It had been three weeks since our road trip. Katelyn had gotten the medication she needed to get over her cough and she was able to catch up in her classes in time to prepare for finals.
We were rapidly approaching the end of the semester. My roommates and I decided that we would throw the biggest dead-day party we could muster. Dead-day is the Thursday before finals begin and per tradition, everyone would get loaded on Wednesday night choosing to celebrate the end of the semester or lament their impending doom whichever was more appropriate.
Of course this always meant you were hungover on dead-day. The university had intended dead-day to be used for studying, but most students used it to consume fluids and aspirin in amounts that would tranquilize pro wrestlers.
I was particularly looking forward to this dead-day eve as well. Although Katelyn was over her cough, we hadn't gotten to see each other at all on account of her playing catch-up in all of her classes. We had talked on the phone and over IM a decent amount. We had gotten together once the Friday following our road trip. but other than that we hadn't gotten a chance to see each other.
As such we hadn't really had any time to discuss what happened on the road trip. Her parents had given her a ride back to her dorm the Sunday following her appointment and I made the trip back to our school alone.
Part of me was worried that our experience in the car on the way home was more than she bargained for and that she was cooling off on the idea of me - the idea of us - altogether.
She had assured me that she still wanted to be with me over the phone. She was just busy getting back into classes and her conditioning for swimming, and that she was catching up on projects that she had come due before the end of the semester. We had texted a lot and spent a good amount of time on the phone but I was too nervous to bring up our shared experience in the car for fear that she had decided to just put it out of her mind. The closest we got to discussing it was that she made a point to bring up how close she and Emily had started getting in the wake of the panty-liners development.
We had fallen a bit out of the groove. But that would change Wednesday night, I was certain of it! Wednesday was the last day of classes - the last chance to turn in any projects. At the end of each class on Wednesday you filled out your professor evaluations and someone else administered the final the following week. She would be free and we could tear loose much like our first night on my 21st birthday. It wasn't even so much sex that was on my mind, but it was just the opportunity to see Katelyn back in party mode.
So my roommates and I set about making our plans. The three of us were all similarly exhausted from our semesters. We were all majoring in various engineering disciplines and Junior year in engineering courses were particularly brutal. We wanted to throw the biggest party we could muster. As cliche as it was we settled on a toga party. After all, any party worth it's salt had to have a theme and a toga party would at least get everyone halfway undressed. We were determined to would rival the frats, or at least make an attempt at it!
Truthfully being the hosts was just an excuse to get massively drunk. Our circle of friends had some sort of get together each weekend, but if you were the host it meant you could get shitfaced and not have to worry about finding your way home or worry about convincing the girl you were hitting on to go to your place instead of hers.
Our house was set up pretty well for parties. It was only about a mile from campus. When you walked in the front door, there was a large common room. To your left was my room and James' room, separated by a small hallway that made a T with the common room. The "public" restroom was at the intersection of the T with our rooms split on each end of the hallway. Continuing straight from the front door was a kitchen and a door at the back of the kitchen led to Mark's room.
Mark's dad owned the house so Mark got the largest room, but the room had been built onto the house as an addition long after the house was built so it was significantly larger. There was a door from Mark's room to my room as well that we hardly ever used, but it came in handy at parties where we could use it to lock valuables in my room, then exit through his door and deadbolt that.
If you turned right when you reached our kitchen, you would enter the kitchen proper with the dishwasher, refrigerator, and the exit to the back yard. For parties, we typically set up our "bar" there, which was nothing more than a folding table that blocked the exit to the back yard. Even though we were in a college town, our neighbors tended to get angry if people were partying in the back yard to all hours of the morning. If we kept the noise down it kept the neighbors from calling the cops and nothing would ruin a party faster than the cops showing up and finding a bunch of drunken college students doing all manner of things that were various levels of illegal.
After a week of planning and organizing, sending out invites over facebook and purchasing copious amounts of alcohol, Wednesday night finally arrived. I was straightening my room. I had every intention of getting Katelyn drunk and her crashing with me that night so I wanted it to at least look presentable. That is, as presentable as a college student can make their room. I scooped up the various piles of clothes I had sitting around my room and loaded them into my hamper. I opened my closet and began attempting to shove the hamper into the already overloaded storage area when a package caught my eye.
It was a torn, pink package with Cinderella on the cover. Goodnites - L. It was the pack from Katelyn and my road trip weeks ago. When I had gotten back to my house I had snuck them in and stashed them fully intending to explore with them a bit, but heavy homework load had prevented my roommates from leaving the house and I didn't want to have to explain what I was carrying out to the dumpster if I got caught trying to discard evidence. I reminisced briefly and made one final shove at my hamper, quickly shutting the closet behind it. Everything seemed contained.
I donned my plaid open fly boxer shorts and stripped the sheet off of my bed fashioning myself a grey striped toga. I found that if I put my dress belt on over my toga, it not only looked somewhat styling, it also held everything in place much better than if I had simply tied it. I moved everything around - tugging here, tucking there, until I was satisfied with the result. It was crude, but it was certainly a toga slung over one shoulder and covering me down to mid-thigh. I put on my best haughty air and exited my room.
Mark and James were sitting on the couch watching Animal House each with a beer in hand. We had reached the pre-gaming phase of the night. All over town our friends were doing similar activities in preparation for the night. Mark and James had both donned the traditional garb, however both of their togas were blue. Mark had taken the extra step of procuring laurels from the local hobby shop, but Mark had a tendency to be a bit extra at times.
I cracked open a Dos Equis and joined them on the couch clinking the necks of our beers together. We toasted to the nights we would surely never remember. We made small talk and waited. It was 10:15 when the first knock came on the door.
I opened the door to our mutual friend from Engineering, Kumail, smiling and holding aloft a thirty pack of Keystone Light as if it were a trophy he had won. He was followed shortly by a short blonde girl he was seeing named Michelle. Both Kumail and Michelle were wearing togas, but Kumail was jovially drunk already and Michelle's body language showed she was not pleased in the slightest.
Kumail showed himself to the kitchen. Michelle marched over to the couch, and planted herself. She crossed her legs and managed to keep everything about her short pink toga perfectly in place despite having her nose buried in her phone for the entirety of her trip across the room.
