Everybody Wins

Thomas couldn't believe he was doing this. The singing actually worked to calm him down a bit, but as soon as he pulled his shorts off, and put them on the table, he had trouble catching his breath

and his voice cracked.

He heard laughter and jumped and turned around. Standing there staring at him were six gorgeous girls. They looked down at his crotch and started to laugh even harder.

Look how cute it is said one of them. Oh look how red he's getting.

What's the matter baby, cat got your tongue?

He heard splashing behind him and turned to see that everyone had turned around and were coming out of the water. It was when he saw Melanie covering a smile as she looked at his erection that he just started running. As he took off he heard everyone laughing and calling after him, "Run Forrest Run!" He thought he could still hear it even after he got back to the cabin. He was hyperventilating and had to lie down for a while before the room quit spinning. Cheerleaders, he thought between gasps. Just my luck, this summer it's cheerleaders.

After a few minutes, Thomas got up and peeled off his wet underwear, his only pair. It was only then, when he grabbed a clean pair of shorts and a tee shirt that he realized he had left his clothes, HIS MONEY, down at the lake.

There was no way he could go back. He was too embarrassed. Surely Melanie would bring them back for him. Melanie, oh God, she had seen him erect in his underwear and laughed at him.

Miserably, he grabbed his wet underwear and took it out to the deck and laid it on the railing to dry.

Thomas was in his room when the girls finally came back.

"Thomas," one of them called out. "Are you decent?"

That got everyone laughing.

When he didn't answer, Teresa called out.

"C'mon it's time to make dinner. If you don't help you have to pay."

That got his attention, he needed his other shorts, he needed his money.

He took a deep breath and opened his door. They were all peering up at him from the down stairs living area and broke into applause as he descended the stairs. "Where are my shorts," Thomas asked.

"Umm, you are wearing them," said Teresa.

"No, my other ones, the ones I was wearing at the lake."

All the girls just shrugged.

"All of my money was in them!"

"Well," said Laura, "those other girls must have taken them, they probably got mixed up with their stuff. Maybe you should go ask them."

Thomas turned red at the thought of the other girls and Rachel said what he was thinking,

"Ah, too embarrassed to face them?"

"I'll go for you," said Teresa, "for 10 bucks."

"I can't afford that," said Thomas, "almost all of my money was in those shorts!"

"Wait," said Melanie helpfully, "don't you owe Thomas ten dollars for his singing."

Teresa shot her a withering look.

"Okay," said Teresa, "I'll go, but then we are even."

"No," said Thomas, "I don't trust you. Pay the ten to Meg. Meg you go and ask them."

"Cool," said Meg, happy to have a part in all this.

Everyone but Meg set about the task of making dinner and talking about the evening's plans. After they ate, they would make a run into town for more groceries, as they had only brought enough for tonight's meal.

Meg came back a few minutes later empty handed. She told Thomas that the girls assured her that they didn't have his shorts, but she thought they might be lying.

Thomas just groaned.

"Don't worry," said Rachel, "if they've got them, we'll figure out a way to get them back." With that she patted Thomas on the back and winked at everyone else.

The other girls did have his shorts. After Thomas had run off, the girls got to talking with their new neighbors who were indeed cheerleaders from State. They had been down for a few days and would be leaving the next day. Melanie was both excited, and because of her wait list status, a little embarrassed to be talking to these girls. The good news was that Thomas' humiliation seemed to be the highlight of their trip so far and they were eager to contribute to his further humiliation, especially after they were told about his theft of Melanie's underwear and other assorted crimes that they just made up. Normally Melanie would have chided the other girls for lying, but these stories seemed to bond the two groups together and Melanie was all for that, especially after she learned that one of these girls, Jan, was also the head cheerleader. They gave Jan the shorts, after Teresa had pocketed the damp money, and made a plan that they would put into action the next day.

After dinner, Teresa, Laura, Meghan and Rachel sat on the deck laughing about the day's events, wondering how to further Thomas' torment.

"He is so funny, said Laura, you can tell that he is just miserable with out his underwear." "Yeah," said Teresa, "it doesn't help that you keep staring at his crotch."

"I know," Laura said, "I bet he can't wait to get these back on," holding up Thomas' now dry underwear by two fingers. She then lazily dropped them off the deck into the dirt.

Teresa walked over and looked at them and casually poured the remains of her drink on them. The other girls laughed and did the same with theirs. They then clinked glasses and walked inside.

Thomas came out later to check on his sole pair of underwear. With the way his luck had been going, he was not all that surprised to see that they had fallen off the railing and by the looks of it, were still wet.

Later that night the group headed into town to buy groceries. The girls all bought candy as well as marshmallows for roasting. Thomas looked longingly at the clothing store across the street. If he got his money back, that would be his first stop.

When they got back, Melanie, Teresa and Laura went over and hung out with the cheerleaders. Thomas was coyly invited but quickly turned them down. He did ask them to keep an eye out for his shorts.

Thomas, Meg and Rachel toasted marshmallows out on the deck. As much as he needed friends, Thomas just couldn't help being condescending to the point that Rachel was not sorry for what they had done and looked forward to more. As a matter of fact, after a lecture about how she would want to comport herself once she got to college, Rachel started collecting roasted marshmallows on a paper plate and bided her time. Sure enough, the next time Thomas got up she smeared them all over his white plastic chair. She could almost hear the squish when he sat back down.

Suppressing a laugh, Rachel said goodnight and signaled for Meg to follow her so that she could tell her what she had done.

When Thomas got up a few minutes later, he could sense something was wrong. He felt behind him and his hand came back sticky. "Oh God" he thought, "someone must have dropped a marshmallow on the chair." Head bowed, he headed up to his room and stripped out of his shorts. He then put on his last clean pair and headed to the bathroom. He washed the marshmallow off as best he could and then draped them on the shower railing to dry. He was about to leave when he thought better of it (what would Teresa do if she found them there) and grabbed the shorts. Then he remembered the underwear down in the dirt and decided he would rinse them and leave both items on the deck, just not on the railing, to dry.

When Melanie, Teresa and Laura came back, everyone else had gone to bed. They decided to sit out on the deck before retiring. Laura sat down on the offending chair and cursed. "What the...oh crap!" They then saw Thomas' shorts next to his underwear and sort of pieced together what must have happened.

"Does Thomas not remember that raccoons live in these woods?" Melanie asked.

"Well, I doubt marshmallow gives off much of a sent," replied Laura.

"No but chicken does," said Teresa, leaping up and heading towards the kitchen.

She came back with some scraps from dinner and put them in the pockets of Thomas' shorts. For good measure she put a small chicken bite in his undies as well.

Thomas woke up to the sound of pouring rain. "Crap," he thought and raced downstairs to retrieve his clothes. He immediately spied his shorts, not where he had left them, but more central and close to the rail. "Raccoons," he thought, "they must have smelled the marshmallow." He groaned as he picked them up or rather what was left of them. They had been ripped to shreds. He now looked around for the underwear, but it was nowhere to be seen. He ran from side to side and spotted them out in the yard. He clamored down, muttering, "no, no, no," but sure enough the crotch had been ripped open and they were stained. He flung them further out into the yard and yelled in frustration.

He was startled when he heard a voice asking him what he was doing out in the rain.

It came from one of the big rooms upstairs, but he couldn't tell which and he wasn't sure who it was. It didn't matter. He suddenly realized that he was out in the rain soaked to the bone in his little pajama pants and a t-shirt. He needed to get back to his room before anyone saw him.

He pulled open the sliding glass door and had taken about ten steps towards the stairs when he heard a voice behind him.

"What are you doing?"

He turned and saw Melanie in her robe with a cup of coffee in her hand. He must have raced right by her when he went out.

Mortified, he stammered, "I was just going upstairs," and turned to go.

"Thomas, your feet are caked with mud, you can't go upstairs like that. Look at what you have already tracked in here! Wait there while I grab you some paper towels to clean your feet." While Thomas stood there, the other girls wandered out of their bedrooms.

Rachel was still rubbing sleep from her eyes, but was thrilled by what she saw.

His butt was so cute the way it clung to his pj shorts. It really looked like two oval holes had been cut out of either side.

Melanie handed him some towels and he quickly started to wipe off his right foot, standing stork like. When he shifted to his left foot, he lost his balance and started to hop a bit to regain control, failed and flopped right into Laura's arms.

"Whoa, big fella, I got ya."

Thomas quickly pulled away and cleaned off his other foot.

"Now go through those away and grab some others and wipe up the mess you made coming in," ordered Melanie.

"I'll do it after I shower," he promised.

"No," she said, "you will do it now!"

"Go Melanie," said Teresa.

Thomas wanted to protest, but the four girls were blocking the stairs and he shuddered to think what they might do if he tried to run for it. So he walked over to the kitchen, grabbed the role of paper towels, came back and got on his hands and knees and set to work.

When he finished, their was an awkward moment when Thomas didn't know if he was supposed to wait for inspection and the girls didn't know what to do or say either.

Melanie finally broke the silence by saying, "good job sweetie, why don't you go take that shower now."

As he sidled past the girls on his way up the stairs, Laura repeated, "good job sweetie,"

And gave him a playful swat and squeeze on his butt cheek.

After Thomas finished his shower, he dried off and wrapped himself in the towel.

He realized that he would have to walk back to his room in this state, but he really had no choice. This time he did leave his wet clothes in the bathroom, wishing he had done this before. He was surprised not to see anyone about as he made the short walk back to his room.

As he opened the door he immediately saw the pair of Melanie's panties on his bed.

He also sighed as he saw that the bag that had held his one remaining pair of shorts was empty. His first thought was maybe it hadn't been such a good idea to leave his t shirt and pajamas in the bathroom and headed back to get them. Too late, they had joined the ranks of the missing. So, he did a quick inventory. He had his towel, Melanie's panties and one pair of shorts that just happened to be next door somewhere!

"Very funny," he called out. "Can I have my clothes back now?"

Silence.

"Melanie?"

Silence.

And then he heard them. They were all on the front porch.

He walked over and cracked open the front door. "Hey" he said trying to sound confident, "Can I have my clothes back?

"What clothes?" asked Teresa.

"C'mon," he almost whispered, losing what little confidence he had mustered.

After some financial negotiating putting Thomas even deeper in a hole, he was told where his clothes were.

He sighed, and walked to the edge of the porch and looked up. Yes, the family flag was gone, replaced by what few clothes he had left.

Teresa took him by the elbow and guided him towards the flag pole with Laura close behind. "Now what you are going to want to do, is give the rope a really good tug, because of the knot we placed in it way up there close to the hole it has to pass through."

"And when I yank on it really hard, you guys are counting on my towel falling to the ground." Teresa looked crestfallen. "Damn, Laura, he's on to us."

Thomas tried to pull the rope with one hand and hold the towel with the other, but couldn't get the knot through the hole.

He offered Teresa $10 dollars to pull the rope for him. She asked for $20, but Laura jumped in and offered to do it for $15.

Thomas was relieved that he had dodged this bullet and would soon have his clothes back. He took a step back and raised his right hand to shield his eyes so that he could see the knot. Laura's first couple of attempts failed, but with everyone including Thomas yelling "one, two, three," her next tug got the knot through the hole.

And then it happened.

As his clothes started to come down, his towel was pulled off his body and headed up the flagpole. Teresa had hooked a clasp to his towel while Thomas was distracted. As the clothes and towel meet about ten feet above the ground, Laura stopped pulling and started tying off the rope, wrapping it around the pole and through itself, creating even more knots, making it really hard to unwind.

Thomas was stunned. His mind just sort of froze.

The first thing to penetrate was the laughter. Laura, was laughing so hard she was sort of yell laughing. Teresa was jumping up and down screaming yes, yes, yes!

Meg and Rachel stood on the porch, mouth's agape and Melanie had her hand to her mouth hiding her smile, but shaking with quiet laughter.

But there was more laughter. Thomas turned and saw that all the cheerleaders were out on their porch laughing as well.

Thomas didn't even try to cover himself as much as he would have wanted to, because he knew he would need both hands to get the rope untangled. Actually, he could have used five or six hands. When he realized he wasn't going to get this done, he decided to retreat into the house, but the girls were way ahead of him and piled into the cottage and slammed the door behind them...and turned the lock.

Thomas was about to just start running, when the girls from the other cottage started to call out. "Yoohoo. Hey baby, look what we have for you."

Thomas looked over and saw that Jan, the head cheerleader was waving his shorts from yesterday.

Thomas hesitated. He was starting to get how things worked. As desperate as he was for these shorts, he knew that it couldn't be as simple as walking over and getting them. And walking over there naked wouldn't be so simple either!

He was right.

It looked good for a moment, he walked up to Jan who was holding out the shorts at arms length, but pulled them back as he extended his arm.

"You know," she said, these are mighty precious cargo, I'd sure hate to see you drop them, you'd better use two hands."

Thomas sighed. He had managed to cover himself with at least one hand during most of this ordeal, but even that was being taken away from him. He looked from girl to girl and saw no sympathy, only unabashed delight.

He pulled his hand away and raised it up next to the other as if waiting to catch something falling from the sky. Jan just smiled at him and said "it's such a shame that we are leaving today. I feel like we are only just getting to know each other. Don't you wish we had more time, Thomas?"

"Sh sure," said Thomas, thinking the opposite.

"Oh Tommy, what I could do with you if I had a week! This (and here she gestured at Thomas' naked state) would seem like a walk in the park."

Suddenly she kissed him on the cheek and whispered into his ear, "I'll see if I can't make that happen."

Jan then started to walk away.

"Hey," Thomas called out, "what about my shorts!?"

Jan whirled around and gave Thomas such a stare, that he looked down at the ground and without even realizing it, covered himself once again as if he were about to be kicked.

She then turned her back on him and casually tossed his shorts to her flock and said "make him earn them back girls," as she walked back inside.

One of the girls strode up to him and said, "hi, I'm Candi and I'll be teaching you the cheers you need to learn to get your shorts back."

Just then his cousins and their friends reappeared all decked out for a swim.

"What's going on?" Melanie asked.

"We are going to teach your little buddy how to cheer," Candi said. "Why don't you girls go have a nice swim and when you get back we'll have Tommy hear perform and you can decide if he has learned enough to get his shorts back."

The girls all happily marched off towards the lake and Teresa called back "and don't be afraid to spank him if he gets out of line."

"Ooh," one of the other cheerleaders cooed, cracking up the rest of the group.

And for the next two hours, they put Tommy, as he was now called, through his paces.

They worked him hard, but they also took turns teasing him. They enjoyed watching him awkwardly attempt cheers with an erection, which wouldn't last long because of the workout and the humiliation, so they'd start the process over. Jan reappeared and complimented Thomas on his commitment.

By the time the girls came back from swimming, he was exhausted. His legs were sore from the high kicks, his balls were tender from all the unrestrained jiggling and his butt was sore and red from Teresa's advice being well heeded.

But he had to put all that behind him, because now it was show time!

First Thomas went through some rudimentary cheers with the other cheerleaders much to the delight of his audience. Then he got to solo, ending with one of the most pathetic splits the girls had ever seen.

"We'll," asked Candi, "did he earn his shorts back, ladies?"

"Oh what the hell," said Teresa, "frankly I think we could all use a break from staring at his junk!" "Okay then," announced Candi, clothes your eyes and we'll help you get these back on."

And with that she dangled Thomas' shorts in front of him.

Relieved, he closed his eyes and lifted one leg. Immediately, he knew that whatever was being pulled up his leg, was not his shorts. When he opened his eyes he saw that Melanie's underwear was just now being pulled up over his butt. "I hope they're worth it," Melanie said. "I believe they are the only bit of clothing that you have now."

Just then Jan announced that it was time for the girls to pack up and get ready to leave. The cheerleaders filed back into their cottage, most giving Thomas a peck on one check and a little slap on the other as they walked by.

Jan turned to Melanie and grabbed both her hands and said, "thanks for making this such a great trip, I hope I'll be able to return the favor someday."

Thomas ran up to his room relieved to finally not be on show. He couldn't relax though. Underwear on, underwear off, neither state was comfortable. After a while, Meg and Rachel came up to tell him that the cheerleaders were getting ready to leave. Thomas let it be known that this was good news as far as he was concerned.

"They want to say good bye," Rachel said. "And they have a gift for you, your shorts."