High school football is a major event in many small towns across America. In Royal Woods, it was middle school girls' softball. No one knew why, exactly, but the people of middle Michigan were really big on it. Royal Woods had gone to the state championship games five times since 1964 and the people treated that as a major accomplishment, the way other towns might consider birthing a famous son (or daughter) and accomplishment. Every Friday night during softball season - May to August in Royal Woods - the town would close down shop around 5:30 and everyone would make their way to the softball field to watch the home team defend against a new and vicious challenger. The game would be covered in the next day's paper and everyone would talk about the highs and lows of the game for the next week, until the next game occurred. The games all had a carnival atmosphere, with vendors selling food and other things, and even people who didn't care much for the game itself wound up going…and enjoying themselves.
One unseasonably warm evening in mid May, Clyde McBride watched the game from the bleachers with a soda in one hand and a footlong chili dog in the other. Clyde didn't really care for softball but he was here on a mission, and after successfully completing it, he decided to stick around and hang out for a while. He was kind of a homebody and was quite happy to spend most of his time alone in his room, but every so often, he liked to get out of the house. Usually he did it with his best friend Lincoln, but sometimes he preferred to go it alone, to be his own man. Lincoln was the best friend a guy could have, don't think otherwise, but even Clyde McBride needed to do his own thing every now and then. Plus, since Lincoln started dating Stella, he didn't have much time for riding bikes or playing video games. Clyde missed him, sure, but the one thing he really took from this was: Don't get a gf. If you do, your time is going to belong to her and her alone. You won't be able to go out on your own or hang with the fellas. And if you do manage to sneak in a boys night out, your gf will constantly text you and try to make you feel bad about not spending that time with her.
Then again, maybe Stella was just a toxic, crazy jealous type. Clyde didn't know. He didn't know much at all about women and he couldn't say he felt like he was at a loss because of it. He liked girls, but they didn't consume his every waking thought the way they did with some guys. To be fair, he didn't think he'd quite hit puberty yet. He had some, uh, hormones, but they weren't crazy or anything. Once the juices really got flowing, all bets were off; he'd turn into a sex crazed animal.
Like Chandler.
Clyde's face burned at the thought of his "friend." With Lincoln all but out of the picture, Clyde had fallen under the sway of Chandler McCann, who was slightly older than Clyde. Clyde felt more like a minion or henchman instead of an actual, honest to God friend, but he could deal with that. It was all in good fun.
On the field, Lynn Loud hit a homerun and ran around the diamond in a slow, showy way. The hometown audience went crazy cheering and chanting her name, and Clyde celebrated by taking a big, messy bite of his chili dog. The sun was going down, the breeze felt warm and good against his face, and he felt good.
This was great. He ought to get out more often.
As the last light of day drained from the sky, leaving a cool purple afterglow in its wake, the away team mounted a valiant offense that ultimately didn't work out to their favor. In the last inning, they were down by two, bases were loaded, and Casey was at bat. It wasn't looking good for them and everyone was on the edge of their seats. Margo, Lynn's BFF and top enforcer, cracked a ball over the fence and for all intents and purposes, the game was over. Margo strutted around the bases like a cocsure rooster, and the crowd went into a frenzy, urging her on, pumping their fists, generally acting like bloodthirsty Roans at the Colosseum. Clyde finished off his chili dog, washed it down with the last of his soda, and cheered along with everyone else.
Maro picked up the base and slid into homebase in a cloud of dust, and the commentators called it. The Royal Woods Rimmers had won the day yet again, the fifth one in a row under Captain Lynn Loud Jr.
After the game was over, Clyde and the others streamed toward the parking lot. Breaking from the pack, Clyde cut across the school grounds and started home. He was passing by the girls' locker room when, without warning, the door popped open and five sets of hands grabbed him by the front of his shirt. A terrified scream ripped from his throat and his heart dropped to his feet. The hands dragged him into the door and then slammed it behind him. The dank smell of mold and mildew overcame him, and before he knew what was happening to him, Clyde was being thrown roughly to the ground. The air left him in a rush and the back of his head struck cold, wet tile.
He tried to get up but a wave of nausea crashed over him and he swooned.
Suddenly, he was surrounded by angry faces all arranged in a circle hovering over him. There was Lynn and Margo, Polly Pain, and the rest of the victorious girls softball team. Clyde's mouth went dry and his heart raced even harder than it had been earlier.
They looked pissed.
He swallowed.
"You little pervert," Margo said through her teeth. Her hand clenched into a fist and she cocked it back like she was going to drop it onto his face, His heart came to a crashing halt and his life flashed before his eyes. Wow, he spent a lot of time in his room. Like, a lot. He missed so much, there were so many things he wanted to do but hadn't done. Parasailing, hangliding, traveling the world, going to E3. If he got out of this, he decided, he was going to live life to the fullest from now on. He wasn't going to live like Clyde anymore, he was going to live like Larry.
"Where are they?" Polly Pain demanded.
Clyde found his voice. "Where's what?" he asked, hating the quiver in his tone.
"My panties," Margo said.
Clyde's stomach sank.
"I-I don't know," he said.
":Liar," Margo said. "My panties are missing and someone saw you creeping around the locker room before the game. What did you do with them? Are you sniffing them…or are you fucking wearing them?"
She drew her fist back farther and Clyde noted her knees bending, like she was going to drop to them and pound him in the face in some sort of wrestling move. What little air remained in his lungs left in a rush and a tingle ran up his spine. He whipped his head to the side and squeezed his eyes closed; tears of fear oozed down his cheeks and his teeth gritted roughly together in dread anticipation of impact. "Okay! Okay! I have them! Here!" He reached into his back pocket, removed the offending undergarments, and held them out.
Margo snatched them from his grasp with an angry grunt. She shoved them into her own pocket and she and the others surrounded him, punching their fists. This was it, Clyde realized, they were going to pummel him to death right here on the floor. He guessed he deserved it, as he had stolen Margo's underwear. He understood why they were mad and he would have been pretty upset if he were in their shoes. Still, that didn't mean he wanted to be stomped into a blood puddle in a dank, smelly girls' locker room. What would they do with his body? Would they leave it here, broken and twitching like a bug? Or would they dump it somewhere? His mind flashed back to news stories he'd heard about skeletons in barrels being found on the bottom of Lake Mead in Nevada when the water level recently dropped. No one knew who they were or how they got there, but the general consensus was that the stiffs had been placed there by mafia hitmen years ago. That was probably what Lynn and her friends would do to him. In fifty years, Lake Royal would dry up due to climate change and some boater would find his bones in a metal barrel.
Clyde had never given much thought to how he wanted to die (did anyone really want to die?), but he sure as shit didn't want to be murdered and wind up stuffed into a barrel.
Before the girls could fall on him and rip him literally limb from limb, Lynn stepped between them. "I know Clyde," she said, her voice strong and confident. Her minions stood down but only barely. Myrder gleamed in their eyes and if Lynn wasn't there to restrain them, they would move in for the kill in a flipping heartbeat. "He wouldn't do this on his own. He's kinda cringey but he's not an out and out pervert. Someone put him up to this."
Cringey? Gee, thanks, Lynn.
"It's true," he pleaded, "I'm a massive cringe lord but I'm not a perv."
The girls all looked at their captain, their leader, their Lynn, then back to each other. They were still angry, that was for sure, but now they also looked uncertain. Clyde licked his lips and tried to squirm away, but Polly Pain planted her foot on his chest and tacked him in place. "You sure about that?" Polly asked.
"Positive," Lynn said, "he's my brother's best friend, I've known him for years. He's not a pervert but he does cave to peer pressure and try to impress people. He wouldn't have thought to do this on his own."
Maybe it was crazy given the circumstances, but that deeply offended Clyde, and he started to argue, but realized that he'd better keep his mouth shut since that image of him - while not true - worked in his favor here.
Lynn turned her attention to him and narrowed her eyes. "Who did it?" she demanded.
For a second, Clyde hesitated, not wanting to be a snitch or a sell out. She lowered her brow dangerously and clenched her fist. She stood a step forward and her lips peeled back from her teeth. She looked like a dog getting ready to attack. Clyde had known Lynn for years and he was fairly sure that she wouldn't savagely beat him, but then again, he wasn't 100 percent, and those odds weren't acceptable. "Who. Did. It?" she asked again, pronouncing the words slowly, menacingly.
What else could Clyde do but sell out his accomplice?
"It was Chandler," he said. "He made me do it."
He explained to her how this whole sad situation came to be. Chandler told him that the only way he would let him, Clyde, come to his birthday party Saturday was if he stole a pair of panties from one of the girls' sports teams, recorded himself doing it, and then gave the panties to Chandler as a "gift." He didn't even want to do it, Clyde said, which was the truth. He told Chandler it was a bad idea, but Chandler insisted, and he had no choice but to do it.
Clyde hoped that that explanation would be enough to save him but apparently not. The girls started to advance on him again and he cried out in fear.
Once again, Lynn stepped in. "Don't," she said. "He wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for Chandler. Chandler's the one we should beat up."
The others considered their captain's words then begrudgingly agreed.
Whew, Clyde thought, that meant -
"You're still not off the hook, McBride," Lynn said.
Clyde's soar hopes crashed back to earth.
By now he was sitting up. He struggled to his feet and braced himself to run if need be. "Lynn, I'm sorry, please don't…"
"You need to be punished," Lynn said ominously. She snapped her fingers and the girls swarmed him. Margo pushed him to the floor, straddled him, and pinned his wrists over his head, an evil grin painting her chapped lips. The others looked on with wicked delight, knowing what was coming and clearly satisfied with the method of punishment the captain would soon mete out. Clyde's heart raced. "What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Being a creep really stinks," Lynn said, unknotting her pants string, She began to pull them down and Clyde was surprised to find himself getting aroused. "But my farts stink even worse. And you're about to take one to the face."
Clyde's jaw dropped. Lynn was a farting machine who could toot on command. If she wanted, she could break wind for hours on end. Therefore, he was in for a bad, bad time.
She whipped her pants off and revealed that she was naked beneath them. "Instead of muffling them with these," she said, "I think you've earned a little…bare back."
The other girls all donned gas masks, Polly putting one on Margo, who still held Clyde to the ground.
Oh no.
Clyde gritted his teeth and thrashed as hard as he could against Margo's old, trying to squirm out from under her. She, like Lynn, was a lifelong athlete whose muscles, while not big, were honed to hard sharpness by many years of physical activity. He tossed to either side in an attempt to throw her off, but she was too strong and hel firm, pressing her thumbs into the pressure points on his wrists. "Please, no!" Clyde begged. "God, Lynn, don't do this! Have mercy!"
Lynn stood over him, her firm, toned ass blotting out the world and everything in it. She cast a sinful smile over her shoulder and looked down at him like he was a bug. She squatted and began to lower herself onto him, her cheeks spreading wide to expose her moist, pink middle. The dank and musky smell of her unwashed nether regions plugged his nose and he froze, unable to move as he watched her coming closer and closer.
Finally, she stopped bare inches above his face, her core hovering over him and seemingly frozen in suspended animation. She fisted her hands, bit her lower lip, and squeezed her eyes closed, her entire face clenching and the muscles in her neck standing out. A loud, wet sounding fart burst from her butt, and warm wind broke over Clyde's face. He closed his mouth and turned his head to the side in order to avoid the brunt of it, but it didn't matter; the inside of his nose stung and burned anway.
Lynn farted again and Clyde did his best to keep from breathing in the rancid air. Margo noticed this and kneed him in the crotch, sending a jolt of pain into the center of his head. He sucked a huge gulp of air, and the taste of Lynn's spoiled ass filled his lungs, making him cough and choke. "Please, Lynn, stop, I'm sorry!"
His cries fell on deaf ears, however,
This went on for what felt like forever but couldn't have been longer than ten minutes, Lynn farting and Clyde breathing it in, wishing he was dead. Finally, she stood up and turned to look down on him, and relief washed over him.
Over.
It was finally over.
"You know," Lynn said, "that was kind of fun." She looked around at her minions. "I think you guys should have a turn as well."
Clyde's stomach dropped. After the metaphorical beating he had just taken, he was half dead and lacked the energy to even beg, much less to fight back. He was powerless to do anything but lay there as the whole team stripped off their pants. Ten pale white butts formed around him in a satanic circle. They squatted, clenched their fists, and strained. Finally, they farted as one, and heat washed over Clyde like the concussion of a nuclear blast. The stench of their bowels enfolded him, and it was more than he could stand: The boy's eyes rolled back in his head and he sank into oblivion, free at last from the sadistic tortutre Lynn and her friends had devised.
When he woke sometime later, he was lying sprawled in the grass near the schoolhouse, the warm night breeze caressing his face and the symphony of crickets serenading his frazzled nerves. He sat woozily up and rubbed his head. Lynn was standing with her arms crossed and her back against the wall. "I dragged you outside while everyone else went home," she explained. "I hope you learned your lesson."
"I have," Clyde said. The smell and taste plagued him even now and he felt like he was going to throw up. "I'm sorry for what I did, honest. I guess you're right. I do cave to peer pressure."
"It's alright," Lynn said, "I know you didn't mean anything by it. You need to ditch that creep Chandler though." An idea occurred to her. "My birthday's in a few weeks. Why don't you come to my party instead?"
Clyde considered her proposal. "Alright," he said, "that sounds good."
Lynn reached out her hand and Clyde took it. She helped him to his feet and the two of them walked off into the night, side by side.
THE END
