Hannah explained the facts of life to them around three in the morning on a Sunday. Everyone was wide awake. The pledges had just had their first “fun” house party.
Hannah and the other Seniors invited the two nice boy fraternities—seniors only, with a few select juniors—for a cocktails-and-dancing-party, and they pounced on these sophomore pledges the way only a jaded, fratty senior can charm wide-eyed sophomore pledges, many of whom at this sweet, expensive, liberal arts college of high selectivity, were still virgins.
Pledges were not allowed to leave the house, and so cocktails turned into drinks turned into dancing with tipsy senior Fraternity Men, which turned into open making-out across the several rooms and parlors of the sorority’s house’s ground floor.
Making-out and making-out only, because the pledges were all under the strict watchful eye of their Seniors and the Rush Committee, and were not even allowed to take one of these Senior Men upstairs to a sister’s borrowed bed, but instead were allowed to drink and dance and flirt and hook-up and kiss and touch and go into a corner to have a long, sweet, hours-of-never-ending-make-out, with a Senior Man who knew how to kiss and touch a nineteen year old sophomore Pledge Girl to make her enjoy and yield and crave for more, much more.
Although one of the Rush Committee may have snuck her boyfriend, who was one of the Senior Men invited to the Sorority’s Saturday Social Soiree, up to her bedroom on the second floor, it was a perfectly curated evening of old-fashioned necking that Hannah and her sisters gave to their pledges in the midst of the drudgery of sophomore year studies and Blind Obedience to their new family, best friends for ever, yours in pink and gold and white, kiss three times, wisdom patience moisturizing.
So by three in the morning, the Senior Men long-since dismissed like little boys, the house was for the girls to swoon and gossip and compare notes, for part of the mixer theme meant that if a pledge got up during the party to go to the bathroom or get something to drink, she might return to find her Senior Fraternity Man making out with one of her pledge sisters, or maybe even one of the real sisters of the sorority. But Hannah and her Committee made sure to keep the make-out matches moving, and it was common at this party for each pledge to spend time kissing several of the handsome, well-groomed, good-smelling, charming Seniors (and select Juniors) whom the Rush Committee rounded up to attend this annual event, which the Rush Committee maintained for their more wide-ranging purposes.
Showing pledges a good time was never the end-goal of any activity orchestrated by Hannah and the Rush Committee.
Hannah arranged to gather the Pledges in the kitchen, because in the kitchen at three in the morning was when her Rush Committee Chair—a woman who ultimately proved to be Hannah’s grand-big as well—told her and her pledge sisters about some of the Group Projects each pledge class “since the Founding!” had been told it was essential they work on and accomplish not only with panache and grace, but with wisdom, patience, and moisturization.
“Group Projects help bind you together as a pledge class,” Hannah and others told the pledges at the start of pledging, as they themselves had been told. Among those group projects:
—maintain a certain grade point average individually and as a group;
—each pledge had to be active in two extra-curricular activities;
—someone in the pledge class must make a varsity team, and the others had to help their chosen pledge sister(s) do this;
—someone in the pledge class must win an academic or extra-curricular office-slash-award, such as be an Editor of a literary journal or being a Student Government Rep, and the others had to help their pledge sister(s) do this;
—as a pledge class, they needed to make a ‘Gratitude Project’ thanking their Sisters for their wisdom, patience, and moisturizing;
—as a pledge class they had to steal at least two of the mascots or treasures from any of the five rival sororities, except kappa because they are, like, totally friends now again I guess.
But after a month of pledging, and far into the night, Hannah revealed this other, much more important Group Project that they would have to collaborate on. Hannah told them this as their lips still ached from kisses; their bodies still felt the phantom caresses and squeezes of their make-out partners, who were now back at their fraternities, bragging and lying, telling their frat brothers to be appreciative next year when they get to go in turn, and all swearing to their younger brothers that the make-out party was really an orgy.
All except for the nice boys who were there that night and did not need to spoil a magical evening with false and unnecessary braggadocio; many of those same nice boys were the ones who definitely gave their number out and might well have gotten the numbers back of several of the pledges, of course.
Those nice boys, however, were themselves much the topic of conversation in the sorority house kitchen between the hours of two and three in the morning, and their relative sincerity, worth, and most importantly, hotness was weighed and discussed in careful, exuberant measure.
But at three a.m. Hannah laid down the law.
“So you guys, you know how we have Big Sisters and Little Sisters, and the Little is the little of the Big who is the older sister who takes her under her wing, and then their’s your grand-bigs and great-grand bigs—” Hannah checked around and saw the friendly, knowing head nods from the pledges. They all understand the little, big, grand-big, and great-grand-big family trees within the sorority itself, the distinct lines of mentor and mentees that sought to make the collegiate experience more familiar-in-the-family-sense to these young suburban women.
“Well,” Hannah continued, “maybe you have heard, but the frats have little sisters, too.” A giggle, loud, from one of the pledges.
“Oh, so somebody has heard,” Hannah continued. “Well, a little sister at the frat has all of the privileges of the members of the frat. Most, anyway. She can come and go there as she pleases, eat lunches and dinners there without having to pay dues, go to all of the parties and brings guests, she’s kind of like a liaison between the frat and us. She can go to their non-secret meetings, the ones where they are planning parties and stuff, and kinda help them coordinate. A woman’s touch, y’know?”
More knowing head-nods from the pledges, all changed out of their party clothes into their comfy loungewear and evening skin-care routines. Most were drinking water or pedialite, in anticipatory relief of any hangover from the alcohol consumed to make them extra sweet and pretty that evening. The Rush Committee mandated ample hydration for their pledges after drinking parties and especially after make-out parties.
“Because of that,” Hannah said, “we need at least one woman from every pledge class to become a little sister at each of the frats on campus.”
“Wait? We each have to become little sisters at all of the frats on campus!” blurted out the most loudly obtuse of sophomore pledges.
Her pledge sisters rolled their eyes and groaned, psychically distancing themselves from her. “Uggghhhh.” “No, stupid.” Ohmygod, Meredith.”
“You don’t all have to do this,” Hannah said. “If you don’t want to, do one of the other group projects and someone more social can handle this one. It’s okay. I think in my class, we had someone become a little sister at every frat, except for Pi, where we had two pledges become little sisters there. That’s why they’re, like, our brother frat. We always have someone who’s usually already a little sister there and doesn’t even know it.”
“Ummm,” asked Trina. “I’m sorry, but do you have to like, pledge the frat to become a little sister at the frat?”
Hannah and the other Rush Committee Seniors laughed, as did the faster and more socially agile pledges.
“Pledging?” joked one. “Do you mean do they make you do like, a thousand pushups like frat hell weeks?”
“Yeah, they kinda make you do pushups” said another.
“It’s kinda like pledging,” said Denise, one of the Rush Committee Seniors.
“Close your eyes and think of Phi Mu,” said Amberly, another Rush Committee Senior.
“Wisdom, patience, moisturize,” said the Rush Committee in unison, and broke out in hysterics.
Hannah smiled at Trina. She looked the pledge in her eyes, paused for effect.
“Take a breath,” Hannah, a psychology major, thought to herself, and she inhaled. “Hold her captive in your gaze,” thought Hannah, “now, exhale. Now, smile.”
“No, honey,” Hannah said to Trina, hunning her without the nineteen-year-old maybe even being aware of it. “You don’t have to pledge with the boys, you don’t have to do pushups with them unless, I mean, you want to. To be a little sister you need to sleep with at least four guys in a frat.”
“Sleep with? You gotta spend the night?” asked Meredith again, to laughs and groans.
“Fuck,” Hannah said sharply, putting a heavy period at the end of it. “Have sex with. Screw. Ride. Get your rocks of on. Hell, honey.” Hannah paused again. “Pick the ones you want and have fun.”
The older sisters laughed but the pledges were mostly speechless. There were more than a few virgins among this group of a dozen suburban nineteen-year-old women.
Hannah looked them over. “Make this easy on yourselves,” she explained. “Has anyone already slept with at least two guys in any of the frats?” Hannah raised her own hand.
All of the older sisters raised their hands.
After a beat, three of the pledges raised their hands.
“Yes, but, don’t exaggerate,” Hannah said. “We will check. Make sure—did you really do it and will he admit to doing it after you’ve done it with three of his brothers?”
“Oh, honey, they always admit to it,” said Denise, her hand casually raised in front of her, holding it there as all the others were doing as well. The women laughed at Denise’s words and her jaded attitude.
“Which one are you?” one of the three pledges asked her hand-raising neighbor. “Pi, how about you?”
“Shit,” said the question-asker. “I’m also Pi.”
The women laughed again.
“I fucked three Sig Ep brothers last semester,” said the third pledge, “if that helps.”
“Slut,” teased Amberly, and all the women laughed.
“Damn girl,” Hannah said. “I hope that wasn’t all in one night.”
But then the pledge did not answer for a long beat. “Um. Maybe?”
Hannah nodded her head, slowly and approvingly. “Damn again. Lady knows what she wants.”
“Looks like we’ve got Sig Ep covered,” one of the older sisters called out.
“It’s entirely up to you how you pledges want to accomplish this group project,” Hannah told them. “You’ve got to do this on your own, we can’t officially tell you who is the little sister currently at any of the frats, but odds are, if she thinks one of you is getting close, she might reveal herself to you, and help you out. But strictly, unofficial.”
“Oh my god I can’t believe we have to fuck four frat guys,” said one of the shyer pledges.
“Uh, someone’s just realizing why people go greek,” joked Denise and the other seniors laughed.
“Oh my god, sex with cute boys, how will you ever survive,” teased Amberly.
“I’d help you if I could, ladies,” Hannah said. “But I was the little sister at a frat that’s not here anyone.”
“Ugh, she always mentions this,” said Amberley, who was quickly shushed by Hannah’s many friends among the Rush Committee.
“Which one?” asked Trina the pledge.
“Zeta,” Hannah quickly answered. “Go into the library, and you’ll see it carved on desks. On the study carrels. ‘Zeta parties like rock stars.’ It’s carved in wood because it’s true. Zeta parties like fuckin’ rock stars, ‘cuz they fuckin’ do,” Hannah declared sharply, punctuating the end of her statement with a sharp head-flick and shake of her mane-like curly hair.
“And they paid the price for it,” Heather, one of the Rush Committee, observed. “Death sentence.”
“Came back from Winter Break and their house had been razed, torn down,” said Amberly. “Turned into the sand volleyball courts, over next to Alpha Omega.”
Murmurs of awe whispered through the nineteen-year-old pledges.
“Fuckin’ worth it,” Hannah said.
“Hell yeah,” Heather agreed.
“Partied like rock stars,” Hannah said again.
Murmurs of awe again through the ranks of pledges.
“Cocaine,” Denise said. “That means cocaine.”
“Cocaine was just a small part of it,” Hannah said. “They had everything. Coke, pills, shrooms, ex, MDMA, ketamine, acid—”
“All the best drugs,” Amberly said to the pledges.
“And it was more than drugs,” Hannah said. “They partied like fuckin’ rock stars.”
“And you hooked up with them?” asked Trina. “When you were a pledge?”
A pause, but only a slight one. “Kinda,” Hannah said. “But, yes, I became the first little sister this house had at Zeta in, like, five years. And then, the next year, boom, gone, banished. Not just kicked off campus, but if anyone has anything to do with them, affiliates even off-campus or whatever, bam, instant expulsion. Wear the letters on campus, you’ll get a citation to Honor Court. They are not playing about Zeta. Tore the house down to the foundations.”
“They partied too hard,” Denise said.
Hannah smiled. “Hell yeah we did,” proud and nostalgic.
“So,” asked Trina, “how long did it take you?”
Hannah took a deep breath. “Well, I had hooked up with one of the brothers when I was still a freshman, but sophomore year, pledging, I hooked up with him again and said I wanted to hook up with his roommates, too, and become a little sister at Zeta, and they said cool, yeah, alright. And they made like, the four of them, this little party for me, and they had this little suite of rooms at the corner of the second floor at the top of this winding set of old stairs—”
“When she says party,” Denise interrupted, “she means cocaine. They all did lines.”
“Doing rails and then getting railed,” joked Amberly.
Hannah ignored them. “They threw me a nice party and we were all having fun, individually, me kissing one, and then another, and so on, you get the picture. And I was going to go from one’s room to the next to the next, until I had a turn with each. And so I did that and it was really hot, and I was feeling really sexy and cool, we had all had a few drinks beforehand too, smoked some weed, maybe someone had some cocaine, who remembers, and it was really chill and cool and all, and they were cool with me being their little sister and coming to their meetings and all, you know.”
Hannah paused, took a drink of water, coughed and cleared her throat. “So, I’m finished with the fourth brother and I know I did it, I’m a little sister at Zeta now, first in five years, so proud, and they’re like, hey do you want some more coke, and I’m like, no, I’m good, and they’re like, hey, that’s cool, but like this little sister thing, it turns out we checked the Zeta bylaws, with national and everything, and it turns out you can’t be a little sister by only getting to know four brothers. And I’m like oh, do you have like another roommate, a fifth, okay, well, I guess, but then they’re like no, it’s not five, and they open the door and we’re in this little suite that’s at the top of its own set of stairs, and, like, going all the ways the way down the stairs is this line of Zetas and they’re like, you can only be a little sister of Zeta is if you’re everyone’s little sister. And I’m like, okay, I’ll have some of that cocaine now. Thank you.”
Hannah took another, long sip of water in the pledges stunned silence and the Rush Committee’s laughter.
“Holy shit,” Trina said.
Hannah swallowed her water and smiled. “I told you. Partied like rock stars.” She looked Trina in the eyes, and smiled again.