Man of the Hour

"You slept with eight guys!?"

"Yep," Rachel confirmed smugly.

"Eight different guys?"

"Uh-huh."

"You were gone for nine days!"

"Yeah, well you know how it is, Christy," she smiled wistfully. "Even God needed a day to rest."

My roommate Rachel had flown back from Ft. Lauderdale earlier in the day. Her dad's an orthodontist on Long Island and lets her charge whatever she wants to his credit card. You'd think sharing a dorm room with a spoiled little rich girl would be its own circle of Hell, but Rachel's actually pretty great. She's witty and generous and she knows how lucky she is.

She also has stories that I could never confess to my priest.

"Geez, you are such a slut," I shook my head with a laugh as I unpacked my suitcase, keeping my back to her. I'd just gotten back to the dorm after spending my sophomore spring break at home with my family in Baltimore.

Rachel had invited me to come along to Florida with our more affluent friends, and even offered to buy my plane tickets. To save my pride she made up a story about her travel agent offering a group discount. But my parents would freak out and call it a wasteful extravagance. I didn't want to deal with that guilt trip and besides, even with free airfare, I couldn't afford a week in Florida.

"Maybe," she countered, flopping down on her bed. "I'm not the only one, though. The hotel's pool bar had like, three wet T-shirt contests every day. Debbie entered every single one. She even won a couple."

"Seriously? She got up in front of all those guys? I could never."

"Yeah, me neither. But you know how Debbie Daddy-issues likes the attention."

"God, can you imagine?" I mused, as I put my freshly laundered clothes away. "Up on stage with all those guys staring at your body like that?" The very idea terrified and thrilled me at the same time.

"I know, right? But Debbie has great boobs. You might as well flaunt 'em while you've got 'em."

Rachel rolled over on her back and propped herself up on her elbows. Her voice took on a hushed, conspiratorial tone, and her eyes flashed with immoral glee. "By the end of the week she was up there stripping completely nude. She even bought herself a new string bikini just so she could make a big show of untying the bottoms and taking them off... And last night... she and another girl sucked the MC's dick on stage."

"Oh my God, she didn't!"

Debbie was always kind of a flirt and an attention whore, but I never thought she'd debase herself like that. The thought of Debbie naked, down on her knees, sucking a guy's dick in front of hundreds of cheering guys—it made my head spin.

"I mean, she'd already slept with him by then," Rachel added with a shrug. "It's not like she sucked off a total stranger... Debbie managed to bed eight guys too. It was a tie."

"Wait, you two were having some sort of competition?" I asked, trying my best not to sound judgemental. Rachel and I have very different opinions about guys and sex. The fact that we can have a mature disagreement is another thing that makes her a great roommate. "Like a slut-off or something?"

"'A slut-off'?" she grinned. "I like the sound of that. We should totally do that next year... I mean, it was nothing formal or anything. We just compared notes on the flight home... Oh! But guess who joined the Mile-High Club."

"You didn't!" I gasped.

"Who, me!?" she sat up indignantly. "Fuck in tiny little airplane bathroom? Ew, no. This slut needs to spread out," and she sprawled back down writhing across the comforter to illustrate.

"So Debbie, then?"

"Nope..." Rachel sat up again to drive her surprise home. "Sara."

"No way! No fucking way."

Sara is a quiet, mousy little thing who spends every Saturday at the Hillel Center. I always considered her a kind of kindred spirit among my more promiscuous friends.

"She did! If I hadn't been there, I wouldn't believe it either." Rachel sat up cross-legged, making room for me as she started to dish.

Forgetting about my unpacking, I bounced onto Rachel's bed and sat across from her, carefully folding my hands in my lap. There was a good story coming, and it sounded like it would be worth sitting through Father Tom's lecture on gossip at my next confession.

"We were all at the airport waiting for the plane to Florida to start boarding, and the whole waiting area was filled with students on their way down to spring br-"

"Wait, wait," I interrupted. "This was on the flight down!?" I figured after a week of enduring Rachel and Debbie's conquests, maybe—just maybe—Sara could have worked up the courage to do something daring, but not on the very first day.

"Yes!" Rachel confirmed, her eyes brimming with titillated excitement. "Debbie and I were joking around, pointing out all the guys we wanted to hook up with once we got to Florida. And Sara was trying to play along, but she kept giggling and blushing.

"There was this one guy in a Yankees cap. Oh my god, his cheekbones! And his jawline!" she mock-swooned. "I swear, he could be a model, and you could just tell he was totally cut under his sweatshirt. He was wearing shorts, and his calves were like chiseled out of marble. I mean, gorgeous. We all agreed.

"So anyway, we finally board the plane, and we're all sitting together, and Sara has the aisle seat. And guess who's in the seat right across the aisle."

"Gorgeous marble Yankees guy?" I guessed, because that only made sense.

"Exactly," Rachel confirmed. "He's sitting like three feet away from her, and Debbie and I are telling her to say something to him, but she's being all shy and shit and covering her face in her hands and giggling."

"Were you two being cruel to her?" I chastised. Rachel's sweet, but she has a wicked streak that she sometimes loses control of. I've been on the receiving end of it once or twice.

"No," she objected. "...Ok, maybe a little. But it's all cool, because the plane takes off, and we're like maybe an hour or hour-and-a-half into the flight, and gorgeous marble Yankees guy gets up to go back to the bathroom, right? And so as soon as he does, Sara gets up too. Now Debbie and I, we don't think anything of it, until suddenly there's all this thumping and grunting and moaning coming from the bathrooms.

"Oh! The bathrooms were only like four rows behind us. So we could totally hear them in there going at it like alley cats. And the whole back of the plane is starting to notice, and Debbie and I, we had no idea it was Sara. I mean the bitch was loud."

"Get out! She's always so quiet."

"I know," Rachel agreed, "but the girl gets a dick in her and she turns into an opera singer. Who knew? It got so loud that like, a stewardess came back and she's pounding on the bathroom door telling them to knock it off. But they don't stop. They just keep banging for like another five minutes while the stewardess yells at them, but now they gotta know the whole plane can hear them."

"Oh God," I muttered, wondering why my heart was racing.

"I know, right? So they finally stop, and the whole plane is turned around in their seats to see who it was, and a minute later gorgeous marble Yankees guy comes out. Everybody cheers and he's grinning and high-fiving people as he walks down the aisle back to his seat. And Debbie and I and everyone else is looking back... and its Sara who comes out behind him!"

"Our Sara?" I asked, because it was just too incredible to be true. "I mean like, not some other Sara you met at the airport. Little Sara from three doors down?"

"Yes! We couldn't believe it either," Rachel assured me. "Some jerks were hitting her up and cat-calling her, but mostly people were cheering for her too. She'd gone like bright red though, and just stared at the floor hiding her face and Debbie and I are staring at each other like, 'what the fuck!?'"

"No... " I shook my head. "No, it was a setup. They were faking. Wasn't Sara a theater geek in high school?"

Rachel hadn't considered that possibility, and her brow furrowed as she mulled it over. "Yeah, theater tech, like lights and props and shit," she conceded. Then she shook her head with confidence. "No, Debbie and I could smell it on her. She totally fucked the guy. I mean when she got back to her seat, she wouldn't even look at us."

"Did gorgeous marble Yankees guy say anything to her?"

"He tried a couple of times, but she put her Walkman on, pulled her hair over her face, and hid for the rest of the flight. When the plane landed, she wouldn't let us out of our seats until everyone else had gotten off."

I cocked an eye-brow at the pun.

"I mean 'disembarked'!" Rachel corrected with a huff.

"Did she say anything? I mean you must have asked her about it."

"Of course we asked her about it! You think we wouldn't ask her about it? We hounded her like the whole way to the hotel."

"And!?"

Rachel's shoulders slumped with disappointment. "All she would say was he was 'ok' but he didn't really 'get her there'," she said, making air-quotes.

"Wow. I didn't think Sara even knew where 'there' was." Sara didn't date guys, or really even talk to them. I'd always sort of assumed she was a virgin, but apparently she's good at keeping her secrets. "I guess she isn't the sort to kiss-and-tell."

"I know, right? You think you know a girl."

"So how did she make out in the slut-off? Did she get seven more guys too?" I asked getting up off the bed and returning to my suitcase now that the story was done.

"Who knows?" Rachel stretched out on her bed and rolled over on her stomach. "She wouldn't say. She just giggled when we asked her. But even if she spent the rest of the week at the Ft. Lauderdale Public Library, she's a bona fide slut now... You know, that just leaves you as our last prude."

"Hey!"

Rachel always loved the first time with a new guy. She got off on how hard a guy worked to get her into bed and discovering what he'd do next. Would it be mind-blowing? Would it be meh? Honestly, I think she enjoyed the thrill of rolling the dice more than the actual sex.

Not me though. My first time back in high school was an awkward, fumbly mess and the fewer times I have to go through that, the better. I liked being with a guy for the long haul—teaching him what got me there, learning how he liked it, and being comfortable enough to experiment. For me, it was all about quality over quantity.

"I'm just saying," Rachel taunted, grinning at me over her shoulder, "it wouldn't hurt you to mix things up a little, Christy. You don't want to be with Robbie for the rest of your life, do you?"

Ah, Robbie. The love of my life. Big, shy, awkward Robbie who knows just how to get me there and loves to experiment. I had been ever so patient hoping Rachel would mention him.

"Well, actually..." I took a deep breath to savor the moment after waiting all day to drop this bombshell. "Robbie came to pick me up after church this morning and drive us back to campus. After Sunday dinner with my family... he proposed."

"What?" Rachel sat up with a jolt. "What!? No way!"

"Yes way," I confirmed with a smile, turning and holding out my hand to show off the glimmering antique carats that adorned my finger.

"Oh my god oh my god oh my god!" Rachel was on her feet and her face struggled to hold her eyeballs in. She looked at the ring, and at me, and back at the ring, and back at me. After grasping for any words at all, she grabbed me and hugged me and spun me around, squealing with excitement.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed one more time, before dashing out the door.

As I tucked the empty suitcase under my bed, I could hear her banging on doors out in the hallway. "Robbie proposed!" she shouted. "Robbie proposed!"

"You're kidding!" "Get out!" "What did she say?" Doors were opening up and down the hall.

"What do you think? She said 'Yes'!" Rachel shouted back.

Within minutes, my room was filled with girls from the hall all clamoring to see the ring and desperate for details, the more romantic the better.

I explained how Robbie had planned to pop the question after he graduates in June, but my little brother overheard him having a man-to-man talk with my dad and the brat spoiled the surprise. Robbie had already gotten his great-grandmother's ring though, and had it packed in his bag, so he got down on his knee in front of my whole family and asked me right then and there.

I lost count of how many times I told the story.

A stack of bridal magazines appeared from somewhere, along with beer and wine coolers. Somebody had that 'Going to the Chapel' oldie on a mixtape and played it on Rachel's boombox, followed by 'White Wedding'. Before I knew it, Rachel and I were playing host to a full blown party that spilled out of our room into the hall.

Pizzas showed up. I don't know who ordered them. I was too busy holding court and fielding a million questions from a hundred different directions. Did we have a date? Did we have a venue? What kind of dress? How big a ceremony? Where would we register? Would we have kids right away?

While I don't have Debbie's compulsive need to be the center of attention, I had to admit it was nice once in a while. I didn't even mind that I'd have to add 'vanity' to my weekly confession.

In all the commotion, I never heard our phone ring. Somebody must have picked it up and buzzed Joel into the building though.

I was sitting cross-legged on top of my desk with a coffee mug full of something fizzy and fruity, listening to Debbie and Heather argue about whether backless wedding gowns were elegant or trashy when I spotted Robbie's fraternity brother pushing through the crowd.

I don't really get the whole fraternity-sorority-Greek thing. It seems like an expensive way to have friends. But I can't really discount it too much, because that's how I met Robbie.

Back at the start of freshman year, newly emancipated from my parents, I'd gone out looking for parties with Rachel and the girls one September Saturday night. We found ourselves at a rush party, hanging out in the basement of Alpha Lambda Gamma, one of the big frat houses up on Greek Hill.

After too much dancing, I needed a rest, and the only open seat was on a sofa next to a big guy in an AΛΓ T-shirt who'd been quietly nursing a red Solo cup all night. I flopped down next to him and said 'Hi'. I still remembered the startled, befuddled way he looked down at me when he realized he wasn't sitting all alone in the sea of people any more.

"Uh, hi..." he replied and then sat up straighter and stammered in the most adorable way, looking for something else to say. Finally, his eyes caught the glint of gold below my throat.

"I, um... I like your, uh... your crucifix," he said, barely loud enough to be heard over the music.

"Oh, thanks," I replied. A high school graduation gift, my parents made me promise to wear it whenever I went out.

"You're catholic?" he asked with some hesitation.

"Uh-huh."

"Oh, uh me... Me too."

That started a conversation on religion and theology and philosophy that lasted all night. In the wee hours of the morning, Robbie walked me back to my dorm and asked for my phone number. We've been together ever since.

"Hey, congratulations Christy," Joel almost shouted over the din of the impromptu party. Joel was Robbie's roommate, and one of the Alpha Lambda Gamma brothers I knew best.

"Thanks! Is Robbie here?" I asked looking around for my fiancé.

"No, no he's, uh..." Joel started with obvious discomfort. "Listen, um... I know you've got a thing going here, but um, could you come up to Greek Hill with me real quick? There's a, uh... like a ceremony kind of thing the fraternity needs you for."

"What kind of ceremony?" Debbie asked, butting in.

"It's like this ritual thing all the fraternities do to give their blessing when an active brother gets engaged. It's kind of a tradition."

"Really? I've never heard of it," Debbie frowned. Debbie spent a lot of time looking for attention up on Greek Hill. She had actually rushed last year and gotten bids to join a couple of sororities, but she dropped out when she found out about the strict code of conduct they impose on pledges.

"Oh, well I think it's, uh... it's been like three or four years since it's happened," Joel explained, then looked up at me plaintively. "We kind of already started. I brought my car so I can drive you up there. Can we go?"

"Can we all come?" Heather asked before I got a chance to answer.

By this point the conversation had become the center of attention. There was still music playing and there was a smattering of hushed asides catching up anyone who'd missed the beginning, but otherwise almost everyone was looking at Joel.

"The Greek Council by-laws say we can't host non-Greeks at events after Rush ends for the semester," Joel shrugged and the room was clearly disappointed. "I'm just supposed to bring Christy back... Can we go?" he looked back at me.

"Yeah, alright." I unfolded myself from my perch on the desk. "Let me find some shoes."

I kind of wish Robbie had never joined the fraternity. I mean, I know I might never have met him if he hadn't, but it seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth. He says he had trouble making friends in his freshman year and rushed the frats to try to reinvent himself and be more outgoing. Alpha Lambda Gamma was the only house to take a chance on the shy, quiet kid and give him a bid, so he sort of felt obligated to them.

I guess I'm obligated to them now too.

"As if!" Rachel interrupted. "You can't go to an engagement ceremony dressed like that."

"She's right," Debbie agreed. "You gotta change."

"No, it... It's not a... Not like a formal thing or anything," Joel stammered. "You're fine," he assured me.

I was wearing a baggy college sweatshirt over leggings with my hair up in a scrunchie, so Rachel and Debbie weren't wrong. Fine to run down to the dining hall. Not so fine to stand up in front of Robbie's whole fraternity.

"She certainly is not," Rachel insisted, pushing Joel towards the door. "We'll only be a minute."

I've never had so much help picking out an outfit in my life. I must have tried on a dozen combinations and had all of my neatly folded underwear critiqued before a consensus was reached. I had more help with my hair and makeup than I knew what to do with.

Half an hour later, half a dozen girls poured out of the room behind me to find Robbie's roommate pacing the hall and fidgeting.

"Ok, we ready? Can we go now?" he asked, glancing at his watch and scowling.

Joel really put his foot down in the car, rolling through stop signs and accelerating through traffic lights that weren't technically yellow anymore.

"What is the big hurry?" I asked, gripping the oh-shit handle above my door.

"It's been almost an hour," Joel snapped back. "This thing shouldn't have been more that fifteen or twenty minutes... Which is our fault," he conceded. "We should have prepared better, but when Robbie told me he popped the question, well, everything just started... happening. And it all kind of snowballed."

"So what? Everyone's just sitting around waiting. Big whoop."

"No, it's... It's not just A.L.G. The whole Greek community gets involved and... if it goes bad, we look bad. It could affect our standing on the Greek Council."

I seriously do not get the whole Greek thing.

"Alright, what can I do to help?" I sighed, resigned to the fact that it was a big part of Robbie's life whether I liked it or not—at least until he graduated in a few more weeks.

Joel pulled into the parking lot behind the Alpha Lambda Gamma house.

"I don't know exactly. I've never seen one of these. But most rituals like this have used the same scripts for decades. Just listen to what they read and do what they say."