The Scavenger Hunt Ch. 00

This is the first in a 13-part series. All but one of them are written and mostly edited, and the finale is partially done. I'll be releasing one chapter per week (roughly) until they're all finished.

Two of this series' three main characters are from Brad's Road Trip Ch. 7, though you won't meet one of them for a few chapters. It mentions several others from that same chapter, including Brad himself. This is set in 2008, about 9 months after the events in Road Trip, which was set in summer 2007 (despite the fact that I didn't finish it till 2017).

Special thanks to samuraisan, my long-time beta reader and friend, and now my editor as well. Also special thanks to thatsbogus, who has been a great sounding board for me. Thatsbogus also is a writer on the site, and you should go read everything he's written. Start with The Friends List, but then read everything else.

This is just a prologue, a quick-hitter intro to set things up. There's no sex in this one (thus my first ever non-erotic tag) but don't worry. Plenty of that coming down the pike.

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The Scavenger Hunt: Prologue

"You have six new messages."

I figured as much, judging by the red "6" blinking at me from the moment I cracked open the front door. I decided to get pissed at it anyway.

"Fuck you."

I slammed the door, punched a few buttons on the alarm code and flung my duffel bag as far as I could into the living room. It didn't make a sound on landing, which was no surprise -- there was probably a mound of shit piled up in there to break the fall.

The machine droned on, and I mostly ignored it as I made a beeline for the fridge. I chugged what was left of the orange juice, tossed the jug into the trash can -- empty for a change, so at least Jamar, my roommate, had taken it out before he left -- and quickly deposited myself in the leather recliner in the living room. The messages kept going, but I tried to tune them out. We only kept the landline for the alarm company, and anyone I wanted to talk to had my cell number, anyway.

The place was a fucking pigsty, as usual. Most of Jamar's wardrobe was scattered across the room, and while a few stray items had actually found a laundry basket, most of them were protecting the carpet. There were dirt-and-grass-stained baseball uniforms hanging over the edge of the couch, a pair of pants he'd spilled something on draped across the coffee table, and dozens of T-shirts laying everywhere. That was on top of the mounds of dirty socks and underwear that were strewn throughout the joint -- I'd had to shove a few socks off the recliner before I sat in it. And those were just his clothes. Sprinkled throughout the mess were several bras and pairs of panties, as well as a few shirts that were clearly far too small for him.

At least it was quiet, I thought. The trail of lingerie wasn't unusual, but it usually ended in front of a stereo blaring out ungodly loud rap music. This time, it probably just led to Jamar's bedroom. That meant he wasn't back from his trip to California yet. The next message, from Jamar's mother, confirmed that. He'd been crashing at his mom's house in a suburb of L.A., and she was calling to make sure he'd made it home all right. He'd been planning to come with the rest of the baseball team on our trip, but one of his cousins had died and the funeral was scheduled over Spring Break. His reasons for going back might not have been the brightest, but I was sure he'd had a good time anyway. He could have spent the entire week in North Dakota, and he'd still have figured out some way to turn the week into one big party.

The rest of the Carolina Atlantic baseball team, myself included, had spent the week in Panama City. This was the third time I'd done Spring Break, but it was my first as a college student, and the first time I'd stayed in the country. Of course, it wasn't much different from the first two trips, to Jamaica and Cozumel. Ingest a ton of alcohol, and it's hard to tell the various beaches and cheap-ass hotel rooms apart.

I'd managed to keep the gratuitous sex to a minimum this year, but the number was still pretty high. It was a lot less than last year's Spring Break trip, to Cozumel with a half-dozen Marine Corps buddies, but it still seemed like an awful lot to me.

That was pretty much what my life boiled down to nowadays -- sex and alcohol. That sounded pretty normal for a college sophomore, but I wasn't your average college sophomore. The alcohol consumption had tapered off some when I left the Corps, but that hadn't carried over to my sex life. I actually used to enjoy sex for the closeness and physical intimacy of it, as corny as that might sound, but these days, I really only did it to satisfy my friends and keep my teammates from ragging me. They all thought as a 25-year-old former Marine on a college campus, I ought to be getting laid more than Ron Jeremy in his prime.

Don't get me wrong -- I loved my sex as much as anyone. But ever since I'd started college, I'd been having so much of it that it was starting to become routine, just another thing to do that only rarely produced any real mental excitement for me. I'd never imagined sex could become routine or boring, but there it was.

I was about to solve this particular mental problem the way I solved everything else -- sleeping. As I stood up to navigate the mess in the hallway on the way to my bedroom, the unexpected voice on the final message caught my attention.

"Travis," the voice said, "it's James, from AKP." The frat, I thought. Exactly what I fucking need right now.

"I'm not really sure what's going on, but I've heard some rumors around the house that they've finally assigned you your pledge task, man. I think you're the only one this semester, and they're being really quiet about it. I know you're gone right now, but most of last semester's pledges got theirs in e-mail or campus mail. Might wanna check it out."

James was a kid I'd met in one of my 101 classes last semester, and one of only two people I knew at the local chapter of the frat. He was a nice enough kid, but still young and naive enough to get genuinely giddy about fraternity shit. The pure excitement in his voice still lingered as the machine told me there were no more messages.

My reaction to his call was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

"Fuck!" I shouted out.

A fucking fraternity. I was 25, a five-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a Purple Heart recipient for having the good sense to jump while getting shot at in Afghanistan. Thus, a bullet meant for my chest lodged in my thigh instead, missing my femoral artery by a pubic hair. I'd finally left the service in the summer of 2007, just eight months ago. When I'd decided to go back to school, I'd been looking forward to a nice, stable life of partying, studying and playing baseball. I didn't want to answer to anybody anymore, and I certainly didn't want to join a fucking fraternity.

I also didn't want to say no to my father... and his father... and his father. Well, technically, my great-grandfather had been dead for 13 years, but he was the first generation of Temples to join Alpha Kappa Pi, at Georgetown way back in the 20s. My grandfather was an engineer, and had been an APK member at Harvard in the 50s. My dad, then an aspiring lawyer, had eventually decided to do his undergrad in political science right here at CAU, but they hadn't even been on his radar until they opened a local chapter of APK while he was in high school.

All three of them had peppered my childhood with fraternity stories, and I grew up vacationing with various frat brothers' families, from all three generations. They acted as if joining the fraternity was inevitable, a foregone conclusion that whatever else I might end up doing, of course I was going to join their fraternity. When I'd decided to stay close to home and take the baseball scholarship CAU was offering me, my dad had all but demanded I join the fraternity.

"It'll be the most rewarding experience of your life, son," he'd told me. "Nothing will ever be able to replace it. You'll be a part of a brotherhood that lasts forever."

"Already part of one, dad," I said out loud to an empty house. I was pretty sure that coming under fire outside Kabul Airport probably forged a stronger bond than drinking an entire six-pack out of a beer bong in less than two minutes. Maybe not.

Still, my dad had been nothing but amazing growing up, and he and my mom never had any plans for what they wanted me to do with my life, as far as careers went. My dad simply wanted my membership into his fraternity to be in conjunction with whatever else I did, so really, it was pretty hard to argue.

I grabbed my duffel bag and trudged through Jamar's shit in the hallway until I reached my bedroom door. I dropped the bag in front of the closet and collapsed onto my bed.

Truthfully, this whole way of life was starting to make me sick. The late nights of partying, the constant drunk-hangover cycle, a seemingly endless string of casual encounters with women I didn't even remember meeting the next day, a roommate with no desire to stop our house from being condemned by the health department... as idyllic as that might sound to most college kids, it wasn't what I'd imagined for myself when I decided to go back to college at age 25. Neither was this stupid fraternity.

After a few minutes of laying there and pondering the possibilities, I let out a long breath. "The hell with it," I said aloud. It's just a fraternity. All I had to do was this one little pledge deal, my dad would be satisfied, my great-grandfather wouldn't spontaneously combust in his grave, and I could get on with enjoying college.

And hey, there'd never be a shortage of free alcohol and easy pussy whenever the urge did strike.

I grabbed my keys and headed out to the mailbox, fully expecting to find a letter sending me after 10 different kinds of imported beer without buying any of them. That would be easy enough -- Jamar and I probably had five of them in the fridge, and I could scrounge up the others from the rest of the students living in our little campus housing neighborhood.

Except there was no letter. I went back to my room, fired up my laptop and checked my CAU e-mail. It only had one new message, something about voting in some campus political deal. I hit the delete button and shrugged. Maybe James was wrong. When they wanted me to know, I would.

It was 8 p.m. on the Saturday before school fired back up, and I was exhausted from traveling all day. Heaven help me, but after a quick check of my personal e-mail, I was going to bed early.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I had to stop for a second. I wasn't a narcissist or anything like that, but I really dug my new look. Everything in the Marines had been about buzz cuts and close shaves. Now, my sideburns stopped halfway down my ear, and I was sporting a goatee. My hair hung halfway down my ears, and I had a few days of growth on my chin and jaw. I couldn't remember the last time I'd shaved in Florida, if I even had at all.

Oh well, I figured. My razor would still be there in the morning. I logged into my gmail account to see if anyone in my family had done anything important while I was on the beach setting new world screwing records. The spam blockers had been effective, for sure, because I only had 23 new messages in six days away. Not bad.

I spotted it immediately, about halfway down the list of new messages. The sender was "CAU AKP" and the subject line read "frat pledge." I was partly annoyed; I'd never given anyone remotely associated with the fraternity my personal e-mail address. Hell, I didn't even use my real name when registering the account.

But mostly, I was intrigued. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to get this address. The address was simply cauakp@yahoo.com, so no help there. As I began reading the e-mail, I had no idea how many times I'd be doing the same thing over the next two months.

Pledge Temple,

You are extremely close to joining the proud brotherhood of Alpha Kappa Pi, Carolina Atlantic University chapter. You were selected as one of only 10 pledges out of more than 50 who wished to join us. You've made it this far -- now there is just one task remaining.

All pledge tasks are extensive, and yours is no different. You will be required to do a fair amount of work to pass all objectives of the task; however, the task was matched to your unique abilities, and we are confident you will pass with no trouble.

Your exploits around campus are legendary, and your reputation from the military has followed you here as well. We are quite certain you dazzled numerous co-eds during your trip to Panama City; your pledge task is to do the same with the female students here at CAU.

You must have sex with numerous women over the next seven weeks. You must meet the following objectives:

1. Sex with a married woman

2. Sex with a CAU professor

3. Sex with a woman of foreign descent

4. Sex with a CAU athlete

5. Sex with someone who is dating a friend of yours who is not in our brotherhood

6. Sex in a public venue

7. Sex during a class

8. A threesome with two women

There are other rules of this game, and they are to be strictly adhered to:

1. You may only use women from your six spring semester classes to fill these objectives, and you must choose a partner from all six classes. No double-dipping, either; we know you have several women in more than one of your classes, but you must find a different woman for each class.

2. None of the objectives can be filled by the same woman. For instance, if you have sex with a married professor during a class, that fills either objective 1, 2 or 7, but not all three or even two of the three. You will have to find either another married woman or another professor, or have sex in another class.

3. The women involved in the threesome in objective 8 must come from the same class, and cannot fill any of the other objectives.

4. The venue in objective 6 will be specified to you at some point during the semester via e-mail. Keep a lookout for it.

5. During the course of this task, you may tell only one person about the task. That includes fraternity brothers, men, women, family members, even one of the women you use to fulfill an objective. This can be for any purpose. However, choose wisely. If this person tells anyone else, the task is over, and you've failed. Various other people, some related to the frat and some not, know about this, and may choose to assist you throughout the task. This is okay. Take the information they give you, if any, but do not ask them any questions.

6. Each time you complete an objective, send an e-mail to this address with the woman's name, which class she's in, which objective she fulfills, and when and where the sex occurred. Of course, as a pledge, you may use the frat house's guest rooms. Your claim will be investigated, and if you are lying, we will find out.

7. Of course, you are allowed to have other sexual relations as you see fit. Sex does not have to be limited to the objectives.

8. You have until 5 p.m. Thursday evening of finals week, which is May 7, to complete all objectives. You will report to the fraternity at that time, and we will announce your full membership to the brotherhood of Alpha Kappa Pi. Should you have any questions, reply to this e-mail. Good luck, and happy hunting.

CAU AKP

I was stunned -- not to mention more than a little turned on. I mean, sure, I'd had way more than my share of sex, and I might have been ready to leave a lot of that behind. But a sexual scavenger hunt?

THAT was cool.

I re-read the e-mail three times and printed off a copy. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and read the printed copy twice more in the kitchen.

I'd done most of the things on the list before, but there were a few new challenges. I'd never fucked a professor, and I hadn't yet gotten with any female athletes at CAU, either. I had a threesome once, but it hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. I'd also never fucked in a class, but it was just my second semester. I figured I had some time.

Yeah, this would be a hell of a lot better than hunting down beer.

The only objective I had a big problem with was the one right at the top. Cheating was a massive sore spot for me. The Marines were littered with stories of how guys would go overseas on deployments, and their wives would sleep around while they were gone. Her man is walking through the seventh level of hell, getting shot at and hoping his patrol jeep doesn't hit the IED jackpot, and she can't even be bothered to keep her pants on. As low of a life form as those women were, the men who helped them cheat were just as deplorable in my book. We called them "Jodys" in the Marines, and I wanted no part of being one of them, even if the man affected by the cheating was a civilian.

Then again, the e-mail didn't actually say I had to get a woman to cheat. It simply said I had to have sex with a married woman. Morals were always a bit looser on a college campus than normal, even amongst the married couples, so I'd just have to find a way to satisfy that requirement without breaking up somebody's happy home.

I looked over the additional rules again, and focused in on number five. I wondered who I would tell. Obviously, I'd have to choose carefully. Jamar would be able to help me with some of these tasks, but buying an ad during the Super Bowl would reach less people. So that was out.

It was no use telling anyone at AKP. Anyone in the frat who needed to know about this likely already did, and besides, frat brothers get drunk the way Barry Bonds used steroids, and drunk college kids have no secrets.

Maybe I wouldn't tell anyone. I certainly didn't have to figure that out now.

I strolled out onto the back deck of our house and watched the sun go down on one of the deck chairs. I thought about my different classes and which women I might be able to get into bed. I started developing somewhat of a plan, though right at that moment, I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing.

"This can't be for real," I said out loud. In fact, there was no fucking way. I sprinted back down the hall and into my room, where I quickly opened a reply to the e-mail.

Frat People --

This sounds awesome and all but is this for real? No way this can be real.

TT

I hit send, then stared at the screen, willing them to instantly respond. Yeah, right -- I was the only college kid in America checking his e-mail at 8 o'clock on a Saturday night. No way were the frat brothers on their computers or phones right now.

I was about to hide the sheet and check for a reply tomorrow when I heard my doorbell ring. Jamar had a key, of course, so I figured it had to be Katie, our next door neighbor, dropping by to welcome me back. Too bad she wasn't in any of my classes, because I'd been there and done that, too.

But it wasn't Katie. In fact, it wasn't a woman at all.

"Shawn?" I said as I opened the door. Standing outside was Shawn Lindstrom, AKP's vice president. Our fathers had pledged together years ago, and we'd had plenty of good times together on those family vacations growing up. He was a few years younger than me, but actually a year ahead of me in school, and he was the only real friend I had at the fraternity so far.

"Yeah, Travis," he said. "It's for real. And we know you can do it. That's like a normal month for you, right?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that, so I didn't. He just grinned, clapped me on the shoulder, and started to walk away.

"Hey, wait," I said, and he turned around. "What--"