Dedicated fondly to the inimitable Victoria Tuft.
Chad had a very successful first year on campus. He was one of the most popular guys to come through the school in a long time. Great grades, athletic prowess, throngs of worshipers (male and female) and great parties were the envy of every matriculating freshman, particularly Jason. Part of Chad's popularity had been due to his meteoric ascent through the ranks of the university's most revered fraternity: Alpha Phi Omega (APO).
At the beginning of the school year there were hundreds of guys eager to pledge for APO. For the first time that any of the fraternity brothers could recall, Chad - a sophomore - was given the highly desirable task of devising admission requirements for a subgroup of pledges. The process was formerly known as "hazing," but after some crazy stunts that drew attention from the local media, the boys could no longer refer to the process in that way. In fact the entire procedure to determine a pledge's right of entry evolved into something much more artistic. The traditions changed; there were fewer keg stands and more mind games that involved unknowing pledges drinking non-alcoholic beer and reacting like drunken fools, only to have the administering brother tell them it wasn't alcoholic. Such innovation spelled the making or breaking of many hopefuls; the highest ranking brothers were clearly the most creative.
It was Brian, the fraternity president, who held the keys that Chad sought. Chad knew Brian to prize ingenuity and creativity far above anything else when it came to testing the mettle of incoming pledges. "We don't want any pussies in the APO house unless they're attached to an x chromosome!" Originality ran in Chad's blood; he studied to be a copywriter and his professors from the first year extolled his work as being the finest that they'd ever seen. It was while smoking a cigarette from the back balcony of the frat house that he found his inspiration.
Jason had a dreadful senior year at high school and was pleased to have made it off the waiting-list and into a well-regarded private university. While the likes of Chad got a full ride for his perfect SAT score, Jason's father dished out $45,000 every year. Jason thankfully saw the whole college experience as a fresh start and was eager to begin again. Part of the re-invention for Jason meant being part of a fraternity; he never found the type of camaraderie that he sought in high school, so when he heard about the concept of a fraternity and what it meant he knew that he had to be a part of APO. It was all going smoothly until Jason arrived at the first pledge meeting to find Chad running the show.
Chad vaguely remembered Jason from more than a year ago when they competed in football. Jason was a second-string quarterback for the Beavers, a team that was mocked locally not only for it's inability to score. In fact, Jason vividly remembered being sacked again and again during every game against the Bulls, the team for which Chad starred as a nose-tackle.
Jason remembered Chad quite well; after each hit, Chad would smile through his face mask and laugh affably. "Sorry there, little beav." Jason couldn't stand it, and at the same time Chad was so polite without the slightest trace of sarcasm. Jason felt that he'd have a difficult time pledging. It wasn't that Chad was mean, on the contrary he was just too... good. He set the bar so high that reaching it would be more difficult than escaping his blitz on the field. Jason walked up to Chad to introduce himself and before he could gain a first-strike advantage, either with words or handshake, Chad flashed a handsome and reminiscent grin. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
At that first meeting, Chad laid it out pretty simply. "Your first assignment, should you choose to accept..." A long thin crease split his stubbled chin. "Is to go and obtain a pair of panties." The pledges all looked confusedly at one-another. Pledge requirements were typically awful acts meant to forge life long bonds. What was so difficult about getting a pair of panties?
"The panties," Chad continued "cannot be just any pair of panties. They must be a pair of your mother's panties." The guys started to grumble.
"Used." The room exploded into an incredulous roar as the final requirement was stated with no more certainty the the previous two. "Well guys, if you don't want to be part of a fine fraternity that values tradition and brotherhood, perhaps there are some sororities that are still looking?"
That word tingled in the air: brotherhood. Getting a pair of his mother's worn panties would certainly not be a problem for Jason. He was one of the few guys that actually considered doing exactly what Chad had asked. A probing mind might have considered that the group of 14 guys was from all over the country and that the assignment was to be completed within a week. Were the guys going to call their mothers and ask them to send a pair of their used panties? All Jason needed to do was to go home that weekend, a feat easily accomplished by calling his mother and asking her to drive for forty-five minutes to pick him up. When she fretted over why he'd want to come back home after being away for only a couple of weeks, he replied "it's getting pretty hectic with all the parties and I have an important exam coming up. I could really use the peace and quiet back home to help me study." He was back to the campus by Monday morning, ready for class and strangely, almost excited for the pledge meeting.
Chad's pledge group narrowed by one, an acceptable attrition rate that more than passed muster. From his remaining stock of 13, only 9 of the hopefuls would call themselves brothers one day and Jason was still in it. The pledges lined up, and each handed over the pair as if they were trying to protect the answers on a quiz from prying eyes. Chad accepted thong after thong with a pleasant expression. Like a movie ticket usher tearing the ticket in half and admitting the corresponding patron to his seat, Chad put each pair gently into an opaque vertical cylinder. It had a crank on it's circular end and was similar to the type of device used in lotto drawings. When Jason handed over the pink sheer pair of panties that he'd nabbed from his mother's hamper, Chad smiled in the same way that he smiled to each other boy. After collecting them all, Chad began to furiously crank the handle and correspondingly whirl the cylinder. As his muscles flexed, it appeared as though he was winding up an antique phone and preparing to ask the operator to put him through. "OK guys. Round and round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows!"
The pledges watched anxiously. Jason tried to ask the tallest pledge "what's going on?" The guy, without looking at Jason just shrugged and watched Chad.
"Now fellas, the next step gets a little more involved." He brought the cylinder to a jarring halt and with it, each pledge's nerves. The delicates flopped to a standstill inside the thin metal drum like crash test dolls in a car accident. "Who's the lucky fella?" He proffered a flimsy pink garment outward for the 26 eager eyes. "Hey, it's a nice one. Petite!" He grinned. The guys all looked around and Jason felt a lump rising in his stomach. "Come on fellas, we don't have all night!"
"It... It's mine. Er, my mom's."
"Jason! It is Jason, right?"
"Yeah, Chad."
"Well, this part shouldn't bother you too much, I hope." He handed the panties down to a short muscled guy with a buzzed head. Time slowed as Jason recognized him to be the guy who sat in front of him during mathematics - he'd obtained a perfect score on his first two quizzes. His name was Brett. "Take a deep whiff, Studdebacker." The previously tense room fulminated in a roar of cheerful relief; a physics professor citing the law of conservation of energy might have graphically illustrated how the terror was instantly converted into machoism - the stuff from which college experiences were made. "Go on, get into a circle and pass it around. Everyone who wants to be a part of this frat must smell the crotch. Jase, you're in the middle, you just have to watch." A circle quickly formed around Jason. The guys hooted and as they passed the panties from hand to hand. Jason watched, astonished, particularly as the thin gusset was touched by so many young fingers. There were thick fingers that he'd watched gripping pencils and smudging graphite that was traced firmly onto multiple-choice test forms; thinner artistic fingers that delicately tickled piano keys up and down the scale; black fingers like the ones on his roommate that were perpetually hitting the "u" and "r" keys on a keyboard to ask "Where r u?" as they introduced themselves to married women over the internet; all of these fingers which had grasped cigarettes, wiped noses, and scratched armpits were now suggestively finessing the crotch of his mother's panties.
Jason was floored. His apparent inertia egged the cohort along. The tall guy, seeming to have forgotten that Jason was trying to ask him a question, brought the panties to his face with a near reverence that slowly and deeply inhaled; there was enough detail in the act for a keen writer to have chronicled a full chapter about such a simple action. The panties yielded his mother's essence through their smell.
"Jase, what vintage am I working with here?" His smile was more horizontal than Chad's. He pressed it again right into his nose, gently inhaling air through the gossamer membrane. "Nineteen seventy?" The guys began to guffaw. "Check this out!" He exposed the inside of the familiar crotch. "She's not one for waxing, is she? All natural!" Even though Jason stood several feet away, he could see what must have been the thickest, curliest brown pubic hair that he'd ever known. It was coiled in defense underneath this guy's lengthy finger. The panties continued their circuit until they'd made their way back to Chad.
"Don't worry bud, I've got enough for myself. I'd actually prefer not to ruin my dinner." He tucked the panties into his front pocket where they dangled helplessly.
Jason wasn't furious. He wasn't upset or humiliated. The moment felt bizarre - somehow the concept of brotherhood seemed to fit exactly as it should have with his mother's purloined and probed undergarment. It was like each of these guys now knew his mother better than he knew her, and there was a slight cringe that accompanied the thought of his mother dropping him off at the frat and talking to some of the brothers as he'd seen other moms do. "Yeah, no trouble Chad. I know that I'm pledging to the best frat around and that these traditions are to test my stuff. I can handle whatever you can throw at me."
