Anita starts

"Well, I'm not ready to go on record saying that I won't have any regrets," Anita said, breaking a ten-second awkward silence, "but I WILL say that I sure as hell enjoyed myself last night."

"So did I, and I'm sure that surprises no one," Sam added.

"It certainly doesn't surprise me," Eric said, "but then, nothing you do ever does anymore." The smile took any sting out of her words.

"What about the rest of you?" Anita asked. "And let's not complicate things by being anything but totally honest. We just had a seven-way all-girl orgy, this isn't the time to suddenly get coy about our real feelings."

Cathy puzzled to herself for a moment. It certainly HAD felt really good at the time, even though some of the specifics were still clouded by liquor. She imagined that she would feel violated and used if she'd just had the same experience with six guys, but somehow the fact that they were all girls... well, it sort of leveled the playing field, made it so they were all on equal ground.

Suki drew in a sobbing breath, and everyone turned to look at her. "I... I am ashamed," she said, in a quivering voice. "This is not how I was raised to behave. I do not blame any of you, it is my own lack of discipline which led me here. I do not want to be the kind of girl who... I do not know the word in English, but in Japanese we say, Fushidarana on'na. It means, a woman of low character who offers her body to anyone."

There was an even more awkward silence after that.

After a long moment, Allison stood up and walked over to Suki, who seemed to be holding back tears. She had a strange look on her face, as if it were trying to express an emotion which she hadn't been prepared to feel. She sat down next to Suki, and took her hand so that the Asian girl would turn to look at her.

"Um, Suki," Allison said, "I have to admit, I was ready to go all ballistic on everyone in here, pack my bags, and storm out of the house. But... that's not right. Look, I'm feeling pretty ashamed myself. I don't know what happened that made us all go so crazy like that, but... I mean, look at it this way - what harm did it really do?"

Suki seemed confused, and just sat in silence.

"I mean, it's not like any of us are going to get pregnant," Allison said with a smirk.

Suki suddenly giggled, which seemed to break a terribly heavy tension in the room. Jo started chuckling too, and it became infectious. Soon, the entire room was in an uproar, the girls practically falling against each other in a laughing fit. Cathy found herself hugging Anita, and oddly enough, it felt perfectly natural to do so - not in a sexual way, not this time, but in the manner of close friends who had known each other for years instead of most of a day.

"Oh God, we needed that," Jo said, rubbing her eyes under her glasses. "Look, let's just agree that last night happened, it was a wild and crazy time, and we're not going to get our knickers in a bunch over it -"

"I'm not wearing any," Sam interjected.

"That's SO not helping," Eric admonished.

"You're not wearing any either."

"That's beside the point!"

"ANYWAY," Jo resumed, "We've all got a first day of classes that's starting in about ten minutes, and we don't need all this weighing on our minds, so let's just put it away for now and talk about it later. As long as we can all just agree that no one here is mad at anyone else, I think we can get through the day and deal with the situation tonight. Are we agreed?"

"Works for me," Anita said.

Suki took a deep breath, nodded and smiled.

"I'm good," Cathy agreed, and the rest of the girls voiced their general approval.

"OK, that's settled then," Jo said. "There's just one thing... can someone help me find my bra? Because I've felt around everywhere and I'll be damned if I can lay hands on it. The saleslady said it's blue, if that helps."