The Rush Ch. 01: The Hazing Begins

Everyone at the school, even the freshmen, knew that Sigma Rho Eta was at the top of the social pecking order. Even the students who eschewed Greek life recognized that SPH threw the best parties, recruited the most charming and charismatic guys, and got with the hottest girls on campus.

Rodger stood in front of the big, brick house emblazoned with the frat's letters. He'd seen it before on campus tours and visits with his family, but today it felt bigger and more imposing against the overcast sky. Rodger's grandfather, father, and older brother had all been members of SPH during their time at the college. He knew he had to make it into the frat to continue his family legacy. Plus, hearing all his brother's stories of wild parties and sexy girls made sure that Rodger had fantasized about joining SPH for years.

Rodger had walked over with a few of the guys from his hall. He'd met them on the first night of college and bonded over a shared love of rum, sports, and tits. Kevan was the boy Rodger most admired; at six-foot-four and 250 pounds, Kevan was a tank. He'd been the star running back in high school with infinite prospects for college football until an early-season herniated disc dashed his aspirations. Rather than being bitter, Kevan seemed to take it in stride. "No football means no dry season, after all," he'd shrugged. He was an easy-going charmer, already popular among the student body after just a few weeks.

Lance was a pretty-boy type: blonde hair, green eyes, a killer smile and almost no body hair. He played club lacrosse and told a lot of stories about his summers on Cape Cod. Rodger knew that Lance was just another rich asshole, but he also knew that making connections with rich assholes is what joining a frat is all about. These were the people who got you high-paying jobs even when your grades tank from all the partying. SPH alums were spread all over Fortune 500 companies, Big 4 accounting firms, tech powerhouses and innovative start-ups. Getting into SPH meant being set for life.

Rounding out the crew was Tony. Tony was a short, rotund New York Italian with a wild mop of curly black hair. He was wearing a graphic t-shirt, basketball shorts, and New Balance sneakers and sporting a patchy, unkempt beard. His wire-framed glasses always sat a little askew. But Tony was hilarious, not to mention the most genuine and warm person Rodger had met at school, and his winning personality made up for his lack of dress sense.

For his own part, Rodger stood at about six feet tall. He was fit but not particularly cut, and the freshman fifteen had definitely started to pad out his midsection. He was proud of the well-manscaped carpet of honey-brown hair that covered his chest, stomach, and pubes, which he'd been able to grow since age fourteen. Early puberty leaving him taller and more masculine than a lot of his classmates had given Rodger a lot of confidence. It helped him make friends and date girls in high school -- being captain of the soccer team certainly didn't hurt, either. But now he was a little fish in a big pond, and could only feel anxious.

"Well, lads, should we head in?" Kevan asked.

Lance started walking up the steps without answering. "I hope they have girls here."

"Recruitment's supposed to be a total sausage party," Tony chimed in. "They don't let you hang with the girls until you're a member."

"It's supposed to be so we all bond," Rodger explained, "as brothers."

Lance scoffed. "You can't fuck a brother."

"Not with that attitude," joked Tony.

The boys were greeted inside by older members of the frat wearing matching green shirts. "SPH Recruitment 2022" was written on the front tee pocket. On the back was the frat's sigil, a ruler with a snake wrapped around it -- a vestige from back when the frat was a society for medical engineers.

Now, the frat was open to everyone, as evinced by the 100 or so young men who'd gathered in the SPH basement for recruitment. The first night was meant to be a simple mixer. The goal was to talk to as many brothers as possible. Rumor had it that the members figured out who to cut from Round 1 after just a few hours.

Lance seemed to know a lot of the other recruits; there was always a boarding school contingent. Kevan and Tony were natural extroverts and had no trouble working their way into conversations. Rodger, however, could feel his heart pounding in his chest, not sure where to go or who to talk to. Surely someone with this much social awkwardness wasn't SPH material...

"Hey, are you Rodger?" he heard a voice ask. He turned around to see four green-shirted guys standing behind him. "We're Aaron's friends; we knew you were his brother as soon as you walked in. It's uncanny!"

"He was all of our big brother when we were pledging," said another one of the guys.

Rodger smiled. He quickly slid into easy conversation with the brothers, who told him stories about his brother's infamous escapades: scaling the Sciences Building in nothing but his boxers, making his way through the entire women's crew team in one semester, chartering a bus on a whim and taking his whole frat class to the beach.

Rodger wanted the guys to know he was just as cool as his brother. He saw an opportunity when one of Aaron's friends, Carter, talked about how he was banging twins who didn't know he was seeing them both. "Senior year I dated twins who did know," Rodger said. "We all went to bed together." That story was true, if embellished: the girls were weirdly inseparable, and while they did have several sleepovers, he'd never fucked either of them.

"Ha," chuckled Oliver, another of the group, "I'd expect nothing less from a Higgins."

Carter had called over a few other guys, telling them about the recruit who dated twins in high school. Suddenly, Rodger was being pulled into all sorts of conversations. He started feeling magnanimous, his nerves fading and his confidence kicking back in.

After an hour or so, he spotted Tony standing by the drinks table alone. "Hey man," he said, pouring himself a Jack and coke. "How's it going?"

"Not great," Tony admitted. "One of the other recruits spent like 10 minutes roasting me in front of a bunch of brothers for my weight and stuff."

Rodger scowled. "What an asshole. Don't listen to him. I mean, just look at the president of the frat -- he's bigger than you! I don't think they'll want someone around who makes fun of big guys."

Speaking of, the frat president himself had walked to the front of the room and started signaling for everyone's attention. "Everyone shut the fuck up," some of the brothers bellowed through the crowd.

Kyle McCloud was massive. Five-foot-eleven, three hundred pounds, he looked like a lineman who'd pudged out after his career ended, but in the way that you still wouldn't want to mess with him. He had a reputation for his temper, but he was fiercely loyal to his brothers and committed to the fraternity. It was under Kyle's tenure that the frat had adopted a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment against women. The man ran a tight ship.

"Gentlemen, thank you for coming by today. We hope you've enjoyed drinking our alcohol and meeting our brothers. But being a member of SPH is more than getting drunk and hanging out. We cultivate real men here. You've been evaluated on your conversation skills since you came in. Our members become CEOs, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, disruptors -- you need to be able to hold your own among other leaders. That said, some of you have demonstrated that you are fucking useless."

You could hear a pin drop. The convivial atmosphere from the previous few hours had changed in an instant to one of anxious tension. It was time for the first round of cuts.

"The following boys have been identified as unable to hold a conversation, or have a personality so awful no one would tolerate being around them. That, or you're here as a joke: Eddie Duke, Jack Brennan, Louis Anders..."

One by one, the rejected pledges started filing out of the basement. Tony gently nudged Rodger, pointing out the boy who'd bullied him earlier as one of the rejects. Rodger was heartened to know that the frat wouldn't take in guys like that.

All in all, about 20 guys had gotten cut, leaving 80 or so pledges. Kyle directed the group to head outside to the back yard, and Rodger and Tony filed outside with the rest of the boys. The yard was large but unmaintained; the grass was mostly all dead, leaving caked, dry earth to cover most of the surface. Empty beer cans were littered everywhere, between broken lawn chairs and picnic tables painted in SPH's signature green and orange.

"Why are they watering the lawn?" someone asked from behind Rodger. "There's no grass..."

Indeed, two brothers had already been outside, dousing the ground with water. It was after dark as well, which made the scene even stranger.

Kyle had made his way back to the front of the crowd. "Alright, gentlemen. There's more to being in SPH than being a conversationalist. We expect physical strength and endurance out of our men as well. You have to be well-rounded and take care of yourself. We have a reputation to maintain here."

"That's fucking ironic," muttered the same guy who'd commented on the lawn.

Unfortunately, he'd made his quip during a lull in Kyle's intro. "What was that?" Kyle asked. "Does one of you have something to say?"

There was a moment of painfully awkward silence as no one came forward.

"Alright, if no one tells me who spoke out of turn, then we'll just cut the whole back of the group," Kyle boomed. There was a short scuffle as guys started pushing the culprit forward, not wanting to rat on their fellow pledge but not wanting to lose out themselves.

"Now," said Kyle, when the boy was finally in front of him, "why don't you repeat what you said?"

"I said that's fucking ironic," the boy mumbled.

"What's fucking ironic?"

"It's fucking ironic that your fat ass is telling us we have to be fit to join this frat!" Without missing a beat, Kyle had lifted the kid a few inches off the ground and launched him several feet into the mud.

"If there's one thing we believe here at SPH," said Kyle, "it's to never judge a book by its cover. You're cut, by the way."

Rodger had already heard tales of Kyle from his brother. Kyle quickly earned a "firm but fair" reputation first as the frat's social chair, then as its president. As terrifying as it was seeing that guy thrown by a man three times his size, no one present could deny that he had brought it on himself. As the reject made his way out through the gate, Rodger noticed that while he was covered in mud and clearly humiliated, he was not hurt at all.

"Boys, you're army crawling," said Kyle. "You start here on my signal; you end at the other side of the yard where those brothers are standing. Back 20 get cut."

Rodger weirdly felt a sense of relief. He'd done plenty of army crawls through the mud for soccer practice, and it wasn't like it'd been years since he was at his peak. The row of brothers marking the finish line on the other side of the lawn were about fifty yards away. Strenuous but not impossible.

The yard was large enough for all 80 pledges to line up at the starting line, although there wasn't much wiggle room between them. Rodger was flanked by two strangers, having been separated from Tony and his other buddies. Almost in unison, the men got down on their bellies and prepared for the race.

"On your marks," called Kyle, his voice faint from the other side of the yard, "get set... Go!"

There was an immediate flurry of sound -- arms brushing against each other, mud squelching, men grunting -- as the pledges fought for their futures. Rodger made it roughly halfway before he started to get winded, but the effort wasn't so bad at first. It felt good to be exercising after neglecting to take care of his body during orientation. He took comfort in the feeling of the bodies pressed on either side of him; he knew to speed up if he felt one getting too far ahead, and their warmth reminded him he was not going through this alone.

Rodger finally popped up at the finish line, feeling a rush of endorphins and a sense of pride and excitement. He looked around to see that he was among the first to finish -- he spotted Kevan, no surprises there, and a few other athletic guys already standing behind the row of brothers. Rodger spent some time looking for Tony -- he was worried about his overweight friend's chances in the race.

"What a night," said Kevan, walking over to Rodger with a twinkle in his eye. "did your brother tell you about all this?"

Rodger shook his head. "No, he wanted it to be a surprise. Which so far it has definitely been."

"Well, someone I was talking to told me there were 5 Tenets."

"Tenets?"

"Yeah, of the frat. Like core values. We've been through two..."

"Charisma and strength?" Rodger asked, to which Kevan nodded. "But what are the other three?"

The brother closest to them turned around. "Shut up," he snapped. "You'll learn them as we go, and only brothers know the full five."

Rodger spotted a mass of mud heading towards them -- this was by far the pledge with the worst luck on the ground. When he was close enough, Rodger recognized him as Lance. "Whoa," said Kevan, "what happened to you?"

"This is such bullshit," Lance spat, wiping more mud from his face. "I wore my fucking new Balenciaga sneaks to this and now they're totally scuffed."

"Worth it for SPH," was all Rodger said in return. Lance scowled.

Rodger turned his attention back to the yard; there was still maybe half of the pack left. He was trying to keep an eye out for Tony, but it was hard to make sense of the muddy bodies writhing almost on top of each other.

"Alright," one of the brothers yelled out. "We're down to 21 on the field. One slot left. Who wants it?"

The remaining men picked up their pace, invigorated knowing that everything was on the line. One guy who was all the way in the back stood up and left wordlessly, realizing that he had no way to catch up. The throng of pledges and brothers gathered around the finish line near where the two frontrunners would cross -- a skinny Latino guy who couldn't seem to get traction, and -- Tony! Rodger couldn't believe it. He started cheering for his friend; Kevan joined in and soon the crowd was split between cheering on Tony and cheering on the other guy.

Tony was behind, but only by a head. "Put your hips into the forward motion," Rodger called out. This seemed to be the piece that Tony was missing -- swinging his thick midsection with each extension sent him careening forward just that much more through the mud. After a few beats, Tony's curly, black hair was sticking past his opponent's head, then his belly surpassed him, then his knees--

"We have a winner!" called out a brother. Rodger and Kevan drew Tony into a big embrace, with the rest of the pledges piling on. Rodger felt a swell of camaraderie, like he was home.

Everyone gathered back on the paved part of the yard, shivering from the cold mud on the brisk September night. Kyle emerged from the back door, red plastic cup in hand, and stood in front of the pledges once more.

"Well done. You've made it through two rounds of cuts, representing our frat's commitment to cultivating charming and healthy young men. Now, we have one more opportunity for you to show off your stuff tonight, but first we need to get you cleaned up. Strip down to your underwear."

Everyone knew better than to complain or question Kyle. With some nervous laughter, the boys started undressing. Rodger was just glad that the pledges weren't being made to get naked -- he had no qualms being in his boxers around these other guys, but had reservations about going any further.

Rodger looked around as the boys got back in a single row along the edge of the patio. Most of the guys were wearing boxer briefs, with baggy boxers like Rodger's a close second. A handful of the guys were wearing briefs, including both Lance and Tony. Three or four unlucky guys were wearing jock straps, their asses now exposed -- including Kevan.

A few of the brothers wolf-whistled. "Look at these studs," another called out mockingly.

Members of the frat were walking up and down the line of pledges, collecting their clothes into big cloth laundry bags. Rodger panicked seeing this.

"For being such good sports," Kyle announced, "we are going to do your laundry for you tonight. Save you the fifty cents on the dorm washers. But here's the catch -- you are to stay in the underwear you are currently wearing until you return for Day 2 tomorrow. Just those underwear."

This time, some guys did whisper amongst each other -- no one could really gauge if he was being serious. No one had quite enough time to react, though, as suddenly a group of brothers behind them unleashed cold hoses on the pledges.

Rodger turned around, using the opportunity to rinse the rest of the mud off his face. Slowly but surely, most of the other guys made the most of the situation, 'showering' in the hose water.

"About time you fucks bathed," said Kyle with an impish grin. "Now get out of our house."

The guys closest to the gate scooped up their phones and wallets and started ambling out of the yard. After a few beats, a giant cheer erupted in the distance.

The redhead next to Rodger turned around. "Those are girls' voices."

Sure enough, the brothers had invited the members and pledges of SPH's sister sorority, Epsilon Nu Mu, to catch the young men in their undies. The ENM girls had formed a human tunnel of sorts, stretching from the front of the SPH house to the end of Greek Row. Now soaking wet, a lot of the guys with tighter underwear were displaying prominent outlines of their cocks, to say nothing of the dudes with white underwear. Rodger caught up with Tony, whose thick black bush could now be clearly made out through his wet tighty whities. All the pledges began running through the tunnel of women; a few yards ahead, Rodger saw one of the girls slap Kevan's exposed, round ass.

Once out of the tunnel, Rodger and Tony caught up with Kevan and Lance, and together they sprinted back home to their dorm.

***

All four guys had roommates who weren't rushing, so they settled into the empty common room to debrief. It was nearly four in the morning, so the hall was dead empty, even for a Friday night. Gathered in four armchairs arranged in a circle, the boys knew they could convene without being caught.

Rodger slumped back in his chair, running his fingers absentmindedly through his chest hair. He and Lance lived closer to the same end of their hall, so they'd run into each other in that communal bathroom a few times. He'd seen Lance's slender, hairless torso and long, graceful legs before -- the body of a natural-born runner.

Kevan and Tony were closer to the other bathroom, so Rodger hadn't seen them in states of undress before. Kevan was as chiseled as expected, with a six pack of abs and ham hocks for thighs. His chest was shaved -- unlike Lance's, whose smattering of peach fuzz between his pecs hinted that he just couldn't grow any -- with a splash of jet-black curls on his belly leading into his jockstrap.

Tony was sitting cross-legged, his ample bosom hanging down over his belly, all of it coated in the same thick hair that graced his back and shoulders. Rodger noticed some real bulk under Tony's fat -- he shouldn't have doubted his friend in the mud race.

"What time are we supposed to be back at the house?" Lance asked.

"Eight P.M.," said Kevan through a yawn.

"So we have to stay in our underwear all day tomorrow? I feel like if we just show up in our drawers..."

"You think they haven't thought of a way to check up on us?" Rodger asked pointedly.

Tony shrugged. "I was going to spend my Saturday playing video games in my underwear anyway."