"Are you ready?" He asked. He was Mr. White and he had been running, coordinating, stewarding and sweating over the Haunted House for every year since it began. He stood in front of the bleachers looking at the fifty or so people sitting in the first three rows. All were students at the college who had volunteered to help with the Halloween Haunted House fund raiser.
A hand was raised. Mr. White pointed and the long haired guy wearing a gray t-shirt with the words "Life Sucks!" on it asked, "What do I hafta do?"
The man up front looked at him for a full ten seconds before he answered. "You don't hafta do anything. We are all volunteers here. We get to do things to have the kids and adults that come to the Haunted House have a great time. I don't get paid. You don't get paid. And, since you brought it up, let me explain something else to you. When I ask you to do something it is not the opening of a negotiation. We don't have time to ask people if they want to do this or that every time something comes up. If I ask you to do something, please do it."
He paused. Then he said, "On the table are lists of things that need to be done between now and Friday, Halloween. Look over the lists and get started. On the back of the back page is a list of cast jobs for Halloween. Look it over and come back to me to sign up. Ok, let's get to work."
Every year the organizations on campus cooperated to do the Haunted House. They raised money for youth groups, foster kids, school supplies for elementary schools and for kids in hospitals. The school of engineering designed, built and operated the devices used in the House. The drama department managed the cast and trained them. Jack White managed the whole thing. He usually ran a construction company but every year he took his two week vacation beginning the twentieth of October and managed the Haunted House. For the last three years he managed it alone, since his wife of fifteen years died. Before that they had done the job together.
Beth and Amy sat together in the second row during the meeting. They were best friends and had been best friends for more than two years. They met two days before the start of their first year of college. They were assigned the same dorm room. Amy got there first and piled her stuff in the middle of the room. When Beth arrived Amy asked, "Which side of the room would you like?" That was the beginning of a great friendship.
They discovered benefits to being best friends that they hadn't anticipated. Both were the same size. They traded clothes often. If Amy went shopping she knew that if something fit her it would fit Beth and vice versa. Their families liked each other. Breaks from school were split between families with the girls staying together. Both had been raised in the same Christian denomination. Neither smoked or drank alcohol. In the two plus years they had roomed together neither had brought a man back to their room and neither had spent the night with a man somewhere else, either.
They had talked about sex. Both owned battery operated appliances that they used on occasion, in private, when the other was not home. They agreed that if the definition of virgin was that a penis had never been inside their vagina, they were both virgins. Both had been tempted to give up their status, but neither had done it.
At the end of the meeting they got the lists and looked at the back page. They knew the fun cast jobs would go first. They saw a strange item on the list. It said, "6 Goth angels". Something about getting into Goth attracted them. They agreed it would be just for Halloween, that Goth wasn't anything that attracted them, really.
After a minute long conversation they went looking for Mr. White. He put their names down on his master list and told them to go to room one-eighteen in King Hall. In that room they found three other people, who they assumed were from the drama school. They were shown costumes and wigs. One of the three helping in the room showed them what they would do with makeup and how no one would recognize them once they were in costume.
Both Amy and Beth were blonds with pale skin. Natural blonds who both burned if they stayed out in the sun for over an hour. Both joked that if they went to the beach it had to be at night. They tried on black wigs and liked the way the black hair changed their look.
The other four Goth Angels arrived and they conferred about the look and the costumes. None of the six were male so the male from the drama department left. It was agreed that all would supply their own black stockings, leotard and shoes. The wigs and make up would be from the costume department of the school.
As Amy and Beth left to head towards the gym, where the House was being built, one of the women from drama went with them. They became friendly and worked the rest of the day together helping to build the opening maze. When hunger and time convinced them they were done for the day the three went to dinner together.
Their new friend's name was Catherine. She was a senior, from Chicago, oldest of six kids and she had a tattoo that both Amy and Beth had seen. It was of a scorpion two inches long on the inside of her left forearm. Both had looked at it often during the day, but neither had asked about it.
Finally, Beth couldn't wait any longer and she asked, "Can I ask about your tat?"
"Sure!"
Amy asked, "Why a scorpion?"
"I was born on November tenth, right in the midst of Scorpio."
Beth asked, "Why on your arm?"
"I thought about a tattoo just above my butt crack, but I'd never see it." She touched just above the top of her skirt where that tat would have been. "I picked my arm so I would see it."
"Do you have any others?" Amy asked.
"Yes, two."
"Can we see them?" Beth asked.
"Not here. Maybe, if you come back to my place or I come to yours."
"Come back with us." Amy said, "We live in Sagan Housing number two."
"Oh, that's close to where I live. Sure, let's go." They bussed their dishes and left the dining hall. A five minute walk had them inside Sagan Housing number two. On the third floor they went to the corner room of Amy and Beth.
Beth unlocked the door and the three went in. Catherine looked around and said, "Just as I thought, two Christian girls from middle America."
"Is that a bad thing?" Amy asked.
"No. As a matter of fact it's perfect. I've got a part in a play for the Spring and I play one of you. Maybe you can help me get into character?"
"How?" Amy asked. She was interested.
"We can talk about your attitudes, beliefs and goals. That will help me understand why I would be saying the things my character says."
"Ok. We'll help." Beth said.
"Now, about those other tattoos." Amy said.
Catherine pulled her shirt up and off, leaving her with just a black lace bra. She squeezed her breasts together to unhook the front closure of the bra and it fell away. A small Chinese dragon circled around the areola of her right breast. The breast was slightly larger than either Beth or Amy's breasts and the areola was about the size of a quarter. The dragon seemed to be chasing his tail.
Beth moved closer and asked, "Did it hurt a lot?"
"Not too bad until he bit me!" Catherine said, then she laughed. "You can get closer if you want. She squeezed her breasts and said, "I love getting him some air. Dragon's need to be free, you know."
Amy moved closer. She was thinking about what her family would say and do if she got a tattoo. She was pretty sure they would be very upset. She could hear her mother's voice saying, "Nice girls don't do things like that!" There were times when that voice really bothered Amy.
Without conscious thought Beth's right index finger reached for the dragon. Beth almost touched it when she realized she would be touching another woman's breast! She stopped and looked into Catherine's eyes.
