The Orphanage Boys Chapter 40

The Orphanage Boys Chapter 40
by Chadlad

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 40: Fortieth Floor: Underwear

At breakfast, Sam and Jake were directly to the punishment table along with Tommy, who sat gingerly, wincing, and pulled at the sides of his pants, trying to find room for the box that swelled out the front of his zipper. Those at the table were given cold, flavorless porridge. Although it was better than the bottles they had been given two days before, when they'd been in diapers, both still boys looked longingly at the scrambled eggs and toast everyone else was having. There was no talk of Challenge Day from this group-indeed, there was no talk at all, Sister Mary Catherine gliding to their table and telling them that children under punishment were to be completely silent during breakfast. The word of the older boy as they'd left the dorm, that he and Sam were going to get "their butts whopped," echoed in both boys' ears.

After breakfast there was a change. Instead of classes, the children split up by sexes, the boys heading out toward the woods and stream, the girls heading off the other direction, toward who knew where. Jake and Sam followed along with the rest of the boys, some walking silently and with what appeared to be some trepidation, others talking and joking animatedly. "Where are we going?" Sam finally asked a pair of silent boys walking beside him and Jake.

"It's Challenge Day," one of the boys said. "Any one kid can challenge any other kid to a fight, as long as he weighs less than the kid he challenges. That's why Sister Mary Catherine is lugging that scale with her, to make sure that the kid you challenge is bigger. The sisters say that Challenge Day keeps resentments from festering. That's what Sister Mary Catherine says, anyway." He leaned closer. "I just think she likes watching boys fight," he added in a whisper. "None of the other nuns ever come to watch. Well, not much. Just her, usually."

"The girls go fight, too?" Jake asked.

"They do their own thing on Challenge day," the boy said. "I don't know what they do. I don't think any of us boys know. But they don't fight like we do. No one ever has bruises or scratches or a black eye or a bloody nose afterward. They won't talk about it, though. None of them. Whatever it is, they don't look forward to it, either, and they don't talk about it afterward."

"We gotta fight someone?" Sam asked, his concern clear in his face.

"Only if you challenge them. Or get challenged. And you can't challenge a littler boy, or be challenged by a bigger one. Flip can't challenge you guys, or me. But we could challenge him. If we were suicidal, that is," the boy added.

"Let's have a little silence in the ranks," Sister Mary Catherine called. "You should be communing with God, asking his forgiveness, and calling for strength for the ordeals you may face today." The boys all stopped talking and only the tramping of their feet and the calls of early morning birds could be heard. They circled a hill, went through a screening copse of trees, and finally came out in a circular clearing surrounded thickly by high, dense trees. The other boys formed a circle there, and Jake and Sam took places side by side in it. Sister Mary Catherine stood in the middle. "Let me remind you of the rules of challenge for boys. You may challenge any boy you have a grievance with, or think you have a grievance with, as long as he's lighter in weight than you. Challenge losers will receive today's penalty as punishment for God finding you wanting. Challenge winners will assist in providing today's penalty. Those who are not challenged will witness if they wish, of course, to increase the humiliation of the losers, or they may have free time during the penalties. The penalties today will also be witnessed by the girls, who will join us afterward. Also, winners of challenges will be treated to ice cream with dinner for their courage, their faith in the Lord, and for finding favor in his eyes." She paused and looked at Jake and Sam. "Once challenged, you may not leave the circle like an abject coward, or you automatically lose. As usual, the challenge ends when one of you cries 'uncle,' when one of you is knocked senseless, or when your bleeding becomes too copious for you to continue. If knocked senseless, you will be revived with smelling salts immediately so that you may fully experience the pain of your defeat. We will now begin. I will be inspecting fingernails of each of you before you start a challenge, and trimming those that are too long."

A short, stocky boy immediately stepped forward. "I challenge shitface Marty White," he said loudly. "He's a liar and a cheater, and he stole my pocket knife!" A taller, more gangly boy stepped forward.

"I told you I didn't take your stupid pocket knife, dickhead!" the boy replied. "My knife doesn't even look like yours. But if you want me to beat your ass, go ahead!"

Sam and Jake goggled at the boys' language, in front of Sister Mary Catherine, no less. But the nun didn't respond to the provocative stataments. A slightly larger boy next to them noted their surprise. "We can say anything we want on challenge day," he whispered. "Anything! But only here, and only on challenge day. Sister thinks it's good for us to get it out of our systems." Sister Mary Catherine took each boy's hands in turn, examining their nails, then nodded. To Sam's and Jake's surprise both boys immediately began stripping off clothing, each handing the garments to boys who stepped up behind them to take each garment carefully and add it to a neat pile that they held. They muttered encouragement to the boys whose clothing each of them held, clearly supporters of the challenger and the challenged. "We fight in our underpants," the boy next to Jake and Sam whispered. "They don't want us messing up our clothes. And we can kick, so they don't want us in shoes." In moments, both boys were stripped to their underwear, bare feet pawing nervously at the ground, both boys eyeing each other with clear hate. They squared off opposite each other in the ring of other boys. Jake noticed that both boys wore briefs much like those he and Sam had come with, gray, thin things that barely covered bulging crotches and looked ready to tear at any moment. A hint of dark pubic hair showed through a hole in the threadbare cloth of the front of the underpants of the boy who'd been challenged, and a wisp of the lighter-haired boy's own pubes stuck out the top of his too-small waistband, curling over the waistband. The back of his underpants had slipped into his crack, outlining muscular buns, and the lower sides of the rounded globes stuck out the leg holes, but he didn't appear to care as he glared with steely blue eyes at the boy opposite him. That boy's face had formed into a permanent snarl.

Sister Mary Catherine set down the scale, and each stepped on it in turn. Apparently the boy being challenged was heavier, because Mary Catherine nodded approval, then picked up the scale and stepped back. "I'll remind all of you before we start of the cardinal rule of male combat. No blows to the underwear, nor can you touch each other's underwear, or you automatically lose. Otherwise, you may use any other tactics, including your open hands, your fists, or your feet to subdue your opponent."

She regarded them for a long moment. Both boys looked determined now, each eyeing the other, sizing up potential weakness. "Begin," Sister Mary Catherine said after a long moment. She stepped back. The boys feinted at each other, the stocky one raising fists and dropping into the exaggeration of a fighter's crouch, the taller one holding open hands out in front of him nervously as if to ward off any oncoming blows. To Jake's mind he tentative, vulnerable, and not at all ready. He wasn't surprised when the stocky challenger struck first, lashing out with a sweeping right toward the taller boy's jaw. But the taller boy, belying his unprepared appearance, swayed like a willow, moving out of the path of the blow. Then, as the stocky boy stumbled forward from the missed punch, the taller one stuck out a foot and neatly tripped him, then was on his back in a moment, driving a knee into his kidneys and pulling the boy's hair so his head was arched back. The boy on the ground let out a loud "oof" as the air whooshed out of him, his face contorted with pain and anger. The boy on top pulled his hair harder, curving his head backward and exposing his neck, and pressed down more of his weight into the boy's back, kneeing him right in the small of the back. The boy on the ground tried to overturn him but the boy on his back rode him easily, avoiding the other boy's thrashing legs. The challenger flailed out with an arm, trying to get a grip on the boy on top and throw him off. His hand slid down, snagging the ragged underpants of the boy on top, pulling one side down enough that Jake could see that the top of his tormenter's thick pubic hair, but the waistband caught on the boy's genitals and moved no farther. Apparently realizing he was touching a forbidden area, he released the cloth and began twisting from side to side, trying to get a hand back to where he could grasp his tormenter.

Sister Mary Catherine was watching the battle with rapt intensity, Jake noticed, her eyes gleaming, just as they'd gleamed as she'd regarded him just before ordering him to drop his pants and bend over the desk to be paddled. Her mouth was open slightly and she was breathing through it, and her face was slightly flushed as she watched the boy on the bottom struggle futilely.

The boy on top lurched to one side, driving his knee into the other boy's kidneys more firmly, and yanked the hair of the other boy, curving his neck farther back. The other boy made a sound something like a roar, and renewed his kicking, flailing back with his arms, trying to get a purchase on the boy who had him pinned. "Say 'uncle'," the gangly boy yelled, yanking his hair again. Jake was surprised hair wasn't tearing out of the other boy's head in great bunches.

"Uncle!" the boy on the ground screamed. "Uncle! Uncle! UNCLE!!" The taller boy dropped his head, letting his face fall into the dirt, and stepped off him, dusting his hands together.

"Told you I didn't take your knife, asshole," he announced loudly. He turned to the boy holding his clothes and began to dress again.

"God has granted you his favor," Sister Mary Catherine intoned sanctimoniously, "and supported your claim of innocence by doing so." She glared at the challenger, hunching rather miserably in only his skimpy, threadbare underwear. "I would be cautious about bearing false witness in the future, Charles," she stated firmly. "As God has repudiated your claim, you will report to Father McKenzie's study on Wednesday for penance for your sins as well."

The boy who'd surrendered lay there for a moment, motionless, his face in the dirt, not reacting to her pronouncement. Then he slowly got to hands and knees. He got up on his knees, rubbing his back with one hand, pressing his head with the other, wiping his face, gingerly pressing his pulled hair. To Jake it looked like his scalp was swelling already where his hair had been pulled. He was panting, and Jake could see that tears were trickling down his dirty face, and snot had wet down the dirt under his nose, but he didn't make a sound other than he heavy panting. Slowly, clearly hurting, he staggered to his feet. The front of his underwear with filthy now, his genital bulge grimy with dirt, but he made no effort to dust it off. He turned to the boy holding his clothing and reached for his pants on the top of the pile.

"No!" Sister Mary Catherine barked, making half the boys in the ring jump. The defeated boy froze, looking at her in shock. "Losers will not redress today," she announced. "Penalties will be paid wearing only the clothing in which you were challenged. Put those over there," she added to the boy holding the loser's clothing, and nodding at a large stump just outside the ring they'd formed. The other boy left the circle and complied with her instructions.

"But, but Sister!" the losing boy said, his voice hoarse and whiny. "I'm practically naked! And you said the girls will be there when we pay our penalties today!"

"You're covered enough," Sister Mary Catherine said. "It is indeed appropriate that our innocent girls should be spared the sight of a pubertal male's disgusting genitalia, but that need is handled sufficiently by what you have on. And you other boys, if you don't want to face this same fate, take a lesson from his sorry showing and fight more effectively than he did." She nodded righteously, dismissing him. Slumping, seeing no appeal, he moved back into the circle, now standing out because of his almost complete nudity.

He instead turned his attention to the boy who'd vanquished him so easily, looking daggers at him and moving his lips as he muttered something subvocally. But Sister Mary Catherine was already turning away from him. "Who is next?" she asked loudly. Jake watched the vanquished boy mutter more imprecations silently. He was pretty sure that nothing had been settled in this battle, no matter what Sister Mary Catherine's aims with this combat. The winner, meanwhile, was accepting congratulations from several boys near him. The boys near the loser, on the other hand, looked pointedly away from where he stood. He seemed to have trouble trying to decide what to do with his hands. After a moment, he slowly inched a hand up and began kneading his scalp.

Sister Mary Catherine was still looking around the ring for the next challenger. Jake found himself having trouble getting used to it all. The raw violence of the fight, sanctioned and approved of by the large nun, was puzzling enough. But the language! The winner had even said 'asshole!?' Wasn't that one of the forbidden words? He was pretty sure it meant the hole in your butt where the poop came out! And 'shithead,' too! Shit was poop, but the naughty word for it! He'd been shocked by the language, yet Sister Mary Catherine had ignored it. If the boy next to him was to be trusted, she even encouraged it here, in this challenge circle.

And she ignored the next thing that happened, too, even though it shocked Jake. "I challenge Jimmy Fuckface Crawford!" a younger boy announced firmly. "I'll teach you not to spit on my cookie, cocksucker!" Jake gaped, open mouthed, and Sam gaped next to him. Fuckface? Cocksucker? Fuck was the bad word. The mother of all bad words. He didn't know what it meant, but it was bad. And "cocksucker" was bad, too-Jake had never been able to quite picture what it meant before, but the last few days' experiences had changed things, and he realized with a start that he knew what "cocksucker" meant. A cock was a wiener-the finger-like think you peed with. And a cock sucker sucked on wieners, just as he had, multiple times now. He was a cocksucker himself, and he felt incredibly dirty at the moment. And guilty, too, like all the boys were going to turn to him and point and start yelling "cocksucker" at him. But the didn't, and his mind returned to Sister Mary Catherine's reaction to all this, or, rather, her lack of reaction. Because she seemed perfectly satisfied with the pronouncement of the boy who'd been challenged. She just calmly put the scale in the center as both boys stripped off clothing, the challenger eagerly, the other boy, a black haired, dark skinned boy as small as the challenger, more casually. In moments both little boys were stripped to tight briefs. Like most boys in the orphanage, their clothes tended to be too small, and their underpants gripped their genitals in front, clearly outlining small penile shafts, the black-haired boy's pulled crookedly toward his right leg, the challenger's straight down. To Jake's chagrin, it looked like both had penises as big as his, and credible little bulges of scrota as well.

"I'm gonna whip your ass, shithead," the challenger boy taunted.

"I'm going to make you suck my dick, buttwipe," the other boy snapped back. Mary Catherine calmly watched each boy stand on the scale in turn, the two both hardly able to stand still in their eagerness to start the fight. Apparently the boy next to him was right--boys could use dirty words on challenge day, and they wouldn't be punished. In fact, no one in the circle seemed a bit surprised by the language. The boy next to Jake nudged him, making him jump in his tension. "Those two fight every time," he muttered. "Every single time. They really hate each other. They've always got something they're mad about. And you never know who's going to win. Some of the kids have standing bets on them."

Sister Mary Catherine straightened up. "The challenger is a pound heavier than the challenged," she announced. "So the challenge is denied." She turned to the boy who had been challenged. "Do you wish to let it go, or do you want to counterchallenge?"

"I challenge your right back, Dickhead," the other boy said. "I'll make you cry like a big baby, just like last time." Sister Mary Catherine began inspecting hands, pulling out a nail trimmer and working on both boys, one after the other. "I'm warning both of you, I'd better not see your nails in this state next time you issue a challenge," she cautioned. "Personal hygiene is your responsibility." The boys jittered in place, barely able to hold still while she worked on their fingers. She nodded, finally, and picked up the scale and stood back. The boys didn't hesitate-they were immediately on each other, kicking, scratching, and squealing in high-pitched, outraged little voices. They grappled and fell, rolling over and over, both landing punches and slaps on the other, screaming the whole time. They collided with one side of the circle of boys, but the boys whose feet they landed at bent over and pushed them bodily back into the circle. Red marks appeared on faces, chests, backs, and legs as they churned up dust with their scrabbling. Some of the marks were long thin scratches left by their meager nails, others round bruises from rabbit punches and kicks. One of the boys, Jake couldn't tell which, landed a knee in the gut of the other, and that boy curled around it in a fetal position, gasping. In fractions of a second the first boy was on his own feet, kicking the other boy randomly in his back and legs, carefully avoiding kicking his butt or genitals or anywhere his underwear covered. Jake remembered the admonition that the underpants region was out of bounds.

Sister Mary Catherine suddenly sprang forward, and waved the boy who was kicking the other one back. "First blood," she announced, pointing to the boy on the ground. He was bleeding copiously from his nose, the blood landing in big drops on the ground and soaking in. She pulled him up onto his bottom and began stuffing cotton balls she pulled from one of the capacious pockets in her habit into the boy's nose, staunching the blood. "Do you submit?" she asked the bleeding boy, as the cotton filled his nose and the bleeding slowed. The boy was panting through his mouth, but he looked up at her and scrambled to his feet, pushing her away.

"I'll kill him!" he squealed, charging the other boy, breathing through his mouth because his nose was plugged with white and red puffs of cotton. He speared the other boy in the chest with a shoulder, and the two went down again, the boy with the nosebleed throwing punches with abandon into the other boy's stomach. The other boy reacted by bringing his leg up, trying to trip his attacker. But the attacking boy moved his own leg just at that point, and the other boy's knee crashed hard into the attacker's crotch, impacting the small, snug, briefs-enclosed bulge squarely. The other boy froze and let then let out a wail, collapsing and curling into a ball around his injured groin. Sister Mary Catherine strode forward, yanking the other boy who'd just kneed the other backwards by an iron grip on his upper arm.

"Disqualification due to a blow to the underpants region," she announced. "You lose."

"Nooooooooo!" the offending boy squealed. "It was an accident! I had him beat!"

"You lose," Sister Mary Catherine said firmly, giving the boy a shake with her grip on his arm. "You know the rule-no blows to the underpants region." She shoved the boy hard back to the circle. Turning, she nudged the boy on the ground, who was clutching his balls in a fetal position. "Get him up," she ordered the boys near him in the circle. They scrambled forward and half carried the still gasping winner to the side, and began trying to coax him to let go of his aching genitals and stand on his own feet. The boy holding his clothing tried to push his pants into his hands, but he continued to clutch his genitals with both hands, his feet still rubbery under him.

The boy who'd lost by disqualification, the dark-haired one, began crying, suddenly, going from anger to despair in an eye blink, from avenging devil to pathetic little boy. The other boy, the winner who nonetheless had taken the worst of it, uncurled from around his genitals, still clutching them with one hand, messaging freely and openly through his underpants. Jake was shocked to see the boy's penis was stretching into an underpants-tenting erection, an erection he was masturbating openly, but Sister Mary Catherine let her eyes drift across his actions without comment, instead turning abruptly and scanning the crowd again. "Well?" she asked. "Who else has a grievance to be settled here in the eyes of God?"

Jake was still watching the injured winner. Not satisfied with rubbing his genitals through his underpants, he slipped a hand on either side of his underpants and slipped them down, baring his genitals and butt to any of the boys who happened to be watching. His penis was indeed hard-even so, Jake was relieved to see the boy's penis was just a small finger of a thing, smaller than his own-at least the little boys weren't all better hung than him! But the head was clearly defined and stood up proudly, and still Sister Mary Catherine wasn't paying any attention to him as he stood there, openly massaging his tight, clearly tender ball sack, leaning over to examine it critically as he did. The losing boy was watching him now. Jake noticed a grim smile of satisfaction as he noted the other boy's distress. As Jake watched, a pair of red splotches of blood overwhelmed the cotton in the winning boy's nose and dropped, one streaking his stomach, the other landing on the boy's penis, streaking one side with red just behind the head. Sister Mary Catherine was there in a moment, gliding like a battleship, pushing the boy's head back, yanking out the sodden cotton and replacing it with fresh wads. She then reached down and pulled the boy's underpants up sharply, snapping the waistband firmly about his erect penis, making a visible tent. The bloody cotton was flung carelessly sideways by Sister Mary Catherine where it became quickly covered with dust from the ground as another boy kicked at it.

The winner did not go back to rubbing his genitals. Instead, he reached for his pants and began dragging them back on. He looked over at the loser by disqualification, scratches and bruises still covering his body. "Enjoy your penalty, asshole," he called to the other boy, who seemed smaller now, diminished by the sudden turning of the tables on him. "Whatever it is!" the victor added. He accepted his t-shirt from the boy holding his clothes and began easing it over his head and his tender nose, being careful not to dislodge the cotton plugs sticking out over his lip on either side.

The other boy looked across, glaring. "I'll get you next time!" he shrilled as only prepubertal boys can shrill. "You were lucky this time, that's all!" His tiny frame clad only in too-small briefs, made him a pathetic figure. Sister Mary Catherine turned back to the circle.

"Next!" she barked. "Who will be next to put his challenge before God?"

"I will," a boy from Jake and Sam's dorm said, stepping forward. "I challenge Tommy Fat-butt. Just 'cause he's a jerk."

Tommy, the fat boy who bunked next to Jake and Sam, and who'd gotten a major spanking for playing with himself the night before, a spanking that had left his big, sloppy butt blistered and welted, looked up with panic in his eyes. The challenger, a taller, thinner boy, was already methodically removing clothing. Tommy stepped up when prodded by the boys he stood between, and slowly slid his shirt off, revealing his fat, sagging gut as he did so. He kicked off his shoes without bending over, his butt still hurting by his slow movements. But when he reached for his pants, he hesitated.

"I don't have any underpants on, Sister," he said in an almost inaudible voice.

"Really?" Sister Mary Catherine responded. "And why is that?"

"You know," Tommy said, looking down at the ground.

"I believe everyone needs to know," Sister Mary Catherine responded. "Tell them all, Thomas, why you don't have any underpants on today. And say it loud enough for all to hear."

"They got taken," Tommy muttered to the ground.

"Speak up!" Sister Mary Catherine barked. "Tell all the boys why you lost your underpants privileges."

"'Cause....cause..." Tommy said, looking at the ground. Sister Mary Catherine stalked across to Tommy and gripped his upper arm in a vice-like grasp.

"Speak up, boy! Loud and clear! Tell everyone your sin!" she ordered.

"I...I lost them for.... For playing....please don't make me say it!" the fat boy begged, his face beet red from embarrassment.

"Do I have to get out my paddle?" Sister Mary Catherine asked levelly. She began reaching into a capacious pocket.

"NO! NOOOOO!" Tommy wailed. "Please don't spank me! I'm so sore!"

Sister Mary Catherine's hand paused. "So why did you lose underpants privileges, Thomas," she asked. "Last chance to answer."

"Playing with my weenie! I lost 'em for playing with my weenie!" Tommy wailed, starting to cry. Sister Mary Catherine released his arm. A dozen older boys snickered, and several of the younger ones burst out laughing, their eyes dancing with excitement at the topic. Two boys behind Mary Catherine made jerking-off motions with their hands, making even more boys laugh.

"There, that wasn't so hard, was it, Thomas?" Mary Catherine said, ignoring the outbursts. "Confession is good for the soul." She released Tommy's arm. "Now get undressed for the challenge, please."

"But..but..."Tommy sputtered. "But I'll be naked! And he won't! It's not fair!"

"It's certainly not your challenger's fault that you have no underwear to wear on challenge day, now is it?" Sister Mary Catherine asked reasonably. "Now get ready. If you're not ready for weigh-in in 30 seconds, I will give you a paddling even if you are still bruised from last night's well-deserved session. And then you will fight anyway."

Sniffling, Tommy slowly unbuckled and unzipped his pants, pushing them down over his painfully sore backside. Jake, standing in front of the boy, could not see his bottom, but he knew from the shower that it was welted and black and blue all over. Instead, he had a bird's eye view of Tommy's crotch, where the black box clung obscenely where the boys' genitals should be, making him look more naked than if his penis had swung in the breeze. He reluctantly handed his pants to the boy collecting his clothing and stood on the scale when Sister Mary Catherine directed him. His huge gut and butt ensured that he would outweigh his lankier challenger, a state that, to Jake, didn't quite seem fair. Sister Mary Catherine examined hands one by one, clipped a nail on the tall, lanky boy, and stepped back.

"May I ask a question, Sister?" the lanky boy asked.

"Is it relevant to the challenge, Michael," Sister Mary Catherine asked.

"Oh, yes," the boy said eagerly. "It's just-Tommy doesn't have underpants. So nowhere is off limits, right?"

Sister Mary Catherine considered. "I believe that is partially correct," she finally said. "The rule says the underwear region is off limits, but if a boy does not have underwear, your reasoning would appear sound. Yet I fear you're partially incorrect as well. Thomas is wearing a chastity box due to his disgusting Onanistic habits, and that box serves as underwear in his case. So that region, the chastity box and the area it covers, are out of bounds. But the rest of his body is fair game." She let that soak in a moment, then stepped back. "Begin," she ordered. Jake's mind was reeling. He and Sam had no underwear! None! Not even Tommy's chastity box! For the first time, he considered the possibility that one or both of them might be challenged. If so, they'd be worse off that Tommy, because they would be completely naked, with their wieners hanging out and everything. Worse, they could be hit in the wiener, or the balls, couldn't they? And they couldn't hit the other boy back there-he'd have underwear on, and underwear was off limits. His heart began pounding as he considered the real possibility that he might have to fight someone naked.

Meanwhile, the fight had commenced. Tommy was pacing around the circle, avoiding the quick feints of the lanky boy, who was taking his time and teasing his intended victim. After his third feint, he suddenly shifted his weight, fetching a sharp slap on Tommy's bare, blistered butt.

"Owww!" Tommy wailed. "Stop that-that hurts!"

"Duh," the lanky boy said. He feinted right again, then slapped with his left hand, hitting the other side of Tommy's broad butt.

"OWWWWW!" Tommy wailed. He began bawling, as loudly as he had when he'd been paddled the night before. The other boy ignored his wailing, continuing to feint and slap, feint and slap, working the fat boy's sore butt over, making him stagger and jump with the pain. Finally, tiring of that, he landed a punch into the center of Tommy's fat gut. Tommy let out a "Whooof" that silenced his crying suddenly, and he went down like a ton of bricks onto his face, unable to catch a breath or defend himself as his gut clenched in violent contraction in response to the blow. He collapsed in front of Jake, his butt facing that side of the circle. The challenger sat on his back and began spanking Tommy's now completely vulnerable bare butt, striking the blistered, black and blue cheeks alternately with both hands, beating out a Bongo-solo form music in his own head. Tommy struggled to draw a breath, unable to surrender because of an inability to draw in air in his pained gut. Finally he managed a weak gasp. "Uncle," he squeaked. The boy on his back gave him a mighty two-handed slap to his big butt.

"Did he say something, Sister?" he asked loudly, slapping Tommy's butt as hard as he could again with both hands. Jake noted that Tommy's cheeks were a dusky red now over the black and blue marks and the welts.

"I heard nothing," Sister Mary Catherine said.

The boy on Tommy's back slapped Tommy's big, blistered butt again. "Uncle!" Tommy screamed "Uncle, uncle, UNCLE!" The boy astride that big butt looked up at Sister Mary Catherine, ready to get off at her orders. She stared back at him serenely, as if she had heard nothing. Jake suddenly realized that, the way the boy was straddling Tommy, the sagging leg bands of his underpants gapped open, and, because Tommy was directly in line with Tommy's flailing legs, Jake could see right up the boy's leg to his crotch, where his genitals were revealed as clearly as if he'd been fully naked. Jake was surprised to note that the boy's penis was erect, the circumcized head prominent and straining, the eye in its lower center pointed almost directly at him. The boy's balls were visible as well, and to Jakes chagrin looked larger than his, although he didn't see any hair on what he could see of the boys crotch through his underpants leg. As he watched, the boy straddlign Tommy seemed suddenly to get another idea.

"Hey, Fatty," he said loudly. "How'd you like an injun burn? He bent forward, pressing both palms against Tommy's buns, squashing them apart with all his force. "Injun burn where the sun don't shine!" he exclaimed, pressing down with all his might. Jake, unable to move his eyes away, watched as the blistered, red mounds of the fat boy's butt parted,revealing a shockingly white butt crack that was being stretched so that it became even whiter. Low down, the fat boy's tight rosette butthole twitched, the force of the straddling boy's pressure actually parting the tight slit in the center, opening a dark well into the depths. The skin above and below the parted, wrinkled hole was stretched far enough that it looked like it might tear. Tommy sucked in breath gasped in agony, his back stiffening so that he almost threw the riding boy off. "Uncle! Uncle! UNCLE!!!" he squealed. "Mother of GOD! UNNNNNCLLLLEE!"

"Enough!" Sister Mary Catherine said. "Release him." The taller boy let go of the huge butt cheeks and leaned back, getting up slowly. Tommy's huge butt flopped shut again. He stood up off the bawling fat boy and hitched up his underpants, which had a weak waistband and had slipped halfway down his butt. He looked down at Tommy contemptuously and then turned and stalked back to the ring, a pair of boys stepping forward to congratulate him as he dressed.

Sister Mary Catherine looked down at Tommy with contempt. "That was one of the poorest displays I've ever seen," she growled. "You did not even attempt to defend yourself. You will report to the glass room tonight for a maintenance slippering from your head boy, is that clear? And if your courage seems wanting during that slippering, you will report every successive night until you have gained some manhood. Where is your head boy?"

"Right here, Sister," Flip said calmly from the opposite side of the circle. "Don't worry, I'll give him a good working over tonight, and if he bawls too soon I'll give him more. If It's okay with you, I'll open the curtain the squirts dorm, too, so they can see."

"That will do," Sister Mary Catherine said primply. Tommy was lying face down on the dusty ground yet, still naked, clenching his sore butt and pressing in on his buns with his hands, trying to make the terrible burn where his skin joined between his buns subside, bawling loudly. Snot ran from his face, making a viscous string to the ground. The large nun leaned over and yanked him to his feet and pushed him to the side of the circle. He staggered and fell to his knees beside Jake. The black box on his crotch suddenly began drizzling liquid onto the ground, big spatters that soaked quickly into the dry dirt.

"He's peeing!" the boy next to Jake shouted.

"The cowards generally do," Sister Mary Catherine responded, speaking loudly to be heard over the bawling Tommy. She stalked over to him and grasped his upper arm, pulling him roughly to his feet. "Do you want me to have your head boy slipper you right here?" she asked. Still bawling, Tommy shook his head wildly, snot flying freely through the air. Jake jumped out of the way. "Then get back into the circle," the nun ordered.

She shoved him toward Sam and the boy next to him, who kept him from falling down. But Sister Mary Catherine was already done with him. She looked around the circle slowly, steely eyes boring into each boy in turn. "Who is next to pose a challenge?" she asked, pitching her voice to carry over Tommy's now diminishing bawling.

A familiar form stepped forward, someone Jake had seen before. The boy was looking at him and Sam, and with a sinking heart he realized he knew the boy-it was the one from the creek the other day-the one they'd been forced to pee on! The boy glared at him, then glared at Sam , the glared back at him.

"I challenge the whores' bastards," he said. "Both of them!"