I need to give credit to PericulumFabula17 and their story "Marti Ch. 01: The Streak". I really enjoyed that story and it became the seed from which this one grew. Rather than try to obfuscate the fact that I was inspired by their ideas and writing, I have intentionally left some aspects of the setting intact, even a few sentences. I hope that you will see this not as laziness or plagiarism, but as an honest attempt to give credit where credit is due.
I contacted PericulumFabula17 to ask their permission to use some ideas from that story as a starting point for my own, and they graciously said to go for it.
I encourage you to give that story a read and thank the author.
----------
I was two weeks into my freshman year at North Carolina Tech when I went to my first Friday night Beta house party. I'd already pledged and had been accepted at Sigma Zeta Iota, a process that wasn't nearly as harsh as you might think. Sororities exist to help us make important connections and launch us into successful lives after college. Sure, there was an initiation. We had to strip to our underwear and have our bums paddled as punishment for losing various games. But some would have you believe that the main reason for sorority initiation is to get girls totally naked and take pictures of them as embarrassed and humiliated as possible. That is absolutely not true.
As I was about to learn, getting girls naked and taking pictures of them as embarrassed and humiliated as possible happens to be the exact mission statement of the Friday night parties at Beta house.
The home of the bad boys on campus, Beta Delta Nu was often referred to as NC Tech's "Animal House." The Beta boys were cute, they served free alcohol, and their Friday night parties were absolutely wild, off the rails. You never knew what to expect at a Beta party. Every Saturday, the place stank of stale beer, the floor was sticky in places, the kitchen was just ghastly, and the bathrooms were worse but, when you entered the Beta house on a Friday night, it was as if you left civilization behind and entered into a different world, a world of insanity, hedonism, free alcohol, and high octane partying.
What did it say about us Sigmas that this was our brother fraternity? Let me be clear. It didn't mean that we were all party sluts. It's true that we happened to be the easiest sorority to get into, but that didn't mean WE were easy. Our sisters tended to have a little less money and connections and we were proud to make up for it by being more fun. We did have the reputation of being the sluttiest sorority, possibly because our bikini car-wash fundraisers featured the skimpiest bikinis and because several of us were regulars at the Beta parties, but we looked out for each other and, for the most part, kept our clothes on at the Friday night parties. Our less than perfect reputation did not mean we were all party sluts.
I certainly wasn't a party slut. Before I walked into Beta house for the first time, I didn't even know what a party slut was.
As we approached the front door of Beta house, there was a guy asking for "donations", but because of our gender, we were just waved inside.
Beta house almost always raised the most of any fraternity or sorority each month. That was because each male attendee to their Friday night parties was asked to make a donation. For that donation, there was always some organized event like a wet t-shirt contest or an oil-wrestling bout involving girls in bikinis or sometimes just their underwear. The Beta boys liked to say that they did a lot of good, while they were being really bad.
I'd been warned about this. Many of the girls at the Friday night parties were apparently regulars. They liked the hedonistic atmosphere, they willingly signed up to be in the organized events and they knew what they were in for. All party attendees were explicitly prohibited from bringing in cell phones and cameras, but there was always one roving Beta boy with a video camera sending a feed to huge 8x14 foot projector screen on the wall to the right of the entrance. That guy's job was to always be there to capture the best angle whenever a girl showed some skin. Girls that enjoyed a bit of exhibitionism knew that whatever they did would be seen and enjoyed by everyone in attendance, but Beta house was clear that nothing would end up on the web to haunt them the rest of their days.
After attending that first party, I was amazed at how many girls were really into it. Those are the girls that I came to think of as party sluts.
When I walked in the door, I was immediately disoriented by the rowdy cacophony of it. I was oblivious to how several guys immediately checked me out. I was with Lorna, a Sigma junior. Someone handed us drinks as soon as we came in and several guys greeted Lorna by name. Lorna told me to sip slowly. I later learned that this was the fraternity's signature libation, a knock-your-britches-off house punch made with sugar, powdered flavoring, straight grain alcohol, and ice, specially blended to help coeds make bad life choices.
When you passed through the entrance-way of Beta house, you entered the main hall. It was two stories tall with a stairway climbing up the left wall leading to a walkway along the far wall. It was an impressive old house that was home for as many as 35 frat boys at any given time. The main hall was the size of a small gymnasium and was big enough for a crowd of over 150 partiers.
About 15-20 minutes later, when Lorna was chatting with someone she knew, a guy came up to me holding a couple of full cups and offered one to me. "Ready for a refill?"
We both had to lean in and rotate our heads to speak in the other's ear to be heard. "Um, sure!" I said, draining the last gulp of my first cup and noticing that I was already starting to feel a pleasant buzz.
"I'm Sebastian," he said. "Ever played beer pong?"
"Ricky," I said, shaking his hand. "That's where you try to get a ping-pong ball into the other person's cup and whoever loses has to drink, right?"
"You got it," he confirmed and gave me a warm smile as he gently took my elbow and started steering me toward a table at the back of the room.
"Whoa there!" Lorna reached over and grabbed my arm away from him. "Ricky here is a brand new Sigma. Nobody's going to enfasize her tonight."
"You're no fun!" Sebastian replied, then he grinned at me. "You should come watch a game or two." Then he walked off, looking for another target I guess.
"What did you mean 'emphasize' me?" I asked.