Chapter 4

My plans for the Sunday afternoon following the Winter Formal took a decided turn for the worse when members of the National Chapter arrived a few days before. They're the women who head up the sorority, and you really want to be on their good side. They were there to observe us, and that meant I had to be around, had to be available, and had to be seen as working for the sorority. I couldn't go off and spend an afternoon happily impaling myself on hard dicks. I'd have to be "good".

Was I disappointed? You bet. Did I show it? Of course not. This was an opportunity to connect with women who could well influence my career after college. Only a complete idiot would pass up the chance just so she could get laid, not that we didn't have a few idiots in the sorority.

Just to prove there were complete idiots in this world, one of the other girls who partied, one who belonged to the Alphas, had a similar situation, and passed it up to go party. She didn't exactly pay for it, she just didn't forge the connections so important in Southern Society, and her career didn't really blossom as much as it could have.

Me? I was visible helping the younger girls, being the Big Sister to them I normally was. Of course some of that help was done in private. Nothing untoward happened, we had the doors to our rooms open so anyone walking past could see in, but we discussed certain intimate things in low voices. Young girls, away from home for the first time in their lives are subject to all sorts of pressure and temptations. It requires mature judgment, something they don't usually have. It was up to the older actives to provide that guidance and get them through the pitfalls that lay just outside their door.

Bethany was a good example. As near as I could tell from close questioning, she'd been kissed and felt up. Boys hadn't gotten any farther than that, which was well and good. But now she had a boyfriend, and he wanted to do more than sit on opposite sides of the front seat and talk about philosophy. She wasn't sure how to handle herself.

That conversation stretched out over three days, and she constantly came back to me with questions. I gave her almost a blow-by-blow description of what the boy was thinking—I told her my older brother Rick had provided some of that information to protect me—and what the various things she could do about it were. In the end I solved it personally: I double-dated with her, and Wesley and I didn't do anything more than kiss. That quieted down Bethany's boyfriend. It's hard to have your way with a girl when there's another couple right there watching, and disapproving of what was going on.

Bethany wasn't the only one. For all my taking care, it was assumed that I, as an older girl, knew a lot of what was happening when everyone got naked and sweaty. But, and this was a very important consideration, nobody decided that I was doing things anywhere as often as I was. They just assumed that girls who reached 20 or 21 were active in some way.

"It's good that you're helping the younger girls," Mrs. Shaeffer said one day. "Especially with their personal lives."

"I try. They have to be careful, things can go bad so quickly if they don't."

"I know. When I was a pledge we had a girl get in the family way. The boy denied it, of course, but a paternity test after she gave birth took care of that defense."

"Did anything happen to her and her baby?" I was thinking that anytime before 1980 or so and the girl might have had to give the baby up for adoption. She might also have had to go stay with a friend or relative during her last trimester. Things were different back then.

"Her mother took the baby, and Melissa resumed her studies. After graduation she took the baby back. She did all right in spite of the child. It was a lot harder back then, but even then people were accepting. It was harder when my mother was in school. That was during WW2, and the only thing that kept it from being a major scandal was that there were a lot of young mothers who were suddenly widowed."

"Well hopefully I teach them enough so they don't get into that situation." I walked away figuratively wiping my brow. Imagine having to rely upon condoms of uncertain quality, and not even being assured that you could get any. That would leave you with the rhythm method. Doctors had a name for girls who relied upon that, mothers. And pulling out at the last moment wasn't an option; all it took was one drop, and you could get pregnant from the pre-come fluid. What we had now was far better.

The build-up to the Winter Formal was fairly intense. The guys had it easy: rent a tux, rent a limo, and buy a corsage. A girl had her nails, her hair, make-up, and goodness knows, the dress. It consumed all sorts of energy. People talked about nothing but what they were going to wear, except for those times when they were talking about how they wanted to get their hair done. A few girls actually talked about schoolwork, but they were a minority.

This wasn't exactly the reason I'd joined a sorority. I take that back, this was one of many reasons that I'd gone Greek. It was more expensive than living in the dorms or on my own, but that was a small price to pay. I liked the girls I was around. I hadn't had many girlfriends in high school, and this let me move in some social circles where the "in-crowd" in high school couldn't get to. I went from being a social outcast, or at least not part of the "in" crowd, to being socially above them. That was important to me personally, and I felt real good about it the few times I met some of those girls from high school.

I think that in the end it wasn't Mother, it wasn't Krys, and it wasn't the social cachet it gave me. I joined the sorority because I liked the girls. That has to figure in there somewhere.

I spent my share of time talking about the dress I was going to wear. I had a problem, and everyone pitched in to help. A true redhead has very pale skin tones. A lot of colors make her look washed out. I finally settled on an emerald green ankle-length dress. It was almost sheer, backless, sleeveless, and with a high neckline. It emphasized the girl parts, at least those above the waist, and gave plenty of hints about the rest of me.

It's a little known fact, at least to guys, that a girl actually gives some consideration to getting in and out of a dress. If you're going to spend an evening in one you are going to have a call of nature. I've heard of many solutions: not consuming any liquids for a day before wearing a formal; installing a catheter (yes, girls did that); or even just "holding it" until you had the necessary time to get in and out of the thing. We're not like guys, we can't just unzip, whip it out, go, and tuck it away. Going potty is a lot more involved than that for a girl.

There are other considerations in a dress, ones that seldom get talked about. For instance, mine was backless. That meant no bra. That meant my boobs would be riding well down my chest and would move independent of the rest of me. I like attracting the male eye, but in a formal I want to do it with a combination of hair, dress, and make-up, not by giving them lewd thoughts. A guy can be relied upon to have those anyway. Fortunately there are solutions.

One girl on my floor found a bra that didn't have a strap in back. That was all right for her, Annette was small enough up top that she could wear one like that. But for the rest of us we had to go with "Plan B". In my case the dress had a built-in shelf-bra.

This is a fancy term for a fabric shelf cleverly sewn into the front of the dress that got under my boobs and held them up. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough I didn't feel unsupported, and trust me, that's a feeling a girl likes to avoid. She doesn't like to feel that her entire chest is being pulled down. It's an uncomfortable feeling, and any sort of vigorous activity, or even semi-vigorous, can make a girl feel like she has to tuck her arm under her boobs to hold them up. Watch girls with big bosoms play softball and you'll get the idea.

Of course guys want to know what else a girl is wearing under her dress. It's none of their business, at least with a formal. You don't plan to get naked with them, so why should it matter. The only thing you're concerned about is making sure the lines of the dress are clean and smooth. Does that mean you don't wear panties? Not necessarily. First, there are panties that don't leave visible lines. Second, there's pantyhose. Or you can go without. A girl feels sexy without underwear, but she doesn't necessarily feel "pretty". You do wear stockings, as a general rule. That's because your feet are visible, and so you do. That can mean tights, or pantyhose, patterned possibly, or of varying shades. There's a reason why, as formals dot the social landscape of Greek Row, pantyhose is so hard to find in the stores. Personally I hate them because they don't fit perfectly—not all girls are the same size down there—and they can pinch or rub in the most awkward places, and at the most inconvenient times. I defy someone to smile properly for the camera and the obligatory photograph when your pantyhose is pinching you between the legs.