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Cam sprinted through the parking lot of the Rosie Baughm University tennis complex, leaving a litany of curse words in his wake.
He checked his watch for the umpteenth time, added a “Shit!” to the tally, and redoubled his pace.
His bag thumped against his back as he ran. Sweat was gathering under his warmup jacket, and the repetitive motion of his legs had his freshly reddened backside complaining under his tennis shorts.
Damn Dr. Wipiski and her damn vindictive sense of justice. She’d gone full throttle. She’d actually made him write lines—“It is an abuse of my Top designation to take my temper out on Bottoms,” fifty times, plus the twenty or so she’d made him redo after deeming his first attempt “rushed and, as a result, illegible.”
Worse, she’d promised Cam a meeting tomorrow, in her capacity as his advisor, to “discuss his options.”
Cam tried not to think about that. He knew he was on thin ice with the Top Department, which generally expected a greater degree of level-headedness from its students.
This was the third time this semester that Cam had had some sort of “incident” involving his temper. And while to be an upperclassman in the Top track without an accountability partner wasn’t unheard of by any means, in Cam’s case, it was because Dr. Wipiski had decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to take on an underclassman until he could get his “outbursts” under control. She’d suggested that if these incidents continued, Cam would likely be asked to leave the Top track, in the best-case scenario.
In the worst-case scenario, she’d also warned, especially if he went so far as to really hurt another student, Cam might be asked to leave the school.
After the lines, and the lecture, and the making him apologize to Simon Snitt, the whiny freshman whose ass he’d “taken his temper out on” after class… then, of course, Wipiski had lit him up, and if Cam could find it in himself to envy anything about the woman, it was that she knew how to swing a fucking paddle.
It wasn’t like this had come out of nowhere. Cam had been stewing for a while, now. A few days ago, the tennis house boiler, which had been on its last legs for at least the past decade, finally kicked the bucket. That meant there was no heat to stave off the sharp chill of autumn nights, nor to heat the showers. It was due to be replaced tomorrow, but it had been a fraught couple of days as the upperclassmen trudged about, more caveman-like than usual, wrapped in every blanket they could dredge up, and affording one another little more than teeth-chattering grunts.
The situation had put Cam in a foul mood, to say the least.
The next day, he’d fought with Aaron.
It was an achievement of its own to get Aaron to rise to an attack of any kind. It had started as simple bickering—they were both cold, they were weary, and apparently, it had been Cam’s turn to clean the bathroom.
Fuck that, Cam had pointed out, but to no avail.
It hadn’t come to blows. It never had, with Aaron, for which Cam was, secretly, eternally grateful. Aaron was the closest friend he had at RBU. If they ever got in a fight—a real fight—Cam didn’t know what it might drive him to do.
Anyway, he’d had a week, and then twitchy Simon Snitt, carrying a fresh coffee in a to-go cup—without a lid, Cam might add—had collided with him as he came out of Dr. Wipiski’s class…
And now, on top of everything, Cam was late to practice.
Cam tore through the interior of the tennis facility. When he emerged at the RBU bench, he saw with some relief that the team was still in warmups, running laps around the six-court complex.
He dropped his bag at the bench and began to shrug out of his jacket.
“I am glad you decided to join us, Banks.”
Cam groaned. He turned to face Coach Halko, whose pale, narrow face was looking decidedly unamused.
With arms spread wide, pinched between slender fingers, he held a long, thin rod.
Virhe.
The name was short for a longer, Finnish word that Cam could never remember, except that it translated to “Double Fault.” Whatever it was called, it stung like a bitch, and Cam grimaced at the sight of it.
“Sorry, Coach,” he said. “Class went late.”
Halko raised a razor-thin, white-blond eyebrow. He was tall, but no taller than Cam, and shaped like an icicle, while Cam’s hulking build (along with his furious temper) had inspired the nickname “Bowser” among his friends.
Still, Halko had a certain presence to him that tended to drop the local temperature by a couple of degrees—enough to cool even a professed hothead like Cam.
“Class went late?” said Halko, his voice as crisp as the surrounding autumn air. “Or you were held after?”
Cam’s jaw twitched. If it wasn’t such a common occurrence, he might get away with the lie, but he knew better, and he knew Halko did, too.
“I was held after,” he muttered.
Halko nodded, and the corner of his mouth twitched downward in disapproval—an uncommon display of emotion from the stolid Scandinavian.
“Is that an acceptable reason to be late to practice?”
“No, sir.”
“Turn around.”
Cam obeyed, turning to face the chain-link fence that ran along the edge of the complex. It was eight feet tall, the better to catch wayward tennis balls, and it separated the team’s bench from the courts themselves.
Cam bent forward and threaded his fingers through the links of the fence. On the other side, across the courts, his teammates went jogging past. He saw Aaron glance his way, for just long enough to take stock of the situation, before turning abruptly back to the team and clapping his hands at them to pick up the pace.
Halko didn’t bother lecturing. They both knew why they were here. Cam was grateful for the small mercy. He was ready to get this damn day over with and escape onto the court.
Virhe whistled briefly through the air before connecting with Cam’s shorts. He hissed at the impact. The whippy rod was bad enough on its own, but after Dr. Wipiski’s paddle, the lick carried a little extra bite.
Cam gnashed his teeth through the handful of strokes that Halko doled out. Each one rekindled a bright sting on Cam’s already heated backside, but at least it was over quickly. Halko wasn’t one to draw out a whipping.
“Join your team,” said Halko as Cam straightened up. Cam was glad to slip through the gap in the fence and onto the courts.
Halko followed him. “Two more laps,” he called as the boys jogged by. “So that Banks can get in his warmup.”
There was a collective groan, but no one was stupid enough to complain. Nor would anyone dare to send a disparaging look Cam’s way. They all knew better than that.
All of them, that was, except Dodo.
The sophomore fell in beside him. “Nice going, Bowser,” he said cheerfully.
“Stuff it, Dodo,” said Cam. “I’m really not in the mood.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Oooh,” Dodo said knowingly. “What’d you do this time?”
“I spanked someone for no reason,” said Cam, and he shot Dodo a glare that had the kid dancing away at once. “Want me to show you?”
“No, thanks!”
Dodo receded to the back of the pack, while Cam surged forward. Despite the mile or so across campus he’d just undertaken at a dead run, an energy still roiled through his veins, screaming for an outlet. He was ready to smash some tennis balls.
Cam thought back to poor, wrongly spanked Simon Snitt. He hadn’t been misbehaving. It had been an accident. Cam had known that at the time. He hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d wanted to make the kid hurt—rather, he’d wanted to make someone hurt, and Simon had been closest at hand. Cam had just lost control.
That was the problem. He understood that clearly. What he couldn’t figure out was what to do about it.
They’d set him up with a counselor, whom Cam met with every other week, and he did find their meetings helpful. The young, bespectacled man was softspoken and kindly, and the room in which they met was filled with fluffy pillows and gentle colors—anger-proof, Cam thought.
The counselor had suggested they try to find a “constructive outlet” for Cam’s emotions. They’d talked about tennis. Most of the time, Cam had explained, he did find tennis soothing. But there was more to the sport than sheer athleticism, and if Cam wasn’t playing well, it could be a source of frustration as much as relief.
When asked what he liked about being a Top, Cam had found himself hesitant to answer. After being assured their conversation was strictly confidential, Cam had ventured that, he guessed, there was a part of him that really liked punishing people. That sometimes—most of the time—it felt good to spank a brat to tears. That he enjoyed the feeling of righteousness and authority that came along with doling out a well-deserved smacking.
He’d fidgeted on the plushy couch. “I guess that’s kinda messed up, huh?”
“Not at all,” the counselor had said, and to his infinite credit, he had really sounded like he meant it.
Of course, since Cam couldn’t exactly force someone to act out, just so he could spank them, it didn’t count as a valid form of anger management. And it was certainly, unequivocally unacceptable to use his authority as a Top to whale on a hapless Bottom who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So Cam needed to find a new strategy. And he was running out of chances.
When the team had finished their laps, they paired off for groundstroke practice.
Cam launched the ball over the net, enjoying the strain through his chest and down his arm as his racket connected. He settled into a rally with Theo, gradually picking up the speed, punching flat shots that barely cleared the net. Theo handled them masterfully, sending each one back at a slower speed with plenty of topspin, only to have Cam pound it back again.
If it had been Aaron, he might have stopped Cam, made him slow it down, pay attention to his form. Theo, however, didn’t seem to mind—or he didn’t feel like provoking Cam’s ire by commenting. Either way, Cam was happy to take advantage of the opportunity.
Stupid Top department and its stupid “code of conduct.” Cam smashed the ball cross-court, and Theo lunged to return it. Stupid Dr. Wipiski and her stupid paddle. Stupid Simon Snitt and not watching where he was going and spilling his stupid coffee all over Cam’s backpack.
Cam attacked each ball with increasing fury, relishing the thwack it made against his racket strings.
It was all—thwack—just—thwack—so—!
A streak of green flashed in the corner of Cam’s eye—a ball approaching from the next court.
Cam pulled up short, midway through his windup, to Theo’s visible relief. He stuck out his racket, popping up the ball he’d been about to cram down Theo’s throat, and caught it with his free hand as the rogue ball reached him, bouncing gently. He knocked it back to its own court.
It was Dodo who caught it. “Thanks!” There was a glint in the sophomore’s eyes that made Cam wonder if that stray ball hadn’t been just a tiny bit on purpose.
Cam narrowed his eyes, but he resumed his rally with Theo.
A few strokes later, he was interrupted by another ball rolling past his feet.
“Sorry!” called Dodo, grinning.
Cam held up the offending projectile and fixed Dodo with a stormy look. “Watch it,” he said, before tossing him the ball.
When it happened the third time, Cam set down his racket and marched over to Dodo’s court, ball in hand.
Dodo threw up his hands. “It wasn’t me! It was Nono!”
Across the court, Fern cried, “What the hell? It was not!”
Cam handed Dodo the ball, then took the smaller boy by one shoulder, yanked him forward, and dealt him a healthy smack to the seat of his track pants.
“Ow!”
“You’re gonna break someone’s ankle!”
Cam released him, and Dodo hopped away, rubbing his bottom and pouting.
“It wasn’t even me, that time!” he whined.
“Yes, it was!” cried Fern.
“I’ll light you both up if it happens again.” Cam pointed between Dodo and Fern, who was looking agitated. “Do you got that?”
“Sorry!” cried Dodo, and Cam stormed back to his court.
Theo looked amused, but he didn’t say anything. They resumed their rally, Cam with one eye on the next court, where Fern and Dodo had miraculously managed to get their groundstrokes under perfect control. Cam shook his head.
“Brat.”
They made it the rest of the way through warmups without further incident. Dodo’s antics had managed to briefly distract Cam from the day’s grievances, and the rest of his rally with Theo was a good deal more civil.
However, it wasn’t long before the dark cloud returned. As Halko ran them through drills, Cam’s mind began to drift back to the afternoon’s events, and tomorrow’s meeting with Dr. Wipiski. Would this be the day she finally brought down the hammer?
It seemed so unfair. Cam loved being a Top. He was good at it. He’d aced the practical final for Effective Threatening last semester just by looking at a kid. Just because he had a tendency to take his Top designation a little too seriously sometimes didn’t seem like it should be grounds for expulsion.
Cam struggled through drills. He couldn’t put enough topspin on his groundstroke—he kept driving them long. His net game was all over the place.
“Take it easy, Cam,” Aaron suggested at a water break. “Get out of your head.”
Yes, obviously, that would do it, but it was easier said than done. Cam couldn’t stop thinking about Dr. Wipiski and Simon fucking Snitt. The more he thought about it, the worse he played, and the worse he played, the darker grew the clouds.
As if there wasn’t enough going on, Dodo seemed to have Cam’s number today. Every time Cam missed a shot—which was increasingly often, as his mood continued to tank—Dodo had something to say about it.
“Oh, that was just out,” he sang when Cam’s overhead went wide by a mile. “You’re supposed to hit it over the net, remember?” when he pummeled a volley into the net. And, “I don’t think you’re supposed to let it bounce twice,” when he nearly tripped over his own feet trying to run down a backspin chip-shot from Fern.
Cam bore it, jaw tightening, as best he could, but his patience was fraying.
The rest of the team had picked up on Dodo’s apparent death wish. Cam didn’t miss the uneasy looks they were sending one another.
They lined up to practice serves. Cam tossed the ball high and crouched for a jump. When Dodo sneezed—suddenly and loudly—just as Cam sprang back up again, it stalled him for a quarter of a second, and his racket whiffled through thin air.
Cam rounded on the kid, ready to collar him.
Aaron, however, was faster. He came from behind and caught Dodo by the ear, looking supremely annoyed—which was about as close to angry as Aaron ever got.
Dodo’s mischievous grin faltered, and his eyes went wide with shock as the captain steered him back to the fence.
“Ow! Hey!” He stumbled after Aaron, grimacing. “Come on! I’m just kidding around.”
“Nobody’s laughing,” said Aaron, his low voice still plainly audible from ten feet away. He still had Dodo’s ear pinched between his fingers, and he spoke directly into it. “If you don’t knock it off, García, someone might lose their patience, and when that happens, you’ll deserve exactly what you’re gonna get. Do you hear me?”
Dodo looked like he had genuinely not expected this, which was truly mind-boggling, even for a straight-A student on the Brat track. He had the good sense to act cowed, at least.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Take a water break.”
He sent him off with a swat, and Dodo, rubbing petulantly, jogged off to the team bench.
Coach Halko observed all this with his usual still, icy demeanor. Cam knew he wasn’t likely to intervene unless he had to, and Aaron was good enough in his role as captain to keep the team in line, most of the time.
Aaron passed behind Cam and clapped a hand on his shoulder. They shared a commiserating look. Aaron didn’t say anything like “Don’t let him get to you,” which would only have irritated Cam further. He didn’t say anything, at all. He just made a sympathetic grimace and fell in to hit some serves.
It was good to have a friend like Aaron. He always seemed to know what to say—or, in many cases, not to say.
Cam glanced over at the team bench, where Dodo perched, arms folded, like a kid in timeout.
He was watching Cam.
When Cam met his gaze, Dodo stuck out his tongue.
Cam felt a growl deep in his chest. He forced himself to take his eyes off Dodo and focus on his serve.
Damn brat.
Cam had his racket in a death grip. He tossed the ball up, but it was off-center, and he smashed it wide into the alley.
He found himself wishing Aaron hadn’t intervened. He would have liked to handle the brat, himself.
With half an hour left in practice, Halko divvied the boys up for match play. Dodo returned from his timeout—which had lasted all of five minutes—with his usual impish grin, as if nothing at all had happened.
“Theo, why don’t you take Aaron on Court One,” said Halko, referencing his clipboard.
Theo pointed at Aaron. “I’ll take you to school, Groll.”
“You can fucking try, Kebede,” Aaron grinned, and they started to root through the large wheeled ball basket.
“Then let’s have you four play some doubles.” Halko’s eyes flicked up over the top of his clipboard, scanning the rest of the team. “Let’s have Tim and Fern, and Lalo and Cam.”
Something rippled through the team, and they all seized up as one.
Except Dodo, of course, who beamed up at his partner. “Woo!” He offered a fist.
Slowly, Cam knocked it with his own.
Aaron, halfway to his court, had stopped and turned when he heard the doubles matchup. His pale eyes darted from Dodo to Cam to Halko.
“Coach…” he said.
“Yes?”
Aaron nodded at Cam and Dodo and gave the coach a pointed look.
Halko arched an eyebrow. He addressed the pair of them. “Is there a problem?”
Dodo shrugged, as if he had no idea what Aaron was alluding to. As if he wasn’t the entire source of the achingly heavy tension permeating the courts. “Nope, no problem!”
Aaron sent Cam a pleading look, which Cam ignored.
“No problem, Coach,” said Cam.
“Then let’s get moving,” said Halko.
Cam heard Aaron heave a sigh, but he didn’t press the issue. The team split up over the two courts and began their play.
Fern and Tim won the serve, so Cam and Dodo took their positions to receive, Cam on the backhand side, and Dodo on forehand.
Tim’s jump serve was nothing to sneeze at. He rifled his first serve into the corner of the box.
Luckily, Dodo was quick. He caught it easily, launching an arcing forehand back to Tim.
The senior returned it cross-court, which he probably thought was a safe move, but Cam was happy to poach. With Fern at the net in his sights, Cam leapt forward, took the ball in the air, and rammed it down the freshman’s throat.
Fern was ready for it, but not quite ready enough. He got his racket on the ball before it could drill a hole through his midsection, jerking his elbow up at an awkward angle in order to do so. The ball skidded off his strings and dribbled harmlessly into the net.
Behind Cam, Dodo gave a victorious whoop. “Get ’im, Bowser!”
Fern hopped on his toes, as if reminding his feet to be quick, and they changed positions.
Cam stepped back to receive. He knew Tim’s serve wasn’t as strong on this side, and he was ready to take advantage.
Sure enough, the first serve hit the tape of the net and ricocheted out of bounds. Tim’s second serve landed in the center of the box, nice and easy, and Cam lined up his backhand.
Across the net, Fern hopped backward in preparation.
Cam’s racket careened through the ball. It narrowly cleared the net and screamed down the left alley, and Cam jogged up to the net, on the attack.
The ball hit the ground at Fern’s feet. Fern crouched low and scooped the ball just as it came off the court, his racket head scraping across the concrete.
It was a good shot. He’d managed to lob it up, trying to get it over Cam’s head and buy them some time to recover.
Cam, though, was pretty tall.
He pedaled back a few easy steps, pointed up at the dark shape of the orb drifting across the sun, and whipped his racket around to smash an overhead straight down the line, where Fern was still picking himself up.
“Jesus,” called Tim, as he collected the ball. “What’d you have for breakfast?”
Cam only grunted in reply, but he smiled to himself. He and Dodo knocked racket heads, and Dodo headed back to receive.
Tim didn’t go for a jump serve, this time. Instead, he sent a tricky backspin slice down the center line.
It hit the court and kicked sharply to Dodo’s left.
“Whoa!”
He lunged for it, popping it up into a lob.
“Short!” he called, signaling Cam to beat a retreat.
Now it was Fern’s turn. He was small, but he was annoyingly fast, and the lob wasn’t enough to clear his range.
Cam set up behind the service line as Fern lined up his shot. With a graceful, fluid motion, Fern snapped his racket up and over his head, and the ball hit the ground at Cam’s feet. Cam’s racket head scraped against the court, but too late—the ball shot past him.
“Got it!”
Behind him, he could hear the clap of Dodo’s sneakers as he sprinted to cover his partner. Cam sidestepped to the right, now face-to-face with Fern, and stepped back up to the net.
Dodo’s racket made contact, and, “Short!” he called again.
Cam groaned in frustration as he backpedaled to the service line.
Fern took the second overhead as easily as he had the first. Again, he aimed straight for Cam, and again, he hit his target with lethal precision, nicking Cam’s shoelaces in the process.
Tim and Fern high-fived, and Cam turned back to Dodo with a glare.
“You wanna try to get it over him, next time?”
Dodo was nonplussed. “If you’d pick up your volleys, I wouldn’t have to.”
They were up thirty to fifteen. Cam set up to receive, two hands on his racket, arms swinging low like a gorilla.
Tim sent him a flat serve to his forehand, and Cam attacked. He returned it deep cross-court and approached the net again, side-by-side with Dodo.
Tim shifted gears quickly. He opened his stance, dropped his racket head, and brought it up and around in a high topspin lob.
It was well over both their heads. Dodo spun in place and sprinted for the back line, and Cam jogged back to a defensive position, watching the sophomore.
“Go, Dodo!”
The ball landed just in and bounced high.
Dodo was still running. He caught up to the ball within three feet of the back fence, where he took a hail-mary swing.
He made contact, anyway, but he launched the ball in the wrong direction, sending it sailing over the fence and off into the stands.
Cam snorted at the ground. “Fuck.”
Tim’s next serve to Dodo was a jump serve down the center line. This time, it smoked him entirely.
Cam slammed his racket head into the tape of the net and retreated to his position.
Dodo jogged up to the service line. “Come on, Bowser,” he said. “Let’s get ’em back.”
As Tim set up for his serve, Cam saw him shift his grip on the racket, and he knew it was going to be another slice.
Sure enough, the ball sailed in slowly, landed center, and then kicked off to the left.
Cam was ready for it. He pounded a backhand down the line and followed it in to the net.
However, the shot wasn’t quite as deep as he’d hoped, and Fern was all over it. He took an easy forehand volley down the center of the court, right between Dodo and Cam.
They each watched it for a split-second too long, each expecting the other to go for it, and then they each gave a little stutter-step of recovery.
Dodo was quicker and shot out his racket. He connected, but too late, and the ball went wide.
That was the game to Tim and Fern.
While they whooped and high-fived, Cam seethed in frustration. He cracked his racket head against the court where the ball had skidded past.
Dodo gave him a sideways look. “You know, you have a better chance of getting it over if you actually go for the shot.” He tapped his temple. “Statistics.”
Cam returned with a furious glare. “Don’t fucking start with me, Dodo,” he snapped.
Dodo shrugged. “Just saying. Maybe try hitting the ball, next time. You want serve?”
“Yes.”
They traded sides. The handful of balls were collected and sent to Cam, who crammed them into his pockets like they were mice he was trying to suffocate.
He tried to slow his breathing as he got up to serve. What had his counselor said last week? Three deep breaths before you act. Cam took his three breaths as he walked to the baseline, and when he got there and turned around, he was almost starting to feel a little bit better.
At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.
Tim had a decent serve, but it didn’t hold a candle to Cam’s when he was on his game.
Cam rocked back and forth in his stance and bounced the ball on the line. “Oh-one,” he called. “Love-all.”
He launched the ball into the air, a perfect vertical toss, incredibly high up, and he dropped into a crouch. As the ball reached its zenith, it slowed gradually, right up until it reached the very peak of its ascent at which point, for an infinitesimal moment, it stopped completely and simply hung.
Cam pushed off the court, the muscles in his legs exploding out, his back arching, his enormous chest expanding, his eye glued to his target.
His racket head dropped at the ready.
Then his feet kicked back, his core contracted, his shoulders crunched forward, and the tip of his racket, at the very edge of this spiral of power, did nothing but ride it out. It was pulled through the ball, meeting at that perfect spot right in the center of the strings, and as time slowed, ball and strings compressed with all the potential energy of a shotgun blast.
And then it released.
Tim didn’t have a chance.
The ball kissed the center line, right in the corner of the box, and rocketed ahead, well clear of Tim’s reach, to lodge itself in the back fence after a single bounce.
Dodo pumped a fist. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Cam smirked. That had felt good.
He glanced toward Coach Halko. He was disappointed to find the man standing with his back turned, his full attention on the other game. Cam knew Halko was well aware of his “anger issues,” so it was nice when he could show off to the coach.
Remind him that Cam deserved to be here.
Cam set up to serve from the backhand side. Fern crouched low in his ready stance, bobbing on his toes, preparing to receive.
“Fifteen-love,” said Cam.
Up went the ball. Another perfect toss. Cam coiled, leapt, and jackknifed through the ball, exactly as he had the first time. It shot low over the net.
A sure winner.
Fern returned it.
Cam did a double-take.
He returned it, that little—!
Fern chipped it down the line, too fast for Dodo, and Cam kicked into gear far, far too late. By the time he was anywhere close, the ball had already bounced a second time.
“Nice shot, Nono!” cried Tim.
Dodo turned sparkling eyes on Cam, who had collected the ball and was glowering at it.
“Maybe wait to admire your serve until we win the point, yeah?” said Dodo.
Cam turned his furious glare on the sophomore. “Maybe watch your damn mouth.”
“Ooh, good one.”
Cam seethed as he retreated to the baseline.
Over his shoulder, he heard Fern whisper something frantic, to which Dodo replied, at regular volume, “Nah, he’s a big softy, really.”
“He’s really not,” said Tim.
Cam flared his nostrils. Dodo was a straight-A student, but if he was really so smart, he’d heed his friends’ advice.
Cam was many things, but a big softy was not one of them.
“Fifteen-all.”
He started his serve. At least he knew he could ace Tim. The lanky senior was nowhere near as fast as Fern.
Cam tossed up the ball. He jumped. He swung.
The ball struck the tape of the net and fell at Dodo’s feet.
A red haze began to grow behind Cam’s eyes. “God damn it.”
Dodo scooped up the ball and pocketed it. “Over the net, Bowser, remember?”
“Shut,” said Cam through clenched teeth, “the fuck up, Dodo.”
His second serve was fine, but Tim handled it easily, sending it back deep cross-court, pushing Cam back to return it.
The sensible thing would have been a topspin lob, or at least a high ball cross-court, but Cam wasn’t in a sensible mood. Off-balance though he was, he still went for a flat smash down the line. He was leaning too far back, though, and instead of a laser beam to Fern’s backhand, like he was going for, the ball tore off his racket at an upward angle and sailed across the court and over the back fence.
Dodo gave a cheer and threw up his hands. “Home run!”
Even Tim, perpetually easygoing, was starting to look annoyed. “Dodo,” he said sharply. “You’re not helping.”
“Nah, don’t worry,” said Dodo. “We’re just playing. Right, Bowser?” He winked back at Cam, who flared his nostrils in return.
Cam missed his jump-serve, again—his toss was off, damn it—and his second serve to Fern was like handing the kid a Christmas gift. Fern smashed it at Dodo, who barely got a racket on it, feeding it straight to Tim at the net, who dropped an impossibly short ball where neither Cam nor Dodo had a prayer of retrieving it.
“You should probably hit your serve better,” said Dodo.
“I’m about to hit something,” said Cam in a voice of cascading boulders.
“Oooh, don’t do that,” said Dodo. Up at the net, he wiggled his butt at Cam behind him. “You’ll get in trouble again.”
Cam bounced the ball for his serve.
“Is that why you’re so slow today?” said Dodo. “Your ass is still sore?”
“Fifteen-forty,” snarled Cam.
The ball went up.
Cam’s racket came around.
He smashed the ball into the center of the box. Tim chipped it back. It bounced high and slow, right to Cam’s forehand. He lined it up, a surge of aggression rippling through him, carrying his swing.
A line drive.
It struck Dodo between the shoulder blades.
There wasn’t a tennis player alive who hadn’t been hit with the ball at least a few times in their career. At the college level, it was rare to hit your own partner, but it happened, on occasion. Luckily, the balls were relatively soft, and unless it struck a particularly sensitive area (or was moving really fast), it really didn’t hurt that much.
Not enough, for instance, to warrant a howl of agony, sinking to one’s knees, and curling up on the court as if one had been crippled.
“Owww!” Dodo rolled back and forth, to the amusement of none of his onlookers. “The big mean angry Top hit me! He did it on purpose! It hurts! Owww!”
Cam’s racket dropped out of his hand and clattered to the court.
Dodo paused his histrionics to take stock of the situation.
He registered Cam’s approach.
“Uh-oh.”
If he hadn’t been curled up on the ground like a lunatic, he might have stood a chance at escape. He was fast—almost as fast as Fern, and definitely faster than Cam.
But in order to run, he needed to be on his feet, and the precious seconds he wasted trying to clamber up as Cam charged toward him like a bull were seconds he could not afford.
Cam took the back of Dodo’s collar in one fist and helped him the rest of the way to his feet.
“Ack! I’m sorry!”
He was always so quick to apologize, but Cam wasn’t hearing it. With single-minded purpose, he dragged the wriggling sophomore to the bench between the courts.
“Cam! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! That was too far!” He scrabbled uselessly as Cam planted one foot on the bench and manhandled Dodo over his knee.
“You’re right,” Cam growled. “That was too far.”
Fuck his temper. Fuck Dr. Wipiski. There was lashing out in anger, and then there was smacking a naughty brat, and Dodo had given him more than enough cause.
Cam grabbed a fistful of the boy’s nylon track pants and yanked them down, revealing his pale, unmarred bottom.
Dodo squealed. “Come on, man! I said I’m sorry!”
“Yeah, you did,” said Cam. His lip curled. “You’ve been saying that a lot, today.”
He raised his hand.
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
Over his first two years at RBU, Cam had taken the standard Top-track classes in Foundations of Spanking, and he’d passed them all with flying colors.
His form was unimpeachable. He had Dodo perfectly balanced over his knee—awkward enough for Dodo that his arms and legs had little range of motion, yet comfortable enough that the kid would be able to put all his focus on the extreme sensation about to be imparted to his backside. For extra security, Cam’s left arm pinned Dodo to his knee, dashing any remaining hope for escape. Cam’s spanking hand was slightly curved, fingers pressed together, locked stiff as a paddle.
And when he swung, he would swing hard.
Whatever else, let it never be said that Cameron Banks didn’t know how to spank a bottom.
Cam’s process was straightforward: one hundred percent power, start to finish. He generally liked to alternate cheeks, but more important was that he covered the surface evenly, making sure not to miss the extra-tender area where the ass cheek met the top of the thigh.
His strikes landed in quick succession—quick enough that Dodo didn’t really react until the second or third swat. When he did, the gasp he let out—the genuine, quiet gasp of mingled surprise and pain—let Cam know he was doing everything right.
He’d actually shocked the kid out of his brattiness, if only briefly.
When Dodo recovered himself, his protestations became more pronounced.
“OW! That hurts! Oww!”
Cam’s lip twitched into a wry grin.
Alligator tears.
He didn’t slow his pace. The fastest way to a well-spanked bottom, in his personal experience, was just to batter straight through to the desired result.
“Ow! I’m sorry! I am!”
“The fact that you’re still talking,” said Cam, grunting the words out so as not to lose speed, “tells me something different.”
“Cam! Come on! Owww!”
Cam wasn’t much of a lecturer. Someone like Aaron could turn a single misdeed into a twenty-minute diatribe, but Cam had never gotten the hang of it. It was one of the things Dr. Wipiski and the other Top-track teachers were always harping on him about: “You can’t just spank someone without telling them why.”
Cam disagreed.
Most of the time, a Bottom knew exactly what they’d done to get themselves in this position. And on the rare chance that they didn’t, Cam figured, he’d give them some red-hot motivation to go and figure it the fuck out.
Dodo, for example, knew exactly what he’d done.
This was Dodo’s second year on the team, and that had given Cam plenty of time to analyze his pattern. Dodo liked to poke. He routinely found a boundary, crossed it, and then hopped back and forth for as long as he could until someone finally managed to spank him back to docility.
It wasn’t exactly complicated.
Dodo’s butt was already a dusty shade of pink, but Cam was just getting started. In a fraction of a second, he lined up each target, pulled back his hand, and let loose with his full strength on every single ringing smack. The palm of his own hand was already stinging—a sure sign that Dodo was being delivered a distinctly vivid message.
“Cam—! Ow! Cam, I swear, I didn’t—I didn’t mean it, ah-haaa…!”
“Shut—the fuck—up—and fucking—take it,” Cam replied, unmoved.
Dodo did shut his mouth, at least for a second, transitioning to a long, high-pitched hum of distress. Whether or not he was really trying to compose himself, he was, at least, trying to obey.
Cam felt a surge of power that started as a blazing kernel in his core and radiated out along his nerves and through the tips of his fingers.
God.
It felt good.
The stress relief was nothing Cam could get from hitting a puny tennis ball for a couple of hours. This was straightforward. The impact was solid and immediate. He could see and hear the results as well as feel them. As Dodo’s bottom reddened steadily; as his complaints became less and less performative and more and more distressed; as the muscles in Cam’s arm strained to keep up the furious pace, and the RBU tennis complex echoed with ringing claps that could be heard from the parking lot and beyond… the weight on Cam’s shoulders slowly lifted, and the swirling storm clouds over his head finally, finally began to clear.
Dodo had given up arguing, by now, instead interjecting a whining, “Ah-howw,” every few swats.
To the uninitiated, his sobs might have sounded pitiful, but Cam wasn’t fazed. He knew real crying when he heard it. Dodo was a decent actor—the Brat-track students tended that way—but this was far from the first time he’d been under Cam’s hand, and Dodo might be small, but Cam knew he could take one hell of a beatdown.
So, he proceeded to give it to him.
When, an aeon later, it was finally finished, Cam dropped his hand, and Dodo went limp over his knee like a punctured tire.
They were both heaving. Cam blew steadying gusts through his nostrils as he surveyed his handiwork. Dodo’s backside was thoroughly rosy, with only the occasional finger mark that strayed outside the single-toned landscape.
Cam let the back of his hand hover an inch or two off the surface. He could feel the heat radiating off.
He grunted appreciatively.
“Are you done fucking around?” he said.
Dodo took two wheezing breaths. “Yeah,” he gasped.
Without further ceremony, Cam took his foot off the bench and set Dodo on his feet.
Dodo dipped quickly to adjust his track pants—one leg of which had nearly come free in his struggles—and tug them up to cover himself.
He hung his head. He hissed through his teeth. He rubbed at his backside and hopped on his toes, and his bright green eyes were flecked with unspilt tears.
Cam nodded to himself. A well-punished brat.
“Are the two of you quite finished?”
Coach Halko’s crisp voice cut clear through the fog of adrenaline, and Cam was suddenly aware of the attention on him.
Tim and Fern, who had lost their opponents and, therefore, had nothing better to do, had come to the net and were watching awkwardly.
Halko, too, was on the court, arms folded, one eyebrow cocked in annoyance.
Cam could see that Aaron and Theo, on the next court, had stopped their game. Theo looked nonplussed as always, but Aaron was watching intently.
Halko looked expectant.
Cam grimaced. “Yes, Coach,” he said. “We’re done.”
He prepared himself for a rebuke. He had wasted practice time. He’d gone overboard. He’d lost his temper. Any of the usual transgressions.
Instead, Coach Halko turned to Dodo, who had the decency to shrink under his gaze.
“You, young man, have been asking for that all afternoon,” said Halko. “Whatever has been plaguing you, I hope it is out of your system.”
Dodo hunched his shoulders, looking every bit the subdued child. In a tone of practiced meekness, he said, “Yes, sir.”
“And you can run a mile for me after practice,” added Halko, “to make up for the time you’ve wasted.”
If possible, Dodo sagged even further. With a decidedly more genuine grumble, he said, “Yes, sir.”
Halko’s eyes scanned the four of them, and even Tim and Fern looked uncomfortable, as if they might somehow be held to account for what had just gone down.
But Halko only gave a curt nod. “If there is no more nonsense,” he said, “then I would like to see some tennis.”
The chorus of “Yes, Coach,” was laced with no small amount of relief. Halko retreated, and the boys took their positions on the court.
Tim was the first to say, “Um… where were we?”
Cam still had a trio of balls in his pockets. He pulled them out. “That was your game,” he said. He knocked the balls over the net. “It’s Nono’s serve.”
He could see the flash of surprise on their faces, which melted quickly to relief, to hear the downright civility in Cam’s voice. He wasn’t even bothered by their reaction. He felt better than he’d felt in days.
He and Dodo took their places, while Fern set up to serve.
The freshman’s serve was dangerous, Cam knew. It wasn’t as powerful as Cam’s, or even Tim’s, but that wasn’t the issue. Fern could place the ball anywhere he wanted on the court, even on his first serve, and he very rarely missed. He played his serve like a chess game.
The trick was to outthink him.
His first serve was flat and low, down the center line, to Dodo’s weaker backhand.
Dodo jumped for it, stretching into a one-handed backhand to try to make contact.
He did, but not fast enough, and the ball flew wide into the next court.
Cam waved to Aaron, who had caught the stray ball.
“Thanks,” he called, as Aaron tossed it back.
Cam and Dodo switched positions. As they passed each other, Cam said, “We’re not losing to a freshman, García.”
“Whatever you say, Bowser.”
They knocked racket heads, and Cam set up to receive serve.
He swung into his ready position, eyes on Fern.
Fern was watching him closely.
Heh. Perfect.
Cam took a couple steps toward the center line, as if he expected Fern to go down the middle, again. He was leaving the entire backhand side of the box wide open.
Fern made his decision. His eyes flicked down, and he went into his toss.
Just as the head of his racket began to move, Cam leapt suddenly toward the alley, into the opening he had left.
It was too late for Fern to react, even if he had noticed what was happening.
He hit his serve, aiming a fast topspin ball at the outside line of the box.
When Fern had tossed his serve, Cam had been out of position. But suddenly, Cam was right where he needed to be.
Cam could hit hard with one hand, and so he could hit harder with two. His backhand returned the ball at a sharp cross-court angle, out of Tim’s reach, and making even the jackrabbit freshman scramble.
Fern popped it up.
Dodo was at the net.
A clean, crisp overhead sent the ball easily into the unmanned corner of the court.
“There you fucking go, Dodo!”
Cam charged the kid, who looked plenty pleased with himself, in any case.
“Nice fucking shot,” said Cam, grinning widely. He palmed Dodo’s sandy-haired head with his left hand and gave it a little jog.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Dodo, ducking out of Cam’s grip. “I can play tennis, you know.”
Cam pointed at him. “Just keep it up,” he barked. “We give up one more game, and you’ll find out just how red your ass can get.”
“Dooon’t,” whined Dodo.
But it wasn’t really a whine.
His eyes were flashing.
Cam shrugged in response. “He’s gonna go down the middle, again,” he said in a sudden, low tone. “Worked the first time. Don’t let it work this time.”
“Heard.”
As predicted, Fern sent the same flat smash down the center line, and Dodo, obediently, picked it up.
Tim took the volley, but Cam was ready for that, too. As soon as the ball was off Tim’s racket, Cam was there to return, crushing the ball into the court at Tim’s feet.
It careened away toward the lower courts, and Fern dashed off to retrieve it.
Cam nodded in satisfaction.
Dodo approached, looking gleeful.
“Nice shot, Bowser!”
They pounded fists.
“Next two points,” Cam ordered. “Or else.”
Dodo rubbed his backside. “Gimme a break, man. I do have a limit, you know.”
Cam shrugged. “I’m willing to help you find it.”
Dodo sniffed, but it was in good-hearted petulance.
When Fern finally returned with the errant ball, Cam met Dodo’s eyes once more.
“Let’s fucking go,” he said.
Dodo grinned in response. His fingers curled more tightly around his racket, and he sank into his ready position.
“Let’s fucking go,” he agreed.