What Could Go Wrong

"What could go wrong?"

It was the second semester of freshman year, and I had come back a week early for rush week. At my school, they don't let first semester freshman rush fraternities or sororities, so that meant everyone treks back to campus in mid-January to take part in the annual tradition before classes started again. This was upstate New York, so that meant two things: the weather was freezing and the Greek scene was huge, because there was nothing else to do. There were about thirty fraternities and almost as many sororities, which meant that there were so many to visit in the brief week before classes started again.

I had enjoyed first semester academically, but the social scene had gotten old fast. The housing lottery had cruelly placed me in the only all girls dorm on campus, which made it hard to meet boys outside of class. Worse, I had gotten a single, so even as everyone around me was bonding with their roommates, I would just head home alone after class or the library and surf the internet.

Fraternities threw plenty of open parties first semester, trying to impress the freshmen boys with cheap beer and freshmen girls. I went to a few here and there with some acquaintances I made in the dorm, but it was all the same - cans of lukewarm Milwaukee's Best to drink, or else some sweet smelling jungle juice that I wasn't brave enough to try. There would be a few beer pong tables with long lines to actually get in on a game, and then they each just cleared an open space that turned into a dance floor once enough people got liquored up enough to start gyrating together. I tried dancing once or twice but would get turned off by the boys trying to grind up on me from behind. I'm short - about five feet even - so I would feel their hands on my waist and the press of their dicks through the denim of their pants pressed up against my lower back, and it would freak me out.

There was apparently some kind of hierarchy of the Greek houses, with certain ones being the cool ones, some being the jocky ones, some being for rich kids with too much money and cocaine, some being for the misfit kids who didn't fit into the others but wanted the Greek experience. It was hard to tell about the frats since all the parties seemed the same.

And it was even trickier with the sororities, since those basically didn't even exist during first semester. They weren't allowed to throw open parties, so they didn't get freshmen coming in the door every weekend like the frats did, just invite only events like crush parties and formals, which meant unless you knew a sister, you weren't getting in. A catch-22. I guessed that if I came back for rush week, I might learn more, but I didn't really see the point.

About a month into school, in my Psychology 101 class, a girl I hadn't met before sat down next to me. She was an absolute stunner, a blond bombshell from the golden age of Hollywood. Almost six foot, I estimated, with a tanned, athletic body and long legs, and a pair of more than amble breasts that seemed to strained against her white tank top. I could see her perfect teeth when she smiled as she reached out her hand to me.

"I'm Hilde," she said, talking out her laptop to take notes.

"Monica," I said, shaking her hand and smiling despite myself. She seemed to glow, even just sitting there in sweatpants and flip flops. "I don't think I've seen you in this lecture before."

"I just added it," she replied, sweetly. "I know it's after the add/drop deadline but I met with the someone in the provost's office and explained I couldn't stay in my orgo class, I didn't actually have the right prerequisites, I needed to switch down and take an intro chemistry class first, so he waived the deadline and we reworked my schedule."

"That's helpful of him," I said.

"Yes, but I'm feeling way behind in anything." She paused, and blushed a little. "I hate to ask, but any chance I could copy your notes from the classes I missed? I'm afraid I'd otherwise just have to spend the rest of the semester catching up."

"Sure!" I said, "I can email you them right now."

"You're a lifesaver, Monica!" Hilde said.

"If you want, I can help walk you through anything," I added. "I'm not sure all my notes will make sense to anyone else."

"Sounds great!" Hilde said.

I helped Hilde catch up on Psych, and we started hanging out, grabbing lunch, and even going to those noxious frat parties together. I learned that Hilde was from Wisconsin and had a boyfriend, named Jeff, from high school, who played basketball and was even taller than her. He came to visit once and we all went to a frat, I couldn't remember the random greek letters that they posted in painted wood above their door. Hilde rooted as Jeff won a couple beer pong games, playing with a random brother from the frat, and I drank a warm beer and rooted too. Hilde was great at distracting the competition, leaning over and showing off her cleavage, which seemed to do a great job keeping the other team from hitting any cups.

"C'mon Monica!" She shouted as she waved me over, and I joined her, finally laughing and having a good time. As the other team was lining up a shot, she grabbed my shirt at the neckline and pulled it down a few inches, revealing the top of my boobs and my red bra. I was embarrassed but Hilde just laughed - and the guys missed their shot! It was a blast.

Once Jeff finally lost, all three of us hit the dance floor, and Jeff and Hilde tore the place up, a little crowd growing around them. I tried to drink my beer and move around without looking too drunk, and I felt a boy brush up behind me. He must have been a little on the short side, because this time I could feel him pressing down on the top of my butt. I saw Hilde watching me and smile, so I grinded back and let his hands reach around to my hips. I've never been in great shape, always carrying a little extra, so it was such a change to have a hot friend, and to be wanted by a guy. I looked back to see what he looked like. He was indeed short, maybe 5'3'', and I guess he was an upper classman, probably a brother in the frat. I was going to ask him his name but he took that moment to plant a kiss on my lips, and for a second I let my lips open up and felt his tongue inside my mouth! I'd kissed a couple boys in high school, of course, but never in front of a whole crowd like that! I pulled back after a few seconds and looked forward again. Hilde and Jeff were making out now, as was half the crowd, it seemed. I pushed my butt back against his dick, harder, and he pulled me tighter.

It was then that he started to slip his hands down the waist of my jeans, inside my panties. I squirmed against his touch, taken aback and shocked he would do such a thing. I felt his fingers start to brush my public hairs, which I had never been one to trim, about to make their way to my lower lips. I yanked his hand out and turned around. I got a good look at him for the first time and he was drunk and probably stoned, too. I came to, all at once, and all I could hear was the pounding of the music and all I could smell was spilled beer and weed, and suddenly I wanted to leave.

Hilde must have seen what happened because she was there in a flash, her arms around me. "Let's get out of here," she said, half to me and half to the stoned frat brother staring blankly at us. She and Jeff helped me find my coat and we marched back to the dorms.

"Are you ok?" Hilde asked me, and I realized then that I must have been crying.

"I am," I said, more firmly than I felt. "He was just drunk."

"That's never an excuse," Hilde said, and Jeff nodded in agreement. I told them I would just head home and try to get some sleep and we could grab breakfast tomorrow. They wished me good night and I crashed in my room, still crying.

* * *

It was actually Hilde's idea to come back early for rush week. She said that if we were in a sorority, we would have fun things to do other than those seedy frat parties. We would have access to the more limited events the sorority hosted, she said, plus when the frats had mixers with sororities, they were more classy affairs, relatively speaking, not giant orgies on the dance floor. It made sense, so I made plans to come back to campus earlier on January. They opened the freshman dorms for that week, though only about half the class was back. What could go wrong?

Rush for girls was very different than for boys. The fraternity process was less structured: they held "smokers" during the day, where the freshman would wander from frat to frat, meet the brothers, play pool and darts and foosball, and get to know people. Then at night they would hold events or parties, things like poker night or drunken go-carting. It sounded fun and loose, and as I learned what our rush would entail, I was rather jealous.

There were twenty-four sororities on campus, and in the first two days you were marched around in small groups to every single one. Once there, you would meet three sisters, one each from the sophomore, junior, and senior class, and talk for exactly five minutes each. Since that was hardly enough time to really have a conversation, the real idea became clear to me: they were judging how hot we were. After the first two days, each girl entered their rankings for preference of the houses into a computer system. and the houses ranked the girls, and for day three you were given a new list of eight houses to re-visit. Then, after another set of useless an superficial interviews, each side ranked the other until you had five houses on day four, and then three on day five, and that, night, Friday, you were given a mathematically calculated house to either accept a bid from, or not join a sorority.

The whole process made me nervous. First, it was clear Hilde and I wouldn't wind up in the same house. Hilde was a certified smokeshow and all the girls would want her to add to their reputation, while I was a short, chubby little girl with big boobs but not much else going for her. I got sad and told Hilde that I didn't want to keep going after the first day, but she told me I was being too cynical about the process. We decided to finish the first round and rank the houses in the same order, to hopefully wind up in the same place. When we woke up the next morning to see our match of eight, and we did wind up with a few of the same. That gave me hope and I tried really hard during the interviews with the girls at those houses that day, and by day four we were left with two houses on both our lists. I was feeling good about our chances, but when we got our final set of sororities for the final day, we were down to one. I started to cry a little, but Hilde told me it would all work out. She knew one of the sisters there from a class first semester, and she had been talking me up to the sister. She said that the two of us would be a package deal, either both of us or neither. I hugged her and thanked her so much. Technically it was a break of the rules but, apparently, people did this kind of thing all the time.

When it was time for them to send out the emails for the matches to all the freshmen, Hilde came over to my place with her laptop and we checked our email at the same time - and we had matched together! We would both be pledging Delta Alpha Mu.

The first event would be that Saturday night, a mixer with a fraternity. We were told that we would meet up at the sorority house first to meet our fellow pledges. Hilde helped me pick out what clothes to wear, a black dress I had barely worn since I bought it in high school and high heels, to give me a little extra height. The dress was a little tight - I must have been fighting the freshman fifteen more than I noticed! - but Hilde told me I looked great. I put on my sexiest lace bra and panties, both black too, and met up with Hilde before going over to the Delta Alpha Mu house.

When we got to the house and met the twenty or so other pledges, I started to get nervous again. They all had more in common with Hilde than me: they were tall, most were blond, and all in great shape. I felt acutely aware of my dress, how my flesh stuck to it and filled up every inch and then some, while they all looked like models that wore perfectly tailored getups that fit them like they were walking down the runway. But everyone was perfectly nice, and soon I started to get less nervous.

Our pledge master, Hannah, was a junior, a bubbly girl with small boobs and short hair who was wearing a strapless hot pink dress. She welcomed us all and told us how excited they were to have us. Then she walked through how the mixer would work. We would walk over to the frat, which was only a couple blocks away, and the whole evening was just their brothers and our sisters. It all felt very exclusive. She said this was a fun frat that was actually one of the cooler ones on campus, so we should all be sure to have a good time and not just interact with each other, but with the boys too.

However, Hannah told us that part of being in the house was keeping up with the sorority standards. We weren't too get too drunk, or to hook up with any of the guys at the house during the event. We weren't prudes, she said, to the laughter of the group, but if you wanted to get to know a guy better you had to get his number and meet up later. I was too excited to worry about any of that.

I couldn't remember if we had gone to an open party at this frat during first semester, and it looked totally different than the setup from any of those events. Rather than drop our coats off and march down to the basement, we were welcomed and lead to the chapter room on the main floor. It was dimly lit but not so dim as the basement; you could actually see people's faces. The room had a fireplace, in which they had lit a crackling fire. There were leather couches all around the perimeter of the room, and instead of cheap beer and jungle juice they had Andre and Labatt Blue set up on a table in the middle, which seemed like a step up. I took a flute of bubbly from a brother wearing khakis and a sports coat and started mingling.

The night wore on and I had to stop myself after a few glasses of Andre, as I was starting to feel light headed. Hilde, though, had better tolerance, and switched to beer at about midnight. Guys would flock to her; even among the other lookers in the sorority, she was that pretty. That made me popular by association, too, and for once I didn't feel like I had to fight off creeps trying to grind up on me. It certainly was better than the big parties from last semester!

Things were schedule to end at 1 in the morning, and as things were winding down some of the girls started taking their leave. I had been standing in a circle with Hilde and another pledge, a cute skinny Asian girl from Philadelphia named Tammy who we had met before we had walked over, while we talked with four guys. Two were brothers, a sophomore named Brent and a junior named Tom, and two of their pledges, Bill and Sam. Bill and I had grown up in neighboring towns in Rockland County, north of New York City, and we played the game of seeing if we had any mutual friends. He was a little short, maybe 5'6'', and well built. Sam was a little chubby but he had a cute face, perhaps a little puffy, and was average height. Brent was probably the best looking of the bunch, 6'1, with a well coifed head of hair he had slicked back with gel. Tom was average height and had short blond hair and a case of ache, but he was in good shape, like a runner, and had a great sense of humor.

It was almost 1:00 and Hilde said we had better get going. The boys looked disappointed. "Sorry fellas," Hilde said, "but we don't want to get into any trouble on our first day!"

Brent laugh. "You gals are grownups, if you wanted to stick around and have a little more to drink, I don't think anyone would stop you."

"Maybe another time," I said. I was disappointed, as I was getting to know Bill and thought we might be hitting it off. For once it seemed like he might actually be interested in me, and not just talking to me to look like a gentleman in front of Hilde.

"How about this," said Tom, "you can head out now, with the rest of the girls, but since you don't live at the house, you'll be going back to your dorms, right? Give it 20 minutes after everyone leaves, then come back, and we can keep the party going."

We said we'd think about it, none of us wanting to commit to breaking the rules but each of us certainly enjoying the attention. As the crowd wore down, we left with the last group and told the rest of the sisters and pledges we'd be walking back to the dorms together.

"What do you think?" asked Tammy? "Should we go back?"

"I don't know," said Hilde, "I don't want to get in trouble. Besides, I have a boyfriend, so I'm not terrible inclined to drinking with the frat boys all night." She looked at me, and could read my face. "Of course," she said," I don't see the harm in going back for another drink. What could go wrong?" Tammy agreed, and the three of us took a turn when we should have gone straight if we were really going back to the dorm, and we made our way back to the frat at 1:30 or so. The brothers must have been watching for us, since Sam opened the door as we starting walking up to the stoop.

"Welcome back!" he said.

Most of the brothers had disappeared as well, so it was just the seven of us. We sat on the couches in the corner of the chapter room, and Brent ducked into another room to come back with some vodka and orange juice. I had never had hard liquor before, but I had heard of the brand, Grey Goose, so when I was offered a drink I told him that would be great.

"How about some beer pong?" Tom asked. Hilde lit up at that; I had sensed she enjoyed watching Jeff play, but she had never gotten the chance to play herself.

"I'm not very good," said Tammy, blushing a little.

"Even better!" Tom said. "Maybe someone won't even make a single cup. That would really liven up the night."

"How so?" Tammy asked.

"You know what happens if you get shut out, right?" Hilde said, smiling. Tammy blushed, remembering the old rule that if you lost without making a single cup, your team had to run a naked lap.

"Maybe something else, then," I suggested.

"How about this," Brent said. "We can form teams, one guy and one girl each. Hilde, you can play with me, Tammy with Tom, and Monica, you can be partners with Bill.

"What about Sam?" Tammy asked. I wondered if she was being polite or just thought he was cute - or at least cuter than Tom.

"I can sub in after a couple games," he said.

The boys led us downstairs, and it was weird to see the basement of frat not set up for a party. There were way more tables, each long and rectangular, surrounded with dining hall-style chairs, black metal with padding on the cushion and the seatback, with a gap between at the base, and it dawned on me these must be their dining rooms when they weren't throwing parties. There was a bar in one corner that had the beer that Tom and Brent walked over to grab for the game. A couple doors also led into another room off of the main basement, presumable to a closet or perhaps a kitchen.

Sam and Bill moved a table away from the formation so that we had plenty of room on either side to play pong, and they set up the solo cups, found the ping pong balls, filled the water cups and poured the beer.

"Who should go first?" Hilde asked.

"How about us, against Tammy and Tom?" said Brent. "If that's ok with you guys," he said to me and Bill.

"Not a problem at all," I said, and Bill and I sat down on some of the chairs and watched as Hilde and Brent jumped out to a quick lead, both of them hitting their opening shots, earning send backs. They hit their shots, again, and suddenly it was 6 cups to 10. I could see Tammy get a little nervous, remember what happened if you lost without your team hitting a cup. Hilde and Brent missed their next shots, however, and Tammy looked a little relieved. However, she and Tom missed their shots, and Brent hit his. After a couple more rounds, Tammy and Tom were losing, 10-3, and Tammy was actively shaking.