he bent over to push the couch back, he received several catcalls and obscene comments, which caused him to blush, but he exhibited supreme control by ignoring them. He then plopped down on the couch out of view of everyone.
He was just beginning to drift off to sleep when he felt a poke on his arm.
"Hey, sleeping beauty, wake up," a voice called from above.
He jerked awake and looked up to see Brad smirking over him as he mumbled, "What?"
"I've joined the game over there, but I need a soda from the vending machine down in the lobby. Go get it for me," he demanded.
His natural response was to tell him to "go to hell." Instead, he just looked at him and sighed as he sat up.
"I don't have any money or cards with me," he replied.
Anticipating this answer, Brad dropped two dollar bills into his lap and replied, "Here, you can repay me in the morning."
Ethan looked at Brad and started to say something, but instead, he got up and headed for the stairs. Fortunately, the hallway and stairwell were empty. Unfortunately, the lobby was rather busy for this time of the morning with all the returning guys, their dates, and visitors.
He made quite the spectacle as he exited the stairway, crossed the lobby, and bought the soda. He tried to ignore the laughter, whistles, and catcalls but was unsuccessful. He turned a deep shade of red, increasing the laughter.
The comment that pissed him off the most, and he wasn't sure why, was "Dammn. If I looked like that, I wouldn't wear clothes either." He just found the comment demeaning.
He climbed the stairs back to his floor, took the soda to the lounge, and handed it to Brad.
"Oh, do you think you could open that for me," Brad inquired. The other players just snickered.
Ethan stared hard at Brad, who simply stared back. Finally, he opened the bottle, handed it to Brad, and returned to his couch and lay down.
"Oh, that looks good. I should go get one," one of the other players said as he rose from his chair.
"But we are at a critical point in the game," the dungeon master intoned.
"You can wait a few minutes."
"No need to interrupt things. Ethan will be happy to go get it for you. Won't you, Ethan?" Brad yelled across the room.
Ethan sat up and shot Brad the "look of death" but replied, "Sure." He climbed over the back of the couch, much to the amusement of the D&Ders, walked over to the table to get the money from the kid and turned to leave. He looked back at the table and said, "Anyone else?" They all responded no.
He repeated his earlier actions, including the verbal assaults in the lobby, and returned with the drink. Out of reflex, he opened it and handed it to the guy, getting gasps and laughs from the other players.
"You know, that does look good after all," the dungeon master stated.
Brad just looked at Ethan and tilted his head.
"Give me the damn money and tell me what you want," Ethan replied. For the next 40 minutes, he went to get each player a drink, one at a time, before he was allowed to return to the couch and go to sleep.
Ethan slowly came to consciousness with someone poking him in the shoulder. He awoke confused and sat up, looking around, trying to figure out where he was and what was happening.
Seeing Sam standing over him with a smirk on his face, the last 15 hours quickly came into view, and he moaned.
"Morning, sleepy head. Time to rise and shine as you've got work to do."
"Fuck you," he murmured.
"What did you say?" Sam demanded.
"I said, I'm up, I'm up."
"Great. Meet me in the room for your next assignment."
"Next assignment? I've got to finish the laundry."
"Of course you do, but I have something else that needs to be done first. So, hop to it and come down to the room." Sam turned and walked out of the lounge.
Ethan crawled over the end of the couch and stretched by placing his hands high over his head and flexing his back. He vaguely heard some cheers before remembering how he was dressed. He looked around and realized his ass was exposed through the window. He quickly turned around and saw several members of the wrestling team, who were on the way to morning practice, pointing, laughing, and throwing kisses at him.
He stepped away from the window and felt a flush move up his face. He moved out of the lounge and down to his room as quickly as possible.
As he walked into the room, he was met by a set of car keys hurling in his direction. He caught them as they hit his chest.
"I borrowed a friend's car for some activities tonight and tomorrow morning. It needs to be detailed before then. You can take it to Yohan's Self Detailing to spiff it up. I want the full package, wash, dry, wax, and full inside cleaning."
"What?"
"You heard me. It is all self-service, so you will need to take some quarters with you."
"I only have enough for laundry," Ethan whined.
"Well, you will be out and about, so you can stop at the bank and get more. Now get dressed and get out of here, 'cause you only got 3 hours to do the job."
Hearing Sam say get dressed was like a punch in the gut. Ethan remembered his "outdoor" attire and looked over at his bed. Laying, there was a pair of light pink running shorts with the liner removed and a lime green T-shirt with "stupid" written across the chest in yellow letters. The shirt had been cut so that it would extend just below the pecs. Sitting next to those items was a pair of glittery flip-flops.
"I can't wear that in public," Ethan complained.
"Sure, you can snowflake. Nowadays, you can wear just about anything or, in your case, almost nothing." Sam laughed at the look on Ethan's face.
Ethan could feel his anger rising, but he knew not to let it get the better of him. He walked over to the clothes, grabbed the shirt, and pulled it on with some difficulty. It was too small for him and fit like a rubber-wet suit. As expected, the shirt ended just below his nips. He next stepped into the running shorts.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sam asked.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm getting into my outdoor attire," Ethan snarked back.
"I don't remember anyone saying anything about a jock strap. Just running shorts, shirts, and flip-flops."
"Wha...Wha.. What? I can't wear just the shorts. They will not hold anything in," Ethan complained. "And without the liner, they will be almost transparent."
"We thought of that, so we made sure they were tight to hold everything in place," Sam laughed. "And I'm sure the public will not mind the view."
Seething, Ethan removed the shorts, ripped off his jockstrap, and pulled the shorts on. With some adjustment, he managed to get everything "tucked" away but realized that he would have to be careful how he walked and thought bending over would be next to impossible. He slipped the flip-flops on and stormed toward the door.
As he did so, he passed a mirror and turned to look at himself. He stopped and just stared at the image until he could no longer suppress his anger.
"FUCK IT and FUCK YOU. There is no way I'm doing this," he shouted at Sam.
Sam actually stepped back, seeing the anger across Ethan's face.
"Wussing out are you? This is what you agreed ...." Sam began.
"NO, This is not what I agreed to. I agreed to let you control my life for the weekend. I did not agree to allow you to humiliate the shit out of me for your fun and pleasure."
"Yeah, you sorta did," Sam snorted.
Ethan took one step forward, pushed Sam against the wall, and stepped closer with his hand on Sam's chest.
"FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU. Your fun is over, and I don't give a fuck about the godamn bet. THIS ends NOW," He screamed.
He was so enraged some spittle escaped his mouth and landed on Sam's chin. He stepped back, stripped naked, and walked over to his closet. He grabbed a pair of jeans, pulled them on, and grabbed a t-shirt, which he flung over his shoulder. He slipped his feet into some sandals, grabbed his car keys, and stormed out of the door, almost running over Brad and Marc in the hallway.
"Where are you..." Brad started but quickly stopped. He saw the rage in Ethan's eyes and decided that shutting up was the better option. He and Marc watched as Ethan exited via the stairway.
Entering the room, Marc said. "Well, I guess he did wuss out. So, I guess this was a failure."
"His failure, not ours," Brad said. "Let's go to breakfast."
Sam looked at the discarded outdoor outfit lying on the floor and sighed. "And we were having so much fun. Of course, now we get to razz him about welching on a bet. And you know how much that is going to irritate him."
"True, very true," Brad laughed. They went to breakfast.
Ethan returned to his room, which was empty, later that day. His "outdoor outfit" lay on his bed. He chuffed as he picked the outfit off the bed and threw it into the trash. He pulled on his economics textbook, dropped down onto the bed, and began to read.
"Well, if it isn't the quitter," Sam stated as he entered the room to see Ethan lying on the bed.
"I'm not a quitter," Ethan snarled.
"Then what the hell do you call it?" Brad said as he and Marc entered behind Sam.
"I call it terminating an agreement when you guys were being totally unreasonable."
"Unreasonable? Are you fucking serious?" Marc asked.
"Yeah, unreasonable. You were going out of your way to humiliate me, not to control my life."
All three guys laughed.
"Justify it any way you want. You couldn't stand the heat, so you sat down. The bet said TOTAL CONTROL and that is what we were doing--totally controlling you."
"No, you were just trying to humiliate me."
Sam looked at Ethan before saying, "Do you have any idea what it's like when you can't control much of your own life? We don't have the privilege of buying anything we want or having Daddy arrange what we can't get. We constantly have to do things that we don't want or like. It's been like that our whole lives. You couldn't do it for 72 hours."
"Yeah, but you weren't humiliated..." Ethan started.
"Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be covered in dirt and mud while your classmates walk by, point, and laugh? I do. Had to work digging ditches to help cover expenses in high school," Brad intoned.
"Or being harassed by the "jocks" about your clothes or your athletic ability? And having friends laugh about it." Marc added.
"You think we were deliberately making your life hard?" Sam asked. "Well, we were. We only had 72 hours to try and drill that into your thick head what it was like, AND you couldn't take it and wussed out. And, NOW, while you lay here reading your," he continued as he reached over and turned Ethan's book so he could see it, "economics text. Meanwhile, we are all off to our wonderful, fulfilling, and glamorous jobs flipping burgers, after which we will have to study."
Sam ushered his two friends out the door before slamming it shut.
Ethan thought about what they said for only a few moments before returning to his studies. Ethan had to suffer the trio razing him at every opportunity and talking about how he wasn't "man enough" to complete his bet. In addition, he had to put up with the smirks and sneers from the dorm mates who had seen him on that fateful Friday night. Fortunately, this only lasted three days before everyone went home for the Christmas holidays.
For all intents and purposes, Ethan ignored those actions and went about his day. But the jibs lodged in his brain, and he did not have fun as he was constantly reminded of the series of events. The thing that gnawed at him the most was that he had failed to uphold his end of the bet, and that rankled against his sense of honor and pride. He also despised the fact that he had let the three smaller guys get to him.
Although he tried to forget, the entire episode was constantly resurfacing in his mind. He stewed over it for the entire Christmas break. Even his friends commented on how distracted he seemed to be. He finally decided on his next course of action.
Ethan deliberately returned to the dorm at the last minute after the break. He walked into his and Sam's room, but it was empty. Stepping out in the hallway, he heard laughter coming from across the hall from Brad and Marc's room. He returned to his room and dug the jockstrap from the weekend from the depths of his closet. He then stripped naked, flinging his clothes everywhere, before donning the jockstrap from `the weekend.'
He stomped across the hall, opened the door, and walked in.
"Ever hear of knocking," Brad asked, looking up.
"What's with the outfit?" Sam asked.
"Not with this bunch," he replied, throwing a three-ring folder onto the nearest bed. "And the outfit is to show you that I can tolerate anything you three mental dickheads can toss my way. I have a proposal for you to prove to you that I am not a wuss and can deal with anything you toss my way. Read it over and let me know what you think."
Without waiting for a reply, he exited the room, slamming the door behind him. His heart was beating almost out of his chest. But the deed had been done. He walked back to his room and began reading the economics chapter for tomorrow. He remained only in his too-small jockstrap.
The first round of negotiations for The Contract had begun.
"Jesus Christ," Sam muttered as he read the document. "This boy must be the one who is mental."
Reading over his shoulder, Brad replied, "It does look that way. But I propose that we get everything we can out of this rich asshole."
"What did you have in mind?" Marc added.
"Let's start with a nice place to live next year," was the reply.
Little did Ethan know that the dickheads were more devious than he thought. But he would learn not to underestimate them.