Sorority Sisters

by Claudia Welch

  I’ve never seen a guy naked before, never seen a dick, and this is my first look. Fucking fantastic.

  The lights come up in the auditorium.

  The professor walks up to the stage and looks at us expectantly.

  There’s not a sound in the room. Even the guys aren’t chuckling. In fact, the guys in the room look embarrassed. Damn straight.

  “So, what are your thoughts? How would you describe your reactions to these two very different portrayals of masturbation?”

  “I think I’m going to puke,” Diane whispers, her head buried in her lap.

  “I think I’m going to tell Ed just what his twelve thousand a year is paying for,” I say.

  “I think I’m going to try to forget I ever saw this,” Karen says.

  “Like that’s going to happen,” Diane says, and then she gets up and leaves the auditorium.

  Karen looks at Diane’s retreating back, then at me; then we do what we have to do. We get up and follow Diane out of the auditorium and into the chilly spring sunshine. Our bikes are all parked next to each other, crammed in with the others, foot pedals tangled. Diane has her head down and is twirling her lock dial like a safe cracker.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m up for ditching class today.”

  “Where to?” Karen says, yanking her bike free of a rogue pedal. The offending bike falls down. “Time to make our escape. Pronto. Before I get yelled at for the dead bike in the road.”

  “Serves ’em right for crowding you,” I say. “Diane?”

  Diane has unchained her bike and lifts her head to look at me. She looks green around the gills.

  “Come on, Diane,” Karen says, rolling her bike out of the pack to the street. “Let’s blow this pop stand.”

  “Don’t say blow,” I say.

  Diane snorts a laugh and then shakes her head. “You have no shame.”

  “At least I don’t masturbate on camera,” I say.

  “Your standards are impressive,” Karen says.

  “Haven’t I always said so?” I say.

  “That was just vile,” Diane says, getting on her bike, her books dumped in the basket in the front. “My dad would kill someone if he knew they showed us that.”

  “Really? Let’s tell him. I’d like to see that professor bite the dust,” I say.

  Karen laughs. “Come on. If we’re going to ditch, let’s do something fun.”

  “Let’s hit the Dust,” Diane says. The Stardust Apartments is where Missy lives; she calls it the Dust, so we call it the Dust. Why not? It’s dusty. “But let’s get some food on the way.”

  “We just had lunch an hour ago,” Karen says.

  “What is your problem, Mitchell?” I say. “It’s never too soon to have . . . ?” I look at Diane.

  “Boston cream pie,” Diane says, a light in her eyes.

  “That’ll settle your stomach,” Karen says.

  “Damn skippy, it will,” Diane says. “Let’s roll.”

  We climb on our bikes and head down University Avenue, dodging bikes until we’re in the stream of students heading off campus and merging in with them.

  “What if Missy’s in class?” Karen says.

  “She leaves the door unlocked, for casual strangers, like us,” I say.

  “Safety first,” Karen says.

  “Yeah, we’re talking about Missy,” I say.

  We ride for a while, comfortable in the throng of bikes and students, making our way to The Row. The crowd thins slowly the farther we get from campus until it’s just the three of us riding side by side down The Row.

  I cast a glance at Karen; she’s looking at Diane. I look at Diane.

  “Will you guys stop staring at me?” Diane says. “What are you expecting? My head to turn around on my neck like that girl in The Exorcist?”

  “I was kind of expecting the green vomit,” I say.

  Diane chuckles and Karen says, “Are you okay?”

  “Jim-dandy.”

  Karen and I look at each other again.

  “Let’s park at the house and then walk to the Dust,” Karen says.

  “Jim-dandy,” I say.

  Diane shakes her head, her black hair blowing back behind her shoulders. “Find your own catchphrase.”

  “Eat shit and die,” I say.

  “Sorry. I think Missy already grabbed that one,” Karen says.

  It’s as we’re in front of the Zeta house, just a few down from ours, when Laurie comes out of the house and starts unlocking her bike.

  “Hey! McCormick!” I yell. “Ditch class with us! We’re going to hang at Missy’s and eat Boston cream pie.”

  We’re in front of Beta Pi by the time I get it all out, and Laurie is looking typically Laurie, slightly interested and ready to blow us off. She’s been ready to blow us off for months now. I can’t figure out what’s wrong with her or what we did.

  “Who’s got the pie?” Laurie asks.

  “You. Once you buy it and truck it over to the Dust,” I say.

  “Slick, I have to admit,” Laurie says.

  “I’ll go with you,” Karen says. “I don’t want to be with Ryan, anyway. She’s going to pull an Exorcist any minute now.”

  “That sounds pretty,” Laurie says, “but why?”

  “A simple case of masturbation overload,” I say.

  “I’ve heard that can happen,” Laurie says, staring at Diane.

  “Olson, shut the hell up,” Diane says. “I need pie. I need it now. McCormick, are you going to be in my rescue party or what?”

  We’re all staring at Laurie, so she finally says, “Okay. Boston cream pie it is. I’ll just skip Spanish. It’s not like I have to pass it or anything.”

  “Adios, chica,” I say. “Donde esta la Boston cream pie?”

  “Dejeme en paz!” Laurie says.

  “Well, that sounded rude,” I say.

  “Diane, throw up. Break the tension,” Karen says. “Come on, Laurie, let’s go. Save a Coke for me.”

  “Got it,” I say. “Let’s go, Ryan. We can’t have you puking on the Beta Pi lawn. It’s a Standards offense for sure.”

  Less than one hour later, Karen and Laurie are in the Dust, Diane is laughing, Missy is swearing, and I’m cutting the pie into very healthy chunks.

  “Okay, so I want the full scoop on Greg,” I say to Karen. “Are you guys getting married?”

  “Yes,” she says. “We plan to, once we graduate.”

  “He’s cute,” I say. “Kind of quiet, but cute.”

  “It’s called discretion,” Laurie says, taking a plate of pie. “Some people have it.”

  “And some people don’t,” Diane says. “And them that’s got it, spread it around. Or maybe if they have discretion, they don’t spread it around. Line judge! We need a ruling over here.”

  “Whatever the ruling, spreading it around sounds sleazy,” Karen says, waving off the pie, sipping her Coke out of the can. She probably doesn’t trust Missy’s glasses, and I can’t say I blame her.

  “Eye of the beholder,” I say. “So, Greg actually asked you?”

  Karen looks down at her soda and rubs her finger around the hole. “Yeah. Of course.”

  “What about you, McCormick? You’ve been with Pete for how long now? Is it serious?” I ask.

  Laurie shrugs and looks down at the carpet. The Dust put in new carpet over the summer. It still looks like shit.

  “What are you doing, taking a survey?” Diane asks me.

  “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “Since you asked, yeah. I do. Unless you want to share what’s going on with you and Mike. When are you going to fish or cut bait with that guy?” Diane says.

  “I’m not following,” I say. But I am
. Kind of. Mike Dunn is a jerk. I know he’s a jerk, but he’s a fascinating jerk who every now and then seems so sexy that I can barely breathe. We’re not exactly dating. It’s more like he’s Jaws and I’m the girl swimming in the dark. Everybody knows what happened to her.

  “Are you dating him or what?” Diane says.

  “Or what,” I say. “He’s cute, but what’s the rush? I’m busy anyway.”

  I am busy. I’m the president of Beta Pi this year. It was my idea to run, and then it was my idea to convince Karen to run for pledge trainer and Laurie to run for Panhellenic delegate and Diane to run for Rush chair. Diane refused to run; she’s too busy being the editor of the Seahorse, the Navy ROTC yearbook. Karen and Laurie fell in with it. It only took me ten minutes to get to Karen. Laurie was a harder sell. But when isn’t she?

  “We’re all busy,” Diane says, “but when has that ever been an excuse for giving up guys?”

  “I’m not giving up guys,” I say. “I’m just taking it slow.”

  “Same here,” Laurie says.

  “Not me,” Karen says. “I say damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.”

  “It’s been said before,” Missy says.

  “Yeah, and I think the guy who first said it died,” Laurie says.

  “Admiral Farragut,” Diane says. “We all die anyway.”

  “Might as well get a cool quote out of it,” Karen says, getting up from the floor to gather our plates and take them to the kitchen.

  “Jim-dandy,” Diane says. “I’m going to have to come up with a new one. I don’t want that on my tombstone.”

  “Eat shit and die is taken,” I say. “Missy grabbed it, didn’t you?”

  “I can live with that,” Missy says. “Gotta pee. Don’t say anything fun until I get back.”

  Missy walks to the bedroom in the back and closes the door to the bathroom.

  “Are you still resisting Midshipman Temptation?” Karen asks. Before Diane can answer, Karen says, “You’ve got more willpower than I’d have.”

  “Glad you think so,” Diane says.

  Laurie raises an eyebrow. “Maybe taking him to the last party was a mistake.”

  “Only if you think willpower is a good thing,” Diane says. “Which I’m sure you do. How’s Pete feel about that?”

  “Hey, come on,” Karen says, everything about her screaming Settle down. “Doug is the most gorgeous guy I’ve ever seen, so who can blame Diane? And Pete is obviously in love with Laurie, and what could be wrong with that? Okay, so Mike is kind of a thug, but I think we can all agree that Ellen can take him.”

  We all laugh at that, even me. Because even though I’m not sure I can take Mike, I like the idea that I can.

  “So, everyone’s dating? Everyone has the man of her choice by the scruff of his neck? Nice. Nice and tidy. I love it,” I say.

  Mike isn’t my boyfriend, even though I am sort of dating him, but I want him to be my boyfriend, mostly when I’m drunk, and then I sober up and know that that’s the dumbest decision in the world. And then I get plastered and he looks so good again. It’s exhausting, but I’m young. I can take it. I’d just like to get the feeling that I’m not alone in my romantic struggles. I feel alone.

  “I just dumped Brian. You can have him if you want him,” Missy says, coming back into the room.

  “No kidding! What happened?” Karen asks from the kitchen, the water running into the sink.

  “Things went south after I met his mother.”

  “Bummer,” I say. “I’ll pass.”

  “Better now than later,” Diane says.

  Karen finishes the dishes while we lie around, feeling full and sleepy.

  “What the hell was that professor thinking?” I say after a few minutes. “That was so gross. What do I know now that I didn’t before? I could have told you that watching a guy jerk off is never going to be a Hollywood moneymaker.”

  “I saw a guy jerk off once,” Karen says. “Well, he kind of jerked off.”

  “Isn’t it an either-or thing?” I say.

  “Like I’m an expert?” Karen says. “He was retarded or had water on the brain—I’m not sure—but he was in my high school and sat right in front of me in American History, and one day he put his hand down his pants—he wore really loose pants—and he started going at it.”

  “Oh, my God!” I say, starting to laugh. “Nobody did anything?”

  “Like what?” Karen says. “Even the teacher didn’t know what to do.”

  “So what happened?” Diane says.

  “I watched. I couldn’t look away, and I tried.”

  Karen starts laughing and then we’re all laughing.

  “Guys are kind of gross,” I say.

  “Now, now,” Karen says, coming out of the kitchen. “That’s just your cultural prejudices speaking.”

  “I can live with that.”

  Diane

  – Spring 1977 –

  Doug is lying on his bed, in his apartment off of Adams, naked and beautiful, and I am lying next to him, naked and exposed, feeling nervous about the sex, nervous about my ears, nervous about my less-than-perfect butt.

  I just had sex with Doug Anderson. I just had sex with the guy I’ve been fantasizing about for two years. It was amazing. It was amazing because I love him; I want everything about him to become every single part of my life. I want to absorb him into me, which I have just sort of done, and I want to be locked to him for the rest of my life.

  I love him.

  Everything is so extremely and unbelievably perfect.

  I run a hand over his chest, the hard, perfect hairlessness of it, the pale gold perfection of it. He lays his hand over mine, stilling me. I smile and we lie there, being still together, the intimacy of his bed, his sheets, the scent of sex binding us.

  I love him. I love everything about him.

  “You should get back to the house,” he says. “You’ll get in trouble.”

  “I can handle a little trouble,” I say, teasing him, reaching down to touch his penis.

  He shifts his body, moving away from my touch, a polite smile on his face.

  “Really. It’s okay,” I say. “No one will know if I come in a few hours from now.”

  He sits up, his bare feet on the floor, his muscular back to me.

  He’s so beautiful I want to sob just looking at him. I can’t believe such an incredible guy wants me. All the years of being Monkey Baby fall away. I’m beautiful, really beautiful, because he thinks so.

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he says.

  “Me neither,” I say on a chuckle.

  He’s so cute, being so protective of my reputation. Dad is going to love him. Mom is going to fuss over him, buy his favorite booze, and we’ll sit around and tell navy stories over the dinner table. It will all be so completely perfect.

  “So, what time do you think I should head back?” I ask, sitting up and pulling the sheet around me. My boobs look better from this angle; plus my ears are covered by my hair.

  “Now,” he says, reaching over for his jeans, slipping them on one foot at a time, standing up to zip them.

  “Now?”

  “Diane,” he says, looking down at me, naked in his bed. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Okay,” I say, staring at him. His eyes still look so blue, even at night, even in the dark.

  “I mean, this was great. You’re great,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say, interrupting him, feeling this nasty thing building up inside of me, this weird vibe that it’s all going wrong, that this isn’t where I want the conversation to go and I’ll do anything to head it off, to stop it cold, to freeze time and make it go back just sixty seconds. Just to the moment where we’re lying side by side, barely t
ouching, peaceful and content.

  “I just feel like I need to be honest,” he says.

  “Good plan,” I say.

  Stop. Stop talking. Stop whatever it is that’s in your head and that you’re about to say to me. Go back sixty minutes to where you’re kissing me and seducing me, urging me out of my clothes, pleading with me to let you in, to love you. Because I do love you.

  I love you.

  “Diane, this has been great, but I want you to know, I feel like I have to tell you, to be honest with you. I feel no love for you.”

  I feel no love for you.

  I feel no love for you?

  What the hell?

  “What?” I say softly, my throat closing, suddenly feeling very, very naked. I’m afraid to move, afraid to show more of myself, to reveal myself to him. He’s seen it all, but now I feel naked.

  His blue eyes melt into mine. “I’m just being honest.”

  I exhale sharply and hear the heaviness of tears in my throat. No. Hell, no.

  “Okay,” I say, looking around the room for my clothes. They’re all on the floor, scattered. I think my top is on the couch in the living room. “Yeah. What?”

  “Diane,” he says. He looks embarrassed, uncomfortable, like I’ve messed this up somehow and he’s too much of a gentleman to lay it all out for me, that explaining it to death would just humiliate us both. “Come on. It’s just not going to work out.”

  It’s not going to work out. How does he know it’s not going to work out? Because he saw me naked? Because I’m frigid or something? I’m not frigid. At least, I don’t think I’m frigid.

  “Yeah. Really. Okay,” I say, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t understand a single thing that’s happening; all I know is that I’ve got to find my clothes and get the hell out of Dodge. “Could you give me a minute?” I say.

  Doug looks a bit startled, but then he nods and leaves the bedroom. I jump out of bed and start rooting around the floor for my panties. I slide them on, backward, and I don’t give a damn right now. I need to get out of here before I really embarrass myself by sobbing and clinging to him and begging him to love me, goddammit, please, why can’t you love me? What is so wrong with me? I grab my jeans and pull them on, rooting around with my toes for my wedges. Doug comes back in with me half-dressed, naked from the waist up, running a quick hand through my hair. He’s got my blouse.