FRATRES LUPIS - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Author’s note: All my characters are consenting adults (18+). All acts depicted are consensual between the adult characters.

Chapter 1

The rain had been coming down since the shuttle left the last town, and it did not feel like weather that planned to stop. It turned the two-lane into a black mirror and pushed the pines in until the road felt narrower than it was. I had read about Vaynard college before I applied. Exclusive. All-male. Old money and older rules. The brochure used words like tradition and brotherhood and mentioned the forest like it was an amenity. What the brochure did not say, and what a couple of old Reddit posts I had found at two in the morning did say, was that students sometimes left. Not transferred. Left. Mid-semester. No announcement. The forest came up in those posts more than once. People got turned around in it even on marked trails. One thread claimed a junior had walked in on a clear afternoon and come out three days later with no memory of the middle. The thread had been deleted. I had looked the school up again the night before I left. The official site still used the same three photos of the stone chapel and the fall trees. The deleted forum thread was harder to find the second time. One of the posts I had saved mentioned a service road behind the eastern dorms that did not appear on any campus map. Another said the frat houses took turns walking the tree line at night and that FRATRES LUPIS walked it more than the others. No one in the thread had explained why. The post had fourteen replies before the mods wiped the whole board. I had read them all. I had still packed the duffel. The shuttle driver had not asked where I was going when I got on. He had only checked the name on the list and pulled away from the curb like the destination was already decided.

The trees did not thin when the campus started. They just changed. Taller. Closer together. The stone buildings sat inside them like they had been dropped there and the forest had grown back around the edges on purpose. Steep roofs. Narrow windows. Lights on in the middle of the afternoon because the fog ate the daylight before it could reach the ground. I had read that the original founders chose the site because the land was cheap and the trees kept people from wandering off. I had also read, in the same deleted thread, that the trees did not always give back what wandered in. The shuttle driver had not spoken once in forty minutes. When he stopped on the gravel in front of the long dark house he still didn’t speak. He just unlocked the door and waited.

I got out with my duffel. The driver didn’t help. The porch steps were wet. I knocked once. The door opened before I could knock again.

Hunter Slade filled the frame. He presented himself.

Camo cap backwards. Dark curly hair stuck to his neck under it. Shirtless. Sweat on his chest and stomach even in the cold. Tattoos everywhere — roses, insects, script, a big piece on the left arm I didn’t have time to read. Thick arms. Trimmed hairy chest. The kind of body that looked like it had been built for contact and never stopped. He looked me over once. Blue buzz cut. Skinny frame. The university lanyard still around my neck.

“You’re the new one.”

“Johnny.”

“Hunter.” He didn’t move aside. “Howl sent you. We know. Come in. Don’t touch anything that isn’t yours.”

The house smelled like beer that had been open too long, sweat dried into couch fabric, and the cold damp that came off the wood when it rained. The living room was to the left. Big screen on but muted. Two couches. Eight or nine guys already in it, some in tanks, some shirtless, all of them turning their heads when I stepped over the threshold. None of them spoke. Down the hall I heard the rhythmic clank of weights and a low voice counting. Someone laughed once, short. Hunter shut the door behind me. The rain got quieter. The house got louder in its own way.

“Drop the bag. Meeting in ten. You’re choosing now.”

“Choosing what?”

He looked at me like the question was stupid. “FRATRES LUPIS initiation. Who fucks you. House rule for new blood. You pick. We watch the door. You take it. Then you’re in. Or you leave and Principle Howl finds you a single with no protection from the forest and we go back to the way things were. Your call.”

I didn’t answer him. The hallway behind him was narrow and the doors on both sides were open. In one room three guys sat on a bed with cards between them and went quiet when I passed. In another a guy with his back to the door did pull-ups on a bar wedged in the frame. Shirt off. Wide. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the blue hair, and kept going without a word. The air got thicker the farther we walked. Sweat. Beer. Something else under it that smelled like the forest had come inside and stayed. At the end of the hall Hunter stopped in front of an open door and jerked his chin toward it. His voice was low enough that only I heard the next part.

“Inside. They’re waiting.”

The common room at the back of the house was bigger. Pool table. Another TV. Maybe fifteen guys total now, some from the living room, some new. All of them white or close to it. All of them built. The air was thick. Hunter leaned against the wall by the door, arms crossed, and let the room look at me.

“New blood,” he said. “Howl’s project. He picks one of you. That’s the rule. Nobody touches him until he says the name. After that it’s the room and the door stays shut until it’s done. Questions?”

Nobody had questions.

I stood in the middle of the rug and looked at them. Four of them stayed clear enough that I knew I would remember the details later.

Knox stood by the pool table with a cue resting on his shoulder. Tall. Blonde. Hair cut like he still cared what it looked like in photos. Letterman jacket open over nothing. Chest smooth. He spun the cue once between his fingers and watched me the way someone watches a play they have already decided is going to be bad. When he smiled it was small and it stopped at his mouth.

Ronan was on the couch with one boot up on the low table. Darker hair. Thicker through the neck and the shoulders. Beard trimmed close to the jaw. He held a beer and didn’t drink from it while he looked at me. The stare was steady. It made the skin on the back of my neck feel tight. He didn’t smile. He didn’t need to.

Near the window a guy with a high buzz cut and a thin scar through his left eyebrow leaned on the sill with his arms crossed. Sleeves pushed up. Forearms veined. He looked like the weights down the hall belonged to him. When I met his eyes he nodded once, small, like he was marking that he had seen me and that was all the interaction required.

The fourth was younger. Reddish hair. Freckles across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. Built, but lighter than the others. He sat on the arm of a chair and kept his eyes moving between me and Hunter, like he was waiting for a signal he wasn’t going to get. His mouth stayed closed.

The rest blurred. Twenty bodies. Easy. Some in tanks. Some shirtless. All of them watching the skinny guy with the blue hair decide which one of them was going to fuck him in a room down the hall while the others stood outside and listened.

Hunter pushed off the wall.

“Clock’s running. Pick.”

I looked at Hunter when I said it. 

“You… I want you.” 

The camo cap. The sweat shining on his collarbones and in the trimmed black hair on his chest. The way his arms took up space even when he was leaning. The tattoos, I loved the tattoos like stickers on his white skin and muscles. The fact that he had been the one to open the door and the one who had already decided what kind of problem I was going to be. The room made a low sound when the name left my mouth. Not quite a laugh. Knox set the cue down on the table. Ronan lifted the beer and drank. The guy with the scar looked at the floor and shook his head once, small. The redhead on the arm of the chair glanced at Hunter and then away. Hunter didn’t move for a second. Then he nodded, once, like I had only confirmed a thing he had already written down.

“Upstairs. My room. Now.”

He turned and walked. I followed. Behind us the common room started talking again, louder. Someone laughed. Someone else said my name like it was a joke. Another one called me “Bluye”. 

Hunter took the stairs two at a time. At the top he opened the last door on the right and held it without looking back. The room was larger than the others I had passed. Bed unmade, sheets twisted. Desk with a laptop open and a stack of books that looked unread. A set of weights in the corner. The full-length mirror was bolted to the back of the closet door and faced the bed. The window showed nothing but trees and the fog moving through them. Hunter shut the door. The lock clicked. Loud in the quiet. Outside, in the hall, I heard the others arrive. Feet on the wood. Someone put a shoulder against the door hard enough to make the frame creak. Voices, close and unbothered.

“Fuck him up, Slade.”

“Don’t go easy.”

“Make him feel it.”

Hunter pulled the cap off and tossed it on the desk. His hair was damp. He looked at me once, then at the mirror, then back.

“Clothes off. Hands on the glass. You watch.”

I stripped. Hoodie. Shirt. Jeans. Everything. The room was warm. My skin felt thin. I put my hands on the mirror at shoulder height and looked at myself. Blue hair. Blue eyes. Too skinny for this house. Behind me Hunter shoved his sweats down. He was already hard. Thick. A black cock ring sat tight at the base. He spit in his hand, stroked once, and stepped in.

No warning.

He pushed in raw. The stretch was immediate and mean. I made a sound I didn’t plan. My forehead hit the glass. He didn’t stop. Hips flush. The cock ring pressed against me when he bottomed out. Outside the door someone banged once and laughed.

“Yeah, bro. Make him scream like that.”

He fucked like the door being locked had started a timer he intended to beat. Short strokes. Hard. The sound of his hips meeting my ass was loud and steady and wet. Skin on skin. His chest hit my back on every thrust. He fucked me like a jackrabbit .Sweat from his hairy pecs dripped onto my spine and ran down. I watched it in the mirror. Watched his face over my shoulder. Mouth open. Tongue out, resting on his lower lip. Eyes half-lidded and fixed on the place where he disappeared into me. The tattoos on his arm shifted and flexed. The black cock ring kept him rigid. He grunted with every stroke, low and rough, the sound vibrating against my neck. Outside the door someone banged a fist once and laughed. Another voice told him not to stop. Hunter didn’t. His pace stayed mean and even. My legs shook. He grabbed my hip with one hand, fingers digging in, and the back of my neck with the other, keeping my forehead against the cold glass so I had to watch.

“Look at it,” he said against my ear. Voice rough. “Watch yourself take it. This was your choice.”

I watched because he told me to and because I couldn’t look away. My own face in the glass. Mouth open. Eyes wide. His cock driving into me, the black ring snug at the base, the shaft wet. His hairy chest pressed to my back. Sweat running off his chiseled jaw onto my shoulder. Tongue out. The guys in the hall were louder now. Someone was counting strokes. Someone else was laughing. Hunter’s rhythm never broke. Mean. Even. The kind of pace that felt like it could keep going until the house got bored or until he decided the new blood had been broken in enough. My legs were shaking hard enough that he had to hold me up. The mirror rattled in its frame every time his hips met me.

“Fuck. Tight. Howl sent us a virgin hole or what?”

I wasn’t a virgin. It didn’t matter. He fucked me harder. The sound of skin on skin filled the room and leaked under the door. Slap.

Slap. Slap. Someone outside cheered. Hunter’s tongue stayed out. Sweat ran down his temple and dripped off his jaw onto my shoulder. I felt every thrust in my stomach. In my throat. The cock ring kept him harder than he should have stayed. He didn’t slow down.

When he came he buried himself and stayed there. A beast grunt in his chest. Like a crying wolf. Pulses of cum. A lot of them. Hot. He held me against the mirror until he was finished, forehead between my shoulder blades, breathing hard. Then he pulled out. Cum ran down my thigh. He stepped back. Looked at me in the glass. Still hard. Still wearing the ring.

“Welcome to FRATRES LUPIS,” he said. Voice flat now. “Your life isn’t going to be easy around here, Johnny boy. I’m warning you already.”

He pulled his sweats up. Unlocked the door. Opened it. The guys in the hall stepped back. Some of them looked. Some of them didn’t. Hunter jerked his chin at the stairs.

“Get out. Your room’s the last one on the left. Don’t come back in here unless I call you.”

I picked up my clothes. Walked past them. Down the stairs. The house was louder now. Music. Voices. Someone laughed at something I couldn’t hear. My legs were unsteady. Cum was still leaking. I found the room at the end of the hall on the left. Small. Single bed pushed against the wall. Desk. A window that faced nothing but trees. The fog was thicker than it had been when I arrived. It moved between the trunks like it was looking for something. 

I shut the door. Locked it. The click sounded too loud. I stood in the dark with my forehead against the wood and listened. Cum was still running down the inside of my thigh, cooling. My hole ached deep. My hands would not stay still against the door. Somewhere below, a door closed. Hunter’s voice, low, talking to someone else. I could not make out the words. The rain kept hitting the glass in a steady rhythm that did not match my breathing.

I had chosen him. He had fucked me raw against his own mirror with the cock ring on while the rest of them stood in the hall and told him to keep going. When he finished he had looked at me like the fucking was only the part they let the new blood see. The rest of it lived in the trees and in the way the fog sat on the ground and in the fact that 

Principle Howl had read my application and still sent me here. I did not turn the light on. I stayed at the window until the last gray light was gone and the only things left were the dark, the rain, and the low sound of male voices moving through the house beneath me like they had nowhere else they needed to be.

This was my first day at my new frat house…