Chapter 27: An Evening With Pledge Ken

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The pledges from both the fraternity and the sorority were escorted together to their classes while Lisa continued working for Ruth Burnside and attending her summer classes for the Economics Department. On Thursday night following dinner, Tracy told her pledges and Ken to gather up their study materials and follow her to the library. Any fun that Lisa or Bernadette had planned for the evening was canceled, because time was quickly passing and the pledges had to start thinking about their midterms. Also, everyone needed to get to bed early to make up for the 4:00 run that morning. There would be no sexual play with Ken that night: just studying and sleeping.

The women and Ken sullenly walked in single file to the library, ordered not to talk so they could concentrate on how best to utilize their time studying. It turned out the silent walk was beneficial, because it gave the pledges an opportunity to clear their minds and think about their academic problems. For the next three hours they sat quietly in a conference room, catching up on several homework assignments and reading for class on Friday. As soon as they returned to the sorority Tracy ordered everyone to clean up and get in bed. To make absolutely sure nothing got between her group and sleep she waited with crossed arms until Ken was lying on his cot and the women were settled in the guest room.

Tracy had learned that Ken had fallen way behind in his coursework as a result of his week at the sorority. Undoubtedly the same was true for his fellow pledges, which she perceived as a serious problem. She resolved to get all of the pledges, male and female, a few hours to dedicate to their coursework over the weekend. The sorority would have to ease up on “Hell Week” and give the guys some time to study.

Friday morning, following PT and clean-up, Tracy and her group made their normal trek to the university. The Pledge Mistress left the freshmen in the custody of a sophomore who would escort them to class, because she wanted to ask Ruth Burnside if she could borrow her office for a study session on Sunday. Because she was walking alone with the Pledge Mistress, Lisa realized she had a chance to talk to her in private, even if it was just for a few minutes.

She explained her doubts about her behavior towards Ken, and that she needed to talk to him and “resolve some issues”. The problem was the lack of any opportunity to be alone with him. Bernadette always snatched him for a round of sex and Lisa was faced with the problem of what to do with Kathleen. What she needed was to be alone, truly alone, with Ken and not face the prospect of being interrupted.

Tracy was well-aware of Ken’s inner struggles, although she considered what he had told her confidential and not to be shared with Lisa. She did agree, however, that her pledge needed an evening alone with her ex-boyfriend. The Pledge Mistress calculated that Ken would tell Lisa many of the secrets he had told her when she confronted him about his feelings towards Jason. He just had to have some time to think through what he wanted to say and how he would say it. Yes, she needed to make sure Lisa had an opportunity to talk with him.

“Pledge Lisa, I can take care of Pledge Bernadette and Pledge Kathleen and keep them away from you and Pledge Ken. I’ll simply bring them back to the library after the Friday night meeting. They need to study anyway, which, by the way, is something you to do as well. You’ll get your time alone with him. I’ll make sure about that.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“In exchange for what I’m gonna do for you, I want something back.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“I want some responsibility out of you. I want you to think about how what you do with Pledge Ken is going to affect Pledge Kathleen, and how what you do with Pledge Kathleen is going to affect Pledge Ken. That’s a lot to worry about, and doesn’t give you much time to worry about yourself. Their needs come before yours.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Lisa said nothing more as they entered the Economics Building. Upon entering the back office, she took off her clothes and assumed the position of submission in front of Burnside’s desk. For a couple of minutes she was left standing with her legs spread and her hands behind her head while her two mentors chatted about freshman classes and the midterm schedule.

Finally Burnside ordered Lisa to prepare some tea, which she set on a tray and served after going to her knees. Lisa no longer felt strange about serving tea while naked and kneeling because it had become part of her daily routine. Anyhow, she had no right to object, because her plan for Kathleen was to have her spend her life doing the exact same thing.

Following the Friday night dinner, President Alexandra announced that the anticipated hike had been postponed until the following weekend because the Triple A pledges needed to complete “Hell Week”. Lisa realized that Tracy already must have known about the change, because she and her companions had not yet started breaking in their hiking boots.

That Friday there were two “birthday girls”, a sophomore and a senior, who had been required to spend the afternoon in the nude in anticipation of their birthday spanking. There was the usual “Happy Birthday” celebration, followed by a spanking over the lap of the chapter president, and finally the birthday gifts, a necklace for the sophomore and a ring for the senior. As always, the celebration ended with group pictures and plenty of posturing with reddened bottoms for the cameras.

Immediately after the meeting Tracy fulfilled her promise to take Cherine, Bernadette, and Kathleen out of the house so Lisa could spend the evening alone with Ken. She ordered three very disappointed freshmen to pack their book bags and get ready to spend the evening at the library. When confronted with sullen glances, she forced them to do several sets of pushups. She poked each freshman in the chest with her index finger and snapped:

“Look, as far as I’m concerned your grades suck! We’re gonna fix that! If I don’t see some improvement, your butts are gonna be spending some quality time with our newest heavy-duty leather strap! We need to break it in, and you ought to be grateful I’m giving you the chance to not be used as target practice!”

The threat worked. There was no hint of any further objection to spending Friday night at the library.

Once the Pledge Mistress and the three freshmen had departed, Lisa sought out the Tri-Alpha pledges and separated Ken from the others. He quietly followed her into the guest room and sank to his knees. Lisa closed the door and unceremoniously stripped off her pledge uniform. Once her body was uncovered, she did something the surprised him. She knelt next to him and took his hand.

“I ... don’t wanna do any S&M tonight. But I do want to spend some time with you.”

Ken nodded, unsure how to respond. Lisa continued.

“And ... I wanna tell you ... that I’m sorry ... for all that shit I said to you ... you know ... what I told you a couple of weeks ago ... when we were at the pool.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Lisa. You were right to be pissed off at me. I was the one who screwed everything up between us.”

“You can’t help being who you are. I mean ... if you’re gay, you can’t help that.”

“I don’t know that I am. That’s the problem. I really don’t know whether I’m gay or not. I mean ... all of it’s just a bunch of fantasies. And I’m not just talking about ... you know ... I mean, whenever I’m having sex, what’s going on in real life is completely disconnected from what’s going on in my head...”

He took a deep breath:

“I’m a lot more fucked up than I realized. I was hoping that it might be something simple, that I was just gay and needed to find a relationship. But that’s not it. That’s not what it is.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet...”

“No! That’s not it! There’s no such thing as the ‘right person’. Not for me. No such thing. That’s what I’ve found out since joining the Triple A’s.”

“So you haven’t seen anyone who interests you?”

“No. At least not in the fraternity. I mean, there’s a couple of guys who’ve had their eyes on me and I know they’re gonna want to play once I swear in, but I’m not interested. I’m not attracted to them. I thought I would be, but I’m not.”

“Maybe you just gotta give it some time.”

Ken shook his head.

“That’s not it. It won’t make any difference. I’m gonna have to say ‘no’ to them. I’m just not attracted. They’re not what I want.”

“Well, if you’re still worried about Jason, you’ve got to knock that off! You can’t spend your life obsessing about Jason! You can’t keep thinking about him, because he’s gone! You’ll destroy yourself if you don’t get over him!”

“I know that. There’s something else I know, and this is what really scares me. I was never in love with him. The real Jason, that is. I was in love with my own fantasies. I was in love with something that never existed. And the problem is, it’s not the first time that’s happened. I’ve been doing the same thing all my life.”

“ ... and you just realized that?”

“I realized it when I talked to Pledge Mistress Tracy. We started talking because she got interested in what’s going on with me. I mean ... we started talking about Jason ... and ... we talked about Cecilia, and what’s going on between them, and ... I mean ... a whole bunch of other stuff too.”

“So, did you resolve anything?”

“Sort of. Tracy made me realize that what happened with Jason is sort of a pattern for me. It happened a couple of times in high school too. Always the same set-up...”

With that Ken repeated what he had learned from talking to Tracy, that the only males he had fallen in love with were ones he had no hope of ever seducing. Always the same type of guy, and always one with a girlfriend. To Lisa it was very clear that Tracy was right. What attracted Ken was not the real-life person, but instead a fantasy that focused upon converting a real man into a fictionalized one.

The conversation switched to Ken’s fantasies towards women. He haltingly confessed his attraction for Tracy and his disdain for Bernadette and Cherine. He repeated what he had discovered by talking to Tracy, that only a specific type of woman attracted him, just as only a certain type of man attracted him. As Ken continued examining his own life, Lisa realized that being able to put into words the separation between his sexual fantasies and what was really going on around him would be hugely beneficial.

Lisa felt sorry for Ken, because she realized that for him to find what he was looking for in a partner would be extremely difficult. The closest he had come to fulfilling any of his desires was his relationship with Lisa, and even that had not worked out because she had not understood what he truly needed. He felt the need to surrender himself to a lover who could both dominate and protect him. Lisa mistook his desire as simple masochism, but the truth was that Ken’s needs went way beyond simply being punished. As the spring semester progressed, Lisa’s whippings did not satisfy him because she did not demand control over his life. He needed to be dominated and guided, much in the same way Jason had surrendered his life to Cecilia, and much in the say way that Kathleen was surrendering herself to Lisa.

Suddenly Lisa realized that Ken’s needs and Kathleen’s needs were very similar. Tracy’s words “you really don’t know what’s going on with Ken. None of us do,” and “to keep an open mind” came back to her. Several thoughts ran through Lisa’s mind simultaneously. She felt a surge of regret over the lost opportunity of enjoying a long-term relationship with her companion. Had she understood what Ken needed, she could have given it to him and satisfied many of her own psychological needs as well. She needed a male sexual partner and realized that, of the all men she had known so far, Ken was by far the most compatible. She wondered if she could re-start sexual contact with him, even if the possibility of a romantic relationship had passed.

She checked herself, realizing that concentrating on sex was precisely why the relationship between her and Ken failed in the first place. What he needed was a combination of sexual surrender and psychological control. For a relationship with him to work, it had to have both elements. How strange! Lisa could perceive the need in Kathleen within days of getting to know her, and yet could not see the same need in her boyfriend, after having known him for nearly a year!

Lisa’s thoughts drifted from Ken’s desires to her own. Part of the reason she had wanted some time alone with him was because she was in the mood for sex with a male partner. As much as Lisa cared for Kathleen, her sexual orientation had not changed and throughout her life she would need to break away every so often to indulge in sex with guys. She was grateful for Ken’s presence, because in spite of all the changes that had transpired over the past month, he still was the guy with whom she preferred to have sex. It was with him that she felt a familiar presence in her life. There was another issue pushing Lisa to make love to Ken. Because he was an important part of her past, he was the one person with whom she could have sex and not feel guilty about cheating on Kathleen.

At that moment Lisa still considered Ken as her “ex-” and planned to treat him as a casual sexual partner. However, her instinct to exert control forced her to consider what changes she might want to make in their sex life so she could begin controlling him psychologically. Her desire to control him was not out of overt hope that she might reclaim him as a long-term boyfriend, but instead a subconscious desire arising from the dominating instinct in her personality.

Ken fully expected Lisa to grab an implement, order him to bend over, and start beating him. He assumed there was plenty of pent-up aggression in her and was afraid. As always, the fear sexually aroused him and his penis was quite erect. However, Lisa’s treatment of him that night would be very different from what he expected because of what she had learned over the past week. She did not want to punish him, but instead to seduce him and control him.