Pledging a sorority wasn't exactly what I had expected it to be. I knew there would be some difficult moments, where I was forced to confront myself in ways I usually avoided, but I looked forward to those, thinking I would grow from that sort of challenge. What I didn't expect was the intensity of sisterly feelings that the whole process would generate, that I would come to feel so inseparable from my pledge sisters in every imaginable way.
I never gave much thought to joining a sorority, let alone becoming an Alpha, until my roommate Paige said that she was going to rush and convinced me to visit some of the houses with her. I'm generally independent minded and not especially interested in meeting frat boys or wandering around campus in identical dresses with a bunch of girls who look just like me. I didn't think a sorority would have anything to offer me; I didn't need to join a club to have friends. Nevertheless, Paige and I made a whirlwind tour of the different houses, and I have to admit they mostly seemed the same to me, the girls included, lots of girls who smiled too hard, with dyed blonde hair and clothes that didn't quite fit right. I wasn't impressed, and I didn't really care if I impressed any of them, which had the effect of doing just that. Everyone told me how poised I was, how natural.
What was weird was how the sorority sisters at so many of the houses would so overtly check the new girls out, not just for their personalities and stuff like that, but would check out their bodies, staring at our breasts and calves and asses like all the leering frat guys do. Were they afraid we'd be competition, that we'd make them look bad by comparison? Or was it the opposite, were they trying to make sure we would uphold the sorority's reputation? I couldn't tell. I knew I was fairly attractive, that my body was normal; I was well-proportioned and had a pretty symmetrical face. My breasts were round and firm, curvy but not heavy. A high-school boyfriend told me I had a "sweet ass and great legs" which embarrassed me to no end at the time, but that I secretly thought about a lot to reassure myself during those awkward years. Still I wasn't sure why these girls needed to look at me so intently. I felt strangely aware of myself as a body, and I didn't really like it. At one of the houses, I finally asked one of the sisters what was up.
After some small talk about my purse and my shoes, I asked, "This might be weird, but I swear that some of the girls here have been, you know, checking me out."
The sister, her name was Ashley, probably, or Kaitlyn, they all seemed to be named one or the other, played dumb for a minute, but after I reassured her I wasn't offended by it or anything, she said rather cryptically, "You know, the female form is beautiful. It's something we care about a lot, feminine beauty. We spend a lot of time together in the sorority," she said. "It's no fun looking at girls with a bad figure." Ashley had room to talk; hers wasn't bad at all. In fact, I would have sworn she had her boobs done, they were so balloon-like, packed into a dress that was a size or two too small.
"You like 'em, huh," she said when she noticed me looking. I almost blushed. It was too stupid. "It's alright, I like them too. My graduation present. It was either these or a car. I don't know, boobs seemed like more fun. I guess I'm just that kind of girl," she laughed. She took another sip of punch, I'm guessing it wasn't her first glass. "It was weird, when I first got them, I couldn't get used to the idea that they were mine, you know. That I was really seeing myself in the mirror. I could tell the guys were staring at me more, and I started wearing tighter clothes, you know, to take advantage. But it wasn't like they were looking at me at first, it was like they were seeing someone else, and I was watching that person too, but from the inside. Does that make any sense?"
"Sort of," I said. "But mine are still natural."
"When I first got them, I wanted everyone to touch them, I didn't care who. I couldn't keep my own hands off them. I wanted to make sure they were real, that they were there, and it wasn't some dream. That I really wasn't that flat-chested tomboy anymore."
"It's hard to believe that you ever were," I told her.
She smiled as though I had flattered her and made a flirty pout at me. "I still like to let people touch them," she said.
At first I thought I hadn't heard her right but then she pressed close to me, just for a second, so that our chests actually brushed against each other. Something in my face must have showed how surprised I was, because she excused herself quickly after that, and I never saw her again.
Everything was different when Paige and I visited the Alpha house though. The girls seemed more like women, capable and comfortable in their skins. There was less superficial conversation about makeup and clothes and lots of talk about ambitions and community activism, academic standards, that sort of thing. These seemed like professional women of the future, and they spoke of the networking advantages to be had by being connected with the sorority. It seemed like a real opportunity to set oneself up for a strong career after college rather than a chance to fuck frat boys and get drunk. I was surprised and impressed. So was Paige.
In the long evening we spent there, all the Alpha sisters were extremely composed and genteel, formal without seeming frosty. It seemed as though they had all internalized that kind of solicitous and considerate politeness that seemed to have disappeared from the world centuries ago. I always felt that all the girls I talked to were really interested in me, my hopes and plans, my ideas. And the ideas they volunteered were always interesting, idiosyncratic, thoughtful. Sure, they were a little more conservative then I was used to, but they made compelling cases for a more traditional approach to womanhood that didn't seem to include subservience to men. "There's nothing to be gained by stridency," Pauline, one of the sisters told me. I don't always notice these things, but Pauline was incredible looking, the most beautiful person I had ever seen in the flesh, with that expensive looking skin and the gleaming smile and shiny black hair that was perfectly straight and styled with something close to genius in a braid like I'd never seen before. While I talked to her, something in the way she spoke commanded respect and sympathy but without making her seem cold or fearsome. She was like one of those impossibly well-spoken women in 1930s movies that my mom always made me watch with her on Turner Classic Movies.
In the end, after an extensive interview process and the provision of references and recommendations, Paige and I were both pretty excited to get bids, which we accepted, and the next thing we knew we were part of a pledge class with three other girls, Beth, Monica and Eva. For the rest of the semester, the five of us would become a we. I wouldn't spend a waking hour without being in their company. By the time things were over, I could finish there thoughts and they mine. There wasn't a secret I had from them, and I knew everything about them too. I knew I could make them cry or laugh with a word. I could make them feel whatever was necessary. They could do the same to me. We were that close. We even knew just how to make one another come, the special places that we liked to be touched, the kinds of words whispered that would make us crazy.
