by Graham Wynd
“Oh, you’ll meet the others in time. No rush!” Trixie laughed at the pun. “Sorry for that. I have an even better idea.” She leaned in and Sandra caught the scent of roses and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Let’s sneak away to the coffee bar.”
“Can you do that? Shouldn’t you be greeting people here?”
Trixie waved away the questions. “That’s why we have a committee!”
They slipped out the back of the house. Sandra was left with the impression of gothic darkness and little more. As Sigma Tau Nu was the last house, they cut through the woods at the edge of Greek Row, following a small path that led right to the back of the little college town main street.
“I hear there are drugs here sometimes,” Sandra couldn’t quite stop herself from saying.
Trixie laughed and took hold of her hand. “Silly rumors. There are some beatniks here, but they’re just seniors in disguise.” She laughed. “Everybody looks dangerous from the right perspective. But as in the rest of nature, real evil usually manages to camouflage itself – until it’s too late.”
Sandra steeled herself for a den of iniquity, but the Jacaranda disappointed in that regard. On the little stage a poet muttered incoherent lines while a bongo player erratically beat her drum. Trixie ordered some espresso and they sat as far from the stage as they could manage.
“We must look funny in our rush clothes,” Sandra said, taking in the black-clad denizens of the café.
“You look divine,” Trixie said, making Sandra blush again. “You could be a nymph frolicking in the woods.”
“Next to you I look silly. You look like… Miss Peggy Lee.” Sandra’s heart hammered as she wondered where she had finally found her voice.
Trixie laid a hand on her arm again. “You are so special and you don’t even know it. Where have you been hiding yourself, Sandra? Don’t hide your light. Bring it to us. You’ll join us, won’t you? We need you. Only you.”
Sandra felt abashed at so much flattery. “Me? What’s so special about me?”
Trixie grinned. “If only you knew.”
iv
“Great Father, we seek Your pleasure! Come to us!” Trixie stood naked before the altar, the athame raised over her head. The blade of the ceremonial knife reflected the flickering candles. “We call You by Your many names for we have learned You are legion. Join us in our rites and we will offer our pleasure in return.”
“We light these candles that we may bring You light,” Lois intoned as she struck a match. “Let them guide You to our place of worship.”
Around the two of them, a pale girl named Agnes was drawing a circle with a large piece of chalk. They were in the cellar of the Sigma Tau Nu house. The ceiling was rather low, so the taller girls had to stoop a little. The dampness of the room gave them all a bit of a chill especially on their exposed flesh, but they dutifully stripped for the ritual and carried out their parts, though most stayed on the rug Trixie had reluctantly agreed to lay in the center of the circle.
“Hail, horrors! Hail, infernal world! We spill this blood in your honour.” Trixie poured upon the altar a few drops of the blood they had all contributed. She touched a fingertip to the blood and then her forehead before passing the dish to Lois.
“Hail, Lucifer!” the sorority girls chanted in unison as they began passing the dish about the circle.
“We drink this wine in your honour,” Trixie said, brandishing the bottle of cheap Spanish plonk. Tipping back her head she poured a healthy dose down her throat then handed it to Lois. Each of the young women swilled some, giggling as they passed the bottle.
“Let our pleasure be Yours!” Trixie declared, laying the athame on top of the dish of blood on the altar and turning to her fellows. The Nus all squeezed together on the rug, wrapping their arms around one another and then kissing whoever was nearest. Before long the giggles evaporated as the kisses grew deeper and hands wandered more. Palms sought out the curve of breasts, fingers pinched nipples as their bodies crushed together making their own warmth.
Gradually they sank to the rug, arms, legs and bodies intertwined in a mass of gasping pleasure. Movements became more frantic as the moans increased. Trixie lay back grinning as her breasts were suckled and two of her acolytes traded kisses with her and each other. Lois worked avidly between her legs with practiced tongue and hands until Trixie shrieked with pleasure.
When they were all limp and satisfied, the ritual was declared over. Trixie yawned and sighed. It was great fun, but there was nothing transcendent yet. She wanted the ritual to work and so far it had not. “We need the thirteenth member,” she told Lois as together they showered away the blood, dust and sticky wine.
“Why does it have to be that girl?” Lois said with a pout that made her juicy lips look even larger. In her more intemperate moments, Trixie loved to nibble on their fleshy ripeness.
“You’re jealous,” Trixie said gently as she soaped her friend’s breasts in slow swirls. Lois closed her eyes and leaned back against the tiles. Trixie let her hand travel down the curving belly to the soft hair at her hips, then slipped her fingers between Lois’ thighs.
“I’m not,” Lois grumbled but then gasped as Trixie’s fingers tickled her sweet spot.
“What’s our rule?” Trixie leaned down to take a nipple between her lips.
For a moment Lois could only moan. Finally she sputtered, “Share and share alike.”
“Amen, Sister.”
Later, Trixie carefully recorded the ritual in her journal before heading off to meet Sandra. Her mother had given her a beautiful leather-bound notebook for her ‘college memories’: little did she know! The Jacaranda was a little more crowded this evening as more college kids braved the den of iniquity to get a jolt of caffeine. Instead of a poet, the stage boasted a small jazz trio hunched over their instruments as if afraid someone might actually hear them.
“So what does it mean to be a pledge for Sigma Tau Nu?” Sandra asked with a nervous laugh. Her pledge pin sparkled on the mohair sweater that, Trixie noticed, fitted her curves neatly. She wouldn’t have worn such a thing a week ago.
“I know you’ve heard horror stories of frats and sororities making pledges do degrading things. We’re not like that.” She grabbed Sandra’s hand for emphasis and the touch was electric. Trixie thought they both felt it. “We do have a little caper to carry out, but you don’t have to do it alone.”
“What is it?”
Before Trixie could answer, a couple of big Kappa guys in letter sweaters sat themselves down uninvited. “How about we take a turn around the dance floor?” the larger one said, putting a hand on Sandra’s shoulder. The girl quailed visibly. He was clearly a guy who knew how to bully.
“You can’t dance to jazz,” Trixie said, hoping her tone sounded as glacial as her heart.
“We could wiggle around the floor a little,” the Kappa said with a braying laugh. “I’d like to get to know her sweater – I mean, better!” The two guys guffawed at this witticism, their identical crew cuts bobbing in unison.
Trixie stood up, tugging Sandra along with her. “We were just leaving.” She ignored their catcalling disappointment and rushed Sandra out the door and into the street with a shudder.
“Thank you. I never know what to do in that kind of situation. I feel so cowed.”
“You’re meant to,” Trixie said, the words almost coming out as a growl. “They’re bullies and brutes. I hate that kind of guy. They think they’re entitled to do whatever they want, just because they’re Kappas.”
“I don’t think I like men,” Sandra said with a crooked grin as they paused on the corner to catch their breath. “I haven’t had any good experiences, I guess.”
“Here’s to good experiences,” Trixie murmured as she kissed Sandra’s cheek. “Like our pledge task.”
“Uh oh,” Sandra said, her eyes shining as she touched her cheek in wonder. She looked so much more beautiful when she was happy. “What is it?”
&nb
sp; Trixie laughed and took Sandra’s arm in her own. “It’s really just a kind of prank, but it’s to right a wrong that was done a long time ago.”
“Righting a wrong sounds good.”
“Technically, it’s breaking a law, but it’s really just a prank. We can’t get in trouble for it, even if we were to get caught,” Trixie promised. “But we won’t get caught.”
“Well, what is it?”
“You know the scepter outside the chancellor’s office?”
“Yeah…”
“We’re going to steal it!”
v
Sandra could feel her heart beating in her chest. She was afraid it was audible in the quiet hallway. Trixie crept ahead of her and Sandra felt another surge of happiness in her new friend. Everything had improved since she met the Sigma Tau Nu girls. She no longer felt the crushing despair that had settled on her since last summer.
It was mostly Trixie. Everything she did seemed amazing. The last thing Sandra pictured herself doing in college was breaking into the administration building one night to steal a ceremonial scepter. It almost felt like something the Marx Brothers would cook up. But there was an element of danger to the crime, too. They had entered by way of the window in the staff bathroom. Sandra couldn’t help admiring Trixie’s perfect derrière as she shimmied through first. Marilyn Monroe could not look better. Sandra blushed. Somehow she didn’t think Trixie would mind her saying so. She was just so… nice.
And friendly! Sandra mostly felt shy around other girls. Except for Cindy and, well, after the incident she thought she should hold back. It was as if other girls knew. But not Trixie. She actually went out of her way to be relaxed and chummy. Sandra was so grateful.
Here they were, about to steal the chancellor’s scepter and though she ought to feel embarrassed or scared or something, all she felt was a kind of giddy happiness. Somehow sneaking down the dark corridor only added to the elation. Maybe this is why criminals commit crimes.
Trixie waved her up to the corner and slipped an arm around her waist. It felt completely natural and her smile seemed to light up the darkness. “We have to figure out some way of prying the cabinet open. It’s only glass but it’s locked.”
They looked both ways down the opposite hallways. All was silence. The two young women crept over to the cabinet. One side was full of sports trophies, debate ribbons and photos of illustrious alumni. The other side had pictures of old men and the big scepter and a kind of necklace. Sandra had seen the chancellor wear it at the convocation at the start of the semester. But the glass doors were locked. “Have you ever jimmied a lock?” Trixie asked.
“No…” Inspiration hit Sandra. “What have you got in your purse?”
They dumped the contents of their purses on the linoleum. Sandra grabbed a pair of tweezers that had fallen out of Trixie’s bag and used the thin tine to loosen one of the screws that held the lock in place.
“You are so clever!” Trixie clapped her hands together quietly as she could. In another minute the lock fell off. She reached to open the glass door, but Sandra stopped her.
“Fingerprints!” She grabbed the handkerchief from her bag and used it to slide the glass door open. “Don’t you watch Dragnet?”
“I’m glad you do!” Trixie reached for the scepter – or mace as the label below it said. It was a long silver stick with engravings and rings around it and on top a big blue stone in a kind of claw. It looked like something a medieval knight might carry. “Let’s go.”
They giggled and ran hand in hand all the way back to the Sigma Tau Nu house. The place was quiet when they got there. Sandra glanced at the clock. It was past eleven. So late! The time had flown by.
“We need to hide this for now. I know just where. C’mon!” Trixie dragged her to the stairs and they climbed to the top. Sandra had to smother the giggles that wanted to rise up from her lips so they didn’t wake the other girls. At the top of the stair Trixie reached up to pull a cord. Laddered steps came down and telescoped into place.
The two climbed up into the attic. It was much larger than Sandra expected.
“It was cleared out at one point when they planned to renovate, but somehow it never happened. We store some things up here,” Trixie added pulling a mask from a box of Halloween decorations, “But not much.”
“Wow, you could put a seat in front of this window and have a nice little reading nook.” Sandra peered into the darkness outside, but only saw her own ghostly reflection.
“We should use this space instead of the cellar for…” Trixie trailed off, suddenly looking like she had said something wrong. “Events,” she finished weakly.
“Events?”
“Here, let’s put the scepter in this for now,” Trixie said, slipping the silver wand into the folds of a big bear rug that sat on a pile of blankets. “No one’s going to come up here anytime soon.”
They climbed back down the ladder and padded along the hall to Trixie’s room. “Let’s a have glass of sherry to celebrate.” She got out two little glasses and poured the wine from a decanter on the silver tray.
Everything about Trixie was so stylish. Sandra felt like a child beside her, so unworldly. But there was something that had stuck in her mind and it itched in her memory. “What did you mean about events in the cellar?”
Trixie looked at her with a smile, though the rest of her face was serious. “We’re not just a sorority. We have other… interests.”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever been interested in magic?”
Sandra’s hand with the glass froze halfway to her mouth. “Magic?”
Trixie nodded. “I know we live in a scientific age – the Sputnik age. But there are ancient secrets, ancient knowledge that has lasted through the ages because it works.”
“Ancient knowledge?” Sandra repeated the words in wooden tones though her heart had started hammering again.
“That stone for instance,” Trixie said, before throwing back the last of her sherry with a flip of the wrist. “Before it was part of this ceremonial stick it belonged to one of the founders of the college, the artist known as Leonorini.”
“That name rings a bell.” Sandra felt an excitement that she had never known before, as if a door were opening in front of her. All she needed was the courage to walk through it. “Surrealist, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, and she held secret rituals in her salon, magic rituals. They were said to be very effective. She didn’t have a child to pass her knowledge on to, so she gave the stone that was the center of her altar to this college and its founders.” Her eyes flashed as if momentarily possessed by something more than human.
“And they turned it into a scepter.”
“We are going to turn it back into magic,” Trixie said, her voice full of emotion as she clasped Sandra’s hands in hers. “Do you want to be initiated? Do you want to be part of it all?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
“Yes!”
vi
“Oh great Father! Come amongst us to anoint this child of Yours!” Trixie held aloft the athame once more, her face shining with pure joy despite the trails of blood that streaked down it. “Bring the light.”
“Bring the light!” the other Nus chanted together.
Trixie turned to regard their initiate. Sandra stood naked in the center of the circle, her eyes blindfolded, her hands bound together. Her whole body clenched tightly with anxiety and anticipation, which only made her look more sexy in the candlelight. The nipples on her small breasts stood out like stems even though it was warm in the room. The attic was indeed a much better location for their rituals. No one had to duck except at the edges and the wood floor was much nicer on their bare feet. The blue stone from the scepter now took pride of place on the altar.
“To enter our circle you must be clear of all deceit and fear. Do you wish to be among us?”
“I do.”
“Do you swear allegiance to your sisters?”
�
�I do.”
“Do you wish to share our magic?”
“Oh yes, I do.”
“Then swear with us that you worship the Father of the light and dedicate yourself to His service.”
“We swear.” The young women spoke as one, their voices ringing out together.
Trixie took in their serious expressions with a swelling sense of pride in her sorority. She grabbed the wine bottle and raised it aloft. “I drink to my sisters. Let us be as one.” The tart red wine tasted so good. She wiped her mouth and then guided the bottle to Sandra’s mouth. Her lips parted and she drank the wine, a little spilling to run in a red rivulet between her breasts.
“I drink to my sisters. Let us be as one.” Sandra’s voice was quiet but clear. She smiled.
“Let us be as one,” Trixie said, leaning in to kiss Sandra, softly at first and then with growing passion. The other girls cheered and passed the wine around and soon they were all pressing in toward the center, kissing and touching Sandra’s bare skin. She stood stiffly at first but gradually gave way to the pleasure seekers around her.
Trixie loosened the cord around her hands and untied the blindfold. “One of us,” she whispered. Sandra’s face mirrored passion and uncertainty. Trixie stepped up to cup her face in both hands. “You are one of us now. We do not accept shame. We only love. We are all magic together.”
Tears fell down Sandra’s cheeks, mingling with the blood and wine. “I don’t… I have for so long… I thought I was the only one.”
“Most of us were afraid before we came together here.” Trixie kissed her again as the other girls continued to caress them both, murmuring agreement, making comforting noises like mothers to children. “We are strong together. We are strong as one. And now, you are one of us.”
“One of us,” the other sisters repeated as they circled around. “One of us.” Sandra closed her eyes and Trixie thrust an eager tongue into her mouth and wrapped her arms around the girl as they sank to the floor. Soon the thirteen all writhed together, the ritual rising to its climax as the young women moaned, kissed and thrust flesh against flesh.