Sally

You are SALLY, a university student in Florida who has just recently pledged to a notorious sorority called CCL: Chicks Cum Loud. You thought that it would be a way to change your life, but you still haven’t found the courage to tell your family. They will be upset if they find out that you’re gay, and even more upset that you’re hanging out with CCL.

That stress in the back of your mind is not making school any easier.

You sigh and get up, gathering your things from the table as the instructor tells you all that it’s okay to leave five minutes early. It’s your last class of the day. You follow the others out and leave the science building, where you’re startled at how gray the sky has gotten. It’s cooled off a lot too. You look up in surprise. It’s definitely going to rain. You get out your phone, and it beeps at you. Severe weather warning. Yikes.

You better get back to the house. It’s Friday night. That means that stuff is about to get wild. Amy has strict rules about not going too crazy on school nights, but Fridays? That’s when they initiate new pledges, drink, eat junk food, and sometimes hook up.

You pause and look around, wondering if you’ll get a glimpse of Lotte, the Dutch CCL officer. Nobody seems to like Lotte very much, but she’s very nice to you. You are a bit biased, you have to admit. Your third night living in CCL house, Lotte came onto you, drunk, and you went to bed with her. The next day you were so flustered that you confessed to her that you had given her your virginity.

That seemed to surprise her. She’s been nice to you since, but nothing else has happened. You aren’t sure what’s going on. She’s really pretty, and you like her a lot. You wouldn’t mind doing that again. You think about it all the time, but you aren’t brave enough to make a move.

You know that Lotte fools around with other girls, but you still have hope that she likes you. She was your first, after all. Maybe tonight, if everyone’s drinking, you can get some time alone with her…

You also heard a rumor that they’re going to initiate one of the pledges, but you don’t know who. Probably Kylie or Rey, because those two have been pledges the longest. They are due to become officers. Scary.

You really do want to be in CCL. You want Lotte to see you as an equal, but the thought of going through an initiation is very scary. You were there for Sun’s initiation, and it was terrifying. Of course, the joke was on Amy and the others because Sun fooled everyone. She acted shy as a pledge, and so to initiate her they made her do something embarrassing. It turns out that Sun is a huge exhibitionist who is happy to masturbate in front of a crowd and squirt on the face of an officer.

Your body tingles at the memory. In your whole life, you had never been exposed to that kind of raw, pornographic sexuality. It’s… memorable.

You spot some blonde hair and get your hopes up for a second, but it’s not Lotte.

It’s Ingrid, the Swedish officer. You don’t know her very well, but she’s very sweet and doesn’t fit in at CCL at all from what you can see. Everyone loves her, but… You watch her, wondering what she’s up to, but she just sits alone on the small stone wall that surrounds the flower bed in the middle of the quad. Her phone is probably from Sweden. You wonder if she got the weather alert. You should probably tell her so she doesn’t get rained on.

You hurry over.

“Ingrid, are you OK?” you ask.

She looks up in surprise. “Hello,” she says.

“Hi. It’s going to rain.”

Ingrid looks up and sighs, but doesn’t move.

“Are you OK?” you repeat.

She gives you a little smile. “I am not looking forward to tonight,” she says in her poor English.

Wild CCL nights are not for everyone. Even you aren’t totally comfortable with them, so you are not surprised that Ingrid feels this way. She looks very sad. You want to hug her.

Your phone starts to ring. You look down distractedly. It’s Amy.

Take the call from Amy?

Or give Ingrid a hug?