Tommy's Attitude Adjustment Chapter 52
by Chadlad

copyright 2007 by Chadlad, all rights reserved
[email protected]

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This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY It contains explicit depictions of sexual activity involving minors. If you are not of a legal age in your locality to view such material or if such material does not appeal to you, do not read further, and do not save this story.
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Chapter 52: The Night Visitors

Gabriel was washing Tommy's chest as he stood in the bathtub facing the faucets, his hands behind his head on Gabriel's orders, his penis drooping loosely over his scrotum, hanging low in the heat of the bath. Chad had left the door open, because Beth had turned the furnace on and it was hot and he wanted the moist humidity to escape, and because it was ludicrous to worry about Tommy's nudity when only he and Gabriel were there, and they'd already seen Tommy's naked body from every angle, including the angles most embarrassing for any pubertal boy, namely, looking down at his bare butt spread across their laps for a humiliating spanking, and looking down at the top of his head as he sucked their penises. Chad sat on the closed toilet lid, watching the procedure in semi-boredom. Gabriel was enjoying this, an understandable reaction from a boy who was given almost carte blanc in getting even with the older boy who'd anally raped him and torn his rectum cruelly in the process. After he and Chad had run upstairs following Jesse's enigmatic departure, Gabriel had marched over to the naked Tommy, stood beside his bed, and ordered him to "Get on your knees, take my peter out and suck me until I cum!" Chad had been surprised how quietly Tommy had complied, sliding off the bed without protest onto his knees, lowering Gabriel's pants and underpants gently, and without hesitation or even checking him for cleanliness guiding the boy's already hard 2-inch, hooded member into his mouth with his right hand. He'd even stroked the base of Gabriel's cock while sucking him and massaged Gabriel's butt with his free hand while he did, so that Gabriel, despite having had several orgasms already that day, was cumming in less than 2 minutes. He'd ordered Tommy to pull his pants and underpants up once again, then, announcing, "I'm hungry!" he'd had Chad help him shepherd a naked Tommy downstairs to the kitchen where they'd eaten. Gabriel had gleefully presented Tommy's sandwich to him and, folding the note so only the relevant portions showed, let him read the lines instructing them to shove up Tommy's butt any portion of the sandwich he didn't eat. Tommy had quietly eaten his sandwich although it was clear he had to force himself to choke it down, and had looked longingly at the chicken nuggets Chad and Gabriel were eating with gusto.

For Tommy's part, he was burning with curiosity despite his poor prospects for the week ahead prior to his mother's return. For Chad and Gabriel had been acting oddly, it seemed to Tommy, ever since they'd returned from their babysitting job. Gabriel, for example, eating like he was two people, had winked at Chad and said something Tommy had not quiet caught. It had almost sounded like, "All that cumming made me hungry," but that couldn't be it, could it? Hadn't Chad and Gabriel merely been off babysitting some little boy? Maybe it had been, "All the running made me hungry," or "All that fun made me hungry." It had to be something like that. And when he'd been sucking on Gabriel (not hating it at all, he'd realized after he was done, just considering it another chore), he'd see smudges of greasy paint, almost like makeup, on the boy's bare bottom when withdrawn his sated member from Tommy's mouth and Tommy stood and leaned over him to pull Gabriel's underpants over the jutting curve of his butt. How do you get makeup on your butt while babysitting? In fact, he almost thought he'd seen marks from a recent paddling on Gabriel, but that couldn't be the case, could it? And Gabriel's penis had been pink rather than the white it had been yesterday, pink and even slightly irritated-looking, as if he'd over masturbated (something Tommy knew a great deal about).

And there was the way the two of them acted. They seemed closer than they'd been before, like they shared some deep secret. He could have sworn he'd seen Gabriel look at Chad meaningfully and wink when they were leaving him to clean the kitchen, and Tommy's developing need to pee had given him a hard on. He thought it had been, "So he would like to get a shot of that," but that didn't make any sense. But what else could it have been but 'so he?' Chad and shushed Gabriel and hurried him out of the room acting guilty, of all things.

Gabriel had come back later after forcing Tommy to do all the dishes by hand standing naked at the sink, even though they had a perfectly fine dishwasher. Tommy had heard them playing Playstation all the time he was working and hoping no one would come knocking on the kitchen door and then just open it on his nude form. Gabriel had ordered Tommy to place his hands behind his head, gripped him by his pee-hard penis, and marched him up to the bath where Chad was just zipping up his pants, obviously just having finished his own pee. Tommy found himself lined up to the toilet like a little boy and ordered to pee as well, then into the bath, his penis shrinking rapidly as soon as he'd peed, the organ clearly tired from the day's workout.

After soaping the rest of Tommy's body but skipping his underpants region, Gabriel moved his hands down Tommy's chest to his stomach, then lower, slowly, deliberately, until he was soaping Tommy's genitals. To both their surprise, though, nothing happened – Tommy's penis stayed as soft as it had been when they'd been eating, dangling a bare two inches downward, like a boneless, useless extra thumb. Gabriel rubbed the soap around and over it into it was frothy with lather, but it remained soft. Putting the soap down, Gabriel began openly masturbating Tommy with his small fist, but Tommy's penis remained soft and shapeless. He finally gave up in frustration. "You'll have to do yourself when I've finished washing your ass," Gabriel said. "Beth said you have to cum before I spank you."

"Okay," Tommy said. His penis was sore inside, and he'd never felt less like cumming. But he understood Gabriel's glee at his discomfort, and Gabriel's desire to get even with him. If he had to jerk off one more time, he would give it his best shot. Heck, it was only Gabriel and Chad he'd be performing in front of, and they'd seen him do pretty much everything already. He just hoped he could get it up by then. He wasn't looking forward to being spanked by the two of them, but he'd already seen on Beth's note the instruction that he had to still be red-assed when she got home, so he knew it was inevitable. Besides, he did deserve it, he guessed. He had ripped the kid pretty good.

"Bend over all the way," Gabriel ordered. "I have to wash your stinky butt hole."

Sighing, still hating exposing himself this way, Tommy bent forward and thrust his butt out at Gabriel, who immediately leaned in and inspected his anus from close range, noting the redness and swelling it showed from Naomi's misuse of Tommy as well as Elvin's little dick. "Looks like you got reamed in the butt yourself," Gabriel commented. "I guess that Jeffy kid gave it to you good. Too bad he doesn't have a big peter like Chad's buddy at school, the one we met at the mall. Then he could have really ripped you good! Made you bleed, like you did me!" He poked Tommy's anus tentatively with his finger, making Tommy flinch.

"Did he have you begging for mercy?" Gabriel asked. "That Jeffy kid? Or did you like it?"

"Jesse," Chad said. Tommy said nothing. Gabriel poked Tommy's anus again, right in the center, harder this time. Tommy's anus squeezed into itself and then relaxed again.

"He should have made you suck his peter right after took you up the chute," Gabriel said. "I would have. Maybe I'll do that to you tonight."

"No," Chad said from the toilet. "I won't let you do that to Tommy. You'll make him sick. That's what everybody says. There's germs in your butt hole that are okay there butt might make you sick or even kill you if you get them in your mouth. If you want to do him in the butt and then make him suck you, okay, I'll let you. I'll even help hold Tommy while you do him if he won't hold still. But I won't let you but your thing in his mouth after being in his butt unless you wash it with soap first."

"Party pooper," Gabriel muttered. He took the soap and began soaping Tommy's butt, concentrating on his anal orifice. "So," he said after he'd worked up a good lather on Tommy, enjoying playing with Tommy's butt hole and watching it twitch in response. "So what did he do? Did he make you suck him after he took you up the chute? 'Cause I would have."

"What Jesse and I do is none of your business," Tommy said from his bent-over position, having to pant to get the words out with his lungs compressed as they were in that position. "Not now or ever."

"I don't care, anyway!" Gabriel said, his tone suggesting he cared very much. "Even if he did take you up the chute, I'm the one who did it first!" He stopped washing Tommy and gathered a coating of lather on his index finger, then held it in front of Tommy's face. "Guess what I'm going to do with this!" he said gleefully. Without waiting for an answer, he pressed the fingertip to Tommy's anus, then rammed it fast and hard up Tommy's butt.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaah" Tommy squealed, jerking away from Gabriel so fast he banged his head against the wall. "OWWWWWW!" he squealed then, his hands reaching to clutch his head as he straightened up, his buns squeezing taut against the intruder in his anus, his head throbbing with pain. Gabriel yanked his finger roughly back out of Tommy's anus, leaving the burning soap behind in Tommy's sensitive rectum. Tears were streaming down Tommy's cheeks, mostly from the pain in his head, but supplemented by his anal pain as well. Gabriel reached over and slowly, deliberately began gathering soap on his first two fingers off of Tommy's clenched buns.

"Bend over again," Gabriel said in a level tone, holding up the soapy fingers. "I'm putting two fingers into you this time."

"Noooo!" Tommy wailed, still clutching his head and clenching his buns tightly.

"Chad, squeeze his balls until he bends over," Gabriel said. Chad got up and headed toward Tommy, his hand reaching out to Tommy's unprotected sack. Tommy quickly bent over, whimpering.

Gabriel poised his first two fingers against the tight line of Tommy's tight anus as Tommy trembled. Then, without mercy, he rammed both fingers in, marveling how tight and hot the boy's rectum was. Tommy's anus squeezed his fingers like a vise as Tommy tensed and let out a gasp of pain. "Owwww! It hurts! It hurts! IT HURTS!" he complained. Gabriel slowly, deliberately began wiggling his fingers in Tommy's rectum. "Stop! STOP!" Tommy begged. "IT HURTS!" He fought to stay in position, willing Gabriel to remove his offending digits. Was this how it had felt to Gabriel when he'd rammed his penis in the younger boy? No wonder he was mad!

Gabriel continued wiggling his two fingers in Tommy's anus while twisting them at the same time, probing all sides of the older boy's tight rectum. Finally, as Tommy was sure he couldn't stand it anymore, Gabriel slowly pulled his fingers out. "Want to try for three?" he asked playfully.

"No, please no!" Tommy begged. "Please don't, Gabriel!" Tears were rolling down his cheeks, and his tortured rectum burned with the soap and the stretching it had received that day. "I'm sorry I hurt you! I really am! I'll make it up to you! I'll be the best cousin ever if you stop!"

"Chad's already the best cousin ever," Gabriel said matter-of-factly. "He's 10 times better than you'll ever be." He rinsed his fingers in the bath water. "Sit down and rinse your stupid butt off," he ordered. "I'm tired of sticking fingers in it, anyway. And my peter's tired, too, so I'm not even going to make you suck me. But you're still getting' spanked. Hard, too!"

A sigh escaped Tommy's lips as he settled down again and began splashing water on his thighs and midsection to get the thick coating of soap off his underpants region. Of course Gabriel was going to spank him with an eye toward making him hurt, and toward getting even with him for mistaking Gabriel for Jesse. His rectum burned unrelentingly, reminding him of how much spankings burned, too. He supposed he was in for another humiliating session over Gabriel's lap, a long session, because Gabriel would want to make him cry, and he couldn't do that at the drop of a hat the way Chad could.

The doorbell rang downstairs, startling the three of them. Chad got up and hurried out to answer it as Gabriel got Tommy's towel ready. Maybe Beth had forgotten her keys as she returned home from shopping with Dakota. He turned on the porch light, as the sun had already sat, and looked out the window next to the door. The ample form of Mrs. Morton was standing on the porch with the red-headed twins Rod and Todd. He opened the door.

"Good evening, young Chad," Mrs. Morton said. "I know this is last minute, but I have to deal with an emergency that might take all night, and my daughter won't be back until late. Can I leave the twins with you overnight? They can sleep on the floor or anywhere – they've got sleeping bags with them, and toothbrushes. You'd just have to help them get to bed tonight and feed them breakfast in the morning. Oh, and give them a bath or a shower if that's not too much trouble. They can walk to school on their own."

"Uh, sure," Chad said. "Mom's on a business trip, so Beth's in charge. But we can take care of them – I do babysitting all the time now," he added, exaggerating a bit.

"Thank you," the matronly Mrs. Morton said with a nod. She turned to the boys. "Go on in," she said. "Obey Chad and his brother and sister like they were me or your sister." She turned to Chad again as the two boys entered shyly, each holding a toothbrush in one hand and a sleeping bag under one arm. Their red hair gleamed in the light of the hall. "If they do take a shower or bath, make sure they wash their hair and their whole bodies, especially all the places you boys get dirty. I'm sure you know what I mean. Stay right there with them and make sure they work up a good lather. And make them pee before they go to bed, or they'll wet their sleeping bags. And don't be afraid to spank them good and hard if they get out of line. They have fresh undies rolled into their sleeping bags, and they can wear the outfits they're wearing again tomorrow."

She looked at her sons. "I didn't bring any pjs because you boys sleep in the altogether most of the time, anyway. I doubt if that will shock anyone here." She looked at her wristwatch. "I'm late," she muttered. "Goodbye boys – be on your very best behavior—you know what will happen if I one more bad report on you." She turned and was gone, shutting the door before Chad could say anything more. The two boys looked at him expectantly.

"We have to go to the clinic," Rod, or maybe it was Todd, said.

"For cleansing," his brother added.

"Cleansing?" Chad asked, stopping at the bottom of the steps.

"Mom talked to some mother at our school a couple of weeks ago, when Rod and I got in a fight," the first twin, apparently Todd, said. "Her kid's in our class. This woman said that we fight because we're full of poop and poisons and poisons and stuff, and we should go where she takes her kid to be cleansed. So that Friday she made us go to this clinic with a bunch of other kids."

"They do them all at once," Rod said. "All the parents bring their kids in, and this woman in a suit gives a speech about how kids misbehave because they're concentrated."

"That means they can't poop," Todd said brightly.

"Constipated?" Chad asked.

"Yeah, I guess," Todd said agreeably. "I said to Mom that I couldn't be consecrated, because I poop every day, and sometimes twice a day. But the woman said you can get constipated and be full of poop and still be pooping. And that we had to get rid of our poisons other ways, too, and that the fact I said anything at all meant I was full of poisons for sure. Then these nurses or doctors or something took all us kids into this big room with benches for getting undressed and gave us each a bag to put all our clothes in and told us to get clear naked. They did a whole bunch of kids at once."

"You mean you had to undress in front of other boys?" Chad asked.

"Boys and girls," Rod said. "All together."

"You got to see the girls get undressed?" Chad asked, intrigued. He tried to picture a room full of undressing kids, boys and girls right next to each other, looking at each other. .

"He bawled," Todd said.

"Only a little," Rod said. "And it wasn't fair – other boys were covering their weenies, too, but I'm the only one she slapped. Some of the girls were covering themselves, too, even though they didn't have anything to cover. The nurse said we all have to keep our hands out of the way of our privates, or she'd tie them behind our backs. Then she led us out of that room and down the hall this room with all these little tables in it. And we had to lie down on a table on your backs, with our hands under our heads. And then they come around with shaving stuff, and if you had any hair anywhere but on your head they shaved it off."

"Yeah, they shave off all the big kids' hair," his brother added. "They squirt shaving cream on it, and then they take this thing that looks like a long knife, and they scrape the hair off with it. They shaved some of the kids under their arms, and one big boy got shaved on his chest and stomach. And they shaved a bunch of boys and girls above their weenies. Well, above the boys' weenies, anyway – the girls didn't have weenies, but some of them had hair."

"They held the boys by the weenies as they shaved them," Rod interjected. "They must have squeezed them real hard, because all the boys yelled when they did it. But the girls cried, even all they did was push between their legs with their hands while they shaved them. Todd and I didn't get shaved," he added. "'Cause we ain't got any hair, but the big boys and girls do. And the big boys ge\ot shaved on their bags, too – the ones between their legs. A lot of them have big bags – a lot bigger than ours." He looked at Chad seriously. "Bigger than yours, too. They act all scared, the big boys do," he added.

"Probably think they're going to get cut or it's going to hurt," Chad said. "We guys are pretty sensitive down there."

"Oh, yeah," Rod said. "Well, they didn't cut anyone – I didn't see any blood later, anyhow."

"Then we got the enemas," Todd said.

"No we didn't, stupid," his brother replied. "They made us flip over and spread our butts apart first, to see if we needed to be shaved there."

"Oh, yeah," Todd said. "That's right. I forgot because Rod and I didn't have to do anything but spread our butts and let them look in them. 'Cause we don't have any hair. None of the girls did, either, but they sure hated those nurses looking in their butts."

Chad could understand that – he certainly didn't like being in that situation. There was something extra humiliating about having to show strange people your butt hole above all other body parts – even showing his penis wasn't as bad.

"Well, some of the big boys had to keep their butts apart until the nurses could get to them and squirt this white stuff in their butts and then shave them. We got to lie on our backs while they did that, so they could skip over the guys on their backs. And they didn't mind if we turned to watch while the did the other kids. I even got up on my elbow so I could see them do this big boy on the one side of me! He had all this hair sprouting around his poo hole! Long, black hairs! And his poo hole was all big and wrinkly, not small like Todd's." He paused. "And yours," he added, to Chad's discomfort. "And he kept whimpering like a baby as they shaved him." Rod's eyes drifted out of focus, as if remembering, and his twins mirrored him.

"Then what?" Chad asked when both boys had been silent for some seconds.

"What? Oh. Then everyone gets enemas. You know, like the one our Mom gave you that time in the back yard," Todd said.

"You mean they stick tubes up your butts in front of all the other kids?" Chad asked, surprised.

"Yeah," Todd said. "But you can't see anyone but the kid on the table next to yours. You have to pull your legs up by your chest and turn on your side so your butt spread open, and they stick the tube right in your bottom, where the poo comes out, and put about a gallon of stuff in there."

"It couldn't be a gallon," Chad protested. "You'd burst."

"Felt like it," Rod said. "And it starts tingling inside you right away, and the longer it's in you, the more it tingles. They say it's got medicine of some kind in it, and it makes you want to poo real bad. But they don't let you. They go down the line of tables sticking the tube into each kid one at a time. The same tube, too! So if you're the last kid, you get a tube stuck in you that's been in a bunch of other kids' butts!"

"Then you have to lie on your back and wait," Todd said. "The boys' weenies all get hard and stick up, so you can see all these weenies sticking up if you look to your left or to your right. Some of the guys have really big ones," he added, holding his hands an impossible length apart. Chad wondered what sort of fish stories he would tell if he took up the sport. "

"Then had to wait a long time, until finally we all got to take turns pooping," Rod said. "And it isn't fair, because you have to go poop in the order they stuck the tube up you, and some of the kids take a long time to poop, and the ones after them have to wait, so they have to have the enema in longer. There's only two toilets, right there at the one end of the room, the end we're facing. They make us get up two at a time and walk to the toilets and sit down and poop all the enema stuff out. And you're pooping right by another kid, right out in the open, the girls too! Everyone can hear you, and see you sitting there, too And then we have to stand up and grab our ankles and get wiped, and then we go back to the tables and get another enema while the other kids go to poop. Everyone does that at least three times, and more if the water isn't clean the third time."

"It makes you feel tired," Todd said. "Like you pooped all your energy out." Then they line us up and make us go to the shower room. There's like a zillion showers in there all running at once, and each kid gets under a shower and they make us wash with this special soap all over."

"The boys and girls shower together?" Chad said, trying to picture standing naked next to or opposite some girl his age in a shower. The thought made his penis twitch with interest.

"Sure," Todd answered. But they ain't got nothin' to look at, 'cept for the ones with boobies. Oh, and the ones who had hair sometimes have pink skin that sticks out of their slits all uneven and rumply. And this one girl had like a little weenie at the top of her slit that stuck out. The nurses said it was enlarged. It was kind of cool."

"Anyway, the soap is real rough – like sandpaper," Rod continued. Chad wondered if the boys always took turns telling a story. "And they make you rub it all over you, 'specially your butts and your weenies and balls. And the girls have to rub their slits with it real hard. They make you do it until your skin is pink everywhere, and your butts and weenies have to be even darker pink, and so do the girls' places down there. They kept telling the girls that had stuff sticking out of their slits that their crotches had to be the same color. And they told us boys our weenies and balls had to match their color. And then we had to bend over with your butts pointed out so they can see that your hole was pink enough, too. And if it wasn't pink enough, you had to wash harder."

"One girl wouldn't do it because it hurts," Todd said. "And one of the nurses washed her while the other one held her, and they didn't stop until she was all red in her butt and around her slit," he added. "After that all the rest of us washed ourselves really hard, even if it did hurt."

"Then you rinse off and go to steam room," his brother said. "You have to lie down on these hot benches and sweat for a long time. And they make you bend your legs and pull them up by your butt, so your butt is open and it can sweat inside, too. And the sweat stings because you're all raw from the soap. They say that's real important. You have to be sweating so much it rolls down your weenie and your balls and down the inside of your crack – they come around and check. It tickles and it makes a big puddle around you. And they give you water to drink while you're in there so you can sweat more. It's really hot and steamy, and you have to sweat a long time, and that makes you even more tired. And all the other kids are looking around because you can't do anything else, you can't talk or anything, so you look at the other kids for something to do, and they're looking at you, too. You can see the boys' weenies and stuff, and the girls' boobies if they're right next to you."

"And if you twist your head around, you can look right up the butt at the kid by your head," Todd added. "They make us sit so close you can look right at his hole. Or her hole. And if you've got a girl next to you, you can see her other hole, too, because her slit spreads apart. This girl by my head had this open hole where here weenie should be –it looked like here weenie had gotten ripped out and left a hole. Is that how girls got they way? Did they catch their weenies in something?"

"I don't think they ever had any," Chad said.

"Ugh. I wouldn't want to be a girl, then," Todd said. "It was all gross in there."

"So what's it for, then," Rod asked. "The hole in their fronts? How come they have them."

"That's where the baby comes out when a woman has a baby," Chad said. He was pretty new to female anatomy himself, but he didn't want to look like he didn't know all about it. He decided to skip the other part that he and Tommy had just worked out a few weeks before when they'd seen Alan's cousin Chandra naked for the first time as she was being punished with the boys for overall mouthiness. These boys clearly weren't ready to talk about how boys and girls did sex yet.

"Anyway, I only looked at her once, because she was all gross and sweaty. Like she was in the shower, and water was dripping off of her. It ran off her girl parts and down between her legs. Her poo hole kind of dented in and then jutted out at the bottom kind of blue and bulgy, and the sweat was pooling there like a waterfall over a little lake."

"The kid next to you probably though you looked gross there, too," Chad suggested.

"My poo hole isn't any more gross than yours," Rod said. "We look just alike, even there."

"It's still gross," his brother replied. "All poo holes are gross," he added. "Even dogs' and cats'. 'Cause they make poo."

"They don't make it," the teacher in Chad made him say. "They're just where it comes out. Your intestines make it when you digest the food you eat."

"Then they're gross, too," the red-headed little boy said.

"You mean you got to look at the girls all you want while you're there?" Chad asked, trying to picture his female classmates naked in a steam room with their legs apart and their vulvas exposed, sweaty and open. His penis was hardening rapidly in his pants. He wouldn't mind looking at the grossest anus in the world if he could see into a girl's vulva at the same time.

"Everybody," Rod said.

"But girl stuff isn't that interesting – it's just a hole," Rod said. "They're not all bulgy like us boys. And they don't get hard or anything." Somehow Chad doubted that he'd feel the same way in that situation, but he didn't interrupt.

"It's kind of funny, 'cause the boys get all soft and droopy in the steam room," Todd said. "Most of them are hard when they go in, you know. From the enemas – they make us hard. So in there they're all standing up like they have a bone in their weenies, but they get all soft and dangly when they're in the steam room. And you feel like you want to fall asleep, you're so tired. But then they make us leave the steam room and go to the baths."

"And they're cold!" Rod interrupted. "Freezing! They make us jump right in all the way up to our necks, and every little while we have to make our heads go under, too! And it's about 40 below in there!"

"It can't be," Chad interrupted. "We learned that in science class. The coldest water can be at normal atmospheric pressure is 32 Fahrenheit or 0 Celsius."

"Well, it feels like 40 below," Todd said. "It's cold!"

"Real cold," Rod said. "And we had to stay in until we all of us turned blue," he added.

"Even the black kid," his brother chimed in. "And when we got out, you couldn't see most of the boys' weenies or their balls – they like disappeared."

"They do that," Chad said.

"Yeah, well, the nurses all made fun of the boys then, especially the big boys. They called us dinky dorks and teenie weenies and stuff like that. The girls laughed, too, the ones who weren't shivering too much. They said we look like them. Some of the big boys got all red and embarrassed. But Todd and I didn't care, because ours aren't that big anyway, and they didn't shrink much," Rod added.

"Naw, ours still stuck out a little, at least. There was this fat kid whose weenie went in so far it looked like another belly button – it actually went in, like a dimple in his crotch. The girls said he looked like a girl, too. But he didn't, not really. He didn't have a slit. So they made him squeeze his legs together until he folded it in the middle, and then they took his picture that way, so he did look like a girl," Todd said. "They gave it to his mom when we left."

"She said she was going to put it on the 'frigerator," Rod added. "He was real upset about it."

"Then they give us towels and we go to the drying room," Todd said. "We stayed there awhile, until we warmed up and stopped shivering. Rod and I got happier then, until this big boy said that the bad room was next."

"The bad room?" Chad asked.

"The bad room," both boys said together, with such emotional feeling that Chad actually stepped back, almost tripping on the stair. Losing his balance, he sat down abruptly on the bottom step, his butt protesting as he landed on it. He caught his breath, exhaled, and then, to cover his clumsiness, he patted the step beside him, trying to make it look like he'd sat down deliberately.

"Sit down, guys," he said. "And tell me about this bad room. Sounds like all the rooms are pretty bad to me."