“That’s too bad. We weren’t,” Cameo said, stroking his chest.
Chad’s eyes widened like he’d won the lottery. “Really?”
Cameo and I laughed again, making the pledge at his feet snicker.
“Evil, just plain evil,” Chad complained, adjusting himself again.
“Nice dog,” Cameo said, patting the pledge on the head.
“You like my bitch?” Chad asked, pulling on the leash so the pledge’s head lifted. Cameo and I both snickered when his tongue lolled to the side. Pledge week was always better when the pledges went with the flow. For the most part, MSC was pretty tame when it came to hazing. We’d all heard the horror stories about fraternities using feces or urine in their pledge rituals. The most you were going to see here was some harmless streaking or crazy antics like jumping off the roof gripping a mattress. That really couldn’t be counted as hazing since all the frat brothers had done it at one point or another. Hell, even I had tried it for the rush.
I scratched the pledge’s head at my feet, patting him like a dog. “Where can I get a bitch of my own?”
My question went unanswered since Chad and Cameo were currently playing tonsil hockey.
I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick picture of the pledge on a leash so I could post it. “Good luck with that,” I said to the freshman, who didn’t look all that thrilled at being strapped to a make-out fest. Leaving them behind to suck each other’s faces off, I decided now was as good a time as any to scope out the rest of the party. Snagging a beer from a nearby cooler, I made a circuit around the room, stopping to chat every few seconds.
“Hey, girl, I was wondering when you’d show,” our friend Melissa greeted me.
“Hey, Mel. We just got here a few minutes ago. I love the dog theme,” I said. “Steve’s idea?”
She nodded. Steve was head of the Sigma Pi fraternity. He and Melissa had been dating since freshman year, and they pretty much dictated most of the social events at MSC. Melissa’s sorority was notorious for pranking Sigma Pi, which made her my kind of girl.
“Yeah, the other brothers voted on ideas, and this was one of the winners. You should have heard some of the other suggestions—downright disgusting.”
“Like what?” I was pretty confident there was nothing that would shock me.
“Dipshit John suggested all the pledges eat vanilla pudding. He said they’d wait until they were almost done and then tell them they all put their jizz in it.”
“That’s just wrong,” I said, shaking my head.
“It’s effing sick. I don’t care if it is a joke. You know John, though. He can be such an asshole.”
I nodded, having experienced it firsthand. I made the colossal mistake of agreeing to a date with John last spring. He was a total flirt who believed women should be flattered by his ogling and lame-ass comments. It only took one date to realize he was a shit.
“What else do Steve and the guys have up their sleeves?” I asked, dying to know what their grand finale would be this year. Last year their master plan fizzled out when security busted them for breaking into the library. The pledges were supposed to erect thrones for the fraternity brothers out of books. They were going to record it and post it on YouTube.
Melissa’s eyes narrowed slightly, seeing through my ploy. “I’m not that easy. You have to wait just like everyone else.”
“Come on, I’m not going to tell anyone.”
She hesitated for a moment, so I went for the kill. “I’ll give you total credit when I post the pictures on Instagram,” I said, coaxing her. I could see she was close to caving. My Instagram account had become legendary around campus. I’d been posting pictures before Instagram was considered cool. Word of mouth spread and now I had more than ten thousand followers. People say I have a gift for snarky taglines and hashtags. Not to mention the pictures of pranks that most of the time were initiated by me, not to toot my own horn any further.
“Total credit?” she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.
“Total credit. Steve won’t even be a blip on the radar.” I knew that’s what she was going for. Mel and Steve were tight, but they were always trying to one-up each other. I guess that’s what you got when you paired two alpha dogs together. Someone always had to win. I really couldn’t care less about their competition. I just wanted to know what the frat house had planned.
She looked around one last time before answering. “Okay, but not a word to anyone. I’ll have to seriously cut you off if it gets back to Steve. He made me swear not to tell anyone.”
I looked at her blandly. Everyone knew I wasn’t a snitch.
“They’re going to make t
he pledges raft down one of the tamer runs on Penobscot River,” she said in a hushed tone, waiting for me to be impressed.
I waited for her to continue. I knew there had to be more.
She sighed after a moment, knowing she’d have to dish all the goods. “Fine, but not a word. They’re making them do it buck naked.”