Secretly, he had to admit to himself that he preferred standing watch to the other tasks in the duty rotation. The other cadets were noisier than he had expected, and dormitory life was crowded. When on watch, he could be alone, especially when he was posted at the far end of the grounds. The only structure within his line of sight was the small wooden cabin where the clipboard was kept, for logging himself out and the next cadet on duty in. It was a good fifteen-minute walk from the main complex of red brick buildings, and no one bothered him.
That was mostly true. The last few times he'd pulled this duty, a pair of senior cadets had shouted to him as he walked briskly across the grass towards the field and the stand of pines where his post would be. Once they had whistled; once, made a sound he supposed was a catcall. He had ignored them; it had seemed best.
Now he was wondering whether that had been the appropriate course of action after all, because today they appeared to have followed him. They were circling him, slowly, making disparaging comments about his attitude and posture.
He wanted to assume they were merely being boorish, but their insults were getting harder to ignore.
"This one's so uptight, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth."
"Or his ass."
They chuckled, an unpleasant sound, but Ben did his best to ignore them, staring straight ahead, resolute.
"Pretty ass, though, eh?"
"I don't know, I might have to get a closer look to say for certain."
The larger of the two appeared in his field of vision, standing slightly too close. "Hey, cadet."
Ben looked straight ahead.
"Cadet, you're relieved from duty. You're coming with us."
Ben hesitated. He was under orders to stand watch until four.
"I outrank you," the fellow reminded him. This was true enough, as it went, and Ben was nothing if not respectful of rank, so reluctantly he allowed his posture to fall slightly, his eyes to skim their nametags. They gestured; he followed.
The clipboard was still on the table where he had left it upon signing in. Landry, the larger of the two seniors, took the clipboard from the table and hung it on a nail beside the door.
"Drop trou, bend over this," gesturing to the rough-hewn table, "and spread your cheeks."
Ben felt his face flush. What had he gotten himself into? Surely this wasn't usual?
"I'm not sure I," he began, stalling.
"You know exactly what I mean." The man's tone sparked alarms up and down Ben's spine: everything in him telling him run! But rank was rank. Perhaps this was some kind of initiation rite. With hands he mentally ordered not to shake, he unfastened his trousers and let them fall.
"Everything."
Oh.
His underpants followed. He bent awkwardly over the table, which was low enough that he had to step back slightly and spread his legs, and then hesitated again.
"Spread 'em." A smack to one buttock punctuated the command.
Mortified, Ben complied.
Cool air gusted over his anus. He tried not to twitch.
This would all be over soon, and then he could return to his post and stand watch the rest of his shift. A reassuring notion.
He might even spend the remainder of his watch contemplating whether and how he could bring disciplinary charges, because this was starting to seem like a shocking abuse of rank.
One of the seniors slung his daypack to the floor behind Ben and rummaged for something Ben couldn't see.
The smell of butter assaulted his nostrils. Oh god. They'd said butter wouldn'tÂ’—but surely they wouldn't dream of --
A slick finger circled his anus, then slid inside. Ben bit his lip not to cry out. The invasion was startling, uncomfortable, wet. Ben closed his eyes.
"I dunno, he's pretty hot in there, I'm not sure your theory holds." Landry, joking.
The strange feeling of fullness rocketed through him, and Ben had to fight the impulse to squirm, to pull away...or to push back, he wasn't sure.
"Shove over, lemme see." Thompson's finger moved in and out, just barely breaching the ring of muscle, before gliding one smooth stroke all the way in. Buttery fingers rubbed over the back of his testicles.
Ben couldn't help himself: he moaned. His penis, already half-hard from the unprecedented stimuli, now stood stiff against his belly. This wasn't supposed to feel good, he wasn't supposed to be enjoying this. He squeezed his eyes shut even more tightly and repeated that like a mantra, as though repeating it to himself would make it true.
"I think our cadet has a taste for this," Thompson commented, tone light and conversational, even as his finger withdrew.
"See if his tastes extend this far," the tart reply.
And then something cold pressed at the center of his hole. Cold, with an edge that seemed to blunt even as it touched him. Every nerve in his body seemed hardwired, in that instant, to the slippery-slick press of butter between his cheeks.
They were going to violate him with a stick of butter.
And, God help him, he was on the verge of begging for it.
The abuse of rank no longer seemed to matter. It had been preempted by arousal.
Amazing that there was enough blood in his body to at once heat his face so violently, and maintain such an erection. Clearly he was depraved. Some part of his brain wanted to detach, to remove itself from his body and watch as though this were happening to someone else, but even this coping mechanism failed: the mental image of himself in this position was enough to send another jolt through him.
The butter withdrew. Ben's slick fingers ached from holding his cheeks apart, but he dared not let go.
No, don't stop, please, Ben thought. Frantic. He pressed his lips together but an anguished whimper escaped.
Landry's finger returned, pushing a small cold lump around and into his anus. Rubbing the melted stuff over his scrotum. Ben bit back a hiss of pleasure.
Ben heard the scrape of buttons coming undone, footsteps, and then a butter-slick finger probed at his mouth. He opened his lips, obedient, and then his eyes, horrified, as a penis slid inside.
"Yeah," Thompson breathed, thrusting slightly in and out of his opened mouth. Ben swallowed hard and tried to keep breathing. He felt his body might fly apart: nose pressed into another man's pubic hair, penis nudging the back of his mouth, and meanwhile his own hands holding his buttocks open for this cold and slippery invasion.
"Come on, cadet. You can't hold back. You like it like this, we can tell." Landry's voice was low and gritty now.
Beneath it Ben heard the faint slap of skin on skin, realized that behind him Landry was palming himself with one surely butterslick hand even as the other hand pressed his humiliation inside him, and that was what did it: he was ejaculating all over the table, almost convulsing in his pleasure. The penis in his mouth withdrew, only to spurt onto his neck. His eyes closed again. His flesh tingled.
Returning to his post was out of the question. Ben saw that now. How could he have ever imagined otherwise?
The walk back to the dormitory was its own kind of torment, melted butter dripping down his thighs and slicking his shorts. Would anyone see him? Would anyone know?
It was an odd hour to be back, the afternoon rotations not yet over, so he stuffed his gear into his laundry sack and was showered and dressed before anyone else returned. Mail call had apparently come in his absence; a letter from his father waited on his neatly-made bed.
"Benton," it began, without preliminaries as usual. "I trust you are adjusting well to life at Depot, and are enjoying the chance to get to know the men who will be your brothers in service for life."
For the life of him, Ben had no idea how to respond. He sat there, rereading the first sentence over and over again, as his body thrummed.
The bell rang for dinner. Ben walked silently to the mess hall. As the other cadets trooped in, the noise level returned to its usual hubbub.
Thompson and Landry sat with the other seniors. They didn't spare Ben a glance.
In a rush of what he told himself was relief, he realized they would never speak of this again.
If anyone had asked why his face was so red, he would have attributed it to the spiciness of the goulash.
Even so, he ate his bread-end dry. There was no call to go accustoming himself to luxuries he'd never had at home, and might doubtless never have again.
The End