“No, I mean, it’s a little loud, but it’s fine!” I shouted, bringing a hand to my hair, twirling the blonde lock nervously. “I’m Julia!”
“Well hello Julia,” he said, extending his own hand to take mine, absolutely eclipsing it. “I’m Raynor,” he said, bending down and giving a kiss to the back of my hand in some playfully gentlemanlike fashion.
It was then one of his frat brothers came on up, another big guy, though nowhere near as large as him. He was blonde, with short hair and blue eyes, along with a bright smile that could melt butter.
“Julia, I want you to meet my bro Taylor,” Raynor said in introduction.
“Nice to meet you,” I said before taking in the last of my wine. I was starting to feel really good, happy. My nerves finally settling down. “So you guys go to these parties a lot?”
They both laughed deeply and smiled at
me.
“Oh yeah, we’re here for all of ‘em really,” Taylor said.
“We never miss the special ones like this,” Raynor said, still looking at me with his dusky eyes, a smoldering sort of interest there that was unmistakable. “Hopefully you never miss ‘em either after tonight, Julia.”
I tilted my head curiously, looking between them. “You mean for, like, the hazing of new pledges? I figured you’d only have those once a year?”
I looked around for a moment, noticing people were dancing a bit more closely. The techno music had changed slightly, and there was the sound of a woman moaning filling in the silence between the beats.
“The hazing?” Taylor said with some confusion in his voice. “Oh right,” he remarked with a chuckle. “Yeah, the hazings are only once a year.”
“But once you do it once, you always come back for more,” Raynor said, high fiving his friend with a grin before finishing his beer and laying the mug aside. “You’ll catch on quick, I can tell,” he said, reaching out and putting his big, strong arm about my shoulders.
I set my cup aside and smiled up at Raynor and his handsome face, feeling more confident. That didn’t sound so scary, anyways.
“So what is it? The girls wouldn’t tell me, said it had to be a surprise but...” I said, looking for my sorority sisters and finding that they’d all dispersed, and were mingling around the room. I couldn’t see Becky, though.
“Ah well, we can’t really tell you,” Taylor said, coming in up close to me, grinning.
“But you, and a couple of guys of your choosin’, are gonna go off into one of the rooms and we’ll break you in. Then you’re done, all in. And I’m sure you’ll be comin’ back for every party thereafter,” Raynor said with a broad, handsome grin of his own.
“Break me in?” I mumbled, more to myself than them. What was that supposed to mean?
I opened my mouth to ask when suddenly there was someone behind me, and two hands covered my eyes. I startled until I realized it had to be one of the sister’s. She was around the same height as me.
I could hear Taylor and Raynor laugh, the voice behind me whispering in my ear, “You ready, pledge?”
Raynor’s big, strong hand rubbed at my shoulder and on to the center of my back as he leaned in and spoke to me in a deep, reassuring voice.
“Don’t worry. If you pick us, we’ll be as gentle as you like. Promise,” he said, and I could visualize his broad, handsome face grinning without even seeing it, it was already emblazoned in my memory.
“Yeah, you can’t do any better,” Taylor added, and I felt someone take a hold of my wrist, gently lifting my hand up and out, and I assumed it must’ve been him.
It was almost like I was a puppet to them, my strings to be tugged and manipulated, but it was... nice.
Really nice. I don’t know. Maybe there was something in the wine, but it was like all my senses were coming alive and just the hands touching me seemed so much more enticing.
The moaning in the music was certainly helping, and I felt my heart thumping.
Becky still had her hands over my eyes, but I could tell she wasn’t speaking to me. “Mitch and Jason want in too.”
“Jason?” Raynor said, sounding a little concerned. “He hasn’t come to a hazing since he got here.”
“Yup, he said he wants in though.”
Before long I had three sets of hands on me, two men’s, one woman’s, and they were all so warm and enticing, coaxing me along as I stood there, as if their gentle strokes and touches were enough to compel me to go along with what was happening.