Chapter 4: Private Training Session
The hand-feeding rule stretched into days, each meal a tiny theater of humiliation that Jamie learned to navigate with a numb, red-faced compliance. He ate when told, drank when told, and the brothers’ jokes became background noise. The ‘gamma’ suggestion was a silent engine running beneath everything, making his eyes slide where they shouldn’t, flooding him with that confusing cocktail of shame and warmth whenever he noticed the sheer physical scale of the men around him. He was constantly comparing, and the comparison always left him feeling small. Exposed.
Thursday afternoon, his phone buzzed with a new directive.
Marcus: Pledge fitness assessment. Gym. Now. Don’t be late.
A chill, different from the usual anxiety, trickled down Jamie’s spine. The gym was Marcus’s domain. He was a senior, built like a defensive lineman, with hands that looked like they could palm Jamie’s entire head. He was Jackson’s enforcer, the one who made sure the playful hazing never tipped into outright refusal. His humor was a physical thing, all shoulder checks and playful squeezes that left bruises.
Jamie changed into a pair of thin gray sweatpants and a too-big Gamma Phi tank top. The uniform of the house. The black silk panties were a constant presence underneath, a secret he was now hyper-aware of every second of the day.
The fraternity gym was in the basement, a concrete-walled box lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The air was thick and stale, smelling of old sweat, rubber mats, and metallic dust. Weights clanged. The sound echoed. Posters of muscle-bound 80s action heroes and faded photos of past brothers mid-lift covered the walls, their faces smirking down like ghosts.
Marcus was already there, leaning against a squat rack. He wore compression shorts and a cutoff shirt that showed off arms thicker than Jamie’s thighs. He was rolling his shoulders, his expression neutral.
“There’s the puppy,” Marcus said, his voice a low rumble that carried over the din of a brother cycling on a distant exercise bike. “Jackson says you’re soft. Says we need to build up your… resilience. Time for your baseline.”
“I can lift,” Jamie said, a weak protest as he approached. He’d played soccer in high school. He wasn’t completely helpless.
“I’m sure you can,” Marcus said, not smiling. “But form is everything. You hurt yourself on my watch, that’s a reflection on me. So we do it my way. Understood?”
The words weren’t a question. Jamie nodded.
“We’ll start with bodyweight. Assess your natural posture. Get on the mat. Push-up position.”
Jamie dropped to the thin, worn mat, positioning his hands. He was acutely conscious of his body in the baggy clothes, of Marcus circling him like a sculptor surveying a block of marble.
“Wider,” Marcus said, tapping Jamie’s left hand with his foot. “Arch your back less. Tuck your pelvis. Yeah, like that.”
Jamie adjusted, his arms already trembling slightly from the tension.
“Now lower. Slow. I want to see your range.”
Jamie began to lower himself. Halfway down, a massive, warm weight settled across his lower back. Marcus had placed a single hand on him, pressing down gently.
“Deeper,” Marcus instructed, increasing the pressure.
Jamie grunted, straining to go lower under the added weight. His nose nearly touched the mat. The position forced his hips up. The sweatpants, loose as they were, tightened across his rear.
“Hold it,” Marcus said. His hand didn’t lift. It sat there, a heavy, inescapable brand. Jamie’s muscles quivered violently. “Feel that? That’s your core failing. Up.”
Jamie pushed back up, gasping. The hand left his back, only to grip his hip, yanking his pelvis downward. “Tuck. You’re sticking your ass out. It’s not a good look.”
The correction was rough, impersonal. Jamie’s face burned. He did another push-up, hyper-aware of the silhouette he was making, of the silk riding up in the cleft of his ass, a sensation magnified tenfold by Marcus’s critical gaze.
After ten torturous reps, Marcus waved him up. “Pathetic. But fixable. Over here. Squats.”
They moved to the squat rack, which was empty. “Just the bar for now,” Marcus said, lifting the forty-five-pound Olympic bar and resting it across Jamie’s shoulders with a solid clunk. The weight was manageable, but the position was vulnerable.
“Feet shoulder-width. Toes out. Now, squat. Ass to grass. I’ll spot you.”
Jamie took a breath and descended. The moment his hips dropped, Marcus was there. His hands came around from behind, gripping Jamie’s hips, his thumbs digging into the soft indentations just inside the pelvic bone.
“Lower,” Marcus murmured, his chest now pressed against Jamie’s back. He could feel the heat of him through both their shirts, the solid wall of muscle. Marcus used his own body to guide Jamie deeper, pushing him down. “You’re stopping. Don’t be a pussy. Get deep.”
Jamie went deeper, the bar feeling heavier, his balance precarious. The position forced his thighs wide. Marcus’s hands, those huge hands, were splayed across his hips, holding him, controlling the entire movement.
“Good,” Marcus said, his voice a vibration against Jamie’s spine. “Now up. Drive through your heels. Use that ass.”
Jamie pushed up, Marcus’s hands guiding, then lifting, almost carrying him the last few inches. The help was unnecessary and emasculating. He could have done it himself.
“Again,” Marcus commanded.
They went through the motion. Down, with Marcus’s front pressed to his back, the hands on his hips. Up, with Marcus doing half the work. Each descent felt more intrusive. The rough fabric of Marcus’s shorts rubbed against the thin sweatpants. Jamie’s own body was betraying him, a traitorous heat pooling in his stomach that had nothing to do with exertion.
On the fifth squat, as Jamie reached the bottom, Marcus adjusted his grip. His right hand slid lower, cupping the very top of Jamie’s thigh, his fingers perilously close to the juncture of his legs. The silk, damp with sweat, was a glaringly intimate layer between Jamie’s skin and Marcus’s calloused palm.
“You’re shaking,” Marcus observed, not moving his hand. “You like that? The burn?”
“It’s hard,” Jamie stammered, frozen at the bottom of the squat, supported entirely by Marcus’s strength.
“I know what’s hard,” Marcus said, a low chuckle in his ear. He finally helped him up. “Let’s move to the bench. See what you’ve got.”
The bench press was worse. Lying on his back, looking up at the stained ceiling tiles, Jamie felt utterly exposed. Marcus loomed over him, a dark silhouette against the fluorescent lights.
“I’ll spot you close,” Marcus said, loading minimal weight onto the bar. “Safety first.”
As Jamie began to press, Marcus’s hands were there, not on the bar, but on him. One hand rested on his lower ribs, the other hovered near his throat. “Breathe,” Marcus instructed, his thumb stroking a line just above Jamie’s collarbone. “Don’t hold it.”
The touch was casual, clinical almost, but it shot through Jamie with electric intensity. He was pinned, not just by the weight, but by the awareness of Marcus’s hands on his body, so close to vulnerable places. He completed a set, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
“You’re arching too much. Losing contact with the bench.” Marcus’s solution was to place a heavy hand flat on Jamie’s lower abdomen, pushing down. “Keep this down. Feel that connection.”
The pressure was immense, intimate. It forced the air from Jamie’s lungs and pressed the silk panties even tighter against him. He whimpered, pushing the bar up, his arms trembling.
“You’re doing so good for me,” Marcus murmured, his tone shifting. It wasn’t praise. It was ownership. The words, so close to the hypnotic trigger, melted something in Jamie’s resistance. A shudder ran through him that wasn’t from fatigue.
The session continued—lunges where Marcus knelt to “adjust” his knee, his face level with Jamie’s groin; lat pulldowns where Marcus stood behind, arms reaching around to guide his hands, enveloping him completely. Each correction was a violation dressed as mentorship. Jamie’s complaints died in his throat, suffocated by the sheer physical reality of Marcus and the twisted logic of the house: this was help. This was building him up.
Finally, Marcus called a halt. Jamie was drenched, his muscles watery and spent. He leaned against the rack, head down, trying to will his body to stop trembling.
“Not totally hopeless,” Marcus said, grabbing a towel and wiping his own neck. He threw the damp towel to Jamie. “Clean up. Then hit the showers. You reek.”
The showers in the gym basement were a bleak, open bay of chipped tile and rusting faucets. Steam from some earlier occupant still hung in the air. Jamie stood under the spray, letting the hot water pummel his aching shoulders. He just wanted to wash the sweat and the feel of those hands away.
The curtain rattled back.
Marcus stood there, already stripped, a towel slung around his neck. He was even more imposing naked, a landscape of defined muscle and dark skin. Jamie froze, instinctively crossing his arms over his chest.
“Relax,” Marcus said, stepping into the shower space, his own showerhead next to Jamie’s. “It’s a shower. Not a big deal.”
It was a big deal. The space was too small. The water from Marcus’s shower misted over onto Jamie. He kept his eyes glued to the wall in front of him, but his peripheral vision was a high-definition nightmare. He saw the powerful curve of Marcus’s back, the heavy swell of his ass, the thick thighs. And then, as Marcus turned to reach for soap, he saw the rest.
It was like a car crash. He couldn’t look away. The comparison was instantaneous, brutal, and absolute. His own secret shame, magnified a hundred times in the flesh. A dizzying wave of nausea and that other, darker pull washed over him. His face scorched. His own body shrunk in on itself.
Marcus caught him looking. He didn’t get angry. He didn’t smirk. He just turned fully, soaping his chest, making no attempt to hide anything. His expression was one of pure, amused indifference.
“See something you like, puppy?” he asked, his voice echoing off the tiles.
“No, I— I wasn’t—” Jamie stammered, wrenching his gaze away, staring so hard at the grout lines he thought his eyes would bleed.
“It’s okay,” Marcus said, the water sluicing over him. “Curiosity is natural. Especially when you see what a real man looks like.” He said it as a simple statement of fact. “Makes you realize what you’re working with, doesn’t it?”
The humiliation was complete. It wasn’t just that he’d looked. It was that Marcus had seen him look, had named the comparison, and had confirmed it with utter, unshakeable confidence. Jamie was small. In every way. He felt it in his aching muscles, in the silk clinging to him under the spray, in the pit of his stomach.
He hurried to rinse off, fumbling with the knobs. He needed to be gone.
“Hey,” Marcus said, as Jamie grabbed for his towel. His voice stopped him, a command. “Good work today. You listened. You took the coaching.” He paused, water dripping from his chin. “You’re a good boy.”
The phrase landed like a physical blow, sweet and terrible. It unspooled the last knot of tension in Jamie’s shoulders even as it tightened a new, more frightening one in his gut. He couldn’t speak. He just nodded, a quick, jerky motion, and fled from the steam, leaving Marcus standing there under the spray, a satisfied, knowing look on his face that Jamie didn’t see but felt chasing him all the way up the stairs.