Frat Party (Sisters In Law Book 1) Read online

  Frat Party

  Sisters in Law

  John Ellsworth

  Jode Ellsworth

  Penny Lawn Press

  Contents

  Frat Party

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Also by John Ellsworth

  About the Authors

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  Reviews

  Frat Party

  Sisters in Law

  John Ellsworth

  with

  Jode Ellsworth

  For Our Family

  For the People of Mexico

  Gracias Por Su Bienvenida

  1

  Theta Kappa Alpha had a party. It was homecoming weekend, which was reason enough to throw a toga party, an affair where the pledges and brothers dressed in sheets and Greco-Roman garb and sandals. Lots of young, eager sorority sisters arrived and crowded the room.

  The TKA fraternity house occupied a half block near the university. It was a sleek longboat of a house, occupying three floors. It also had a basement, largely unfurnished except for the handcart of folding tables and the five handcarts of folding chairs. With all the tubular furniture unfolded, the 35 x 40 foot room easily accommodated three long rows of multiple tables each.

  At the head of the tables, on the north end, were a dais and a tub. On the dais sat the homecoming king, a brother in the fraternity, and his date, a Kappa, who was prettier than the homecoming queen although she wasn't the homecoming queen. In the tub were a bed of crushed ice and a keg of beer. There were four other tubs and kegs scattered strategically around the cavern. The rule among the brothers was that if you were too inebriated to make it to the keg and back to your table, you were shut off. It was a simple rule; everyone understood it. By eleven o'clock more than a dozen of the forty-two members were shut off. Most of these had been carried upstairs to the pledge dorm and the brothers’ rooms. Herculean vomiting had erupted upstairs and it reeked of illness. But that was upstairs.

  Downstairs the party was under full sail. A reggae band came and set up. Why a reggae band at a Roman party? Why not? replied the brothers.

  The girls wore sheets belted around the waist and pulled over one shoulder and tucked down in the waist on the back. The belts were red and black and white. Like the men of the fraternity, they also wore sandals and woven crowns of twigs in their hair.

  Large red plastic cups of beer were swilled and swigged and spilled and abandoned on the tables while the partygoers made merry on the dance floor.

  At midnight a Theta Kappa Alpha tradition was honored. Everyone filed past the king's dais and kissed his class ring. It was traditional, required, and even those too intoxicated to care were assisted into the queue.

  The king was Noah Adams and he was from Anchorage, Alaska, where he had starred on the high school basketball team and taken them to state in his senior year. A basketball scholarship at the Big 10 University had brought him to the Midwest, where he thrived. His team had made the Sweet Sixteen two Marches in a row, but had lost out to the competition both times. Noah was mindful of that fact--and it was the one regret that he had so far in life, that he hadn't advanced with his team to the Elite Eight, much less the Final Four.

  As the final pledge filed past and kissed the ruby ring, Noah's cell phone chirped (carried in his pocket Tee beneath his toga).

  "Upstairs, Franklin's room. We've got one ready."

  "Coming," said Noah, and he told his date to find someone to dance with, that he was needed outside.

  He ran up the four flights of stairs.

  Franklin's room was the largest on the floor because he was a senior and in charge of room assignments. Noah opened the door and went inside.

  There were two brothers and two pledges and one young girl. Near the single bed stood Steve Emel, a junior from Piscataway majoring in computer science. Emel was a partygoer from day one, and was usually so intoxicated by 10 p.m. that he had to be helped upstairs to his room, next door to Franklin's. But tonight Steve had come upstairs with his date, the young girl lying on the bed unconscious.

  Proudly, Emel said to Noah, "I cherry methed her." Meaning, in campus lingo, he had slipped her what was known to the fraternity brothers as cherry meth, which was known to pharmacists as gamma hydroxybutyrate, a CNS depressant. Easily acquired, it was used to facilitate sexual intercourse with one's date for the evening, commonly known as date rape.

  A second brother in the room was Hanley Miscont III, the son of a tire manufacturer in Ohio. Hanley was the coolest of all the brothers, driving his own Rolls Royce and sending stand-ins to appear for his classes and take lecture notes. Hanley was short and always attempting to utter profundities which, to most listeners, were often more idiotic than profound. "Heaven is today; hell is tomorrow," he would say. Or, "Labor builds character; sleep builds healthy bodies. Take your pick, because you don't need both." Stuff like that. Hanley was also the student who ordered and paid for the beer kegs, as he was twenty-two and could purchase alcohol legally. In his sixth year at the university, he was a second term junior.

  When Noah came into the room, Hanley was examining the nude girl's vagina. As he went about his adventure, he would snap pictures with his cellphone. Even as Noah watched, Hanley turned the girl onto her stomach, balanced her on her knees and shoulders and splayed arms, and snapped several pictures of her naked buttocks and vaginal area, making sure her face was turned so that identification of the victim was easy. He had no particular dislike of the girl; it was just how date rape was done. Pictures, posted to the Internet, just because.

  A third brother in the room was a pledge, Jordan Weeks. Jordan was from Tupelo, Mississippi, the birthplace of Elvis Presley, and his claim to fame was that his grandmother had once spent a week with Elvis in Paris, where they had ridden motorcycles and spent long afternoons making love in a room that overlooked the Seine. No one bothered to ask Jordan how he knew this about his grandmother. He would have lied if they had, because Jordan was one of those people with the ability to conceive and toss out a lie without missing a beat. Jordan was nude and touching himself--stroking, actually--as he watched Hanley's arrangement of the girl in her various poses. A freshman pledge, Jordan knew he would be last in line, so his stroking was moderated by his known limitations. He didn't want to over-extend before his turn came to "ride the pony," as they called it.

  A fourth brother was Parks N. Swansong, a sophomore pledge from Nutley, Virginia, majoring in communications. He was handsome by TV sta
ndards and planned to make a living behind the TV anchor desk. Parks was also very bright and burdened with an unrelenting conscience. He knew that what was about to happen was morally wrong, ethically contrary to his true self, and highly illegal. Still, he had to go along if he wanted to ever be sworn into the fraternity as a brother with full rights and privileges. The fraternity was known for its post-graduation ties and recommendations that worked behind the scenes for members making job applications or seeking contacts for their businesses or professions. In the present economy a guy couldn't have too many resources. Watching the nude girl being handled and probed, Parks shuddered. He had already decided that he would appear to participate but he wouldn't actually effect penetration. Smoke and mirrors, like TV programming--he was all up in that. No, he would look like he was taking her, but he wouldn't actually do it.

  Franklin. Although it was Franklin's room and Franklin's bed, Franklin wasn't present.

  The fifth brother was Noah, the president, newly arrived on the scene of the crime. As the chapter president, it was his job to settle the lineup.

  "I go first," he told the group. "Then Steve, Hanley, and Jordan. Parks, you're last unless you jump in ahead of someone. You're the wild card and you can play anytime. Except ahead of me."

  Just then the door opened behind them, a head appeared, and Noah back-kicked the door shut without turning around. "Out!" he shouted. Jordan leapt around and locked the door. Noah nodded.

  Pounding on the door ensued; someone was outside and demanding to be let in. "What the hell are you guys doing in my room?" demanded the voice. It was recognized as belonging to Franklin.

  But he was ignored.

  Noah continued. "Hanley, you're doing the snaps. That's great. Have them posted by morning."

  "Where do you want them?”

  "Usual websites, ex-fiancée this and ex-wife that. You know the drill."

  Parks, his conscience biting, asked, "Why would you do that? No need to put her picture anywhere, is there?"

  "Well, duh," said Adams. "We ruin her, we own this bitch. We can have her anytime we want 'cause no one else will want her."

  "So we're creating a sex slave? Is that what we're doing here?"

  "Hey, Parks," someone else said. "Don't go all righteous, brother. Pull it out and stroke it. We need to see you boff this bitch."

  Noah asked, "Any other dumb questions?"

  Nobody had any questions. This wasn't their first time out in the boat.

  By now Hanley had the girl on her back again and was spreading her legs. He looked up and shouted at the door, assuming it was Franklin, whose room it was, "Got any Vaseline?"

  "What are you guys doing in my room?" came through the door. Then he was ignored.

  Her name was Bussie Speers. She was a Kappa and she’d never seen it coming.

  2

  Bussie Speers was eighteen years old, a freshman majoring in zoology with a plan to attend med school or vet school, depending on acceptances. She had always been a friendly but deep down private person. That was before the boys stole her life. By nine the next morning, nude pictures of her had migrated around the world. With the clicks of buttons by faceless haters, her life was over.

  She was five-ten, with blue eyes and blonde, nearly white, hair that was bleached out during the six outdoor months she spent every year playing tennis. Even, white teeth and an easy smile had made her a top choice for the sororities during rush week two months earlier. She had finally pledged and was keeping a 3.8 on a 4.0, so life was looking good.

  Until the TKA party.

  Since that night, and since moving back home to Barrington the next day, she had remained indoors, in her room, peeking out the curtained window and watching fall slip into early winter. Upon withdrawal, she had received W's on her academic transcript.

  The university called her daily. Would she consider returning? Would she accept university-paid counseling? Would she like to convert to online and finish her courses by computer? They had even offered to waive her tuition. All in all they couldn't have been friendlier. Or less terrified by what might be coming next, knowing that her father was a high profile lawyer in the same county where their school produced graduates like Oreo produced black and white. Eventually the university completed its investigation. They had learned very little. No names were uncovered, no identities, no one was talking. "It might have been someone from the outside," they told Bussie's father. "Maybe party crashers."

  The morning after the TKA toga party, Bussie had watched her nude body appear on her cellphone, courtesy of a friend's text that said, simply, "I know you'd want to know."

  She was sitting in the student lounge at the student union when she received the text. One minute she was joking and laughing with five other sorority pledges like herself; the next minute her life was over. When she first saw it, she wasn't sure it was her. But then more texts followed: close-up of face, close-up of vaginal opening spread for all to see, close-up of semen-spattered breasts and pubis--and various poses where her body had been arranged into severe contortions, all of them exposing her sex organs, all of them revealing her face. Stunned, she stood up from her chair at the round table of laughing friends, and moaned a long, low moan that traveled up through her torso and out her mouth in a pained expression that ended, "Noooooooooo! It can't be! Oh, my God!" She lapsed into a stupor and her roommate took the phone from her. She viewed several of the pictures. Then she grabbed Bussie by the arm and led her from the building.

  Outside on the sidewalk, the friend stood before Bussie and implored her to talk.

  "Talk to me, Bus! Talk to me! We can handle this. I know there's something we can do. You have to call your dad."

  Bussie, all but catatonic, simply stared ahead. Her future flashed in front of her.

  Again taking control, the roommate steered Bussie back to their dorm. At 9 a.m. the halls were virtually empty, as only freshmen like Bussie and her roomie were dumb enough to sign up for classes starting before 10 a.m.

  They unlocked and went inside their room. The roomie's father, a carpet wholesaler, had sprung for wall-to-wall white shag. The girls were fixed, as they liked to say. The usual posters and idols looked down from each girl's wall and both room halves were equally cluttered with discarded clothes, books, plastic drink cups and bottles, snack food leftovers and all the detritus that goes with being eighteen, innocent, and in love with life.

  Which was the moment it ended for Bussie.

  Looking at their room, she knew she could never return here. The Internet made sure of that. By now, she had no doubt, her images were as available in Hong Kong as they were in Sydney, San Francisco or London. And definitely on the university campus in Chicago. She knew, all too well, what happened to girls who posed nude because some boyfriend had asked, only later on to watch their pictures flood the Internet when the boyfriend-girlfriend thing inevitably ended. There were even websites dedicated to nude photographs of ex-girlfriends, ex-fiancées, and even ex-wives. She shuddered and sank to the floor. Those carefree days of just hanging out and hoping to meet someone special--those days were done. Her life had changed irremediably. Then she turned her head and grievously threw up on her unmade bed. Her roomie rushed for the wastebasket.

  Her father had warned her in the fourth grade, "Don't ever say or do anything on the Internet you don't want the whole world to see. The you that is you is available to everyone in the world if it's on the Internet. This is your reality. Don't be nasty, don't be coquettish, don't be sexual, don't be naked, don't be spiteful, don't be angry, and don’t be mean--in fact, the best idea for what to put on the Internet at your age is to put nothing there at all. That would be my best advice to you."

  What would he think? she thought with a gasp. Even her own father would see her nakedness before it was all over. And her mother? Don't even go there. She was ruined and she knew it.

  "I have to move out. Today, Cindy."

  Cindy didn't immediately respond. Then she said, "I think so. W
e can't sugarcoat this. Forgive me, but I'm not going to tell you it will be all right, 'cause it's not."

  "Thanks for the hope, Cin."

  "You always said you liked me because I tell it like it is."

  "Still do. What do I tell my dad?"

  Cindy shook her head. "The truth. Tell him you went to the TKA party. Tell him someone put something in your drink."

  "I only had part of one beer. I don't even like alcohol. You know me."

  "Miss Straight Arrow, I guess."

  Cindy sat and thought long and hard. Then she said, "Okay, here's what I see happening. You withdraw from school. You take a year off. During that year you cut off all your hair and have plastic surgery. Wear contacts that make your eyes a different color. Go through a legal name change. Then enroll in a school in California. No one will know you. Everyone loves you here; everyone will love you out there."

  "But I don't want to go to California! I live here! I love it here."

  "Sorry, Bus, 'here' is no longer an option. That's done."

  Bussie didn't reply. She had lapsed back into her stupor. She would later say she couldn't force a thought to form even though she was trying. She looked down. Her nails were light blue, except for the ring finger of her left hand. That nail was black with a white sparkly star. It was how it was done at that time and place. Just how it was done.

  And she had done it all like it was supposed to be done. She had fit in. She had created a world outside her family and outside old friends. It was a new world of new faces, new places, and new ideas being hurled around in classrooms like confetti at those bashes whenever her dad won re-election. Except that world was gone. Cindy was right. "Here" was no longer an option.

  In fact, maybe even life was no longer an option. She suddenly fell in on herself and began sinking into a deepening mire of depression. No matter where she went, East Coast or West, someone, somewhere, at some point, would spot her nude body and face and it would come right back on her. Having children was out. The possibility of her new Internet persona finding its way to her own kids made that avenue impassable. She couldn't and wouldn't journey down that road. So what was there for her? Was there nothing?