Chapter 7: Joey’s Darkest Hour

October 24th - October 25th, 1987

“Fold,” I moaned, seeing I had no way of winning with a single pair of fours.

Nick prompted, “Joe?”

Joey said emotionlessly, “Call,” as he tossed the chips on the stack.

Nick said, “Read ‘em and weep,” laying the cards down so we could read them.

“Holy shit!” Joey said, seeing the four Jacks. “I can’t believe you have all four Jacks!”

“Ha!” Nick bellowed out before reaching for the pile of chips.

“Ha yourself,” Joey said, setting the four kings down.

“Shit! How do you do that!”

Joey said, raking his chips in, “You don’t expect an answer do you? Didn’t think so.”

“Oh bartender,” Joey called a few moments later.

“Yeah, what?!” Lenny said, coming over.

“Be a good lad and get me a coke out of the fridge?” Joey said, smirking and handing Lenny the key to our room.

“Another one?” Lenny groaned as he turned to leave.

I said to Joey, “Remind me to never bet my servitude for a week. It’s not worth the gamble.”

Joey grinned and then said, “So Nick ... Are you up for another game to win back your losses?”

Nick said, reaching up with his arms and stretching, “No way. I’m all played out. Good thing we weren’t playing for money.”

“You know,” I said, watching Joey stack up his chips, “one of us should go see if Greg is still going to the party or not. From what I understand, we’re supposed to show up in our group.”

Joey said, “Well, don’t look at me. I’m the one he’s avoiding.”

I said, “I’m not so sure of that. Ever since I called his bluff in the showers the other day, he’s been kind of cautious about what he does while I’m around.”

“Well, you can’t blame him there,” Joey said, starting to do his fancy card shuffling. “You did call his bluff. That always makes me cautious about someone.”

Nick sighed, then said, “All right. If you want me to do it, just say so.”

“Say so,” Joey and I both said without needing to think about it.

“Where’s he going?” Lenny asked as he handed Joey his soda and key.

Joey said seriously, “He bet he could get some chick named Darlene to blow us all. He’s going to find her with the twenty bucks she charges.”

“WHAT!” Lenny said, spinning towards the door. But then he got wise and turned around saying, “Yeah, and I bet you get to fuck her afterward too.”

“Nah. That costs an extra ten. But he said she might be having a special this week since her boyfriend doesn’t satis...”

Lenny wrapped one of Nick’s dirty workout shirts around Joey’s face and kept it there while Joey struggled to remove it while laughing.

When Lenny finally let go, he said, “There. That’ll teach you for rippin’ on my girl.”

“Whose girl?” Kirk said, walking in the open door with a book bag.

My face lit up at the sound of his voice, hoping he had gotten my message yesterday after I suddenly thought of something to get rid of the dirty sex aftertaste.

I asked, “Never mind. Did you bring it?”

Kirk said, “What do you think is in here? School books?”

Kirk unzipped the side of the bag and flashed the bottle of 200 proof grain alcohol.

I pulled out my wallet and asked, “Cool. How much do I owe you?”

“It’s on me. If it wasn’t for you getting your old friends to lend me the flicks, I’d be waist-deep in shit right now trying to keep new stuff on my screen. Anything you want, just let me know. Anything.”

“Thanks. Right now, this is all I need,” I said, patting the bag.

Nick came back at that moment and said, “He’s going, but he wants to talk to Tim alone for a minute.”

Five minutes later as Kirk headed down the stairs, I knocked on Greg’s door.

“Who is it?” Greg’s muffled voice said.

“It’s Tim. Nick said...”

The door opened up just wide enough for me to squeeze through, Greg nowhere to be seen.

I stepped through the gap, and almost got my finger crushed when Greg slammed the door behind me.

“What’s going on?” I said, noticing how dim the room was with the curtains drawn. “Where’s Austin?”

“He went home for the weekend,” Greg answered, still standing against the door.

“Greg, you’re starting to worry me. Why are you avoiding us? I thought you understood we wouldn’t touch you.”

“I know,” he said with a hint of unsteadiness. “Look, I have a secret. A secret I’ve never told anyone. But I have to tell someone and you kind of know a little bit of it already. Let’s sit down, okay?”

He sat down on his bunk, so I sat down on the other one, only to find him getting up and sitting down next to me.

“I take it this has to do with what Joey and I did in the shower a month ago?”

“Yes, but it’s more than that. A lot more. When I was growing up, all I heard what Austin this Austin that from my mom. My aunt, Austin’s mom, worked, so my mom took care of Austin during the day. I was always second to him, even in my own house. My own room, even. Just because he was supposed to be gifted.

“But when I was thirteen, we started jerking off together, and I guess I had the advantage on him there. He’s six months younger than I am, but I guess his dad was a late bloomer, or mine an early one. Anyway, I taught him everything I had figured out for myself, and we tried a few things together.

“I think I must have fallen in love with him or something. But then he, being the gifted child he is, suddenly decided that jerking off and everything else I had done with him was beneath him. It blew me away. He even started making fun of me. I guess I decided never to have anything to do with anyone like that again.”

I waited for him to continue, and eventually had to say, “So what does this have to do with me and Joe?”

“Nothing, except ... I don’t know how to say this.”

“Just say it any way you can,” I said, trying to get my head low enough to make eye contact.

“All my life, I’ve avoided any kind of dating or anything that would lead me back to feeling that kind of rejection. But I never stopped hoping that Austin would - you know - reconsider? I’m not gay, and I don’t think I’m even bi. But with Austin ... What I’m trying to say is, when I saw you and Joey doing it, all I could think about; all I can still think about is how much I wanted to do something like that with Austin. I’m so confused...”

I blinked three times before I processed all that.

“Greg,” I said softly. “Does Austin know any of this?”

“No,” he said. “And he not going to find out, either. I hate him. He’s such an asshole around me. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to share something with him. Something that’s important. I want his ... his...”

When he didn’t continue right away, I prompted, “His what?”

“Respect? Trust? I don’t know. Not love. Not sex either, really. Just something we can share between us. What’s the word for it ... Shit.”

After analyzing the feelings I was getting from him, I said, “I think the word is intimacy. You want him to share something back with you and no one else. Something private and personal. Something to make you both equals about something.”

“Yeah. That’s it. That’s it exactly. But it will never happen because Austin doesn’t NEED to be intimate with me. He has lots of girlfriends that he’s always with, and I can’t offer him anything that they couldn’t. Except for that thing you and Joey did. I guess that’s why seeing you two like that upset me. I knew I’d never have that.”

“Shit, Greg. You make it sound like you can only be intimate with another guy. But you know there’s a whole ocean of girls out there. Forget Austin, man. He’s the wrong kind of fish for you anyway. Like, when we get into the Eta’s, you know you’re going to have women lining up to be intimate with you. Hell, you already have girls eyeing you. Didn’t you notice that Wendy chick watching you in the cafeteria?”

“Well, yeah ... But I thought I must have had some shit in my hair or something.”

“No way. I know that look. She was making herself wet just watching you. And when you were bending over to tie your shoe, I think she almost died watching your butt almost pop out of your jeans.”

“By the way, dude,” I added, slipping a finger under his tight-fitting sleeve. “You need to get some bigger clothes.”

“I’m not the only one,” he said with a grin. “Remember, it was you who split your pants this morning.”

“How did you know about that?”

“Shit. If you can hear me whacking off during the day, don’t you think I heard that ‘kkkkkkkkkkkkch’ in the dead of the night?”

I chuckled and said, “I guess you got me there. They were my favorite pair too. Suzi gave them to me before ... Uh, anyway, let’s go see what the other guys are going to do before we have to get ready for the party.”

Staying seated after I got up, Greg said, “Well, there is just one other thing.”

“Oh. Sorry,” I said, sitting back down and giving him my complete attention.

“I’m not sure if this is a good idea with Joe having problems, or even if the floor monitor would let us, but ... You know how you got that empty space where Joe’s bunk used to sit?”

I asked, surprised, “You want to move in with us?”

“Yeah. Or just sleep in there. Austin doesn’t even try to be quiet when I’m trying to sleep. And then there’s the other reason I’d rather not be around him that you already know.”

“I don’t know, Greg. I mean, I don’t know if we can always avoid doing stuff in the room. I still can’t believe no one else heard us those two times.”

Greg asked, “Where do you guys go after workouts, anyway?”

I felt there was more than innocent curiosity behind his question, so I asked him, “Why? Are you thinking about joining us?”

“No, I uh ... Well, not join you. But...”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? Why do you want to watch us? I mean, sometimes I don’t even like thinking about what we’ve done the past couple of weeks. Wait a sec. Did you watch us in the shower?”

“Yeah.”

“The whole time?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess ... I guess I liked watching you. But I don’t want to do any of that stuff myself.”

I didn’t know what to say at that point. He was telling the truth and not holding anything back. I was really hurting to use my telepathy to scan him right then, and since Joey had used his magic touch on me on two different occasions without anyone detecting it, I was pretty certain no one would pick up a simple scan like I wanted to do. The problem was, if I found something that I acted on, I would have to somehow explain how I learned about it. Explain to whom you ask? Well, if not to Greg or Nick, I would have to explain it via my cloak personality’s memory.

“I take it you don’t like the idea,” Greg said, hiding his hurt feelings.

“No, it’s not that,” I said, laying an arm across his shoulders and rubbing the hard muscle on the other side. “It’s just I never thought anyone would find that kind of thing entertaining.”

“It just goes to show you were right.”

I gave him a questioning glance, so he grinned and said, “I am a pervert.”

I laughed, then took my arm off his shoulder, saying, “I’ll agree to that.” and gave him a friendly punch in the arm.

After we traded a few jabs, I said, “Look. I’ll talk to Joe about you sleeping in our room, and maybe you can watch us once in a while. But I’m not making any promises, and you may find yourself doing more than just watching if you’re not careful.”

“I understand. Thanks.”

“Now, unless there’s anything else that you want to shock me with...”

“Nope. I’m done. We can go now hang with the others now,” he said, getting up.

“Uh, Greg. If we do let you sleep in our room, make sure you always wear some really loose shorts or something.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Because I don’t want to ever see your sexy ass strain cloth like that in front of me again,” I said, giving his ass a hard slap and adjusting my own tight pants to give my hardon a little more room.

Getting invited to a Gamma Alpha Eta fraternity party was one of the most talked about, most bragged about, most lied about topic in the dorms. Anyone who said they had been invited but decided not to go were either considered liars or idiots, usually both. While the Eta’s were notorious for never getting beyond a slight buzz, the guests didn’t have any of the restrictions of how much they could drink, eat, or for that matter, have sex, which surprisingly didn’t seem to cause that big of a problem when it did occur.

So an invitation to a Gamma Alpha Eta party was a highly sought honor. They had three different beers on tap at each of their three fully stocked real marble countertop bars. They had hot tubs, a steam room, an indoor pool, six billiards tables, a mud wrestling ring, lots of good looking women ... in other words, except for the heavy alcohol presence, it was just like home.

But none of these things were the reason for Joey’s and my excitement for going. Everything we had learned from Fred told us we would definitely be under the scrutiny of at least one telepath if not more.

Fred could only access part of the memory of his first party. While my dad hadn’t been able take the time in piecing the missing parts back together, he had pulled out a few fragments, and after figuring out what those mere instances had implied, we were now depending on the assumptions we had made from them to be typical for an initiate’s first Eta party experience.

For sure, this would be the point where we would have to keep our cloak personalities in control at all times. Not once had Joey or I detected someone scanning us since arriving on campus, but if we were ever going to be scanned, it would be at that party.

In fact, Joey and I both expected that we would be altered after we were scanned if the telepath accepted us as worthy initiates. We weren’t sure of what all they would do, but we knew that during the party, Fred suddenly had the overwhelming impulse to have his right ear pierced, just like all the initiates who would later become Eta’s had.

As the four of us walked into the Gamma Alpha Eta house through the front door for the first time, we seemed to have the same hope that it not being the last. While we had come just a tad early, nobody seemed to mind, and a few of the more senior Eta’s who had noticed us at the information session actually congratulated us for our persistence and welcomed us to their home.

Joey and I simply sat back and let our cover-selves do all the talking and driving, but we weren’t taking it easy by any means. Since we expected the telepath to be a woman, we kept close tabs on every female who even glanced at us, and we found there was a lot of that going on because of our age.

Because of the party, there were no workouts scheduled that day. The party was officially stated to end at midnight, but everyone knew that it generally ran until dawn.

Greg had actually taken my comments about his tight jeans to heart. Before leaving for the party, he went to change his jeans. What I hadn’t suspected was that instead of putting a larger pair on, he actually found some that were even tighter than the ones he had on first. I broke out laughing when he came out. They were so tight you could see where his underwear started and stopped, and I couldn’t resist pointing out his “panty lines” to the rest of the guys.

Oh, but Greg fixed that problem really easy, and that was probably the reason that, to his and our chagrin, he was the first to be asked to dance. And by a hot looking Latino girl at that. I wondered if she knew he didn’t have any underwear on. And after getting a better look at her a little bit later, I wondered if he knew that she didn’t either.

The redhead who I danced with was one of those girls who was either talking a mile a minute or stood there chewing her gum with an absent-minded look. Okay, so she didn’t do either while she danced, and she was a pretty good dancer. I especially liked the way her tits bounced in synchrony with her bobbing head in the faster dances. As I always say, there’s nothing like a redhead with a nice pair of freely bouncing tits.

Grrrrrooowwll. I especially love ‘em when they’re full of her baby’s milk. Excuse me. Time for this father to sample a certain redhead’s milk through my baby daughter’s taste buds. Yummy, Yummy, for your Timmy. Heh.

Where was I ... Oh, the redhead at the party. I guess I must have been too young for her. While I had been getting us some drinks, she had found someone else to blabber on to and was bouncing her tits and head for him when I got back. That was a pity, too. I mean, if there is one thing I really liked about girls who chewed gum all the time, it’s the way they can french kiss. Not only do they always taste fruity or minty fresh, but their tongue can also be quite a challenge when you’re tongue wresting.

The dance floor was getting pretty crowded by the time I had drained both glasses while looking for someone else to dance with, so my cover-self decided to move on and explore some of the other rooms open for the party.

I checked out the billiard room, then wandered by the pool and hot tubs. While none of them were very crowded, my cover-self didn’t care to try them out yet, and so we (as in me and my cover-self) went to check out the room I probably had the most interest in. The moment I saw the two Eta’s trying to stay on their feet in the mud rink, I knew I had found my true calling.

I offered to the two mud-covered Etas, “You know, it might help if you guys stop trying to stand up in it right away. If you stay on your knees and use your toes to help you maneuver, you’ll start getting the feel of how to get traction while still being able to wrestle.”

“What the fuck do you know about mud wrestling, tiny?” one of the mud-covered muscle men said right before losing his balance and causing both of them to land on their ass in the mud.

“More than the pair of you two know, that’s for sure. No, don’t go over to the edges to stand up. If you’re going stand up, do it in the middle where the floor doesn’t slope up. Shit. Don’t you know anything?”

“Why don’t you come in here and show us how to do it then, wise-ass?” the other one said, actually keeping his balance as he stepped forward towards me.

“Thought you never ask,” I said, setting my bag down and pulling out my mud- shorts to show them. “Where can I change?”

“Right over there,” the first one said, pointing to a door after knocking the other guy off his feet with a humorous grin.

As I passed through the door, I heard the other guy take out his revenge, and I knew by the time I got out there, they would be covered with the stuff from head to toe.

I lost no time changing into my spandex biker/mud-wrestling shorts, and once all my other clothes were wrapped around my bottle of grain alcohol inside my bag, I stuffed it all into one of the cubby holes and padded barefooted back out to the rink.

To my dismay, the two guys were already getting out. But when I saw their replacements, I let out a “Yeehaa!” and dived right in beside the two busty blondes.

“Howdy, girls,” I said after wiping the mud from my eyes. “The names slippery Tim. How abouts we have a little wrestling match.”

“My, my,” the larger of the two said in a teasing tone. “The Etas must be getting desperate to let someone as stupid and small as this in.”

“All right, little man,” the other one said in a more threatening tone. “I hope you like the taste of mud, because you’re going to be tasting a lot of it.”

“Oops!” I said, flicking the mud from my hands onto their clean chests. “I think I got you a little dirty.”

They just looked at each other, then in a flash of movement, I suddenly found myself face down in the mud while hands grasped my limbs in attempts to pin me.

But just like I had introduced myself as, I slipped out of the grasp and returned the favor by slipping between the smaller one’s legs, immediately forcing them further and further apart. I got out of the way just in time for her to fall forward, but I was disappointed to find she had managed to catch herself with her hands.

I was just about to check what the other one was doing when I found out the hard way. She managed to get a good hold of my right arm before throwing her weight forward and knocking me off my knees. But instead of fighting it, I went with one of her shoves, and after a roll in the mud, I managed to pull her all the way down with the satisfaction of knowing she had tasted the mud herself.

“Lindsey!” she spouted to the smaller woman. “Looks like we have a little snake in the mud.”

Lindsey growled, “Do you know what we do to snakes when we catch ‘em?” as she slowly circling me to trap me between the two of them.

“What?” I said, grinning before diving for the far side of the ring.

They apparently had been expecting that, for the next thing I knew, I was grabbed from behind and flipped onto my back, the worse position to get in while wrestling in slippery mud.

The larger one said, “First, we immobilize them,” as she pinned my upper arms down from above me, making me unable to do anything but flop my lower arms up and down uselessly.

Just as I started to find a grip with my toes, Lindsey inserted her body between my legs, making my legs spread apart to where I lost any chance of getting some leverage.

Lindsey continued, “Then we test their soft underbelly for weaknesses,” before running her long fingernails up my belly and chest.

“Hey, Tim!” Joey called from the side of the rink. “Do you need any help in there?”

“Nah! I can still wiggle out of this,” I said, yet not sure of my words.

“Ah, ah, ahhhh!” Lindsey said, waving her finger back and forth in front of my face. “Not before we finish. Where were we, Janice?”

Janice said, smiling evilly at me, “You were about to tell him what you do to his head.”

“My head?” I said, frowning. I was trying to imagine what, apart from making me eat mud, what they could do to my head.

Lindsey said as she felt around the outside of my shorts and clasped her thumb and index finger around my dick’s crown, “Everyone knows the way to take care of a snake in the mud is to grab it by its head...”

“And snap its neck!” they both cried as I started to panic.

“INCOMING!!!” Joey screamed as he tackled Lindsey and shoved her face down into the mud.

“Why you little,” Janice sputtered as I managed to pull my legs out from under Joey’s and Lindsey’s struggling thighs.

Even though Janice saw my legs followed by my torso rising into the air towards her, she couldn’t get a good enough grip in the mud to get away before my legs wrapped themselves around her neck.

I gasped to Joey, “You know what?” while he finally got Lindsey onto her back and started working towards pinning her arms down.

“What?” Joey gasped out, somehow avoiding Lindsey’s mud-covered hand from entering his mouth.

“Maybe I am a snake,” I said while Janice lost her grip on my upper arms and I reached up and grabbed hers.

With a deep growl, I rolled myself into a sitting position, pulling Janice forward, flipping her onto her back with my legs still around her neck.

I quickly dived forward and pinned her down with my crotch against her cushiony chest, then enjoyed the sensations of her struggles massaging my hardening dick as we waited for the now massive crowd to declare us our victory.

When the call was made, I rolled off and stood up with Joey, clasping our hands together and raising them into the air like the champions we were.

I said over the crowd’s noisy cheers, “Thanks for coming to the rescue, Joe.”

Joey replied, “Just returning the favor.”

I caught sight of Janice rubbing her neck, and once Joey and I got our fill of being the hams for public attention that we were, I went over to her and asked, “Are you all right?”

Janice spat, “NO. I’m not, you fuck head.”

But then she grinned a wry smile and said, “My ego is bruised all to hell ... but I’ll live.”

“Heh. For a second, you had me worried,” I said, absentmindedly pulling my shorts up so my softened cock would slide back down.

“Well, if anything, I take back what I said about you.”

“What, that I’m a snake? I kinda liked that.”

“No,” she said, letting her wrist rub across my crotch a few times. “About you being small and stupid.”

“Huuhh, huuhuhuuhh,” I said in a doofus way while noticing how her nipples were hardening like my cock was starting to do.

Unfortunately, that made her laugh, and she was one of those people who give you a powerful slap on the back when she laughs.

As I spit out a mouth full of watery mud, Joey said, “I guess she showed you.”

Wiping the mud from my eyes again, I said, “Next time I want to mud wrestle two women alone, just shove a handful of mud in my mouth so I’ll remember why I don’t want to, okay?”

“You can count on it,” Joey replied, meaning every word of it.

“ ... and just leave the towels and stuff in the basket over there,” Larry said, holding the door open for us with his massive dark-skinned arm and pointing to the far corner of the shower room.

Joey said, “Right. Thanks, Larry.”

“Yeah, thanks a lot, Larry,” I echoed, wondering how much he got to sample the sexy black ass of the girl he had been with. Man, was I ever missing Melissa’s gorgeous ass right then.

We set our stuff down on the counter and I got a good look at myself in the mirror.

I sighed, “Shit. I look like a chubby little kid.”

Taking his cloth and walking over to the shower nozzles, Joey said, “Hey, unless you want to have me all over you in the shower, don’t talk about how you look. I’m having a hard enough time as it is.”

A few moments later, I heard Joey say, “What the...” before I heard the water come on.

Grabbing my own cloth and heading for the opposite end of the showers, I asked, “What’s the matter?”

Joey said mysteriously, “You’ll figure it out.”

When I grabbed the stainless steel knob and pulled, it didn’t budge. So I tried turning it, but the thing just spun freely without any significant resistance, and no water came out.

“How do you,” I began, moving closer to the knob to get a better look at it. “What does it say? Oh, Push,” I said as I did so, being rewarded with a blast of cold water directly in my face.

By the time I finished sputtering and cussing the thing out, the water was at a decent temperature, so I rinsed myself down before slipping my shorts off and wringing them out a few times.

I was in the middle of soaping up when suddenly my cover-self stopped and straightened up. I was just noticing something was wrong when I heard a familiar voice call my name.

Without any hesitation, I found myself turning around and walking, catching a glimpse of Joey standing at attention with an absent look on his face.

Mike, the leader of the frat house, looked away from Joey towards me, then called over his shoulder, “You can come in now.”

As I pulled to a halt in front of him, Janice and Lindsey walked in, still in their muddy clothes, but obviously had toweled themselves off well.

“Yes, that’s the one,” Janice said, pointing to me. “And then that one...”

Janice stopped, her gaze locked on Joey with a look of surprise.

Mike asked, “What? Do you know him?”

“No. It’s just that he looks a little familiar. I can’t place it, though.”

Mike silently studied Joey for a moment before saying, “After doing this for three years, they all start to look alike to me.”

“He single-handedly pinned Lindsey down while that one managed to reverse the hold I had on him and pinned me. So how about it? Are they in?”

Mike asked us, “What’re your names?”

“Joe Thomas.”

“Tim Brandon.”

Mike said, “I’m not sure, Janice, but I think I remember seeing these two’s blood work results. I’m having Bateman look up their files now, but if I remember right, their hormone levels aren’t right.”

Janice said, “Oh. So? They don’t have to be given the treatment right away, do they?”

For the first time, I felt some heavy probing of my cover-self’s mind, then realized it was Janice doing it.

“And if anything else,” she continued as she probed, “Richardson could play with them. They’ve fooled around with each other enough.”

“Janice, you know what the Doc would say to that. And just look at them. Even if we took them now, who knows how long it would be before their chemistry settles down enough for them to be useful to us. We might be waiting another year before their hormones go within the acceptable range. We can only take twenty new members this semester, and there are almost forty guys with the right hormone levels trying to get in. And Bateman just found their files. They definitely are not even close to the right levels. They must both be having a late puberty.”

“Oh well. It’s not like I don’t have enough toys to play with, right Lindsey?”

“Yes, Janice,” Lindsey said sweetly. “Are we going to go back and play with the boys now?”