All I wanted was to be told what to do.

When a group of frat boys in the foyer of Sigma Pi Tau whistled Hunter over like they were catcalling him, he hoped with a hard dick that they’d ask him to do something for them. But, like every other SPIT sophomore setting up for tonight’s frat party, they wanted the alum‘s advice again. And Hunter, who’d graduated out in May of that year, was the only man older than a sophomore in the entire house at the moment.

All four frat boys stood shirtless in the hall, awkwardly holding a long banner over their crotches. It hid little, considering that all four of their dicks were pressing into the fabric from behind at varying levels of hardness. Theirs were not the only crude outlines of dicks on the banner, but it was also ornately painted and held the words “SPIT SWAPPER” and the current year.

“We can’t find the ladders,” said one of the two frat boys, wearing body paint as ornate as the banner. The body paint was the signature of full Spittle, while the two pledges were covered in sexual innuendo, crude cartoons, and degrading nicknames drawn in Sharpie—just like Hunter^[2]. It was a message all over Hunter’s body screaming ‘wreck me!’ But instead of answer the call, the frat boy asked respectfully, “How do we raise the banner?”

Another problem to solve—and neither Spittle had the balls to ask him to suck on them while he gave his answer. Hunter had the answer already, after years of organising events and volunteer work for the frat, but this wasn’t what he came for. He had enough of that back home. He wanted to be outside with the juniors and seniors for the alumni barbecue, enjoying his old life as a hungry frat bottom. But he couldn’t, because Caspian was there. Fucking Caspian. He’d never forgive himself if he got back on his ex’s dick.

“Carry each other on your shoulders,” he said, his voice a drone. “The attachment can be done with two hands if you’re steady.”

The sophomores’ eyes lit up, and they dropped the banner, turning to the pledges with wicked grins and swinging, hardening dicks. “New task, Saliva,” said the same sophomore as before. “Carry us on your shoulders. If you drop us, you face the consequences,” he growled, gripping his thick dick and slapping it into his palm.

“And we’re gonna grind into your heads the whole time,” said the other. So much for ‘steady’.

Hunter helped them get the banner in their hands anyway as the sophomores stacked precariously on top of their chosen pledges, and with their muscular thighs wrapped around the freshmen’s heads, the frat boys rocked their hips, erect cocks dribbling into their mounts’ hair.

The pledges were looking awfully wobbly.

Hunter roamed back and forth between the two sides of the dangerous manoeuvre, appraising the work but doing nothing to steady the freshmen. If they failed, he wasn’t going to save them from a well-earned punishment. As he supervised, his thoughts flew to the backyard again, where Caspian’s presence taunted him, the bruiser whose bed he’d slept in practically every night, who had betrayed him at the end. He wanted to believe he could just ignore the Irishman, but—

Oh, shit, one of the freshmen was buckling. He rushed forward, but he didn’t steady the pledge. Instead, he waited with arms out and caught the falling sophomore in his toned, tattooed arms.

The twunk draped back-first over Hunter’s corded forearms was naked in name only, covered in body paint like most Spittle. His pecs were an ominous mass of grey storm clouds, hints of lightning boiling around his nipples before striking down through the inky black surface of his abs.

“Hey, Hunter,” said the frat boy, with a devilish smirk. “You should suck my dick.”

Finally.

He was being offered a chance to slut out, to be a good frat bottom. But he could read the paint for the warning it was. Hunter’s eyes followed the thickest bolt of lightning to the base of the sophomore’s cock, where it split violently, webbing the huge, throbbing spire with jagged streaks that reached all the way to his tip. This frat boy’s loads were dangerous. Maybe Hunter didn’t want to follow just any order.

Hunter set the frat boy down and gave him a disapproving frown. “If you want to shock someone catatonic, you’ve got a pledge to punish right there,” he said, nodding his head toward the freshman, who had picked himself up from the floor and was staring at them, nervous and clearly horny. “I have to deal with the rest of you nipping at my heels.” He looked up to see that the frat boy had, in fact, attached the banner before he fell, despite his fooling around.

“It’s alright,” said the frat boy, presenting Hunter with two of his fingers. Those fingers said, ‘You know your place,’ and suddenly Hunter felt three other pairs of eyes waiting for him to accept it. He physically recoiled. They stared at each other, both shocked at what Hunter had done, but before the frat boy could comment Hunter recovered himself and dutifully sucked the offered fingers into his lips, humming pleasantly as he calmed his racing heart.

The frat boy hesitated, then fishhooked him, pulling at his cheek. “I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to shock this pretty mouth later.”

Hunter cocked his head and tried to read the frat boy’s smile. “Whaddyou mnn, later?” he asked, his voice muffled.

“Y’know, at the party,” the frat boy explained, wryly. “Some of us sophomores didn’t get enough of your dicksucking lips before you left last year, and we’re gonna make up for lost time tonight. Give you a real SPIT blowbang.” He pulled out his fingers and gave Hunter a light smack across the cheek.

The smack hit harder than expected. It was disrespectful, not that he would have thought it a year ago. It made Hunter feel like a slut. But that’s what he came here for, right? His face burned with shame.

He sucked it up. Things are different here, he reminded himself, smiling through the embarrassment. He was a coveted slut. So why did he feel like a dime a dozen? “I do my best work with one stud at a time,” he said, no matter how hot it would be to sit surrounded by dicks he had to throat. “If you earn it, I’ll suck the soul right out of you.” He drifted backward toward the front door of the foyer.

“Oh, we’ll earn it,” said the frat boy, with a grin, then turned to the pledge who’d fallen. “Alright, Saliva, you’re gonna have to pay for dropping me. See the lightning on this dick?” His tone grew wicked. “You’re about to find out how it feels when I nut inside.”

The smack still echoed in Hunter’s cheek as he turned away from the frat boys. Another pledge was fidgeting and waiting for him at the front door. This time, he was grateful for the imposition—it would be a good distraction, if nothing else.

“Rex has a question about the obstacle course,” said the freshman, politely, as they stepped out into the warm, sunny afternoon. Hunter’s eyes were immediately drawn to the round, portable pool set up on one side of the lawn.

A figure in the pool, dark-skinned with faint blue undertones, lounged with his arms crossed on the basin’s edge, and his eyes had just lighted on Hunter. Hunter and the familiar naiad stared at each other until the naiad cracked a predatory grin. Two more naiads emerged, each on one side of the first, watching him with subtle smiles, and then they all turned around and disappeared below the surface.

Hunter suppressed a shudder and let the frat boy take him to the obstacle course, which took up the other half of the broad front lawn. Surrounded by three-tiered bleachers, the course was one of the main events of the party, and SPIT had taken great care of the obstacles over the years, painting and upgrading them with both tech and magic. It celebrated male athleticism, putting naked bodies through their paces and showing them off to the crowd. It was looking good as new.

When Hunter reached the course and stepped through a gap in the bleachers, he felt the ghostly imprint of a hand settle onto his ass, and with it a momentary thrill of pleasure. The hand squeezed tighter, sinking past the surface of his skin into another body, a spiritual body that had lingered in his subconscious. The phantom hand drew his spirit to the surface, kneading it deeply until jolts of bliss rippled through his asscheek.

Rex, the blond frat boy in front of him, had a rugby body, with soft but bulky musculature and broad shoulders^[3]. Subtle black eyeliner ringed his eyes and extended to the left and right of his face like Egyptian kohl. The eyeliner was the telltale giveaway for a SPIT frat boy trying to see spirits without fully immersing himself in the spirit world. It also enabled Spittle to exercise their authority over the house spirits. They were amalgamations of SPIT and its sexual will, often the imprints of Spittle who’d been deeply influential to the frat.

Rex seemed to be looking through Hunter at the ghost behind him. Rex must have ordered it to do this. That was bolder than most of the sophomores, but it felt good, so Hunter took it as a gift and surged ahead anyway. “What’s on your mind, Rex?”

“Me and the boys,” Rex began, with a Jersey accent, “we was setting up the course, and one of these spirits came and knocked my guy Doll right off the monkey bars. Got me thinking, boss. What if we sicced ’em on the players?”

Oh, Hunter liked ‘boss’. But then a second hand landed on Hunter’s other asscheek, kneading deeply and forcing out an embarrassing moan. Rex smirked, and Hunter felt suddenly like a plaything.

Hunter recovered himself with a huff and then put back on a suave smile. This was just how it worked, even when he’d been senior event planner last year. He didn’t mind it when he was Spittle. He’d been listened to and obeyed, even as he was reminded again and again that he was still a frat bottom.

Rex wanted his approval, or he wouldn’t be asking. Hunter clung to that for authority and said, “Tell me why you shouldn’t.”

Rex frowned awkwardly, like he’d wanted something more positive. Hunter just cocked his head expectantly until Rex came up with an answer. “Ain’t what we did last time, boss.”

Hunter was really getting into ‘boss’ now. Emboldened, he stepped forward into Rex’s personal space, but Rex retaliated quickly: an ethereal hardness pressed between Hunter’s cheeks, sliding back and forth across his spirit, searching for a point of entry. This was becoming worrisome. Groping was one thing, but spiritual penetration could be dangerous if Rex didn’t control it. Hunter exercised his will, rejecting the spirit’s advances. “That’s not an answer to my question,” he said, sing-song, as he squeezed the frat boy’s low-hanging dick. “Give me a real reason.”

“Guess it’ll annoy the players,” Rex teased, nodding to the spirit. The pressure on Hunter’s spirit multiplied, promising blissful relief if he just gave in. Hunter gave Rex a frustrated look, fighting off the intrusion with his will despite how good he knew it would feel. Rex still smirked, like Hunter’s resistance meant nothing to him.

Hunter decided that fighting it wasn’t going to win him any points with this frat boy. He tried to see it positively: like every frat stud, Rex wanted Hunter to feel good. He squeezed Rex’s dick real tight to show his annoyance—and then, trusting Rex to stop the fuck before it was too late, he relaxed his will to let the spirit in. He gave a deep, shuddering sigh as its dick parted his other body, putting erotic pressure on his dense soulstuff as it sunk to the hilt, deep in his core.

Rex gave a satisfied grin that ate at Hunter’s pride, but at least he got back to the subject at hand. “The course is kinda meant to test your athletics,” he mused. “Prolly gonna feel unfair.”

“Must it be—fuck,” Hunter gasped, as the spirit thrust for the first time, pleasure blossoming from his hole to his navel. But he’d given enough orders while bottoming that he could handle this. “Must it be fair?” he asked, mustering up his confidence.

Rex’s eyes lit up. “Fuck no it don’t. Frat parties don’t do fair.” He rubbed his hands eagerly, and the spirit started thrusting faster. Each thrust steamrolled Hunter’s soulstuff, gradually, blissfully deforming it into a perfect fit for the spirit’s dick—not just deforming, but crushing. This fuck would already have consequences; the hole would linger in his gut like a metal dildo, making it difficult to bend or twist without jerking in pleasure. But things could get much worse.

“And yet,” Hunter continued, urgently, “we’re still fair, most of the—hnnng—most of the time. Players are expecting fairness.” A ragged groan. The spirit was properly jack-hammering now, making Hunter jolt in place, and he grasped Rex’s shoulder to steady himself. “How much do you want to take that away?”

“Depends on the slut,” Rex said, with a mean grin. He word fell out of his mouth so easily, but it damned Hunter all the same. Hunter knew he should ask Rex to call off the spirit, but suddenly, he wasn’t sure the cocky stud would listen. “But, you’re right, I guess. Maybe just a little? Just enough to throw ‘em off, put the fear of fuckin’ SPIT in them?”

“Try it!” Hunter said, his voice strained by the violent thrusts. Trying to straighten up like this was difficult; his muscles wouldn’t respond to him properly, and even his diaphragm shuddered, shortening his breaths. Fuck, why did he let this happen? If this thing came, it’d wreck his spirit, lay him out, and he wouldn’t be able to move without jolting from pleasure. He’d be helpless. “Change is good—but—you need to be smart about it. But the decision—is yours.”

Hunter was gripping Rex’s shoulder and dick for dear life, shaking as the spirit pounded him out, as its dick pulsed thicker and thicker, preparing to unleash blissful hell on Hunter’s guts. “Now get this thing out of me,” Hunter urged, eyes wide.

Rex just crossed his arms, putting on a domineering grin. “Hold on, hold on, frat bottom,” he spat. So much for ‘boss’. “I’m just puttin’ the fear of SPIT in you too.”

“I’m an—alum!” Hunter cried. “Rex—”

“Boss,” Rex urged. “Show me how a frat bottom begs.”

This is what I wanted, he told himself, frantically. So why did it sting so bad? He hesitated for a precious moment, and then the words spilled out—”Boss, please don’t let it cum inside!”

He was seconds away from disaster. Rex just stood there, looking into Hunter’s pleading eyes, and then he gestured. The spirit instantly sagged inside him and pulled out—just in time. Hunter tried to straighten back up, but the cored out hole in his other body didn’t want to move. He forced his way through it, straightening up with a broken moan, wobbling and almost falling to his knees, but Rex helped steady him.

“They said you had fire,” Rex said, appraisingly. Hunter looked away, and Rex nodded in satisfaction. “Come back later and let me fill the hole he left, slut.” He patted Hunter firmly on the cheek. “And open the fuck up.”

Hunter opened his mouth without protest and stuck out his tongue. Rex spat messily all over it, and Hunter pulled it in, swished, swallowed.

Rex waited with a shit-eating grin.

“Thanks, boss,” Hunter said, his voice trembling. Rex walked away, leaving Hunter to figure himself out. His cock throbbed. His core ached. Sweat dripped underneath his mesh shirt. He could still feel Rex’s spit smearing his tongue. He was a slut again. He had gotten what he wanted: someone to obey. It turned him on, so, so much.

Hunter realised he was shaking.

An hour earlier…

SPIT’s whoops and hollers washed over Caspian like a tide, swelling him with pride as he stood over his fallen challenger. Gods, they made him feel like a stud.

“One last dose of pheromones should do the trick,” he said, his voice loud, boisterous, and projecting. The juniors and seniors of SPIT had made a clearing for him and Tread in the grass, surrounding their impromptu wrestling match, and they quieted down as Caspian did his expert work.

The senior frat boy lay prone on his back, but there was still a bit of fire left in his eyes as he stared up at the alum he’d challenged. Caspian bent down, pulled up Tread’s legs, and folded them backward, shimmying forward until his dick slapped onto Tread’s mouth. Practically sitting on Tread’s bent-back calves, Caspian ground his shaft and his ginger pubes into the frat boy’s face, smearing it with precum, sweat, and most importantly, bottom pheromones.

His grin was wild as he waited for Tread to breathe it all in, to give up and let the pheromones take him over. Caspian needed to see it; he needed that boost right now. A moment later, the fallen fighter opened his mouth and lapped at the underside of Caspian’s cock. The cheers were deafening. Caspian pumped both his fists^[4] in triumph, heart still racing from the fight, and presented his cockhead to the loser’s mouth.

Another frat boy shouted over the crowd, silencing them for a moment as he heralded Caspian’s victory. “Everyone welcome back our former frat president, the best bruiser in SPIT, the Warrior Prince Caspian!”

Caspian eased his cock into Tread’s mouth, his erection surging in satisfaction, and he knew he was in his element. Here, they cheered when he won a match like this. Where he lived now, nobody even wanted to wrestle. He looked around at the crowd, catching the eyes of old friends, but there was no one from his year, only the year after, the years before. Where were they? How could they be missing this?

Am I the only one left who cares? he asked himself, and the idea sucked the life out of him. He sagged, his cock sinking deeper into Tread’s mouth. What was he doing? What was the point?

He looked back down at Tread, at that stubbly, once-cocky face now smeared with sweat, cheeks hollowed, lips stretched thin around his dick, and the thrill he got from that sight put a grin back on his face.

“For all your sakes,” he yelled, with an Irish accent, “I promised not to use his arse when I won!” Nobody but the challenger had thought there was any chance of beating Caspian. “It’d be massive to leave SPIT with a fresh new bottom as a parting gift, but I ain’t gonna cost you one of your bruisers!”

College fraternities thrived off frat warfare, rivalries they settled on the battleground of their own houses. Most frat boys were ‘bruisers’, who wrestled with enemy frat boys in chaotic battles until everyone was too fucked stupid to move. But there were… other consequences.

“But I will gift his arse to an old friend of mine: Kestrel, come over here!” Caspian called, as he began to lift up his challenger’s head, carefully unfolding the frat boy while keeping his cock in that warm, wet mouth—and starting to push into his throat.

Kestrel was a curly-haired alum a year older than Caspian. He’d been there as Caspian grew up in SPIT. Kestrel cared about this stuff, and he deserved to share Caspian’s spoils. The other alum came through the crowd and helped Caspian get Tread on all fours. A minute of groaning, gagging, and thrusting later, their hips were flush with Tread’s ass and face.

They high-fived over the fallen stud. “You did good, bruiser,” Caspian said, rubbing the frat boy’s face as he choked on Caspian’s cock. “Just be careful who you challenge, huh? A load from the wrong guy and you’d end up a bottom slut for the rest of the semester.” Tread’s face reddened. “At least Kessie ain’t gonna knock you up, eh?”

As a Seeder, Caspian’s cum was dangerous. When taken up the ass, Seeder sperm took root in a man’s gut and pumped bottom hormones into his bloodstream for up to fifteen weeks. That period, characterized by a cum-swollen stomach and a need for cum, was called Surrogacy. It was a humiliating fate for a frat stud.

“If you could replace him, you could do whatever you want,” came a biting voice from the crowd: the newest frat president, Hawk, a senior with a chip on his shoulder and a taste for bruising. “We could use more studs of your calibre in the frat.”

“Aw, c’mon, he’s a stud too,” Caspian complained, as Hawk emerged from the crowd. “He just picked the wrong fight.”

Hawk was a clean-shaven, brown-skinned Pinoy man with lean muscle, one tattoo sleeve, kohl around his eyes, and a square jaw shaped perfectly for a withering scowl^[5]. He wore one now, directed at Tread, and Caspian immediately felt bad for the guy.

“You’re the best around, warrior prince. He knew he’d lose,” Hawk said, with a derisive tone that Caspian chose to ignore in favour of his pride at the name. As he gripped the back of Tread’s head and started thrusting firmly, Hawk got down on one knee beside the fallen frat bruiser. “Didn’t you, Tread?” Hawk asked, gripping Tread’s jaw even while Caspian’s balls slapped into it. “Is that a slut I see in there?”

This time, the flare of irritation was too much to ignore. Caspian used his free hand to swat Hawk’s wrist away. “No touchie! He fought like hell for it, piss off already!” Hawk raised his hands and stood up. “And what if he wanted to lose? It’s enough he fought.” He clapped a hand on Hawk’s shoulder and grinned genially. “Bruising ain’t everything, y’know.”

Hawk looked immediately affronted. Caspian had expected that, and it made him laugh. Hawk opened his mouth and said, indignantly, “What kind of an attitude is—“

The end of that sentence was buried by a cheer that rapidly spread across the backyard. Caspian turned to look at the source: two newcomers had just emerged from beside the house, and when he recognised them, he froze balls deep inside Tread’s throat, arrested by shock, arousal, and pure, unadulterated excitement.

A senior near them hopped up, threw his arms around the two men whose memory consumed all Caspian’s wet dreams, and announced, “Everyone say hey to our two favourite bottoms, our very own Brat Tamers… the Hunter and the Chase!”

The senior gripped both their jaws and nudged them open, and then he spit in both their mouths as everyone cheered. Caspian imagined himself in the senior’s place, a firm grip on both Hunter and Chase, and that was all it took for him to cum. He jerked against Tread’s face as his cock pulsed and he unloaded pint after pint of cum directly into his prize’s stomach. His vision swam, overwhelmed by the pleasure from Tread’s convulsing throat, but his mind’s eye fantasised about his ex-lovers with crystal clarity. He wanted them. Badly.

When Caspian came to, Chase had become the life of the party. The black man was made of pure beef, his torso thick, his pecs full and bouncy, his arms and legs fluffy with muscle. His lips, just as plush and thick as Hunter’s, made all his cocky expressions look bigger and badder—and they made him look like the best cocksucker who ever lived. You wouldn’t know it from the way he acted, though, slapping his arms on frat boys’ backs hard enough to make them stumble, putting one in a headlock and giving him a noogie, flexing and welcoming his past brothers to kiss on his muscle.

While Chase^[6] was like an aggressively affectionate dog, Hunter was more like a black cat—confident, poised, unassuming. Hunter watched his best friend get up to his antics with an alluring smile, gentle and melancholic, but his lidded eyes said “come hither” to everyone looking. But no Spittle would ever be fooled—Hunter was a predator, and he was hungry.

The yard was ecstatic, Caspian more than anyone. Hunter and Chase hadn’t been your typical frat bottoms. Slutty as any of them, yes, but the Beast Tamers—their chosen name—had a way of wringing studs out and leaving them weak for more. Sometimes it had frustrated the bruisers, but never Caspian. He, Hunter, and Chase were the perfect trio.

Had been the perfect trio.

They were supposed to take on the world together. If he only had them, the whole world would be the frat. It would be like Caspian never left.

He and Hunter locked eyes, and the world shrank until it was just them two. Caspian pulled his sopping cock out of Tread’s mouth, heavy and flaccid, as the Hunter prowled toward Caspian’s spreading grin. Hunter glided past the groping hands of hungry frat boys, giving them his fingers to kiss and suckle on for brief moments at a time.

All Hunter wore was a black mesh crop top with soft-looking tassels that swung across his abs as he moved. Like most Spittle, Hunter’s real outfit was his body paint. Hunter had made himself into the picture of a slut ruined utterly by SPIT. His eyeshadow was smeared, arrows pointed to his full lips and called him a “cocksucker”, and his midriff was adorned with crude drawings of dicks and pejoratives like “spit slut” and “frat bitch”. Only the low centre of his abdomen was empty, the perfect place to put a womb tattoo. It was obvious Hunter wanted the full SPIT experience.

So when Hunter stopped just outside of Caspian’s circle, paused, and turned away, Caspian’s stomach sank.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t get the words out. He had hoped—just maybe—that Hunter had forgotten what happened between them, that they could have a fresh start, that they were okay again. He felt numb again, like none of this was real.

He desperately scrabbled for some hopeful feeling to fill the gap, finding it in the form of Hunter’s thick, tantalising rear. The words “BREED ME” in block letters adorned his lower back. One round asscheek wore an open invitation to “Spank me!” while the other had the words “Loads taken:”, under a ‘tassel’ that was actually a black marker for easy additions to the tally.

For a moment, Caspian hoped Hunter was just trying to tease him. That would be a throwback—to a time when he was still here in SPIT and everything was perfect, when he still felt like pulling a frat bottom into his lap was worth it. Gods, he was practically drooling for that ass, ready to whip out a condom just for a chance to slide in… but Hunter just walked away, opening the back door to the frat house and disappearing.

Caspian felt his body sag.

Most of the frat boys hadn’t noticed the exchange; they were too distracted by Chase’s show. But Hawk had, and he was looking between Caspian and the retreating Hunter with a furrowed brow. Hawk hadn’t been there when Caspian and Hunter had fallen out. He couldn’t know.

But Caspian didn’t want to talk about it. He turned back to Tread and offered his dick for cleaning. Hopped up on the submissive high of Seeder cum, the frat boy was all too eager to oblige, but for Caspian, it just felt… hollow.

Caspian and Kestrel eventually finished with Tread and sat back on their chairs. Caspian went silent as others talked, watching Chase go everywhere in the backyard except their circle. Surely Chase had noticed him by now. They’d been lovers too, before they graduated, and the sex had been incredible. Everything had been incredible.

Chase would wrestle with any bruiser who wanted to fuck him and make them ‘earn’ the right, even though he always let them win in the end. Forest green dragonscale flecked his body, growing into a dense covering on each of his major muscles—biceps and forearms, pecs and abs, thighs and calves, his back. The bodypaint made his submission holds impossibly erotic, because wherever those scales pressed into skin, they left tingling pleasure behind. Caspian found himself jealous of every frat boy Chase threw his arm around or pulled into a headlock.

But as time passed, it became abundantly clear that Chase was avoiding Caspian’s circle. Hope that Chase would approach him had kept Caspian in some kind of limbo, but now he understood that he’d been deceiving himself. Chase didn’t want to talk, whether that was because of Hunter or for his own reasons. And though Caspian understood, it still made him slump in his chair. He still wished he knew why his offer last year had hurt Hunter so badly. Maybe then he could fix it.

Somehow, it was Hawk who found a way to cheer Caspian up. “Now that the Brat Tamers are finished with the spotlight,” he said, loudly enough to hush the crowd, “we have one more gift for the Warrior Prince! We asked Caspian to come without body paint on so we could give him a Bruiser’s Blessing!”

Caspian’s eyes widened, and the cheers around him swelled him once more. Though it stung that Chase and Hunter wouldn’t speak to him, he could try to enjoy this. Frat boys cleared space around him as they placed containers of body paint in the grass, each in a different ochre shade. The Bruiser’s Blessing honoured a heroic bruiser before the frat’s spirits and invited the blessing of the spirits themselves. Every time he earned the Bruiser’s Blessing, he had truly deserved it, and all those memories fighting for his frat brothers bubbled to the surface with all the joy of a fizzy drink.

“Tell us a story while we bless you, Caspian,” Hawk said, with a genuine smile. Usually, Hawk’s voice dripped with subtle sarcasm, but it seemed he was really trying to dial it back for this. “Remind us why we all looked up to you!”

The cheer broke out again, and Caspian quieted with a gregarious, “Okay, okay, okay! I’ll spin you boys a yarn, alright?” Even beyond his Irish accent, there was a lilt to Caspian’s voice, an energy in the way he delivered stories that made everyone want to hear them. And he had just the one.

“You all know this,” he began, as the first two frat boys approached him and knelt in the grass, “but the thing about your greatest rivals in other frats is that they also end up some of your best friends.” The two frat boys uncapped two paint jars and slightly dipped one palm each in the ochre, one yellow, one red. “Me and Cress were rivals since sophomore year, both Seeders, but that didn’t stop us coming over to bang each other stupid at least once a week, frat warfare or no.”

The frat boys slapped their paint-coated hands against Caspian’s pecs, on the far side of each, and then they slid their hands down and around his sides about half a foot before disengaging. The spiritually conductive paint reached below his skin into his other body, carving shallow furrows that pulsed in warm, fuzzy pleasure.

“And y’know, sometimes we wrestled, too, Cress and I, just to see who’d win. Went back and forth on it. But we were playing with each other, not fully trying, no. There’s something different when you’re in the halls of your frat, fighting to save your holes. You forget that bottoming is even an option. All you want is to be the stud. And before you can knock each other up your friends come and pull you apart. By senior year, Cress and I had never gotten each other knocked up once. Not ever. We were too good.”

The next set of frat boys reached behind Caspian, smearing the top of his back, up to his shoulders.

“But I was better,” Caspian said, with a mischievous grin. “I knew what I had to do to make a Surrogate out of him. Warfare gets… a little less serious when you’re a senior.”

Hawk crinkled up his nose, but didn’t interrupt. Caspian understood. Hawk had never been pleased with the way Caspian ran frat warfare. Under his leadership, they’d raided less and drilled a little less often. Despite Caspian’s superior skill, they’d just been less dominant. But they were bonded by then. The game wasn’t as important to facilitate their friendships.

“You think about where you’re gonna go, what you’re gonna take with you when you leave. You think about what you missed out on. What you’ll miss.” Except Caspian didn’t think he’d have to miss the frat. He didn’t expect his friends to pull away, to move in a dozen different directions, to not want to fight when Caspian visited. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair.

Ghostly imprints of hands slid through the new furrows in his spirit, bringing phantom warmth and infusing him with energy. So what if they didn’t care? He could enjoy it for all of them.

Caspian carried on. “I said it first, I said to Cress: ‘Lose to me once, before you go.’ And it was too late for him to say it back. It got to him.” Caspian sighed wistfully. “And we fought. Fuck, we fought like hell. But you know what I did?” he asked, leaning forward with a wide grin. “I convinced him bottoming was an option.”

As more and more frat boys came to add their streaks of paint across his skin, he continued the story he’d promised, playing up the fight, the back and forth, dirty talk he remembered and dirty talk he made up in the moment. And the spirits were very pleased. They laid their hands all over the criss-crossing handprints that covered his torso, his arms, his legs, his back and ass, filling him with warmth and energy, a need to fight and fuck.

The Bruiser’s Blessing lent strength and vitality to whomever received it, as long as they remained on SPIT ground—and in the spirits’ good graces. He probably didn’t need it to beat any of the frat boys here, but a couple at once, who knew?

When he finished the story—with an intense pantomime of thrusting and hitting his climax—the raucous applause buoyed up his spirits as much as the story had.

“We miss you, dude!” called one of the frat boys, earnestly, answered by a chorus of ’yeah!’s.

“I miss it too,” Caspain said, looking around one more time. Even Chase had faded away. He wanted his friends here, the men he’d grown up with. He smiled bitterly. “But I’m an old codger now. Only took six months to shrivel me up and mellow me out.” Snickers in the circle. “Gods, what if I start complaining about ‘how things used to be?’” Caspian shook his head as they snickered more. Little conversations were spreading across the crowd.

With sudden conviction, Caspian said, “Listen here, alright?” Silence again. “This is your time to cherish, your frat to rule, your battles to win. Pay attention to your friends. Spend as much time as you can with them, before you go off and splinter and visiting feels like so much work and you can’t do all the same things you used to do.”

The crowd’s faces had grown sober, even Hawk’s.

“My glory days are over now,” Caspian said. “But make no mistake, they were here. Here with my friends, here with the raids, the wrestling in the living room, the parties, the projects. Savour them, boys. Savour all of it; bruising ain’t everything.”

Hawk frowned again and interrupted. “Caspian, we’ve been looking to bring an alum back to the frat.”

Caspian’s brain ground to a halt.

“As a trainer,” Hawk explained. “Help us organize drills, give personal tips to everyone’s fighting styles, watch over and judge matches. We all need drills, even us seniors.”

Caspian laughed, a sudden anxiety tightening his chest. He felt homeless, back in his neighbourhood. But was that worth going back? “I—I have a life now, Hawk, a community.”

“You were the best of us, Caspian. The seniors and I want to dominate this year. You can help make that happen.” Hawk had a fire in his eyes that Caspian recognised well. It had been his own. “You can get your glory days back. You can make SPIT the best frat on campus.”

The whole lawn held their breaths as Caspian stared at Hawk, turning over the possibility in his head. He would be alone if he did that. It wouldn’t be the same. But it would still be more fun than his life now… right?

“Lemme think about it,” Caspian said, earning a collective groan. “It’s not my year anymore, I told you! It’s yours. I like you all, but you’re not the friends I pledged with. But—I’ll be hanging out all night. If I can get back into things, if I feel like a proper frat boy again, I’ll consider it. Now shoo! Get back to having fun.”

The crowd dispersed. Hawk looked at Caspian a little longer, and then the president’s eyes drifted toward the pool. Caspian followed that gaze and clicked his tongue. Three naiads were there, watching from the water, but they should have been sent out of the pool hours ago. Hawk went over and knelt down to talk to them—and then, eventually, he turned around and headed into the frat house.

But Hawk’s offer echoed in Caspian’s mind. Without his friends here, he had felt as anchorless as ever. But that story had brought some life back to him. Maybe getting the glory days back wouldn’t be so bad after all.