Vicki was angry. Angry and drunk. "We regret to inform you," the letter began. All the studying, the extra curricular activities, the charity work -- all of it for nothing. The rejection was the end of her chance for an ideal life. Now she'd be off to some shit-hole state university. Would her mother feel anger or pity?
To make it worse, her older sister had partied through high school and still gotten into the Ivy League. She was out there living the dream as an investment banker or some other wildly overpaid job that kept her in tailored suits and luxury cars.
Vicki took another drink from the pint of Fireball. She felt the bad taste in her gut as much as her mouth, was surprised to find herself sobbing. It would be hours before her parents got home.
The contact in her phone said Sarah instead of Sister. She pressed it and listened while it dialed.
"Hello," Sarah answered on the first ring. It was 11:00pm.
"How the effe did you get into college," Vicki said. Her words might have been slurred.
"Vicki?"
"Yeah," Vicki said.
"What's wrong?"
--
Sarah wouldn't talk to her that night, honestly maybe she did, but it was all a little hazy. They had agreed to further discuss after Vicki had time to process. And sober up.
Vicki met her sister for brunch at a trendy cafe. They sat outside, the warm sun enough to blunt the crisp April breeze.
Sarah was ice, her face always controlled, smooth skin and perfect teeth.
"I thought it would be easy to get in. After all, you..." Vicki started to say but lost her nerve.
"You can say it. After I got in," Sarah said.
"Yeah," Vicki said. She drank some ice water and tried not to make eye contact. "No offense, but your scores weren't that good, you were in cheer which I'm sure shows up great, but otherwise you didn't even try. You never even wanted to go to college."
"Yeah," Sarah said. "I just didn't want to disappoint."
That stung Vicki extra hard. She still hadn't told her parents. They had sacrificed to put both girls into private schools, and after their free spirited oldest daughter whipped through the Ivy League, they had extra high expectations for Vicki.
Her eyes started to well up, but Vicki fought off any tears. "How did you do it?" she asked.
Sarah stared at her for a long moment, gears turning.
"You repeat any of this, and I'll never speak to you again," she said.
"What?"
"I'm serious. Swear to me what I'm about to say never gets repeated. NE-VER," Sarah said.
Another long beat.
"I promise," Vicki said. Sarah's raised eyebrow, didn't believe her. "I swear. Not a word."
"No matter what I tell you," Sarah said.
"No matter what," Vicki said.
Another long pause.
"I pulled some strings, non-academic strings," Sarah said.
"Oh my god I knew it. You cheated," Vicki said. This revelation didn't get Vicki into college, but it did make her feel like less of a failure.
"I didn't cheat. I pulled other strings, and it wasn't free," Sarah said.
"Sounds like cheating to me," Vicki said, suddenly smug.
"Life isn't about following the rules. It's about finding the right people to do the things you need done, and paying for it," Sarah said.
"What does that mean?"
"Let's just change the topic. I cheated, OK? Mission accomplished," Sarah said.
An awkward silence. Sarah wouldn't make eye contact with her. Sarah pulled the waiter and ordered a scotch, neat. It was 10am.
"These strings. Can you pull them for me?" Vicki asked.
--
Sarah was several Scotches in before she laid it all out. She had pledged a secret organization within a national sorority. The organization got her admitted, paid room and board for four years, even placed her in elite circles. But there was a cost.
"You have to understand, there are a lot of rich men out there, think tech billionaires, who are married but never got to really experience college. Girls. They don't want to get a divorce, and they don't want a porn star or hooker-- at least not all of them. They want the girl that wouldn't give them the time of day. A sorority girl.
"And you had sex with them?"
"And then some," Sarah said. She actually smiled, like it was a fond memory.
"You liked it?"
It sort of made sense, Vicki thought. Sarah always was something of a slut; her mom used the euphemism "wild." Apparently, Sarah had fucked a bunch of billionaires through college, and rather than feel shame, she smiled.
"Most of the time," Sarah said.
"What about the other times?" Vicki asked.
Sarah put her drink down, a serious look on her face.
"Any sorority has a hazing process, no matter what they tell parents these days. It's a sort of bonding experience, also a weed-out experience, and also just a flex of sadism from twenty year olds who don't know better. It's not pretty." She took a long pause. "Now imagine all that hazing for a secret society of sex slaves," Sarah said.
There was an edge of bitterness on the word slaves, an idea Sarah had been dancing around but just outright said.
"Bad?" Vicki asked.
"Yeah," Sarah said.
"So that was the worst part?" Vicki asked.
"No," Sarah said. "For that semester, you are forbidden from dating of any kind. Your life is filled with actual school, actual pledging, and then the layers of sexual services, learning the ropes, etc. It's a time sink. The participants are screened for STDs, and there would be hell to pay for giving an STD to a client. No outside sex during your service."
"And," she said, "I violated this rule. And got caught. They were prepared to pull any string necessary to kick me out of the program, out of school, unless I made amends. Punishment. I did what they wanted. I grit it out. And now I have all of this."
Vicki wasn't a virgin but she wasn't much more experienced beyond that. Of course she was going to have more sex in college anyway, and of course she'd get hazed. How much worse could this be?
"I need to do this," Vicki said. "You will get me in."
--
Vicki's head was still spinning. For one semester, she would be a house slave. Her and a few other girls, unknown to the other pledges and sworn to secrecy, forbidden from turning down any sexual request. It was 90 days of prostitution where the payment was more valuable than money. Sarah had warned Vicki not to do it, but here she was. A phone number in hand, and a cautionary tale in her mind.
--
Six months later, Vicki was enrolled and in her sorority, an eighteen year old slave. The total pledge class was twenty girls, of that group only a handful were in The Program.
There was a woman in her forties, a CEO type in charge of the program, but she only made one appearance, and Vicki understood the CEO mostly handled client relations.
Vicki's "manager" was McKayla, a senior in marketing and an officer in the sorority. McKayla was super WASPy, with dyed blond hair, dark eyebrows, hazel eyes, and understated makeup. Her smile felt fake, but otherwise she was extremely pretty.
Vicki had gotten her room situated, and her family on the long drive back home, and she was finally free to explore and settle in to her new life. She found herself talking to McKayla in the kitchen next to a common area. McKayla wore skintight dress pants and a cream colored top that exposed plenty of her chest. Vicki had better breasts than McKayla, but the senior definitely had a tighter ass.
McKayla was overly casual, eating an orange while she leaned against a cabinet. Vicki heard a waft of discussions cutting in and out as other girls passed through the adjacent room. It smelled like citrus. The conversation turned serious.
"You're really going to go through with this?" McKayla asked. "Sex is sex, but it also comes with baggage if you're not prepared. Men want to treat us like sex objects, but most of the time society slows them down. Not here. Not this program. You prepared to be a sex object for strangers?"
"I can do it," Vicki said, butterflies in her stomach.
"Show me then," McKayla said.
Vicki didn't know what do. She stood there awkwardly. "Show you?"
"Take off your clothes," McKayla said. She was already annoyed, a harsh edge in her voice.
Suddenly those voices in the other room were a lot sharper. How many girls were in the other room. Three? Vicki froze.
"Well?" McKayla said.
Vicki heart was racing, but her body wouldn't move. She couldn't imagine stripping down in the middle of the day in this new place with these new people. How many seconds went by? Ten? Twenty?
"Listen," McKayla said. "We both know what you signed up for. The big show. It is intense. Rush starts next week, and you're going to be asked to do a lot of things. Even the normal pledges are going to strip down during hazing, and you are not a normal pledge. If you can't do this now. You may need to call your family before they get too far down the road."
McKalya finished her orange and threw it in the sink.