Chapter 2
Internal Relations
Her rhythmic hip-tosses ground her knees and elbows into the groaning sofabed's mattress as Nora humped her hunk. She had her eyes welded tight. Her nipples flicked and whipped his chest at each satisfying downward drive.
His fingertips ran along her spine, down her hips, leaving lava-bright trails. She moaned in bliss. Her bouncing loins slapped his smartly. She felt ignited by the meaty maypole she rode, rode, rode.
She felt gloriously in command of her body. Woman power! Freedom to drive on toward orgasm-to linger and let her blood boil on the edge of detonation-to come when and how she liked.
His palms toyed with her undulating hindcheeks. He stroked her thighs. Fingers kneaded her flesh as she swung her hips side to side, varying the pace and the motion.
She ground her belly against his and held still. His palms spanked her buttocks lightly. Right globe, left globe, right globe-she giggled and bucked her bod in a glorious rush of passion. His teasing, slapping hands urged her on.
Her tingling bottom fed the devouring lust in her cunt-in her ravenous, furious cunt, cunt, CUNT- she wanted to envelope him, to squeeze and absorb him-to merge with his body till they lay in oozy, salty, crumpled afterglow.
His lips kissed and bit her sweating throat as dark, cat-savage growls burst from her. White sheets of lightning contracted her vagina. She gurgled and screamed, blind in fulfilled ardor.
His hands gripped her backside, massaging, demanding.
Her ribs and breasts dripped with hot runnels of sweat. Her love grove imploded and her legs threshed mindlessly.
His fingers clung to her wild thighs. She braced her forearms, then her shaking knees. Her hips rose and dipped in irregular bursts. The bright lightning in her guts surged to bum at her throat. Blood pounded in her.
She ground and groveled against his loins, his hard chest, his adorable male flesh ... the low, grunting cries begged for release, for consummation . . . her orgasm rolled and peaked, retreated and crested . . . She hugged herself against him. Her skin felt slick and cold, but her muscles sang, hot and alive. He began to buck upwards, seeking his own climax, kissing and cuddling as she huddled" on top of him.
Nora coiled herself beside Scott, under the blessedly cozy covers. Her limbs felt luxuriously heavy. Her mind drifted at peace, united with the stars and the deep earth.
He moved, opening a flap. He took a towel from the endtable. The scent drifted to her as he peeled the wet condom off. He tossed it in the plastic-lined waste basket. Cool air wafted against her moist skin while he mopped himself.
"This sorority business. I don't know."
He left her side and prowled naked across her living space. He sloshed the black bottle in the silver bucket on her all-purpose table.
"There's enough champagne for a last glass." He found one of her hand-blown Danish flutes and poured the crisp, clean Lanson.
His feet drummed as he came back to her bed. "Nora? It's afternoon-do we call this a nightcap?" "A stirrup cup," she murmured lazily.
Rachel Tamura faced the table of twelve other sorority officers, plus Lucretia Sue, the sole alumna. The Japanese-American's brick-squat figure filled out her beige jumpsuit. She tapped the treasurer's account book ominously.
"We'll have to start without Wanda. Finance-wise, Sig-ma's in deep spit."
"Ladies of the Science Council," muttered Susie Salton, "Krypton is doomed."
"Not that bad, not yet. Our account at the national organization is still floatable, though it's sinking gradually."
"It's nothing that's not perfectly obvious." Sarah Bothington's British tones trilled. "We girls constitute the executive committee, which is traditionally the upper tier of actives, elected to lead while the lower tier girls form the working committees-"
"I believe Sarah means that we're the exec com and we are also the only actives this Sigma chapter has at all." Shandel'la Ruse pursed wide, lovely lips and furrowed her coffee-black brow.
"We did attract bids from nine girls, including some sophs." Rachel patted the ledger.
"And what about this older girl?" Delinda Humphrey demanded. "Is this for real? Is that just a money thing, because we're desperate for pledges?"
"The qualifications of the ninth bid meet all our standards." Irene Engelhinte's voice could etch glass, courtesy of her German father. She had a nasal, Eastern Seaboard accent, but Lucretia Sue always found herself thinking of jackboots on the march whenever the Sigma chapter president spoke.
"I'll admit that age has to be considered." Irene leaned forward at the head of the table. The waves of bronze tint streaking her black hair perfectly complemented her lustrous olive skin.
"I've asked Maxine and Gerry to research further, but I want to hear if anyone has objections to their decision being final." Irene surveyed them, her eyes hard as chipped flint. "Or are we back to those silly white and black balls Sigma dropped a generation ago?"
"Of course," Delinda remarked acidly, "they can't actually talk to the bid. It's Panhellenic Gospel to keep the rule of Silence, to prevent any undue pressure from influencing potential pledges."
"Dee-Dee, we know the written rules." The house president glared. "Do you object to Maxine and Gerry having the final yes or no? Does anyone?"
"Rachel, will you cover any bets with the chapter's money? Ten of my personal dollars to every one of Sig-ma's, cash on the line. I bet that this new girl gets accepted." Delinda stared rigidly at Irene. "I'll put up cash or certified check, this afternoon. Any amount you stake."
"No bet." Rachel shook her jet-black, heavy helmet of hair. "We need the money for party supplies if we want to host the bids."
"Buy smaller kegs," Susie suggested.
"I get those Anchor Steam tappers at wholesale price from the brewery. Gordy gives us a great deal." Rachel folded her arms defensively.
Lucretia Sue watched Delinda's finger trace dollar signs on the bright gloss of the varnished dinner table. She studied Gerry Vestry's heart-shaped face under its spun honey hair. The chapter's vice-president in charge of pledge training seemed a tad distracted. Perhaps the cane welts still bothered her.
The woman glanced around. So intent, so serious they all seemed. In a few years, the house would be a comfortably memory and real problems would be eating up their energy and concern.
Lucretia Sue smiled. If only the girls knew how carefree their college years would appear in hindsight.
Gerry Vestry saw her own face rippling back at her in the sideboard's glass doors as she stood bent, fingers cupped over her knees. Her hem had been pinned to her blouse. Dark tangerine-toned panties rumpled at her white-socked ankles.
"Ooooo, colorful little devils." The precise contralto contained a chuckle.
"Someone knew how to punish a bottom."
"Those mauve splotches with the inky speckling look tender." The third voice ended in a nasal giggle. Gerry Vestry wondered how Irene had survived so long without being strangled.
Uncaring fingers explored the long, lean marks left days ago by an English whipping cane. Her leg muscles tightened. She felt her spectacles slip slightly.
"Feet a bit wider, Gerry . . . Thank you. The cheeks must really have indented for the strokes to bruise along the inner cleft like that.'' "It all lends a good deal of credence to her story." Shandel'la Ruses low, merry voice didn't comfort the bare cheeked girl any.
"It's a good story."
"A very good story."
"And here's the beef." A hand firmly squeezed sore flesh. Gerry Vestry sought to keep her mind void and her face steady. Still, her glasses crept further along her nose as her expression hardened.
She stared at the reflections of her sorority sisters.
"I agree, she couldn't help getting back to the house late from her trip." Maxine du Pre's solid, flat Midwestern sound made it all matter-of-fact.
"No, not if she couldn't get a boat off of a teeny Carribean island forgotten by civilization." Shandel'la agreed.
"And yet . . ." Maxine's words floated indeterminately in the air.
"Yet-" Irene's chisel-sharp doubt intruded. "Did she exercise reasonable care in taking a trip so close to the new term, given her duties as vice-president in charge of pledge training and as our rush captain?"
"It did stick Maxine and Wanda and the rest of us in the house with all of her critical rush work."
"One must anticipate the unforseen." Gerry Vestry saw Maxine's broad, farmgirl face set itself.
"The unplanned delay."
"The X-factor." Irene's nails tapped acutely sensitive skin. "Some overlapping cuts sure X-ed this facet."
"A constant striving to surpass our limits," Maxine intoned. "That must be Sigma House's constant challenge and invitation to the younger generation."
"The pledges who come to us for sisterly guidance, under Gerry's direction." Shandel'la's spectacularly beautiful African features had a wounding grin.
"We can't short change youth."
"Not and survive as a sorority," Maxine agreed.
"We can't let down each other," Irene pursued. "As pledged trainer under Gerry, you suffered most from her absence. Since you're also the standards officer, could you propose an appropriate penalty?"
"Without mitigation, I'd call for a sustained dose of the board."
"Symbolic, yes. I'm afraid that Sarah's tenure on the standards committee biased us in favor of English methods." Gerry Vestry watched the slow nod and building enthusiasm in the house president's face. "A hot, hard paddling has generations of Greek tradition behind it.'' "Yet the circumstances do extenuate the fault."
" 'Ex-ten-u-ate,' " Shandel'la's sensual voice prolonged the word. " 'To lessen or try to lessen the seriousness or extent of by making partial excuses.' "
"Extent of what?" The mid-western girl looked puzzled.
"Anything. Say, a fault of tardiness."
"Auuuu," Irene made a sharp, knowing sound. "I sense someone's been bandying words with Professor Porter.'' "We should make him the Sigma House mascot." The black senior's wide lips curved knowingly. "So many of us have enjoyed his . . . pedagogic attentions."
"I vote for fifteen with the board," Maxine returned to track. "It'd be eighteen, except for the condition her be-hind's in. I'd go for thirty without mitigation."
"Should we consider her heinie?" Irene looked dubious.
"We-e-ell," Shandel'la's reflection twisted in the sideboard glass. "It's not as if she committed her fault after prior punishment, knowing better than to risk another shelacking of her tender buns."
"I guess . . ."
"Three thumbs up, then?" Maxine looked from girl to girl to naked buttocks. "Here and now would be best." . "No time better."
Feet ruffled the carpet on the way to the long rack that dominated the room's south wall. Gerry Vestry tried not to look. She found herself counting her breaths as the steps headed back toward her. Her pulse felt as if she'd downed three double cappuchinos.
Her eyes jumped to the sideboard's teasing doors. Maxine had a dark, lean maplewood paddle with Sigma's letters branded into the sturdy rectagonal blade.
Gerry Vestry's diaphragm contracted. She fought to still her buttocks as the cool wood grazed her goosebumped skin.
"Maxine, as chief pledge trainer, you lost her help when you needed it most." Irene stretched the moment. "Six."
The varnished, metal-burned wood lightly kissed her rounded peaks. The Greek letters felt broad and deep. Gerry Vestry squeezed her eyes shut.
The board lifted. Her breath caught on the inhale as a breezy, rushing sound filled the room. Splaaattt! The jolt rocked her forward on her toes. Her knees bent and she recoiled back, against the firm pressure plastering the blade to her backside.
A wide band flared in hot pain. She crushed her lip against her teeth. The flesh over the bony ischial protuberances ached like sudden hell.
The wood swept away and hit again, loud and harsh. Her glasses bounced toward her nose tip. She grimly kept upright. Each deeply branded letter pinched and stretched her skin, etching Sigma's initials on her rump with white-hot sensation.
The third bone-jouncing Smaaack! revived every cane-tender memory left from Mardi Blanc.
"I'd forgotten how those rosy hinds of hers could do the shim-sham shimmy." She heard a contralto chuckle.
"We all pledged so long ago, it seems." Maxine uncoiled the fourth stroke, dead across the lowest buttock curves and upper inch of thigh muscle.
"Seniors quiver and shake, just like Jello-heinied frosh." Irene sounded personally pleased.
"Those nasty stripes look less colorful now."
"I bet they feel like a hot grate on a cold winter's night."
"Nothing so comfortable, by the way her bottom puckers and frowns."
The paddle whacked across the long center field. Gerry Vestry rammed her tongue against the edges of her lower incisors to throttle back her involuntary grunts.
The sixth smack whipped in below, lifting the muscle masses. She rose and teetered on her toes, thrusting back against the maple wood.
"I hope her dates don't get that spectacular a floor show." "No, only sisters who care enough to correct bad habits. ShandelTa, you worked like three people helping out with those bid sheets. Five."
Pounding blood in her ears blotted the sounds as the girls changed places. She furtively nudged her glasses up.
"We know you tried, Gerry," the low voice soothed. "We just think you could have planned better."
The paddleboard volleyed twice against the single left cheek, first high, then low. The walloped senior shook her hips, her buttocks flinching. The wood waited, then attacked the right in two bursts.
Her knees buckled and she blinked down miserably at her forlorn panties. Then she straightened, legs locked.
The final swat rang across both mounds. She could no longer distinguish individual Greek letters. The Sigma sigil had been branded along every spasmy bottom sector.
"That leaves just four, but I want you to remember them."
Irene's voice ate into her nerves no less acidly than the paddle.
The unforgiving maple slapped solidly into her right thightop. Seconds of hot pain lingered by. The wood hit both cheeks just below the coccyx.
Gerry Vestry gasped and gritted her molars. I'm a Sigma, damn it! Pledges cry-I don't.
The blade sank into her left upper thigh. The muscles shrieked. She held her position fiercely, though her body begged to crumple up and howl.
The final full-armed swing bit bruisingly right behind her vulval gash.
Gerry Vestry's silver rimmed glasses flew as her head shook in a spasm. They skidded across the rug. Her neck and shoulder muscles bunched like iron bands as she controlled herself.
Maxine quietly picked up the spectacles and handed them to her. The lower left lens had Sigma's initials etched into the plastic surface.
Gerry Vestry stayed hunched over as she replaced her glasses with bloodless, clumsy fingers.
"Shandel'la?" Irene passed the paddle to the black girl.
"Five kisses, Gerry." She sounded almost apologetic.
The punished senior stared at the dark varnished blade, salt burning the rims of her eyes. She pressed her lips to the wood five times.
Maxine took a stance in front of her. "Six, Gerry, and make them so I can see the prints on my hem."
The girl reached ruefully for her friend's dress. She lifted the skirt and wetly left half a dozen dark marks across the soft cotton.
Irene unbuckled her shoes. She kicked them off.
"That's not nice," Shandel'la commented. "We only do that to pledges during the last month."
"As a test of loyalty." The chapter president raised up one foot, the pantihose meshed a brown line across her toes. "Some signs of fealty need renewing."
Gerry Vestry gently lowered herself so her knees pressed hard into the carpet. Her back bent and her fingers cradled the offered foot. She kissed the big toe, feeling the nylon grain and acrid taste as she carefully licked the nail, the tip, and the fat underside.
She pressed lips and tongue to the next toe.
"Thank you. Oh, there's housekeeping duty for you tomorrow." Irene stuck her foot back into her shoe. "Maxine will brief you."
She exited cooly, her hips making tight, precise arcs.
"We elected that girl?"
"Remember, Shandel'la, no one else wanted the job."
"Fanny's all bright and sore."
"Just rub on the cream, Delinda. I'm grateful for the loan of the numbing goop, but I don't want-"
"Gerry's ashamed of her pretty, peachcleft popo?"
"My what? Dee-Dee, I mean it-!"
"This hand has the anesthetic. It tickles a bit, then the sensation stops. This hand is just me. It wiggles a little and everything livens up. . . . See, just like that. Now, which do you want up front here, taking care of your goodie grove?"
"Neith-neither . . . DELINDA!"
"Now isn't that better than the cream hand? I can take the fire out of your bottom like this . . . Rubba-dub-dub . . . And start a backfire down here that makes you completely forget the big, bad board and nasty-mouthed Irene. This puts your mind where it belongs."
"Between my legs?"
"In Nirvana. You can feel the white light glowing before you can see it. The enlightenment starts right down here. This makes it rise . . . faster." "Not with your teeth! That's sen-si-tive-"
"Tender and tasty. Yum. Loves every nubbly nibble, too. Have I nipped the poor darling? This kiss makes it well again."
"I . . . want . . . you . . . to . . . stopppp . . ."
"But not too soon. Now is it better if I kiss along here while my finger does this and I soothe this poor sunburned bottom like that?"
"Don't . . . stop ..."
"Stop, don't? Or, don't stop? Now put your hand down here and try for yourself. Isn't it nicer to do that for someone else? Let me get these silly panties out of your way."
"If you breath a word about this to anyone, Dee-Dee-!"
"Please call me Delinda. I hate that nickname, and I want to just think warm, friendly thoughts ... no pain, just good vibes . . . Ooooo, very nice vibes . . . The girls used that awful paddle to be kind. They always say that. Isn't this much pleasanter . . . Ye-ess, just like that . . ." "Damn you for knowing that I need this."
"What talks louder than words, Gerry? Relax and enjoy it. I'm enjoying that soooo much ..."