My Fraternity Big Brother (3 page)

I tried to focus as much on the movie as possible. It was difficult. My emotions were all over the place still. I was angry that he didn’t share anything with me. It felt like he didn’t trust me, which hurt also. I still had a hankering to be on top of him and have him hold me tightly. I felt ashamed and confused because of that hankering. I was a mess of emotions. I know, you are probably sick of hearing about my emotions, but that’s how I felt.

The movie ended. I looked at the clock. It was midnight. I felt exhausted and was ready for bed. Travis got up and turned on the light and shut off the television. “Do you mind spending the night? I’m so tired I’m about to fall asleep,” he said chuckling.

“Um. I guess not. Where am I going to sleep?”

“In the bed of course. There is plenty of room.” I bit my lip. “You haven’t shared a bed with a guy before?” he asked.

“No I have.”

“So is there an issue? If so I could probably drive or call a cab for you. I’ll pay for your fare.”

“Nah. It’s fine,” I said.

“Cool.” He shut off the lights and got back onto the bed and crawled under the covers. I crawled under also. I faced away from him and slept on the edge of the bed. I felt really uncomfortable because I wanted to spoon with him so bad. “Goodnight,” he said.

“Goodnight,” I said.

I freaked out in my mind when I woke up. I was spooning Travis, who was asleep. My chest was up against his muscular back. My morning wood was pressed up against his butt and I had my hand on his own morning wood. I had never felt another man’s penis before.

I quickly rolled away.
Oh my god. What was that about? I am gay aren’t I? No, you aren’t. You date a girl. You fell asleep and randomly rolled around and ended up like that. Just a random event. I desired it before falling asleep and then it happened subconsciously. That’s what happened. That’s absurd. Just calm down. It’s fine.

I eventually fell asleep again. I didn’t wake up spooning Travis again. When I awoke he was already awake. I could smell bacon coming from the kitchen. It smelled so good. I got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. “Morning,” I said.

“Aww you’re up. I wanted to make you breakfast in bed.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said.

“Well since you are already up then we can eat out here. How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” I said fearing that he somehow knew that I had spooned him.

“Awesome. Me too. How are you feeling this morning? Did you decide what you’re going to do with the girlfriend?”

“I’m doing well. Thanks for last night. I really appreciate it,” I said sitting at the dining room table, which was the only furniture in the room.

“You’re welcome.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do with her. I’m going to take a few days to think about what I’m going to do.”

“That’s smart of you. Let me know how it goes,” he said placing a plate in front of me. He then sat down on the other side of the table with his plate.

“Will do.”

“Are you excited for your secret pledge event tonight?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Wow you’re not begging to know.”

“Nope. I’m being patient. I’ll find out eventually,” I said smiling at him.

“I love it. I’ll tell you though. Promise me you won’t tell anyone including your pledge bros. The brothers will kill me if they find out I told you,” he said.

“I promise.”

“I mean it. I will be pissed if you tell them.”

“I won’t if you promise not to tell anyone about last night. I’m not ashamed about it or anything. I would just feel weird if my pledge bros find out since I don’t know them well. I don’t want them judging me,” I said.

“I promise you I won’t tell anyone about last night and I won’t tell anyone what we talked about,” he said looking at me deeply in the eyes again. My heart fluttered as the urge to be close to returned. I shut it down. I couldn’t have any of that nonsense.

“We go out ourselves a deal then,” I said.

“We do. It’s a hazing type of thing. A little bit of BDSM type thing,” he said laughing.

“BDSM?” I asked.

“That’s right. You’re an innocent virgin,” he said smiling.

“Fuck you.”

“Oh my god,” he said laughing. “I love it. You’re learning.” I smiled at him. “It stands for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism.”

“Oh wow. Why’s it only four letters if there is six words?” I said before sticking some egg whites into my mouth.

“The BD is bondage and discipline, the DS is dominance and submission, and the SM is sadism and masochism.”

“Interesting. So what’s the entail?”

“Well for this event they are basically going to humiliate you and spank you with a whip, not hard though. It’s sort of like BDSM, but all of the people doing it don’t really have experience with it. The whole point of the hazing experience is to break you down in order to build you back up. Brainwash you into loving the fraternity,” he said.

“I don’t know if I’ll like that.”

“Keep an open mind. Just try to enjoy the experience for what it is rather than judging it as something weird. Just live in the moment and enjoy it.”

“I’ll try. Who is leading it?”

“That I won’t tell you. You’ll have to wait and see.”

“Did I tell you to look up at me?” the young woman yelled at me. My pledge bros and I had been on our hands and knees for around twenty minutes. The people who ran it thankfully were not the bros. Instead, it was two sorority girls decked out in leather. The only light from the room came from candles, which made it rather ominous.

“No,” I said.

“I didn’t tell you to talk,” she said. A moment later I moved slightly forward when a whip lashed my ass. “Do you think you’re a pretty boy?”

“No.”

“So you’re ugly?”

“Yes?”

“You don’t know if you’re ugly?” she yelled.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“You’re an insecure little boy that can’t make up your mind,” she whispered in my ear. “For that you get the whip.” I heard the whip before I felt it. It was the hardest I had been hit so far. I squinted my eyes and a tear fell down my cheek from the pain. I heard her crouch down besides me. “You’re crying. I want you all to know that your pledge brother is crying. Pledges did you know your pledge bro was a big ole baby? Probably not. Since he is such a faggot. He deserves to be whipped for each one of you, which makes 20 whips.”

She got behind me and whipped me, each one harder than the last. I started whimpering and full on crying from the pain. I had never felt such pain before in my life. When she got to the 6
th
I could feel the whip break the skin. By the 8
th
, I felt blood coming out. By the 12
th
, my underwear was soaked.

Through my whimpering I heard the other girl whisper, “What are you doing Jess?”

“What do you mean what am I doing? This is what we are supposed to be doing.”

“You’re whipping him so hard. You’re actually hurting him and making him cry. That’s too much. That’s how you get a lawsuit on your hand.”

“If it was too much then he would say the safe word.”

“You’re such an idiot. We didn’t give them a safe word.”

“Oh fuck.”

“Yeah, oh fuck is right. Get him out of here and make sure he is okay.”

I heard her bend down beside me. “Let’s get you out of here,” she said. She grabbed my arm and helped me up. I tried to keep my crying to a whimper, but I felt like sobbing because of the pain. She took me out of the room. I was blinded momentarily from the light. “I’m really sorry,” she said. I could tell she was sincere in her apology, but that didn’t take away the fact of what she had done. It didn’t take away the fact that blood was running down my butt and now leg because she had whipped me so hard.

A fraternity brother walked over to us. “Ohh fuck,” he said when he saw me crying profusely. “What happened?”

“I went a little too far. I’ll tell you about it later. He probably needs ice or something”

“Let’s get you some ice and I’ll drive you back to the dorm. I’m Hunter by the way. I don’t think we’ve met,” he said.

“I’ll walk back,” I said.

“You don’t have to do that. It’s easier for me to drive you.”

“No I’ll walk.”

“Let me drive you.”

“I said I’ll walk so fuck off,” I said to him.

“Okay,” he said. A few brothers walked in the room and were about to ask me if I was okay or something when Hunter said, “Leave him alone guys. Give him some space.”

I heard Hunter say to the girl, “This is really bad. Go in there and end it in the next five minutes.”

I walked out of the house in agony. I had never felt so much pain. It was a hundred times worse than nicking yourself on the hand with a knife. I wanted to beat the hell out of the bros. I hated them so much. The person I hated the most was Travis. He told me to keep an open mind and that it’d be fun. A fucking liar. I wanted to punch him in the face.

The walk back to my dorm was brutal. I shuffled into my dorm room since I couldn’t walk normally anymore. Blood had completely drenched the back of my pants and socks. My roommate Chris noticed something was up immediately. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said softly. I raised my hand up and wiped away some snot from my nose, snot that came about because of crying so hard.

“Dude is that blood? Holy shit it is. That’s a lot of blood.”

“I’m fine.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I’m fine.”

“No way. I’m calling an ambulance.”

I didn’t argue. I walked over to my bed and climbed onto the bed and lay on my chest.

I was taken to the hospital. The doctor asked me repeatedly what happened and I kept telling him that I didn’t want to talk about it. He eventually stopped asking. He stopped the bleeding somehow. I wasn’t paying attention because he had drugged me up on some Vicodin. He ended up prescribing me some painkillers and some disinfectant cream to put on it for a week. He also recommended that I sit as least as possible for a while to let it heal. The best part about it was that I was going to have some gnarly scars. That last part is sarcasm.

I received numerous phone calls and texts from the fraternity members, including Travis, and my pledge bros. I let them all go straight to voicemail and then deleted it all. I wasn’t going to sue them, but I didn’t want them to know it. I loved the fact that they were probably freaking out thinking that I was going to sue them. Whenever they approached me in public, I would tell them to leave me alone unless they wanted a scene. I knew I had to talk to one of them eventually because I wasn’t going to pay for that hospital bill. If they made me do that then I decided that I would sue them.

A week and a half later, my pledge bros Patrick and Todd, the ones I played basketball with visited me. I didn’t ask them too. They snuck their way into my dorm. I say snuck because there are locks outside of all the dorm buildings, so only people who lived in that building with a keycard could get in.

I sat at my desk on the computer looking at ESPN’s website. My roommate wasn’t there at the time and I had my door open at the time in case anyone in the hall wanted to stop in to say hello. I heard the door close behind me. I turned around to open it again because I figured that it closed on its own somehow.

“What the fuck,” I said surprised. “Get out. Get out now before I start yelling.”

“Just listen to us for a second,” Patrick begged.

“Please,” Todd said.

“Fine. What is it?”

“Can you come back to the frat?” Patrick asked.

“Why would I do that after receiving a lovely gift of scars on my ass,” I said sarcastically.

“We miss you,” Todd said.

“Yeah okay.”

“We do. We as in your pledge bros,” Patrick said.

“The bros promised that they won’t really haze you anymore except for maybe big bro night, but no physical shit anymore,” Todd said.

“So I can be the odd duck out and not have to do anything with my pledge bros,” I said.

“We don’t care. You got your ass literally beaten to a bloody pulp. Anything we have to do is child’s play compared to that. None of us had to endure that. We really don’t mind,” Patrick said.

“That sounds nice. I’m down for hanging out with you guys, but I don’t know if I want anything to do with the bros,” I said.

“Do it for us then. We miss you and when we all cross it’ll be the bond between us. Your pledge brothers are who you end up being close to anyways,” Todd said.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“That’s all we ask for,” Todd said.

“Now get out of my room,” I said smiling.

“Okay. By the way the bros said they would pay for anything you had to buy,” Patrick said.

“Awesome. I’ll send my hospital bill right over then.”

Todd’s mouth dropped open. “You had to go to the hospital,” Todd said.

“Yeah I did.”

“Wow. That’s a lot worse than anyone thought,” Patrick said.

“You can tell them then and now they really won’t haze me if I come back,” I said.

“No they won’t,” Todd said.

“We’ll get going. Please come back man. We miss you,” Patrick said.

“Bye. I’ll think about it. Leave the door open please,” I said. They left and I sat pondering if I should go back to the frat.

I returned to the frat with hesitation. They all apologized profusely and they paid my hospital bills. I told them I wasn’t going to be a part of hazing and they agreed. My pledge bros still had to deal with hazing. It was mainly being put through intense workouts at 4AM in the morning and doing stupid shit for the bros. I didn’t have to do any of it and none of my pledge bros resented me for it. I’m sure some of the fraternity guys did, but screw them.

I started to hang out more with my pledge bros and a few of the fraternity members. I enjoyed spending time with them at parties. Travis approached me a few times begging to talk to me, but I ignored him and told him to leave me alone. I didn’t respond to any of his texts or listen to his voicemails.

I couldn’t stand to talk to him. I was so angry with him that he lied to me. That he said it’d be fun. It was not. Yeah it was a mistake, one that I’ll always remember because of the scars on my ass. I didn’t just feel angry with him though. I felt uncomfortable because of the night I had spent at his house. It made me question my sexuality because I kept thinking about him and imagined him holding me again. I felt ashamed for thinking and feeling these things. I missed him a lot, which made things more complicated. I didn’t understand why I missed him and I was terrified of being gay. I figured ignoring him was the best approach.