Harper's House

I wasn't really certain what she was hinting at, "...like mandatory socialization?"

"No, not exactly mandatory." She seemed to turn that over in her head. "But trust me once you go to a few you'll stop thinking of them that way eventually. They're actually lots of fun and a good way to branch out a bit."

"Branch out?"

She tilted her head and put her clothes back into her drawer. "Let's say you've been out on a few dates with a guy and there's an event coming up, but you don't really want to be chained to that one guy..." she bit her lip mischievously, "a mixer is a great excuse to shake things up a bit and see what other options you have. It doesn't mean you have to ditch the guy you're with but it's a good excuse to test the waters."

I guess it made sense. The sorority was less about requiring us to do mandatory stuff and more about empowering us to be in control of our own social lives on a level where we might be chained down otherwise.

"Anyway, mixers are typically somewhere between casual and semi-formal, and I would say that's about what we should shoot for tonight. Like you want to look nice and put together, but you know the line when you see it. Think like, church."

I think I understood what she meant but I wanted to be clear. "I don't go to church."

"Yeah. Me neither. That's just how it was explained to me." She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "Jeans, yes. Lulus, no."

I looked down at myself. White v-neck t-shirt and black yoga pants. I tried to imagine myself glammed up for a formal or a date party. I had never even considered giving that much thought to fashion rules. I opened my own dresser to survey the potential. There wasn't much.

"Also for this one tonight we're supposed to match, so take a look through my outfits and see if there's anything that speaks to you and we can always go shopping to round out your wardrobe tomorrow." Ashley chimed in while peeking over my shoulder. "Hey I'll be right back. That beer is going right through me. Pick something out!" She gestured towards her dresser while spinning around and making a hasty retreat to the shared bathroom. I guess it got urgent pretty quickly.

"Wow, thanks!" Was all I could manage before the door shut behind me.

I turned to the open drawer and rifled through her multitude of different designer jeans. Her dresser seemed so glamorous. She seemed to have forty different bottoms which seemed to me like thirty-eight too many to juggle. There was no way I was ever going to be able to find the right size.

I closed her jeans drawer and opened the next drawer up thinking it would contain her tops, but instead it was a bunch of workout tops and her wad of underwear. Peaking through her wad of underwear was something large white and plastic. I shut the drawer quickly, and probably should have left it shut but curiosity got the better of me. I quickly re-opened the drawer back up and moved her underwear to the side. Sitting on top of a rectangular torn red and pink plastic package was one of the biggest vibrators I had ever seen. It was one of those big white ones with a power cord and a giant ball on the end like you see in porn sometimes.

I know I should have just moved her underwear back and asked about it later, but I felt like I was being pulled to it.

I had butterflies in my stomach, but I had so many questions. Like, I could barely even touch myself with mine without getting sent to the stratosphere. Was this one that much more powerful? Did the cord suck to work around? Was it heavy? I picked it up and felt it's heft. It definitely had more of an "appliance" feel than a sex toy. I couldn't help but wonder how often she must masturbate. She seemed to hook up with guys a lot too, did her whole life revolve around sex? An image of Ashley laying on her bed working herself over with this monstrosity between her legs flashed in my mind's eye, I briefly wondered how noisy it was and if I would ever catch her, but my curiosity about the vibrator and Ashley's masturbation habits immediately evaporated when my eyes finally focused on what it had been sitting on top of. Hidden under her vibrator and a wad of panties appeared to be an opened pack of Goodnites pull-ups. My brain didn't really register their presence at first, I guess I had thought they were just pads. That had seemed a little old fashioned, sure, but like different girls have different needs right? No, unmistakably these were diapers.

"See anything you like?" I heard Ashley call as she opened the door. In hindsight I'm certain she meant for an outfit. She was only barely opening the door at that point and couldn't have seen what I was looking at, but in that moment I was so shocked from being caught snooping I slammed her vibe back down on top of the package of diapers where I found it, spun around and slammed the drawer closed with my butt. The movement was so violent it caused the vibrator inside to fall off the package it had been sitting on and thump incredibly loudly against the wooden bottom of the drawer.

The thud caused Ashley to freeze in her tracks. Her we locked eyes with shock mirrored across our faces.

"I'm sorry!" I blurted out preemptively, almost a yell.

Ashley took a few seconds to process my reaction as her face filled with color. She took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. "No, it's fine. I mean I told you to look for an outfit." She crossed the room and I backed away as she opened her drawer. For the second time today death would have been preferable to standing there.

"I'm sorry. I just... hadn't seen one like that and curiosity got the better of me." I was stammering and babbling.

Ashley laughed to herself while staring into the drawer. "You... were curious about my Hitachi?" She reached in and offered it out to me. "Don't worry, it's clean."

My heart was still racing from getting caught but I took it from her.

"My friend Katie had me try hers this one time and there was no turning back." She explained matter-of-factly. "It's crazy powerful."

In the last fifteen seconds I had like twenty different questions, but all I could manage was, "You tried your friend's vibrator?"

The tone of her response was matter-of-fact as if I was the weird one for thinking that wasn't normal. "Yeah. Feel free to try it sometime, I just have two rules:" She punctuated each by counting them off on her fingers, "one, obviously you clean it. Two, you have to let me know how it goes. It completely changed the way I looked at the world." She reached into her drawer and held up a small pink bullet. "I used to use this one and it was like good enough but unless I need something that strictly runs on batteries, I don't even bother anymore."

"I..." I was still hung up on how she came to try her friend's vibrator in the first place, but it seemed half obvious after that. "This is the one I've been using." It just felt natural to share you know? I opened my drawer, pulled out my little black egg and handed it to Ashley.

She switched it on. "I'm not sure I would even feel this."

"Really? I can't even use it.. directly."

"No kidding? You're too sensitive?"

"Yeah I guess so. Like if I directly stimulate myself at all it's pretty intense. I always feel like it's going to make me pee so I have to stop." Apparently all I needed to open up about my sexual habits was to be holding a gigantic fuckoff vibrator in my hand.

"That... well I think you might want to experiment a little bit more."

"What do you mean?"

"I dunno, lay down some towels or something and just go for it. Try starting and stopping a bunch. I don't want to tell you how to live your life but it sounds like you might be missing out on the Grand Finale."

I thought that over for a moment but the dots started to connect. Or at least I thought they did. "Is that why you have diapers?"

Ashley looked startled by my question. "Uh. No. Those aren't.." she paused and took a breath. "So sometimes when I drink a lot, I don't have the strongest bladder."

That made perfect sense. "Oh! So you wear them to bed so that don't ruin your sheets at night. That makes total sense."

She looked relieved that I caught on so quickly. "Yeah." Ashley and I swapped back vibrators. Maybe if I got the chance I would take her up on her offer to try it. It still seemed kind of weird and it would probably be way too powerful for me, but maybe it would be an experience! "So we got off track, did you actually find something you wanted to wear tonight?"

We went back and forth but pretty quickly settled on our outfits. I wore some of her cute Lucky jeans and a black tank top choker combo I still had from when I decided I was going to go all dark and brooding in high school. I lent her a pretty simple black tank as well.

It didn't feel quite right to change in front of her so I grabbed my outfit for the night and headed to the bathroom. It served a dual purpose. Despite only having drank a half can, I could see what she had meant - the beer had gone right through me as well.

I took my time taking care of business and then wiggled into her jeans that I totally didn't expect to fit on account of our different body shapes, but they had a lot of stretch to them and I was able to fill them out more than I expected. They were a little high on my ankle on account of my height, but not so high that they looked like they didn't fit me. Still I was able to cover that one minor wardrobe faux-pas with my cowboy boots.

When I returned to our room, Ashley had already changed. We certainly hit the mark for matching outfits despite our vastly different appearances. While Ashley was blonde and tan, I was raven haired, pale, and a solid three inches taller. Her pink sequined bra straps peeked out from under the black tank she had borrowed from me pushed her up significantly, while my black bra had nothing to really work with. I felt like a bit of a string bean compared to the Ashley's model of sorority standard beauty, but she assured me that I looked "super hawt."

She did my makeup for me while we listened to music. She insisted that I "catch up" so I made an effort to get through the rest of my beer. It was just about time to head down to the common room when I realized that I still hadn't heard from Mark. I still assumed we were going to hang out later that night, and admittedly I looked too cute to keep locked in.

I sent him a pretty simple text: "Hey, are we still on for later?"

"..." showed on my screen for an unreasonable amount of time, and when his text finally came through he had completely ignored my question.

"How pissed is your room mate?"

"Not at all actually. She just thought it was funny."

"Ugh. Well, let me know when you're free I guess."

"Ok, will do!! What do you have planned for us?"

He didn't respond to that. I guess he wanted it to be a surprise.

Ashley finished up my makeup and I finished my beer. We took a selfie together and we looked amazing. I felt so warm and fuzzy. I wasn't 100% sure if it was from the beer or just from the happiness of having a new bestie I could share clothes and makeup and boy stories with.

It was time to head to our social, so Ashley grabbed her key lanyard. The jingle of the keys somehow resonated with my bladder and I felt the familiar tug of beer once again asking to be let out. I left Ashley at our door and excused myself back to the restroom. "Jeeze again already? Do you want a pull-up?" She called after me laughing as I rounded into the bathroom.

Desperation gripped me as I pulled her tight jeans down. I hadn't ever worn a button fly before, and it added a few extra steps that I hadn't accounted for. They were so comfy though - you wouldn't think your pubic mound could tell the difference between a zipper and a button, but they almost felt like sweatpants they were so soft and snug. It was a close call but I was able to keep my grey boyshorts dry as I got them down just in time.

"All good!" I said as we made our way out of our door and down to the common room. The other girls were all mostly gathered already. I spotted Ava first and excitedly waved. She was matching with her big sis Madison. Both were wearing denim skirts, button up blouses and like me, cowboy boots. She waved back excitedly from the couch she and Madison were perched on. Lily and Chloe lacked the pep that Madison and Ava had they had also gone with a jeans look like Ashley and I, but they were wearing plain white tees on top. They must have also arrived late like us, because they were relegated to the only remaining seats - the uncomfortable white folding chairs.

Looking around the room all of the girls were done up with impeccable makeup and cute outfits. There was one more big/little pair on the couches; I would later come to know them as Olivia and Mia, but for now they were just the "red girls" to me on account of their dresses. It was a neat idea to have the pledges match their big sisters - I guess I was starting to see the fun in having prescribed dress codes.

Red dress girl number one - Olivia - was up first to present. It didn't take long and mostly seemed like an exercise in public speaking for her. She taught us about the significance of the oak leaves, and where our fraternity (yeah, not a "sorority," surprising I know!) started, as well as a couple of the famous politicians and writers that came from our ranks.

The vice president, Sarah, gave us what amounted to an overview of our activities for the coming weeks. On top of starting classes we were going to be kicking off some charity work with the local food bank as well as our typical slate of chapter meetings, leadership classes and financial planning classes. If all of that wasn't enough the four new pledges were going to be expected to attend new member classes. In short I was going to be absolutely swamped. Ashley must have seen the panic on my face because she reached over and gave my knee a squeeze.

Next up was statuesque business suit clad Emily in all her blonde lady president glory. She started out with the typical pleasantries about being excited to start a new year with all of us and how we were certainly going to be making friendships and memories that would last a lifetime. Most of the rules she reviewed with us were pretty benign. You know, stuff you would expect like "don't smoke in the house" and "no pets". My heart dropped though when she looked directly at me while addressing that she knew that move in day was typically more relaxed but going forward unescorted guests would result in consequences for their hosts.

Ashley must have known I was feeling singled out and socked me in the shoulder. "Jeeze Harper. Day one and you're sneaking boys in." There we're a few snickers around us but somehow her making a joke of it made me feel better even though she had called me out so directly.

"I didn't think she would pick up your bad habits so quickly, Ash." Emily shot back at her on my behalf. The room began deteriorating into giggles and side conversations so Emily turned the floor over to Ashley who stood up and took her place in the front of the room.

"Ok! I hope everyone had a fantastic move in day, but it's time we get to know each other a little better. So, before we start, you know what I have to do -"

She started into her same speech from earlier: "The National Panhellenic Conference has a zero-tolerance policy for hazing..." and after getting about halfway through stopped and said, "in other words, don't do anything that's going to get our charter revoked." She looked around the room and made eye contact with me, as well as the other three pledges, "and pledges - on that note if you are made to feel uncomfortable in any way, we want to stress that you can and should come to anyone on the leadership council to bring up your concerns. We will gladly forward any reports you have of hazing directly to the NPC as appropriate."

Emily nodded in agreement, added "that's my cue to go get changed." She and her pumps clicked out the room.

"With that in mind, we have a little game planned for tonight - so consider our meeting adjourned." Ashley continued. "Now, if I could have Mia, Ava, Harper, and Lilly stand up and come up here."

My guts jumped and I had a sudden sense of foreboding. Ashley directed us to stand on the massive hearth at the foot of the fireplace. It was a solid foot off the ground so the entire room could get a good view of us. I was pretty uncomfortable being on display.

"We can all see the four of you look super nervous so let me calm your fears a bit. All this is just a get-to-know-you game. You've all heard of two-truths-and-a-lie?"

I nodded, I presume the other girls did too.

"This is basically two-truths-and-a-lie with a small twist. One truth has to be yours, one truth has to be something you know about the girl you're dressed as, and one has to be a lie." I nodded again. This was going to be pretty difficult. What did I actually know about Ashley? I mean, I knew that she really liked Nelly. That wasn't a good truth. I knew she owned a big ass vibrator and occasionally wore diapers to bed after a night of heavy drinking but I couldn't really share those truths, could I?

"Typically if your lie was identified you would have to take a shot, but since this is an official Alpha Phi function, and none of the four of you are over 21 we can not condone such action." Sarah chimed in from the back of the room. "But in the spirit of the game, we do have drinks set up along the back wall. Anyone under twenty-one is," and she put massive stress on the next two words "heavily encouraged to only partake in orange juice for their penalty drinks. Use your best judgment, as we can't police you all." Her tone was dripping with sarcasm.

"Pledges, start thinking of your three statements," Ashley took over again, "to everyone else - refreshments are served!"

The room turned jovial as the seven girls not standing on the hearth popped up and made their way to the folding table set up along the back wall. It became clear pretty quickly that nobody was adhering to the honor system and just about everyone was adding alcohol to their orange juice. I turned to Lilly and she looked a little green around the gills. I asked her if she was alright, but she didn't seem to hear me over the din of the room. I turned to Ava who gave me a big cheesy grin and offered an arm to both me and Mia. I took her arm and the three of us made our way to the refreshment table.

"Are you going to drink?" She asked me in a hushed tone when we got to the table.

"I was considering it." I replied. "I had a beer earlier. What about you?"

"Fuck yeah! We're in college now, Harps!"

I think I paused a little too long staring at my orange juice because before I knew it, Ashley was at my side with a clear bottle with a red label in her hand. She leveled at me with a smile and then gave a cutesy "Oops I slipped!" as she tipped the bottle into my red cup, adding its clear contents to my orange juice. "Don't lose, Harper. You're going to need to pace yourself."

I made my way back to the hearth and stepped up. As the rest of the girls took their seats and the other three pledges took their places, Ashley jumped back up on the hearth and addressed the group.

"Ok, here are the rules - each pledge is going to give you two truths and a lie. One of the truths has to be about her room mate. Anyone may choose to challenge you. If the challenger picks your truth, the challenger drinks; if the challenger picks the lie you drink. If the challenger picks your room mate's truth, both you and your roommate have to drink. Pledges - you've all got your completely legal drinks, right?"

We all lied and nodded except Lilly who still had no cup.

"Great, let's get started. Ava, take it away."

Ava stepped forward and looked over at me with a smile.