“Beta Kappa, the best house on campus,” Jeff said. “That's where we met.”
I swallowed. “Is Beta Kappa gay friendly?”
Blair laughed. “We wouldn't have asked you to rush if it weren't, Jordy.”
“How did you knowâ”
“Outside of the fact you recognized Jeff from his venture into the gay porn industry?”
“Oh.”
“You'll love Beta Kappa,” Jeff went on. “It's a great house, and the brothers are all really cool. Why don't you come over for dinner and we'll tell you more about it?” He sniffed his armpits and frowned. “I really need to get in the shower.”
“Six o'clock,” Blair directed as they walked out my front door.
I opened my mouth to say I'd just eaten but shut it. It wouldn't kill me to eat again, so I nodded.
The door shut behind them, and I plopped down on the couch.
A fraternity.
A gay-friendly fraternity at that.
I smiled. I wanted the college experience, and what better way to get that than to join a fraternity?
I took another swig from my Coke and leaned back on the couch.
Jeff and Blair were so nice, and sexy. I closed my eyes and imagined the two of them in bed together, their naked bodies covered in sweat asâ
My hand crept down to my crotch. I'd been hard from the moment Jeff had walked into my apartment. I undid my shorts and slid them down, wrapping my hand around my cock.
What would it be like to kiss Jeff? Or Blair?
I summoned up the memory of a scene from one of the movies of Jeff's I'd downloaded. My hand started moving up and down on my cock as I imagined that beautiful body on top of me, his lips pressing against mine, that huge cock rubbing against mine as he pushed my legs apart and began trying to push it inside of me.
I came almost immediately, my entire body going rigid with the orgasm.
I laughed out loud.
I was definitely going to love it here.
Chapter 2
I
swallowed and steeled my nerve, resisting the urge to get out my cell phone.
You wanted to do this on your own,
I reminded myself.
You can't call Jeff and Blair now and beg them to take you to Beta Kappa. They'll think you're an idiot.
It was the first night of Rush, and I was standing at the end of Fraternity Row. Ten fraternity houses facing each other across a pedestrian mall stood in front of me. Guys were strolling along the sidewalks, a steady stream going in and out of each house.
You can do this. This isn't St. Bernard, this is somewhere you're going to fit in and have lots of friends. This is why you came to school here. Jeff and Blair have thoroughly prepped you on what to say, how to act. You can do this without their help.
I took a deep breath and started walking. Beta Kappa was at the end of Fraternity Row, right across the mall from the Sigma Chi house.
The first week of school had been remarkably easy. None of my classes seemed particularly challenging, as I'd suspected. According to Jeff and Blair, pledge semester would be rough and time-consuming; not having a conflict with studying would make it much easier on me. My main fear with my classes was actually being bored; I'd found myself nodding off a few times in my eight a.m. Comp class. My Biology class was so basic as to be laughable, and my History of Western Civilization class looked to be equally easy. I'd already gotten a good start on my term paper for it. I didn't think I would have a problem with AlgebraâI'd gone much further at St. Bernard in mathâand Intro to Sociology looked simple.
I'd bought some new clothes and gotten a haircut. My new clothes fit well, but I hadn't been able to style my hair the way it looked when I'd left the salon. I finally gave up and didn't bother with the gel, combing it flat and parted on the side. I thought it looked okay.
Blair and Jeff had offered to take me to Beta Kappa and introduce me to the brothers, but I'd said no. They thought I was crazy, and said so in no uncertain terms.
“I want to get a bid on my own,” I'd insisted. “You guys have done enough for me already.” As I walked now up the mall toward the house, my stomach began to knot up.
Stay calm, it's just a fraternity house, and it IS Rush. They're going to be nice and friendly because they want people to join. This isn't St. Bernard. These guys aren't princes and nobility and the sons of billionaires. These are just normal, typical guys, and they aren't going to look down their noses at you.
It was important to me to get a bid on my own, without any more help from Jeff and Blair. The “Rush boot camp” they'd put me through had already given me a leg up on the other guys rushing. At my insistence, Jeff and Blair had even agreed to not show up for the first night of Rush. I was on my own, and as I walked past the other houses I started to relax.
You're getting yourself all worked up for absolutely no reason. Just because you didn't fit in at St. Bernard doesn't mean you aren't going to fit in at Beta Kappa. You're smart, you're funny, and you have a lot to offer, just like Blair and Jeff said. Just be yourself and don't be nervous,
I said to myself over and over as I drew closer and closer to the end of the mall.
And before I knew it, I was standing in front of Beta Kappa.
I swallowed nervously again.
Just go up the walk and inside,
I told myself.
There's no reason to be nervous.
Yet in spite of myself, I flashed back to being ten years old and arriving at St. Bernard. I remembered my roommate, a French kid named Guy deMontespan, looking at me as though I were something he'd stepped in.
“I am descended from Louis XIV, the glorious Sun King,”
he'd said, his lip curling into a sneer,
“and they put me in a room with some nobody American?”
It was the last time Guy spoke to me. He'd complained and gotten switched to another room. I wound up with a single room because no one else wanted to be my roommate. And I'd stayed in a single room for eight long, lonely years.
That's the past, Jordy. No one here knows you were the most unpopular student at St. Bernard. No one here is going to judge you because you don't have royal blood or because you can't trace your ancestry back to the Crusades. This is the United States and things like that don't matter here. Here you're judged on your merits, and that's what the brothers will do. You're an A student. You speak four languages.
And my parents were stinking rich.
I put that thought out of my head. Mom and Dad always drilled into me the importance of standing on my own. So what if I was a failure at making friends at St. Bernard? This was a whole new world. No one here knew I'd been lonely and picked on there. I was making a fresh start.
Maybe I should have come with Blair and Jeff. Why am I so stupid? They already know everyone. They could have introduced me around, and it wouldn't be like I'm a total stranger.
I shook my head and forced the negativity out. I squared my shoulders, bit my lip, and took a deep breath. The front door of the house was wide open, and I could see a table set up just inside for registering. The house wasn't like the others on the mallâthe others looked like plantation houses with wide verandas and columns. The Beta Kappa house was more modern looking. To the right of the entryway the house was about a story and a half high; the wall facing the mall was all glass but hidden behind curtains. To the left it was two stories high. That was the dormitory sideâtwo floors of rooms to house the brothers.
A group of guys brushed past me and headed up the walk to the front door.
This is it,
I told myself, and followed them. Just inside the door I could see the entryway into the larger room, and over it was a sign reading
WELCOME PROSPECTIVES TO CASINO NIGHT
! I could see a couple of blackjack tables set up, and the dealers were relatively attractive young girls. The group of guys who'd passed me had stepped to the side, filling out application forms while a guy seated behind the table was making name tags for them. I took a deep breath and walked up to the table.
The guy making name tags was good looking, wearing a tight red polo shirt over a pair of jeans. His dark hair was gelled so it stood up in the center of his head, and he had a light dusting of pimples on his face. His ears stuck out a bit, and he had a gap between his front two teeth. His own name tag read
BRANDON BENSON
,
RUSH COMMITTEE
. He looked up at me and gave me a strained smile. “Hi.” He slid a stapled form and a pen toward me. “Your name?”
“Jordy Valentine,” I replied. He started making out a name tag for me.
“You need to fill out the application,” he said without looking up. He was having trouble fitting VALENTINE on the tag, having to squish TINE onto the end. He handed me the name tag as I filled out the form. It was relatively simple, actually, but I hesitated when I got to the part about my parents' annual income. I didn't have a problem with writing 4.0 as my high school grade average (which was what my grades at St. Bernard translated to), and I didn't have a problem with listing my address at the Alhambra, but my parents' annual income? I laughed to myself. Truth be told, I actually didn't know what their annual income was. I hesitated, and said, “Um, Brandon?”
He looked up.
“I don't know what my parents' annual income is.”
He rolled his eyes. “Then estimate. It's not rocket science.” He gave me a strange look.
“Okay,” I replied, scratching my head.
Okay, be conservative. If Dad and Mom have assets of about seven hundred million and earn a basic 6% interest per quarter, that would be forty-two million per quarter, which would be about a hundred twenty-five million per year.
Pleased with myself, I wrote that amount in the blank and was about to continue filling out the formâthe next section was
Hobbies and Interestsâ
but paused as I noticed someone else walking up to the back side of the table. I glanced up at him and did a double take.
Gorgeous was probably not a strong-enough word. There had been a lot of good-looking boys at St. Bernard, I'd done my share of looking at men on Internet porn sites, and both Jeff and Blair were handsome enough to be underwear models. But this guy was in a completely different class than anyone I'd seen before. He was tall, a few inches over six feet, and he had thick blond hair parted in the center and hanging down almost to his chin on either side. Like Brandon, he was wearing a tight red polo shirt that hugged a strong chest and biceps. His bare arms were lined with veins under his darkly tanned skin. His eyes were wide and blue, his hair bleached white blond by the sun. His shoulders were broad and his waist narrow, his stomach completely flat. He didn't look like he had an ounce of fat anywhere on his body. His teeth were strong and white, and he had deep dimples in both cheeks. He didn't acknowledge me at allâall of his attention was on Brandon. His name tag read
CHAD YORK
,
RUSH CHAIRMAN
.
“What a bunch of losers we're getting,” he said, slipping into the chair next to Brandon. “I'm starting to think we might be better off not bidding anyone this semester, the way this is going.”
“Tell me about it,” Brandon muttered as I slid the application back to him.
Chad chose that moment to notice me. He looked me over from head to toe in a slow-moving glance that made me shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. One of his dark blond eyebrows went up, and the corner of his mouth also went up. He stood up and stuck his hand out at me. “Chad York, Rush chairman. Welcome to Beta Kappa.” It sounded canned and insincere.
“Jordy Valentine.” I shook his hand and gave him a smile.
“You have spinach in your teeth.” His smile didn't falter, but his eyes widened.
Mortified, I closed my mouth.
“The bathroom's just down the hall.” He gestured over his shoulder. “You probably want to do something about that.” He turned back to Brandon, made a face, and they both laughed.
I wished a hole would open in the ground and swallow me whole.
“Seriously, go do something about that.” Chad didn't look at me, just waved his hand in dismissal.
My face felt like it was on fire as I stumbled past the table and down the hall.
Nice going, way to make a great first impression, why oh why didn't I check my mouth before I left the apartment, would it have killed me to brush my teeth again, you just made a complete ass out of yourself in front of one of the hottest guys you've ever seen, thank God Blair and Jeff aren't here.
I reached the saloon doors that led to the communal first-floor bathroom and shoved my way inside. Standing in front of a mirror, I bared my teeth. Sure enough, there was some spinach lodged between the canine and the front tooth. I grabbed a paper towel with my shaking hands and removed it, taking some deep breaths, fighting the urge to leave and forget all about Beta Kappa. I turned on the cold water tap and splashed some water on my face. I looked at myself in the mirror and could see tears filling my eyes.
This is going to be no different than St. Bernard, you were so stupid for thinking you could get a fresh start, it wasn't the guys at St. Bernard, it was YOU, you're never going to have any friends and you sure don't belong here, you might as well just slip out and head home, no one would notice you were gone anyway . . .
“Hi,” a voice said from behind me. “You rushing?”
I jumped.
“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you,” the voice said.
I turned and found myself looking at a guy about my height. He was heavier than me, and his shirt was a little too small for him. His stomach strained against the front of it. His arms were thin, and his skin was very pale. His mousy brown hair looked a little greasy, and angry red pimples were scattered over his face. He was wearing a pair of tortoiseshell glasses that had slid partway down his nose. His teeth weren't straight, and his lips were narrow and thin. His name tag read
ROGER DEVLIN
. His face was expressionless. “Yes,” I replied. “Yes, I am.”
“I'm Roger, one of the brothers here.” He shook my hand. His hand was soft, warm, and a little moist. “Nice to meet you, Jordy.” He narrowed his eyes and examined my face. “Are you okay?” he asked, crossing his arms.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “Just a little overwhelmed, I guess. I've never been to anything like this before. . . .”
A sardonic smile crept across his face. “And let me guess, you met our estimable Rush chairman, Chad.” He barked out a laugh, shaking his head. “Charming, isn't he?”
“He seemed nice,” I said cautiously, remembering Blair's adviceâ“
Never criticize a brother, even if one of them invites you to. Don't criticize the house under any circumstance, even if you think the paint is hideous and the carpet an abomination. All it takes is one brother to blackball you and keep you out. No matter how tempted you are, no matter how friendly a brother might seem, remember they are evaluating you and deciding if they want to let you in. Even as a pledge you don't criticize a brother to another brother. Once you're an active, you can do or say whatever you want, but until you're initiated you can be bounced at any time. Don't forget.”
“I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him. But he did seem nice.”