Chapter 15
Cautiously, following the directions of Deeana Mason, Eleanor descended the stairs and, led by the wrist like all the other pledges, at last came down the narrow flight that led to the recreation room. As with the others, the presiding officer of the sorority-this time it was Laura Caldwell-demanded to know who was being brought before the secret group, and Deeana spoke for Eleanor, while, a moment later, and from across the room, Liz Valcour announced the appearance of Kathy before her peers.
Eleanor couldn't help smiling when Laura ordered her prepared for the first test and she felt Deeana draw off her pumps. "You'd better take off those toreador pants because you can't keep your stockings on, pledge," Deeana sharply whispered. "Oh, sure, I know what's coming," Eleanor said aloud. "This is silly, really."
"Silence, pledge, and obey the instructions of your Big Sister," Laura reprimanded her for the tribunal table. Eleanor shrugged, then removed the belt, next tugged down the zipper of the toreador pants and wriggled out of them. She wore white silk panties and a white satin-elastic garter belt, and the murmurs of admiration at the display of her superb legs and hips consoled her for this humiliation of having to undress. She couldn't help whispering to Deeana, who was busily engaged in undoing the garter belt tabs from the charcoal-brown nylons and then expertly drawing off the gauzy sheaths, "Make Kathy show her figure off too, Dee. Let's see who's got a nicer shape, hm?"
Barelegged at last, Eleanor was led by Deeana to the wide bucket, and told to step into it. To her right, she could hear Liz Valcour telling Kathy, in a low voice, to do the same thing. If this wasn't the stupidest initiation-anybody with brains knew these weren't real worms, just plain old spaghetti. Well, let them have their childish fun. Tomorrow, she'd be one of them, with the privilege of initiating the next crop of pledges-that is, if she was still at Marwell. Well, she would be, but not as a student. She'd be Mrs. Mark Torrance.
"Now what?" she whispered to Deeana after the latter had at last told her she might step out of the pail.
"Just do as you're told for a change," was the sandy-haired prexy's terse reply.
And then Laura Caldwell ordered the two rivals prepared for the second test. Forced to kneel down, Eleanor protested against the indignity: "I can do it myself, just tell me what you want me to do," and was again reprimanded for her outburst. Told that she was to submit to the ritualistic brand, she giggled. "Rub the ice on me, I'm ready."
But instead of the expected cold sting of the ice sliver against her chest-her blouse having been removed just as Ruth's had been at the commencement of these ceremonies-Eleanor suddenly uttered an angry cry and lunged forward against her captors. A paddle had landed full across her jutting buttocks, all too thinly covered by the snug white silk panties. "Hey, no fair!" she cried out.
"That's for impudence, pledge," Laura told her. "Now will you keep quiet till you're told to speak?"
"Oh, all right," Eleanor grumbled, and was rewarded with a second, even more vigorous swat. "Owww! What do you want me to say?"
"You're still a lowly pledge, Landers, and we expect humility and deference. Now let's try again," Laura prompted. "Are you ready for the test?"
Squirming uncomfortably on her bare knees, Eleanor controlled the impulse to express herself vehemently, and muttered in a low voice, "Yes, I'm ready."
Prepared though she was for the ice, she couldn't suppress a gasp and shiver as its sharp point pressed home against her creamy skin and traced the letters of DGT. Then she was ordered to rise, and Deeana, taking her by the wrist, led her back to the main entry of the recreation room.
"Take off your blouse," Deeana ordered, and Eleanor, her head held high with defiance, dragged the unbuttoned blouse over each wrist in turn, then flung it to the floor, fuming with insolence. So now they were going to make her run the mill. All right, she was ready, and then it would be all over. But she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of the slightest outcry.
"On all fours, pledge, and crawl forward till you are told to stop," Deeana said to her, and Eleanor, flushing at the humiliation, complied. Well, at least that milksop Kathy would be going through the same ordeal. She'd show the DGT crowd that she had more guts than that four-eyed little goody-good!
Liz Valcour, over to her right, was readying Kathy Edwards for the gauntlet. Her glasses first removed and then the bandanna bound over her eyes like the other pledges, the charming young brunette had chosen a pleated white cotton skirt and matching blouse, sandals and half-sox as her initiation costume; now she was barefooted and crouching on palms and knees, awaiting the signal to proceed. Deeana Mason, walking over to one of the wooden benches on which the paddles had been piled, chose a narrow oval-shaped instrument whose surface had been carefully sandpapered to smoothness, springy and flexible and went back to the tribunal table. Meanwhile, the sorority members lined up in two rows, single file, each row facing one of the waiting pledges, spreading their legs and brandishing their paddles. Eleanor and Kathy would crawl "through the mill."
"Go ahead, pledges," Deeana called aloud, and the gauntlet began. Eleanor, determined to get this last ordeal over with as quickly as possible, hastened forward. But she couldn't help calling out to Kathy over to her right, "I'll bet I get through before you do, and I'll bet they make you cry before I do, too, teacher's pet!"
But now the moment of truth had come. First in the line of seventeen girls facing blindfolded, approaching Eleanor was grimfaced Cissy Williams. And as the redhead scrambled between her stocky legs, the DGT senior clamped her legs round Eleanor's waist and dealt her a wickedly smacking swat with her rectangular-shaped paddle over her upturned, panty-sheathed behind. The sonorous impact rang out noisily, and Eleanor, startled by the furious bruising shock, uttered an indignant "Oww!" which was answered by giggles from the others waiting ahead of Cissy to "welcome" the haughty candidate for DGT sisterhood.
Gritting her teeth, the blindfolded redhead squirmed and wriggled onward through the maze of straddled legs. But her progress wasn't so swift as she had hoped, for every now and then, she would feel the clutch of one of the girls' legs against her middle and the thudding crack of the paddle punctuated this involuntary pause. Infuriated at the indignity of this public chastisement, her face reddened, her lips tightly compressed, she struggled on, scrambling forward as fast as she could, always slowed by the flurry of descending blows from the flexible pinewood paddles lofted over her, her bare knees chafed against the cold stone floor.
It seemed like an eternity before she passed between the legs of the last girl in tine, Laura Caldwell, the vice-president, who swept her paddle down with all her might and drew a strident "Damn it, that hurts!" from the gasping, squirming redhead. And then she sensed that it was over, because there were no more paddles landing against her throbbing posterior, and she crouched, panting for breath, shifting from knee to knee to ease the intolerably smarting pangs of this final test.
"Thank goodness it's over," she exclaimed aloud. "Now can I get up and take this silly blindfold off."
"Not quite yet, pledge," Deeana Mason's voice was straight ahead of her as the sandy-haired prexy coldly regarded the crouching blindfolded redhead from her seat at the head of the table. "Before we can admit you to rightful membership in our ranks, we must submit you to an interrogation. Prepare her for it, sisters! And let the other pledge be equally prepared!"
"What do you mean-what's this all about-I-hey, take your hands off of me," Eleanor angrily protested as two girls seized her by the wrists and drew her to her feet, then pulled her over toward the table. Planting her feet, she tried to hold back, but two other DGT members behind her applied their paddles crisply over the thin white panties, and with a yell of pain Eleanor lunged forward. She was drawn over the table, draped along it, while her first two captors stood behind it, holding her wrists as tightly as they could. Meanwhile, two other girls had led Kathy Edwards forward to the table, about four feet to the right of the struggling, raging Eleanor, and held her down in similar fashion.
At Deeana's sign, Cissy Williams stationed herself to the left of the redhead, paddle at the ready, while Liz Valcour placed herself behind and slightly to Kathy's left, paddle in hand.
Silence had fallen on the recreation room, broken only by Eleanor's panting gasps as she tugged at her captors' grasp to break her wrists free of their relentless hold. "I've had enough of this nonsense, do you hear?" she cried out. "I went through the mill, I passed the tests, so why don't you take me in? What's this interrogation all about?"
"Pledge Landers," Deeana rose from her seat at the head of the table, whence she faced both draped-over blindfolded pledges, "you've been with us on probation in our house long enough to know our rules and our code of ethics. Yes, you've passed the tests. But I am still not satisfied that you've shown your worthiness as a true Delta Gamma Theta member. For we expect every DGT girl to be truthful and honest in her dealings with her fellow sisters as with others, and never to accuse or falsely involve another member in her own wrongdoing."
"Oh, stop sounding off like a preacher, Dee!" Eleanor exasperatedly cried, again tugging at her wrists. "Get to the point and get this silliness done with so I can put my clothes back on."
"Keep still, pledge," Deeana Mason snapped, "Cissy and Liz, get ready for my signal."
"We hear and obey, Madame President," Liz pertly responded, taking a firmer grip on the taped handle of her paddle and eyeing Kathy's voluptuous nether curves, temptingly thrusting against the cling of the white pleated skirt.
"Now then, Pledge Landers," Deeana's voice was crisp and imperious, "try to refresh your memory. Do you recall the letter you volunteered to mail when you came to my room that Sunday?"
"Y-yes, of course."
"And you told me you met Kathy and since she was going out first, you gave it to her to mail?"
"T-that's what I said, y-yes," Eleanor quavered, wetting her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.
"Oh, it's not so," Kathy exclaimed fervently from her bent-over position across the tribunal table.
Deeana raised her right hand slowly. Simultaneously, Cissy and Liz lifted their paddles, then brought them down with emphasis over the flinching rotundities so vulnerably at their disposal. There was a muffled gasp from Kathy, who stiffened and raised her blindfolded face; Eleanor uttered an angry cry of pain: "Damn it, cut that out, haven't you paddled me enough already? I'll be black and blue for a week!"
"It seems, Pledge Landers, that your companion doesn't confirm your story about the letter. Let's try again. You still maintain you gave it to Kathy?"
Eleanor squirmed uncomfortably, drawn tightly across the top of the table as she was, her smarting flesh ruefully reminding her of the spreading, irksome warmth in the most prominent portion of her delectable anatomy. She drew a shuddering breath. "I-I slipped it into her coat, and-and I thought she'd mail it when she went out," she at last averred in a low, quivering voice.
"Ah, that's a little different from your original version, isn't it, Pledge Landers? And yet, when I asked you about it the other day, you assured me it was mailed, didn't you?"
"I-I-" Eleanor began, feverishly searching for the right words to extricate herself from this supremely mortifying predicament. Then she dragged against her captors' hold. "Let me up, you've got no right to be so highhanded, and-Owwww!" For Deeana's hand had risen again, and Cissy Williams, grinning with vindictive delight, launched another clacking stroke of the paddle over the redhead's scantily veiled and now furiously inflamed seat.
"Goddamn you!" Eleanor swore hysterically, kicking and twisting with all her might, "you cut that out! I mean it!"
"We don't appreciate profanity, Pledge Landers. Answer my question!" Deeana demanded.
Again she made the sign with her right hand, and for the third time Cissy's paddle collided sharply with Eleanor's frantically squirming rear.
"Ahrrr! Stop it, you're hurting me! Yes-yes-I said it was mailed-now let me up, do you hear? If this is the way you treat people, I'm not so sure I want to join your lousy old sorority anyway!" Eleanor stormed, her voice quivering with angry sobs.
"I'm not so sure we want you either, for that matter, Landers," Deeana icily rejoined. She nodded to the girls holding Kathy's wrists, and the brunette was promptly freed, Liz moving over to whisper something into the charming pledge's ear. Kathy slowly rubbed her seat, then stood, arms at her sides, facing the tribunal table.
"Now then," Deeana continued, motioning to Liz Valcour to take a place at Eleanor's right, "I want the absolute truth, or you'll be sorry, Landers. Didn't you put that letter in Kathy's coat with the express purpose of blaming its not being mailed on her, because you don't like her?"
"I don't have to answer a question like that, you-oww-ahrr-oh stop it, stop it!" For this time both paddles swung across the redhead's but-thrust panty-sheathed bottom, and Eleanor tugged madly at her tethered wrists.
"Talk, or you'll get it till you do, pledge," Deeana exclaimed, standing up and leaning forward to watch the contorted, tearstained blindfolded face of the culprit. Again she lifted her right hand, and again both paddles swept over Eleanor's exacerbated posterior.
"Ahrr-stop, stop, yes, yes, I did it-now let me go! Damn you to hell, all of you, for torturing me this way!" Eleanor cried hysterically, beside herself.
"That's better. We've already shown you to be a liar and a deliberately malicious cheat. That's bad enough, and pledges have been dropped from DGT for far less, I can assure you. But so that all of us can be satisfied as to your real nature, I'm going to ask you to recall one final conversation you had with me concerning two Friday night dates."
"I don't have to tell you anything more, Dee! Why are you persecuting me? I thought you were my friend-"
Deeana Mason ignored the redhead's overwrought protest, and addressed the other girls: "You know, fellow sisters, we have a rule that no pledge shall date anyone on campus till after Hell Week and her official acceptance into our ranks. Pledge Landers on two successive Friday nights left the house and met a man, by her own admission-"
"I won't have you talking about my private life-you've got no right, I told you in confidence-" Eleanor screamed out. But again the sandy-haired senior prexy of DGT ignored her: "When I asked Pledge Landers about this, she informed me that she hadn't broken the letter of the rule, because she had dated a member of the faculty-"
"No! Damn you to hell, Deeana Mason, I forbid you, I-oww-ahrr-ohh don't-ohh stop it!" Deeana Mason had whirled and raised her right hand and waved it in the air; Cissy and Liz applied a series of three simultaneous spanks across the tightly proffered pantie-snugged posterior of the raging, struggling redhead. When they stopped, Eleanor burst into convulsive sobs, shifting from bare foot to foot, tugging relendessly at her captors' grasp on her slim wrists.
"A member of the faculty," Deeana went on as if she hadn't been interrupted. "She confided in me-and it's true I told her I wouldn't reveal the secret-that this professor had proposed to her. But just in case he forgot, she told me, she had taken the precaution of bringing along a miniature tape recorder to the rendezvous, with the full intention of blackmailing him into marrying her later on in case the offer wasn't forthcoming as she expected. I submit, fellow sisters of DGT, that we have no room for such an unscrupulous pledge. How do you vote?"
"Blackball her!" came a chorused shout from the breathlessly watching girls.
Crushed, shamed, agonized by the paddling, Eleanor hysterically cried out a last defiance: "Okay, okay, so blackball me! Who the hell wants to join a crummy group of small-town hicks like you anyway? I've got what I wanted. Yes, he'll marry me, and then you'll all see!"
"I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed, Landers," Deeana said calmly. "You see, it's Professor Mark Torrance you dated. And it happens that he's my cousin."
"Your-your c-cousin?" Eleanor incredulously repeated as tears streamed down her flushed cheeks.
"Yes. I saw no need to mention it. After all, he's a mature adult, quite capable of making his own decisions. But then, after Kathy found the letter in her coat pocket and came to me with it, and told me how you'd acted towards her here in the house and in class-which she did, I may add, entirely at my insistent request for information and asking me at the time please not to hurt you in any way because she had been obliged to talk about the matter-I felt that I couldn't keep your secret any longer. To take a recorder along when you go to bed with a man and to boast to me that you did, cousin or no cousin, confidence or no confidence, is absolutely shocking and contemptible. Let her go, girls!"
Eleanor slowly straightened, wincing with pain and rushing both hands to her burning rear. Cissy disdainfully unknotted the bandanna, and Eleanor found herself looking into the lovely, grave face of Deeana Mason.
"You've been blackballed, Landers, so we expect you to pack your things and leave the house as soon as possible. Help her dress, Cissy. I declare this secret initiation session of Delta Gamma Theta at an end."