Tryouts started at the end of October. The first week went by like a terror-drenched ballet. I was so much better than the other freshman (and a lot of the varsity players) that it was completely unquestioned that I’d make it through the cut on the athletic test alone. Day after day the coach cut more and more of the guys, sending them home with a kind but dismissive private word, and each time more of the players started slapping me on the back and talking to me during water breaks and treating me like one of the guys. After the tryout practice on Thursday night, the coach set his hand on my shoulder as I walked out to grab my ride home and said softly, “Tommy, I’m looking forward to coaching you this year.”

All this was good. The only problem was, my ride home was a junior player named Matt, a quiet buff shooting guard with dark hair, who also drove two of his fellow juniors from the team. So I sat quietly in the back and was inundated by the stories they traded about their adventures that day. It was incredible. Despite the common rumors about the guys on the team, I had had no idea that the school was such a cesspool of sex. All three of these guys got laid at least once a day, usually by different girls. Matt, who it seemed was unusually humble but a famous cocksman on the team, was regularly fucking the smoking hot math teacher Ms. Emerson (known to most guys in the school as Ms. Titsmoreson on account of the shocking size of her bosom). This had apparently been going on all year, but he was promising to bring her to a team party and share her with the rest of the guys as soon as he could talk her into it.

I obviously was hard as a rock during these exchanges, although no one could tell given my problem – yet another reminder of exactly why I was so scared all this time. For the first two days of practice all three of them walked out to Matt’s car and stood waiting silently for me, which freaked the shit out of me and made me feel distinctly unwelcome in addition to horribly inadequate; those two car rides were horrible, as they were all plainly ignoring me. On Wednesday, though, Frank Simmons called my name and stopped to wait and walk out with me after practice, which did an incredible amount for my self-esteem. We talked a little as we went to the car, mostly awkward small talk, but I felt a lot more comfortable as I settled in for the twenty minute drive, especially as Mat and Sam, the other kid, both said “What’s up, Tommy” as I approached.

Thursday night I walked out with my spirits high, almost forgetting the ruin that awaited me, intoxicated by what could only have been a near-guarantee of getting on the team from the coach. I swung into Matt’s car and even managed to laugh at a few of their ridiculous stories. Matt was quietly relating how he had gotten Ms. Emerson unusually worked-up with a long tonguelashing of her wet slit and then made her beg for his cock as he stood poised over her pussy. Finally, he said, he had made one balls-deep plunge, pulled out, and started slapping her clit with the head of his dick. He said she started screaming, “Fuck you!” over and over again as he tortured her, until finally she broke down and agreed to join him at a team orgy later that month. In his words, she said, “Yes, I can’t live without huge basketball cock, I’ll do anything to get more, just fuck me fuck me fuck me!” The guys immediately cheered and trade high-fives, joking about what they would do to sate her longing for meat.

Then Frank turned to me with a sly look. “What about you, Tommy?” he said. I froze. None of them had spoken directly to me over the three days before this, and being acknowledged sent my sense of well-being out the window.

“What?” I said stupidly.

“Well, surely you’ve got some stories. I know you haven’t given in to the team whores yet – and good for you, wait until they have to do what you say when you’re on the team – but come on, a boy like you? Give us a tale of big-dicked adventures.”

“I, uh…” I sputtered in terror.

Sam joined in. “Yeah, buddy, come on. Not that you should get cocky, but given what we’ve seen so far, it seems pretty sure you’ll be with us for a while, so give us an idea of what we’ll be dealing with at your first team party.”

“Urgh…” I thought I was going to pass out.

“Listen, Tommy, don’t be ashamed of being well-equipped. Not a guy on this team isn’t. And hell, you gotta know by now that as soon as you get into the locker room for the first time on Monday we’ll all see what you got going on down there anyway, so…”

I considered suiciding on the spot, but as we pulled up in front of my house Matt came to my rescue. “Don’t beat him up for being humble, you fuckers,” he said with calm authority. They all seemed immediately to listen. “See you next week, Tommy,” he said kindly as I spilled out of the car.

I slept very poorly that night.

The next day of tryouts was an easy one, as coach had finished his cuts for the first week and let us scrimmage some. As we wrapped up, he stopped us from walking out the back gym door and said, “Well, boys, congrats on making it this far. You have a lot further to go next week before you put on a Raiders jersey. You have to earn that honor from me… and from the team.” A rustle of fear went through the group. “And on that subject, you all have an appointment in the locker room. Don’t worry, team-building doesn’t start until next week, but… well, head over there now. See you all on Monday. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do this weekend.” There was a nervous laugh as we turned and started slowly walking toward the locker room; a rumor had just swept the school that Coach Ben, who had graduated three years before, had been in the middle of a threesome the past weekend with the captain of the girls lacrosse team and her mom when the husband came home. He had jumped out of a window naked and jogged home with a legendary huge erection. So “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do” didn’t rule out much from this guy.

We walked down the hallway, all of us, in dead silence. I was shaking. I hadn’t been prepared for this destruction to come so soon, thinking I had until Monday to enter these sacred surroundings of the locker room. We approached the terrifying doorway and just came to a stop, waiting for something to happen.