There's a Soccer Born Every Minute multiple m/m 4 parts completed
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2020 2:56 pm
THERE’S A SOCCER BORN EVERY MINUTE
“So, Jake…” the blond captain of the Soccer team said to the prospective recruit with a not-fully-concealed sneer on his handsome face and an even less-well-concealed tone of sarcasm in his voice; “you think you have what it takes to join the Mighty Bucks?”
“You bet I do,” Jake replied with casual self-confidence; if he noticed the other boy’s rather offensive manner, he didn’t show it. “I’m the best goalie you’ll ever meet in this town who isn’t already out of high school!”
Charlie, the 17-year-old team captain, looked at the new boy up and down with a touch of disdain that he didn’t quite feel. Though only fifteen, Jake was taller than any of the other six boys present – even though these were all juniors and seniors rather than a lowly sophomore. But though he was obviously a superb athlete from what the others could see of him, his cherubic face and slender build made him look years younger than he actually was – like an overgrown twelve-year-old. This made it easier to take him less seriously than another, older-looking boy would have been. The fact that his voice sounded like that of a prepubescent added to the perception the other boys had that Jake was more suited to a children’s choir than he was to a soccer team. And those thick glasses he wore screamed “NERD!” to anyone who looked at him.
Charlie looked at his other five team-mates; they’d just been beginning a practice game when Jake had rode up on his bicycle and asked to join the school soccer team. No one else was present on the field, which itself was isolated from view from anywhere else except for the adjacent school building – and as it was now late Friday afternoon there was no one there either. “What do you think guys?” he asked the others.
Frank - Charlie’s closest friend - was also 17, several inches shorter than Charlie’s 5’ 10” (175 cm) height, but thanks to his stockier build weighed about the same at 150 pounds (68 kg). “Let’s give him a try, Charlie,” Frank said with a look and tone even more disdainful than the team captain’s had been; “we could use a few laughs.”
The other four boys, all of them juniors, went along withtheir two older team-mates with simple nods or monosyllabic grunts of agreement.
Charlie spread his team out so that they could work together to try scoring goals off this young newcomer while Jake positioned himself to guard the net. Charlie and the others still wore their soccer uniforms, but Jake was wearing similarly light clothing – an old, faded tank-top, a set of gym shorts that ran only halfway down to his knees, a pair of white socks, and a pair of new Nike sneakers. Charlie and his friends were fresh (having all arrived here in Charlie’s car) while Jake was slightly tired from having come here by bicycle, so they expected this try-out to be short, fun, and thoroughly embarrassing for this sophomore soccer wannabe.
But fifteen minutes later and twelve successful saves by Jake later, Charlie and his friends had not scored a single goal, and their smug smiles were all wiped off their faces. They called time out and asked Jake to wait by the goal net while the six of them had a private huddle to discuss the situation.
“Cripes, that kid is good!” exclaimed Chip, the red-headed, freckle-faced junior.
“But can he score as well as play keeper?” asked Greg, the slender African-American boy who wore an old-fashioned Afro.
“Yeah,” seconded Nick, the short, stocky black boy who shaved off his hair altogether; “for all we know he kicks like a little girl!”
“One way to find out,” suggested Phuong, the Asian kid; “Have him try to score some goals off each of us!”
Charlie agreed with that suggestion and called to Jake. “We’re each going to be the goalie while to try to score a goal past us,” Charlie told him. “Get all six, and then pass the initiation, and then you’re in!”
“What initiation?” Chip (who was standing just behind and to the right of Charlie) began to ask, but a solid thump in his midriff from Charlie’s elbow turned this into a rather loud “W-OOF!” as if he were trying to bark like a dog. Rubbing his suddenly sore stomach and looking at his team captain, he caught a glare that instantly warned him not to try to pursue the matter.
Phuong, considered the best keeper of the soccer team after Charlie himself, took position in front of the net while Jake prepared to kick the ball. Jake launched his kick, and the ball sailed well past Phuong almost before the boy realized the ball was even in motion.
Six boys said the same three word expression almost in unison; “What the f***?!?”
Disgruntled, Charlie took position as goalie; determined that this mere sophomore wasn’t going to score a goal past HIM!
This time, he uttered the same expression as before – only louder and more angrily. That soccer ball flew past him as if launched out of a damned cannon!
Charlie’s remaining four team-mates took their own turns, but Charlie was already certain of the conclusion and began to plan the unsuspecting Jake’s ‘initiation’ into the club!
By the time the last boy took his turn as goalie, Charlie’s plans were fully formed and he quickly and quietly gave his remaining team-mates the gist of it. Just as annoyed with this young upstart as Charlie was, the other four immediately agreed to help Charlie carry his plan out.
“That was a good game,” Charlie said cheerfully to Jake with as straight a face as he could manage. “Say, could you help us take the soccer net down? It has a few broken spots in it that need to be repaired!” This last part was true enough, and Charlie even pointed out a couple of places where the fabric had indeed been frayed.
“Sure!” Jake replied agreeably. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just stand right over there and catch the net when it falls,” Charlie asked him, pointing to a spot inside the center of the goal area, right in front of the net itself, as he and his team-mates quickly detached the net from the goal posts.
Jake complied with the request before it occurred to him to wonder about Charlie’s rather odd request. “But how will that help?” he began to ask as he turned back around to face Charlie. But all that came of his mouth was a startled “Bu-awk!” - making him sound very much like a startled chicken that had just had one of its tail-feathers pulled.
The net itself wasn’t very heavy and didn’t drop far enough to do more than startle Jake; he simply stood there in puzzlement and began trying the pull the net off of himself. But before he could get well-started, the other six boys surrounded him and began to wind the entire net around him to entangle him even further. Charlie swept Jake’s out from under him while Chip and Phuong caught him and lowered him gently to a prone position on the ground. The remaining boys eagerly entangled their victim like so many spiders pouncing on a helpless fly.
“HEY!” Jake yelled - this time in outrage rather than surprise – as he began to fight back. His arms were already hopelessly enmeshed and pinned down into almost total immobility by one of his assailants. There was no one holding down his legs however, and he now demonstrated the same power kicking against the other boys as he had kicking the soccer ball unerringly to its goal. One boy went reeling backward to fall on his rump, while another received a kick to his shin that sent him hopping around on his other leg yelling lurid profanities. A third boy just narrowly managed to dodge a heel to the groin that would have taken him out of the fight altogether had it landed. The others all received several bruises apiece to various portions of their anatomy before their reluctant victim was finally rendered almost completely immobile by the soccer-net-turned-makeshift-cocoon combined with three of the boys straddling him.
“That won’t hold him for long,” Charlie decided. He turned to one of the two boys who were still on their feet rather than pinning down their netted prey. “Greg, go to the locker room and get that big coil of rope they use to fence off areas.” As captain of the soccer team, Charlie had the keys needed to get into the school and into the locker room, and handed them over to his team-mate. With a quick nod, Greg ran as fast as he could go to carry out Charlie’s order.
By the time Greg returned with the half-inch thick, red-colored coils of rope (five coils, each about forty feet long), Jake’s struggles against his captors had become considerably weaker but had by no means ceased altogether. Five of the boys took a coil apiece and proceeded to wrap it tightly around part of Jake’s anatomy as tightly as possible while the remaining boy kept turning Jake over and over to help with the binding process. By the time they were finished, Jake’s legs were as immobile as if they were welded together, while his arms were thoroughly trapped against his sides. The most Jake could do now was wriggle feebly like a slug, glare at them angrily, and swear loudly but ineffectually against his captors.
A roll of duct tape that Greg had also thoughtfully fetched soon took care of the cursing, and a blindfold made from one of their shirts served equally well to deal with Jake’s reproachful glares. Jake could still thrash feebly around, but as this only aroused scornful laughter from the other boys these soon ended as well.
“Okay, fellows,” Charlie said to his team-mates cheerfully. ‘Let’s make our new team-mate feel right at home.”
All six boys got a solid grip on their captive (the net providing plenty of handholds), lifted him up, and carried him like a large sack of grain to the locker room.
******
Jake wasn’t feeling too confident anymore. Of course, it’s hard to feel confidence when you’re all wrapped up in a net like a freshly caught fish and being hauled away to an uncertain fate by a bunch of boys who had you completely at their mercy. It’s even worse when you were the new kid in town and didn’t know any of your captors - and therefore couldn’t appeal to their sense of friendship even if you could utter a coherent word in the attempt.
Jake had possessed every confidence in his soccer skills, and had thought a simple demonstration of these would win over any skeptics in the school’s soccer team and win him a place in the Mighty Bucks. But if this was their idea of an initiation, then he was going to have more trouble joining the team and being considered one of them than he had thought.
Jake still had no idea just how much trouble he was in for!
Charlie released his grip on the net as the boys came close to the school, and ran ahead to open the door leading to the vacant gymnasium. The remaining five boys carrying Jake hauled him quickly to the door but thankfully were careful enough not to bump or scrape their helpless captive against the door frame. Still, the moment they were all inside and the door to the outside was closed and latched behind them, Jake felt a sinking feeling of doom within his gut. The quiet, bare corridor of the hallway behind the gymnasium reminded him of a prison he’d seen on TV once.
The boys came to another door and paused while Charlie unlocked it. Through the netting and the thin material of his makeshift blindfold, Jake dimly saw a clean but vacant boy’s locker room beyond. The layout was similar to a small-case letter ‘t’, with the entrance along the curly part at the bottom; making the rest of the locker room invisible from the doorway or outside for privacy reasons. Beyond the bend at the entrance, a set of benches were flanked by a row of lockers on either side up to the bar of theft’. On the left bar were the showers, while the right-side bar contained another bench and more lockers; out of sight even from the main part of the locker room. It was to this bench that Jake was hauled up to and then – somewhat but not too – gently set down upon, lying on his back and facing upward.
“Okay, let’s make our guest… ummm… reasonably comfortable,” Charlie suggested to his team-mates as he removed the shirt covering the net over Jake’s eyes.
Apparently Charlie’s idea of making Jake more comfortable involved taking yet another coil of rope about 100 feet (30 m) long and winding it all around Jake’s body and the bench he lay upon together. The rope wasn’t too tight, but it ensured that Jake would be unable to rise up (or fall) off the bench.
Jake was then alarmed to see Charlie flick open a jackknife he had stowed in his locker and approach him with it. Seeing Jake’s wide-eyed look of alarm (accompanied by nervous squeals and renewed but fruitless struggles to escape), Jake stopped. “Relax, kid,” he said to Jake with a friendly (if still mischievous) grin and a quiet, even tone of voice. “I’m not going to cut you with this; provided you don’t wiggle around so much I do it by accident! I’m just going to cut the net off from around your head so you can breathe better.”
Jake relaxed somewhat but still looked warily at the older boy as Charlie crouched down beside him and got to work. Charlie was careful and methodical; always keeping the edge of the knife-blade away from any adjacent portion of Jake’s anatomy as he sliced a hole just larger than Jake’s head from the fabric of the net. Once he was done, Jake’s head was clear of the net; though none of the rest of him was. But though he could not move, he could see and breathe a lot better, since the net had previously squished Jake’s glasses into his cheeks and nose and made it difficult for him to do either very well up to now.
“Better?” Charlie asked with evident concern as he clicked his knife shut and put it away.
“A bit,” Jake admitted quietly; wishing to do nothing to show the outrage he was feeling inside of him. Protesting all this would certainly do him no good and might even make things worse; whereas if he just took this with good grace they’d be satisfied and let him go free before very long.
Jake was still very naïve about some things.
“Good!” Charlie replied as he stood up, walked to the other end of the bench, and squatted down again. “Now let’s see about making you a bit more comfortable.”
Out came the knife blade again, but this time Jake wasn’t quite as concerned as before as he watched the older boy sliced away at the net around his feet. Before long, Jake’s sneaker-covered feet were sticking out of the confines of the net as well. Charlie put away his knife again. “Okay Chip, Nick… care to do the honors?” he asked the two boys in question as he stepped away from the foot of the bench.
Jake watched warily as the two boys Charlie had named walked up to the foot of the bench, crouched down, and carefully began to untie Jake’s sneakers. Once they were done, both boys pulled off a sneaker from Jake’s feet at the same time and tentatively sniffed it. “Yeah, these will do,” Chip announced as if checking vegetables for freshness and gently tossed the sneaker he held over to Charlie.
Jake’s look of puzzlement was ignored as the two boys then pulled off his socks and sniffed those as well. “*Phew!* that stinks!” Nick said cheerfully as he and Chip tossed the socks they held over to Charlie as well.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked nervously as Charlie proceeded to roll the socks together into a ball and crouched down beside him again.
“Open your mouth and close your eyes; and you’ll get a great big surprise!” Charlie replied with a taunting smile and equally taunting tone of voice.
But Jake did the reverse; his eyes widened in alarm as he clamped his mouth tightly shut.
“That never really works, you know,” Charlie insisted as he pinched Jake’s nose shut.
But Jake wasn’t as simple as all that; he simply breathed in and out rapidly through the corners of his mouth; giving Charlie no leeway to insert the socks. Charlie tried to pry Jake’s jaws open, but Jake apparently had strong jaws; his attempts only got him bit in one finger.
“You know what to do, guys,” Charlie indicated to the boys at Jake’s feet.
Grinning happily, Nick and Chip resumed their posts at the foot of the bench and slowly stroked their fingers along the undersides of Jake’s feet. “AHHH! AHAHAHAHAHA!” Jake bellowed with sudden laughter. “OH NO! Don’t! STOP!”
“Wow! He’s even more ticklish than my kid brother!” Chip said gleefully as he continued to tickle Jake’s feet. “Can’t we keep doing this for a while?”
“Not just yet!” Charlie replied as he took advantage of the available wide-mouthed opening to stuff Jake’s own socks into the helpless boy’s mouth. “We don’t want him to choke, now do we? Anyway, there will be plenty of time to play with him later.”
Jake had ceased being tickled the moment the socks had gone into his mouth, and he tried to spit the nasty, stinking things out in disgust. Before he could do this however, his mouth was sealed over with a fresh Mighty Bucks soccer shirt one of the other boys had brought. “Here’s your new team shirt,” Charlie said to his captive as he tied several tight knots into it to make a crude but tight and effective gag. “Wear it in good health!”
Once that was done, Charlie took an equally, fresh set of team uniform shorts and stuffed it down over Jake’s head like a ski-cap. Jake’s facial features were now totally obscured and the effectiveness of his gag was somewhat further enhanced, but his nose was still clear (poking out of one leg of the shorts) and he could still breathe quite freely – more so than he could when he head was wrapped inside the net anyway.
“We’re going to go string up a new net and resume our practice,’ Charlie told his captive. “Sorry you have to be benched for the duration, but we’ll make it up to you when we get back!”
Charlie and his team-mates cheerfully high-fived one another as they grabbed a new net and walked out of the locker room; turning out the light as they went. The locker room was now completely dark, as there were no windows anywhere. Jake tried to call to them, but what few feeble sounds he managed to utter were completely ignored as the boys left the locker room. The sound of the lock turning and the sound of the boys’ voice fading into silence filled him with gloom and despair.
It was soon as dark and as silent as the tomb, except for Jake’s muffled, subdued sighs of resignation spaced with an occasional moan, sniffle, or an especially deep exhalation of air through the nose in sheer frustration.
“So, Jake…” the blond captain of the Soccer team said to the prospective recruit with a not-fully-concealed sneer on his handsome face and an even less-well-concealed tone of sarcasm in his voice; “you think you have what it takes to join the Mighty Bucks?”
“You bet I do,” Jake replied with casual self-confidence; if he noticed the other boy’s rather offensive manner, he didn’t show it. “I’m the best goalie you’ll ever meet in this town who isn’t already out of high school!”
Charlie, the 17-year-old team captain, looked at the new boy up and down with a touch of disdain that he didn’t quite feel. Though only fifteen, Jake was taller than any of the other six boys present – even though these were all juniors and seniors rather than a lowly sophomore. But though he was obviously a superb athlete from what the others could see of him, his cherubic face and slender build made him look years younger than he actually was – like an overgrown twelve-year-old. This made it easier to take him less seriously than another, older-looking boy would have been. The fact that his voice sounded like that of a prepubescent added to the perception the other boys had that Jake was more suited to a children’s choir than he was to a soccer team. And those thick glasses he wore screamed “NERD!” to anyone who looked at him.
Charlie looked at his other five team-mates; they’d just been beginning a practice game when Jake had rode up on his bicycle and asked to join the school soccer team. No one else was present on the field, which itself was isolated from view from anywhere else except for the adjacent school building – and as it was now late Friday afternoon there was no one there either. “What do you think guys?” he asked the others.
Frank - Charlie’s closest friend - was also 17, several inches shorter than Charlie’s 5’ 10” (175 cm) height, but thanks to his stockier build weighed about the same at 150 pounds (68 kg). “Let’s give him a try, Charlie,” Frank said with a look and tone even more disdainful than the team captain’s had been; “we could use a few laughs.”
The other four boys, all of them juniors, went along withtheir two older team-mates with simple nods or monosyllabic grunts of agreement.
Charlie spread his team out so that they could work together to try scoring goals off this young newcomer while Jake positioned himself to guard the net. Charlie and the others still wore their soccer uniforms, but Jake was wearing similarly light clothing – an old, faded tank-top, a set of gym shorts that ran only halfway down to his knees, a pair of white socks, and a pair of new Nike sneakers. Charlie and his friends were fresh (having all arrived here in Charlie’s car) while Jake was slightly tired from having come here by bicycle, so they expected this try-out to be short, fun, and thoroughly embarrassing for this sophomore soccer wannabe.
But fifteen minutes later and twelve successful saves by Jake later, Charlie and his friends had not scored a single goal, and their smug smiles were all wiped off their faces. They called time out and asked Jake to wait by the goal net while the six of them had a private huddle to discuss the situation.
“Cripes, that kid is good!” exclaimed Chip, the red-headed, freckle-faced junior.
“But can he score as well as play keeper?” asked Greg, the slender African-American boy who wore an old-fashioned Afro.
“Yeah,” seconded Nick, the short, stocky black boy who shaved off his hair altogether; “for all we know he kicks like a little girl!”
“One way to find out,” suggested Phuong, the Asian kid; “Have him try to score some goals off each of us!”
Charlie agreed with that suggestion and called to Jake. “We’re each going to be the goalie while to try to score a goal past us,” Charlie told him. “Get all six, and then pass the initiation, and then you’re in!”
“What initiation?” Chip (who was standing just behind and to the right of Charlie) began to ask, but a solid thump in his midriff from Charlie’s elbow turned this into a rather loud “W-OOF!” as if he were trying to bark like a dog. Rubbing his suddenly sore stomach and looking at his team captain, he caught a glare that instantly warned him not to try to pursue the matter.
Phuong, considered the best keeper of the soccer team after Charlie himself, took position in front of the net while Jake prepared to kick the ball. Jake launched his kick, and the ball sailed well past Phuong almost before the boy realized the ball was even in motion.
Six boys said the same three word expression almost in unison; “What the f***?!?”
Disgruntled, Charlie took position as goalie; determined that this mere sophomore wasn’t going to score a goal past HIM!
This time, he uttered the same expression as before – only louder and more angrily. That soccer ball flew past him as if launched out of a damned cannon!
Charlie’s remaining four team-mates took their own turns, but Charlie was already certain of the conclusion and began to plan the unsuspecting Jake’s ‘initiation’ into the club!
By the time the last boy took his turn as goalie, Charlie’s plans were fully formed and he quickly and quietly gave his remaining team-mates the gist of it. Just as annoyed with this young upstart as Charlie was, the other four immediately agreed to help Charlie carry his plan out.
“That was a good game,” Charlie said cheerfully to Jake with as straight a face as he could manage. “Say, could you help us take the soccer net down? It has a few broken spots in it that need to be repaired!” This last part was true enough, and Charlie even pointed out a couple of places where the fabric had indeed been frayed.
“Sure!” Jake replied agreeably. “What do you want me to do?”
“Just stand right over there and catch the net when it falls,” Charlie asked him, pointing to a spot inside the center of the goal area, right in front of the net itself, as he and his team-mates quickly detached the net from the goal posts.
Jake complied with the request before it occurred to him to wonder about Charlie’s rather odd request. “But how will that help?” he began to ask as he turned back around to face Charlie. But all that came of his mouth was a startled “Bu-awk!” - making him sound very much like a startled chicken that had just had one of its tail-feathers pulled.
The net itself wasn’t very heavy and didn’t drop far enough to do more than startle Jake; he simply stood there in puzzlement and began trying the pull the net off of himself. But before he could get well-started, the other six boys surrounded him and began to wind the entire net around him to entangle him even further. Charlie swept Jake’s out from under him while Chip and Phuong caught him and lowered him gently to a prone position on the ground. The remaining boys eagerly entangled their victim like so many spiders pouncing on a helpless fly.
“HEY!” Jake yelled - this time in outrage rather than surprise – as he began to fight back. His arms were already hopelessly enmeshed and pinned down into almost total immobility by one of his assailants. There was no one holding down his legs however, and he now demonstrated the same power kicking against the other boys as he had kicking the soccer ball unerringly to its goal. One boy went reeling backward to fall on his rump, while another received a kick to his shin that sent him hopping around on his other leg yelling lurid profanities. A third boy just narrowly managed to dodge a heel to the groin that would have taken him out of the fight altogether had it landed. The others all received several bruises apiece to various portions of their anatomy before their reluctant victim was finally rendered almost completely immobile by the soccer-net-turned-makeshift-cocoon combined with three of the boys straddling him.
“That won’t hold him for long,” Charlie decided. He turned to one of the two boys who were still on their feet rather than pinning down their netted prey. “Greg, go to the locker room and get that big coil of rope they use to fence off areas.” As captain of the soccer team, Charlie had the keys needed to get into the school and into the locker room, and handed them over to his team-mate. With a quick nod, Greg ran as fast as he could go to carry out Charlie’s order.
By the time Greg returned with the half-inch thick, red-colored coils of rope (five coils, each about forty feet long), Jake’s struggles against his captors had become considerably weaker but had by no means ceased altogether. Five of the boys took a coil apiece and proceeded to wrap it tightly around part of Jake’s anatomy as tightly as possible while the remaining boy kept turning Jake over and over to help with the binding process. By the time they were finished, Jake’s legs were as immobile as if they were welded together, while his arms were thoroughly trapped against his sides. The most Jake could do now was wriggle feebly like a slug, glare at them angrily, and swear loudly but ineffectually against his captors.
A roll of duct tape that Greg had also thoughtfully fetched soon took care of the cursing, and a blindfold made from one of their shirts served equally well to deal with Jake’s reproachful glares. Jake could still thrash feebly around, but as this only aroused scornful laughter from the other boys these soon ended as well.
“Okay, fellows,” Charlie said to his team-mates cheerfully. ‘Let’s make our new team-mate feel right at home.”
All six boys got a solid grip on their captive (the net providing plenty of handholds), lifted him up, and carried him like a large sack of grain to the locker room.
******
Jake wasn’t feeling too confident anymore. Of course, it’s hard to feel confidence when you’re all wrapped up in a net like a freshly caught fish and being hauled away to an uncertain fate by a bunch of boys who had you completely at their mercy. It’s even worse when you were the new kid in town and didn’t know any of your captors - and therefore couldn’t appeal to their sense of friendship even if you could utter a coherent word in the attempt.
Jake had possessed every confidence in his soccer skills, and had thought a simple demonstration of these would win over any skeptics in the school’s soccer team and win him a place in the Mighty Bucks. But if this was their idea of an initiation, then he was going to have more trouble joining the team and being considered one of them than he had thought.
Jake still had no idea just how much trouble he was in for!
Charlie released his grip on the net as the boys came close to the school, and ran ahead to open the door leading to the vacant gymnasium. The remaining five boys carrying Jake hauled him quickly to the door but thankfully were careful enough not to bump or scrape their helpless captive against the door frame. Still, the moment they were all inside and the door to the outside was closed and latched behind them, Jake felt a sinking feeling of doom within his gut. The quiet, bare corridor of the hallway behind the gymnasium reminded him of a prison he’d seen on TV once.
The boys came to another door and paused while Charlie unlocked it. Through the netting and the thin material of his makeshift blindfold, Jake dimly saw a clean but vacant boy’s locker room beyond. The layout was similar to a small-case letter ‘t’, with the entrance along the curly part at the bottom; making the rest of the locker room invisible from the doorway or outside for privacy reasons. Beyond the bend at the entrance, a set of benches were flanked by a row of lockers on either side up to the bar of theft’. On the left bar were the showers, while the right-side bar contained another bench and more lockers; out of sight even from the main part of the locker room. It was to this bench that Jake was hauled up to and then – somewhat but not too – gently set down upon, lying on his back and facing upward.
“Okay, let’s make our guest… ummm… reasonably comfortable,” Charlie suggested to his team-mates as he removed the shirt covering the net over Jake’s eyes.
Apparently Charlie’s idea of making Jake more comfortable involved taking yet another coil of rope about 100 feet (30 m) long and winding it all around Jake’s body and the bench he lay upon together. The rope wasn’t too tight, but it ensured that Jake would be unable to rise up (or fall) off the bench.
Jake was then alarmed to see Charlie flick open a jackknife he had stowed in his locker and approach him with it. Seeing Jake’s wide-eyed look of alarm (accompanied by nervous squeals and renewed but fruitless struggles to escape), Jake stopped. “Relax, kid,” he said to Jake with a friendly (if still mischievous) grin and a quiet, even tone of voice. “I’m not going to cut you with this; provided you don’t wiggle around so much I do it by accident! I’m just going to cut the net off from around your head so you can breathe better.”
Jake relaxed somewhat but still looked warily at the older boy as Charlie crouched down beside him and got to work. Charlie was careful and methodical; always keeping the edge of the knife-blade away from any adjacent portion of Jake’s anatomy as he sliced a hole just larger than Jake’s head from the fabric of the net. Once he was done, Jake’s head was clear of the net; though none of the rest of him was. But though he could not move, he could see and breathe a lot better, since the net had previously squished Jake’s glasses into his cheeks and nose and made it difficult for him to do either very well up to now.
“Better?” Charlie asked with evident concern as he clicked his knife shut and put it away.
“A bit,” Jake admitted quietly; wishing to do nothing to show the outrage he was feeling inside of him. Protesting all this would certainly do him no good and might even make things worse; whereas if he just took this with good grace they’d be satisfied and let him go free before very long.
Jake was still very naïve about some things.
“Good!” Charlie replied as he stood up, walked to the other end of the bench, and squatted down again. “Now let’s see about making you a bit more comfortable.”
Out came the knife blade again, but this time Jake wasn’t quite as concerned as before as he watched the older boy sliced away at the net around his feet. Before long, Jake’s sneaker-covered feet were sticking out of the confines of the net as well. Charlie put away his knife again. “Okay Chip, Nick… care to do the honors?” he asked the two boys in question as he stepped away from the foot of the bench.
Jake watched warily as the two boys Charlie had named walked up to the foot of the bench, crouched down, and carefully began to untie Jake’s sneakers. Once they were done, both boys pulled off a sneaker from Jake’s feet at the same time and tentatively sniffed it. “Yeah, these will do,” Chip announced as if checking vegetables for freshness and gently tossed the sneaker he held over to Charlie.
Jake’s look of puzzlement was ignored as the two boys then pulled off his socks and sniffed those as well. “*Phew!* that stinks!” Nick said cheerfully as he and Chip tossed the socks they held over to Charlie as well.
“What’s going on?” Jake asked nervously as Charlie proceeded to roll the socks together into a ball and crouched down beside him again.
“Open your mouth and close your eyes; and you’ll get a great big surprise!” Charlie replied with a taunting smile and equally taunting tone of voice.
But Jake did the reverse; his eyes widened in alarm as he clamped his mouth tightly shut.
“That never really works, you know,” Charlie insisted as he pinched Jake’s nose shut.
But Jake wasn’t as simple as all that; he simply breathed in and out rapidly through the corners of his mouth; giving Charlie no leeway to insert the socks. Charlie tried to pry Jake’s jaws open, but Jake apparently had strong jaws; his attempts only got him bit in one finger.
“You know what to do, guys,” Charlie indicated to the boys at Jake’s feet.
Grinning happily, Nick and Chip resumed their posts at the foot of the bench and slowly stroked their fingers along the undersides of Jake’s feet. “AHHH! AHAHAHAHAHA!” Jake bellowed with sudden laughter. “OH NO! Don’t! STOP!”
“Wow! He’s even more ticklish than my kid brother!” Chip said gleefully as he continued to tickle Jake’s feet. “Can’t we keep doing this for a while?”
“Not just yet!” Charlie replied as he took advantage of the available wide-mouthed opening to stuff Jake’s own socks into the helpless boy’s mouth. “We don’t want him to choke, now do we? Anyway, there will be plenty of time to play with him later.”
Jake had ceased being tickled the moment the socks had gone into his mouth, and he tried to spit the nasty, stinking things out in disgust. Before he could do this however, his mouth was sealed over with a fresh Mighty Bucks soccer shirt one of the other boys had brought. “Here’s your new team shirt,” Charlie said to his captive as he tied several tight knots into it to make a crude but tight and effective gag. “Wear it in good health!”
Once that was done, Charlie took an equally, fresh set of team uniform shorts and stuffed it down over Jake’s head like a ski-cap. Jake’s facial features were now totally obscured and the effectiveness of his gag was somewhat further enhanced, but his nose was still clear (poking out of one leg of the shorts) and he could still breathe quite freely – more so than he could when he head was wrapped inside the net anyway.
“We’re going to go string up a new net and resume our practice,’ Charlie told his captive. “Sorry you have to be benched for the duration, but we’ll make it up to you when we get back!”
Charlie and his team-mates cheerfully high-fived one another as they grabbed a new net and walked out of the locker room; turning out the light as they went. The locker room was now completely dark, as there were no windows anywhere. Jake tried to call to them, but what few feeble sounds he managed to utter were completely ignored as the boys left the locker room. The sound of the lock turning and the sound of the boys’ voice fading into silence filled him with gloom and despair.
It was soon as dark and as silent as the tomb, except for Jake’s muffled, subdued sighs of resignation spaced with an occasional moan, sniffle, or an especially deep exhalation of air through the nose in sheer frustration.