Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 09:12:38 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: TC phonic <phonic@earthlink.net>
Subject: Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement

By Phonic

The following story is completely based on an actual event, a college
ritual. It's intimate, but contains no actual sex acts. Naturally the names
of real people involved have been changed: none of them are recognizable as
described here. Only someone familiar with the story should be able to
identify the place - if you're one of them, please drop a line. This is how
it happened, otherwise altered only by time's effect on memory:

Any guy who was at my small-town Nebraska college in the 70s should
recognize the tradition I'm going to retell for you here, at least any guy
who lived in B____ Hall.

It was probably midway through Freshman year that my classmates and I had
our first chance to see the ritual for ourselves, although we had heard
about it. Whenever a guy became engaged, it was the"duty" of his friends -
and anyone else who cared to join in - to put the future husband through a
forced crotch-shaving. Depending on the guy's strength, popularity (or lack
of it) and time of day, this event could involve as few as four attackers,
or as many as a dozen, plus spectators.

The first guy I knew to get engaged escaped the treatment, probably because
he had already moved off-campus with his girlfriend. He claimed he had
planned it that way, but I think he secretly felt a little unloved when no
"band of brothers" ever jumped him to take his pubes. Soon, though, another
guy on my floor, Ron Benson, bought the diamond ring for his long-time
girlfriend. His best pals let a month go by without making a move, and Ron
had just about stopped looking over his shoulder, when he got a big
surprise one afternoon.

Old Ronnie used to love to get out of his clothes as soon as he came back
from class: he'd put away his briefly worn "class-worthy" shirt and pants
so he could do laundry less often, and lounge around the dorm in sweats. He
paid no attention when his roommate, John ("Mac") MacDonald, greeted his
arrival one afternoon with a quick, "Hi," followed by dialing the phone and
saying a previously arranged code statement: "I'll see you at dinner, OK?"
In a few minutes, as Ron was standing in the middle of the room in his
socks and underwear, carefully folding the sweater he had been wearing, Mac
answered a knock at the door.

In stepped Hinkley and Scovie, next-door roommates and close friends of Ron
and Mac. Ron didn't immediately sense anything strange, or even look past
them to see a couple of other guys waiting just outside the doorway.

Scovie's dumb-ass grin should have given it away, but when Hinkley reached
out to shake Ron's hand, he took the bait. Hinkley not only didn't let go,
he used his left hand to grab Ron's arm further up, while Scovie lurched at
the free arm.

"Hey, hey, hey ..........!" Ron shouted and tried to get his footing, but
was too late. They were already pushing him down on the bed. He immediately
tried kicking and twisting, but Lundquist and Nelson, both big Swedish
farmboy types, pushed into the room and grabbed his legs, their huge hands
clamping down on thighs and shins, flattening his lower body to the
mattress. By now the air was filled with shouts and laughter: "It's time!"
"No more waiting, Ronnie Boy!" "Benson, prepare for the blade!"  Ron Benson
himself immediately went red-faced with rage, and he was cursing with
passion: "I'll kill you, you fuckers ... MacDonald! Mac! Mac ... Don't even
try it!"

Trying it was not even an issue though, for fate had been irresversibly set
in motion.

Now, everything up to here was told to me, but I'm confident that's how it
happened. At this point I arrived on the scene, investigating the noise I'd
heard from my room, all the way at the other end of the hall. Everyone who
happened to be on the floor at the time seemed to have come running,
judging by the crowd I found. I was one of the last to get into the small
room, in fact, and luckily I'm tall enough that I could see pretty much
everything, even from the doorway.

By that time Scovie and Hinkley were kneeling by the victim's head, each
using a knee to help hold his shoulders down as they restrained his
weakening arms. The Swedes had positioned his butt on the edge of the
mattress, holding his legs down and apart, toes touching the floor, but
barely. Mac knelt between them. He would be the "glove man."

You see, this ritual was not to have sexual overtones, in spite of the
resemblance to rape and the musky scent in the room. One of the most
important jobs was almost always performed by the best friend (often
already named the eventual Best Man): he would be responsible for holding
the initiate's dick and balls out of the way during the shaving - a simple
safety precaution. To immunize him from any possible subsequent suspicions
concerning his own masculinity, he wore gloves during the
procedure. Therefore, no skin on skin contact.

Mac held up his right hand for all to see, and pulled on a black leather
glove, then put its mate on his left hand.

"As you know, roommie," he said smiling, "I lost my gloves last month on
the last cold day of the year. So I'm borrowing yours!"

Cheers and much laughter for that remark, as Mac reached up to push his
roommate's t-shirt up to his pits, exposing his smooth gut and a chest only
lightly dusted with fine hair. He slapped the tender tummy a couple of
timeswith his leather palm, till it started to turn pink, then paused, held
up one hand, and brought the room to silence.

"Drumroll, please!"

Like an accident scene, no one could turn away - you just had to look. Ron
himself strained, chin to chest, to see what happened next. Mac slipped the
finger tips of both gloved hands into the waistband of the boyish
tightie-whities and, with no further delay, pulled down and snapped the
elastic under his best friend's balls. The bush was blond-to-light-brown,
and suddenly seemed even less dense than all of us who had seen it in the
shower room already knew it to be - barely ran a third of the way to his
navel.

The method of exposure was effective.The elastic helped push the balls and
dick out a bit for access, and leaving the underwear on concealed the
victim's asshole, limiting embarrassment, consternation and any confusion
about what we were really there to see. It made a good picture, actually.

"Don't, oh, please, you are sick ..." Ron gasped, half laughing, half still
struggling for some bit of strength to fight his fate. Mac looked him in
the eye as he wickedly called out,

"Let the blades begin!"

At that moment all eyes moved to Rick D., a small but mighty member of the
wrestling team who stepped through the group, brandishing scissors in one
hand, a disposable razor in the other. Mac moved to sit on the bed next to
his captive friend, now blushing red from head to toe and glowing with a
sheen of perspiration. Rick took the spot of honor facing the crotch.

"Glove man, if you please," he said in his Oklahoma tenor. Mac held his
black leather-clad hands over the pink belly, then slowly moved them down
until they were right over their target. With excruciatingly tiny
increments he brought them closer and closer, to howls of laughter and
encouragement. Then he placed his right hand on the shrunken dick and
pushed it down over the balls, giving the blade man a clear target. Not
sure what to do with his left hand, Mac placed it on Ron's sternum and
pushed down lightly. This not only helped restrain him, but effectively
blocked the victim's view of his own haircut.

Rick D. held the scissors up where Ron could see. "Don't squirm now, "he
advised, "or it could get messy. I won't be responsible if you lose a nut."
And, it spite of all the hoopla surrounding him, Ron stayed nearly
perfectly still, though whimpering a bit, as Rick trimmed away his short
curlies, all the while tossing them up on Ron's chest, where they soon
stuck to the sweaty skin. Before long a can of shaving cream
appeared. Again, Rick made something of showing a handful of foam to Ron
before applying it generously, smearing plenty on the glove that held the
dick that covered the balls. The heat in the room had only helped Ron's
cock grow slightly from its frightened state, but now Rick told Mac to
"hold that dick a little lower, glove man." Sliding the now soapy glove
down a couple of inches, while grasping tighter to offset the slipperiness,
Mac did inadvertently help the meat swell just a little. Not so that anyone
would call it hard, of course, but enough that Ron might feel a little
prouder of it once it was exposed again.

The blade man worked like an expert. He must have done it before. After
each swipe of the razor he would rinse it in a bowl of water someone held
for him, then take another stroke. "Don't move now," he would caution when
it seemed the victim was getting restless or nervous ... It took less than
ten minutes, and he called for a towel. The glove man did the wiping
honors. All got to take a good look at the hairless crotch (no attempt was
made to shave the jewels or dick.) Then, before they let him up, the Swede
boys lifted Ron's legs and slipped off his briefs, just to be sure he could
cover too fast.

It was over in a flash, and an hour later the victim's best friends were
buying him beers at the closest tavern. (And a week later his fiancée was
saying "You guys are mean" for making their friend itch so badly ...)

As for me, I couldn't get the scene out of my mind ... it was my first
experience with B____ Hall's Rules of Engagement, but it wouldn't be my
last.