Chapter 14: Tears, Tears and More Tears

Jim repeated, "Leslie Nazario, panties; Leslie, please meet the lucky raffle winner at spot number 2 on the deck."

When Leslie got there, she looked like she had been crying. She stood there, in front of the raffle winner. He knelt down so her bikini bottoms were at eye level, grasped the waistband, and pulled them down. Leslie just stood there, with her suit down around her ankles. The guy pulled on her suit and she put her hands on his shoulders to support herself, then she lifted one leg so he could slide the suit off, put that foot down and lifted the other. Jim told him to give her the garment, and told her to bring the garment up to him, and put it into the big wooden box marked CLEAN.

When she got up to him and disposed of her bottoms, Jim had her draw names of the next wrestlers. The first card was a blue one; it took three tries to get a yellow one.

Jim made Leslie stand there and read the names on the cards. "The Delta's card is blank, the Sigs name is Janey Lewis."

Leslie tried to walk away, but Jim called her back. "Draw a name from this box," Jim said as he held the smaller of the yellow boxes about Leslie's head, "and read the lucky winner's name."

"Natalie Allen."

"No!" I didn't know where Nat was, but I could hear her voice.

Jim called Natalie to the ring. He had to call her twice. She was crying uncontrollably as she entered the mud pit.

Nat was our house president. Nobody would ever confuse her with an athlete. She had a small body, not a perfect one, but a pretty good soft body. She was one of the girls who chose to wear a string bikini, because if she had to wrestle, she knew she was going to lose anyway, and if she didn't have to wrestle, she knew nobody would claim her suit to replace their damaged one.

The strategy didn't matter to Natalie now. At the sound of "Wrestle," Janey charged at Nat, same as Linda did to Rox in the first match, but didn't need to hit Nat. Nat turned halfway around as Janey charged, so Janey simply stopped and untied the still sobbing Natalie's bra. Neither girl was muddy above her knees. The first round took 12 seconds. After the break, Nat got down on her hands and knees, still crying. Janey simply pulled the strings, and held Natalie's bottoms up. It took 6 seconds. Neither girl was muddy above her thighs, except for Nat's hands and lower arms. Still crying, Natalie got down again. The referee called. "Wrestle." Janey pulled Nat's arm out, flattened her in the mud, rolled her onto back, and the mic suspended over the pit picked up Janey telling Nat to say she quits, or she'd get mud shoved into her vagina. Nat submitted; the third round lasted 11 seconds. The whole match lasted 29 seconds.

I thought about our situation as Natalie made her four-lap walk of shame, depositing her still clean suit into the DIRTY box. We lost the first two matches; we lost them fast. We only had one more wrestler to be selected at random. The Sigs still had three. I figured those who weren't scheduled to wrestler were certain losers. I hoped I'd be wrestling one of the randomly selected girls.

The raffle ticket winner went to spot number 3, got that hose and rinsed Janey from top to bottom, even though she was virtually clean above her thighs. Natalie was washed clean. She drew two cards, and one of my sorority sisters lost her top while another lost her bottoms, to another lucky raffle winner, at spot number 4. The Kaps has things organized, so the hosing and stripping moved around the ring. The girl who lost her bottoms drew cards for the third match.

Both cards were blank. She drew cards from the box with the non-combatant's names, and read off the names. Barb Miller, a Delt; vs. Dottie Gunderson, a Sig. I didn't know Dottie, but Barb was our first alternate, so I felt pretty good about this match.