Alex and Jessa were at the front of the line, walking side by side up the walkway to Tri Gam's front door. Jessa was dressed in a strapless pink dress that stopped just above her knees, while Alex was wearing a similar white dress, with straps that ran up and tied behind her neck. And, dangling in between them was Jessa's solution to the buddy rule problem.
"Handcuffs?" Mason asked in disbelief when he saw the line of girls descend upon Tri Gam, two by two. "You're worried about this turning overly sexual and you're all wearing handcuffs?"
"Well, we're handcuffed to each other, not to anyone's bed," Alex smiled as she brushed past Mason and into the house.
"Of course," Jessa continued, placing her left forefinger on Mason's nose, "tomorrow night is a different subject." Successfully arousing the Tri Gam president, Jessa smiled to herself as Alex dragged her into the house.
The handcuffs had actually been Alex's younger sister's idea. When Lauren Poe had caught them drawing up rules to their Skin Ball, and struggling over how to enforce a buddy rule, she had jokingly suggested the cuffs. After all, if they were going to prance around a frat house completely naked, they might as well complete the fantasy and cuff themselves to each other. Though Lauren had been joking, Alex and Jessa had slowly come around to the idea, eventually agreeing that as sexual as it may have been, it really was the best way to keep the girls together and keep them safe.
And so, couple after couple of girls breezed into Tri Gam, past Mason and the other brothers who were standing guard at the entrance. A pair of fur-lined handcuffs chained each couple together, Alex having bought them online at an adult store. They hadn't been cheap, but Kristin had assured her that the sorority had more than enough money to make this indulgence.
Earlier in the night, as all the girls gathered at Ep Chi, Alex had locked them together. Some couples, like Alex and Jessa, had been lucky, and were made up of both left-handed and right-handed people. Other girls, though, sacrificed the use of their good hand for the night, in the interest of safety and sexiness. Each pair was locked by a master key, which Alex was wearing as a necklace charm that hung on a silver chain down inside her ample cleavage.
Every single sister and pledge from Ep Chi followed Jessa and Alex into the house. Alex had made sure that everyone was there -- they were a house, and they were going to do this together. She had threatened them all, offering them three choices: they could come tonight, they could de-pledge, or they could serve naked cocktails at Tri Gam's next house meeting. None of the options were terribly appealing, but in the end, every last sister in Ep Chi opted to attend the Skin Ball.
The alcohol was flowing freely as Alex and Jessa descended into the basement together. Two of the Tri Gam brothers, Drew Benson and Will Bredeson, were behind the bar, serving up just about anything that the girls would consume -- cheap champagne, mixed drinks, wine, beer, and more. Though Jessa had warned the girls all to take it a little easy tonight so they could stay in control, it was clear that most of her sisters had the complete opposite idea -- they wanted to have a few drinks to calm their nerves, and ready themselves for the idea of stripping naked in less than an hour.
Most of the girls just drifted around awkwardly, drinks in their hands. Tara Martz and Courtney Gagnon, cuffed together, both sought out their respective boyfriends, Scott Minner and Evan LeFebvre. Jessa was actually surprised that there weren't more couples between the two houses, but didn't spend too much time dwelling on it. After all, she herself had been hanging out at Tri Gam since she was a freshman, and had never dated a Tri Gam brother.
She had come close, though.
Mason saddled up behind Jessa and Alex, and handed them each a cocktail.
"Judd and I have a table, if you two girls are interested in a game of Pong," he offered, gesturing with his head towards the ping-pong table in the corner.
"I think the last time that I played Pong with you here, I ended up losing all my clothes," Jessa replied.
"Well, win or lose, it's going to happen anyways," he said, smiling at the petite blonde. "This time, though, I think we're just going to have to settle for the alcohol, though. You know the rules -- I have to keep all my clothes on."
‘He's flirting with me,’ Jessa thought to herself. "Okay, you're on."
Because they didn't really want to mix their alcohol, Jessa and Alex played with water instead of beer, their mixed drinks being steadily drained and refilled on the side. Across the table, Mason and Judd Romney stuck with beer, though, while Mason had more than a few bottles in addition to the game. Mason always complained that he sobered up during games of Pong, rather than getting drunker.
Jessa had the luck of being left-handed, and partnering up with Alex, who was right-handed. Together, they were able to play a fairly decent game of Pong, in stark contrast to some of the other girls around the basement. The handcuffs definitely limited the use of half of the sisters' strong hands, though the fact that many of them were wearing high-heeled shoes, high-heeled boots, or high-heeled sandals added to the difficulty.
About halfway through the game, Alex was approached by two sophomores, Acadia Richardson and Michelle Perdue. Pulling Alex and Jessa aside for a secret conference, Acadia whispered, "Um, Alex?"
"Yeah?"
"How are we supposed to use the bathroom with the handcuffs on?"
Jessa had believed that she had thought of everything. She had known that the handcuffs were going to limit the girls' ability to strip out of their dresses, and had warned them all accordingly; all over the frat house, the girls were dressed in party dresses that had no straps, that tied around the back of the neck, or had straps that had simply not been pulled up over their shoulders for the night. Acadia was on of this latter group, her left spaghetti-strap hanging down the side of her body while her right strap held up the dress. But the bathroom...the bathroom hadn't even entered Jessa's mind. She found it odd that NONE of the girls had thought about this before.
"Oh come on, Acadia," Alex replied. "I'm not going to play the key master all night, and stand outside the bathroom so no one gets embarrassed. We're going to be in the nude for the next twelve hours -- I think you should probably not worry about stuff like this."
Acadia looked confused. "So just...?"
"So just go!" Jessa jumped in. "The guys have a trough in the next room, so they obviously don't think it's such a big deal."
Still unsure of themselves, Acadia and Michelle made their way across the basement to bathroom, and went in together.
"Everything okay?" Mason asked as Alex and Jessa returned to the Pong table.
"Just a couple of girls who are going to have a hard time parting with a little dignity tonight," Jessa answered. She picked up the ball, and started another volley back and forth across the table.
Upstairs, some of the girls were dancing in the main hall. Some of the girls sat awkwardly on the side of the room, too nervous to even think about anything other than the strip show later that night. A couple of brothers were busy shutting the shades, so that no passersby walking down Calhoun Avenue would be able to peek in and see what was going on inside.
Down in the basement, Jessa was beginning to feel a slight buzz. The clock-hand was moving ever closer to eleven o'clock, but the upcoming event was temporarily out of Jessa's thoughts. It was something that she was going to have to do, but not right now. That was more than twenty minutes away, and she was more focused on her game of Pong.
Most of the girls in the basement were busy taking shots, despite Jessa's warning to take it easy. They'd be spending the rest of the night together, on the floor of the main hall, and the last thing that Jessa wanted to do was fall asleep alongside someone who was so drunk that they were throwing up.
Eventually, ten minutes before eleven, Jessa sunk the winning ball into one of Mason and Judd's cups effectively ended the game. Judd meandered off towards the bar, but Mason set himself down on the shelf that ran alongside this particular pong table. Kristin and Wendy, who had been waiting in the wings, were granted the next game.
Mason sat to Jessa's left, chatting with her as the ping-pong ball bounced back and forth across the table. He casually drank from his bottle of Magic Hat, imagining what the rest of the night was going to be like. Each one of the four girls here in front of him was absolutely stunning with all her clothes on especially all dressed up like they were. It was an odd sight, really. All the girls were far too dressed up to be hanging out in a frat basement. Sure, there were formals that started off here, but they were never the ultimate destination. Tonight, each one of the Ep Chis looked like they'd be more at home at a high school semiformal than just hanging around and playing Pong.
And then, before anyone knew it, it was eleven. Chaz Ehrlich, a junior who was acting as the DJ for the night, made the announcement, letting it reverberate through the whole of the house. It was the dreaded hour for the girls in the house, and the moment of ultimate fantasy for the men present. Jessa and Alex were in the middle of badly losing this particular Pong game, but they had to take a break to follow through on the actual premise of the Skin Ball. They had to strip naked.
Mason had organized the whole thing to make the stripping itself less of an event. Scattered around the basement were four laundry baskets, each labeled with masking tape as E, F, G, and H. Baskets A through D were upstairs in the main hall. Chaz explained that the girls were to put their clothes in whichever laundry basket they chose, but they were going to have to remember which one so they could get them back the next morning. Dresses, underwear, everything that could be defined as clothing was supposed to go in the baskets.
"We're going to take the baskets and put them up in my room for the night," Mason explained to the girls in the basement. "That way they're off limits to everyone, and they're kept secure for the night."
"Except from you," Jessa teased.
"Except from me," Mason acknowledged.
"So ladies," Dunny Groom added as he stood up on the shelf alongside Mason, "if you find any of your panties missing tomorrow morning, it's probably because Mason has added them to his wardrobe."
Mason put Dunny in a headlock quickly, and forced him off the shelf.
"So? It's eleven o'clock! It's time for the SKIN BALL!" Mason shouted the last two words.
Jessa swallowed hard. She had been drinking for over an hour, if she included the shot that she had done with Kristin and Alex back at Ep Chi, but her inhibitions were hardly gone. This wasn't like the game of Pong that she'd played with Mason two years earlier, where there was a chance that she'd be able to pull it out and stay in some clothes, even just her panties. This was it -- she was going to be naked for the next twelve hours in front of a house full of horny fraternity brothers.
Jessa, in her pink cocktail dress, looked to Alex for leadership. Alex, unlike most of the girls in the basement, showed that she had some nerve. She wasted no time in peeling off her tight-fitting white dress, untying it at the neck with her right hand, and slipping it down her body, past her breasts, past her belly button, past her hips, and down her legs. Before Jessa even blinked, she found herself handcuffed to a nearly naked brunette, dressed in little more than a white lace strapless bra, matching white panties, and a pair of high-heeled boots that came nearly to her knees.
Jessa felt her right hand tugged away from her as Alex reached around her back to unclasp her bra. Letting a pair of stunningly large breasts free from their covering, Alex managed to draw the attention of almost everyone in the room. Her nipples were hard, showing that there was at least a part of her that was enjoying this. To be fair, Jessa had to admit that she was more than a little turned on herself at the attention that they were all going to receive that night.
Alex turned and gave her partner a "I can't believe that I'm doing this" look, as she bent over to slip her panties down her legs. Stepping out of them, she added them to the pile of the clothes on the table, before tossing all three articles of clothes casually into the laundry basket that had been labeled "F."
Around the room, the other girls seemed to be following Alex's lead. Kristin had already stepped out of her dress and was no reaching around her back to undo her bra. Wendy's dress was halfway down her body, revealing that she had come to the party tonight without wearing a bra. Her nipples, too, were rock hard, though Jessa made a concerted effort not to stare. She wasn't a lesbian by any means, but it wasn't often that she saw her sisters' breasts, and curiosity was taking hold.
Jessa, wasting no more time, unzipped the back of her dress and slithered out of it. She hadn't been wearing a bra, either, as her dress had built-in support. As the dress dropped from her chest, her big, puffy nipples jumped into the spotlight, catching Mason's attention, catching Dunny's attention, and undoubtedly attracting the attention of dozens of other guys around her. Jessa was wearing a red thong, but she didn't get to show it off for and significant amount of time, as it was soon tossed in laundry basket "F" along with her pink dress. Suddenly, she was standing there naked alongside the already unclad Alex, wearing nothing aside from her shoes and a few pieces of jewelry. Jessa West was naked in front of EVERYONE.
Standing in a pair of platform shoes to make herself look a little taller, Jessa looked around the room. The brothers looked like they had died and gone to heaven. Mason later joked that if they had, they definitely would have left this world fulfilled. After all, there were surrounded by naked Ep Chi after naked Ep Chi.
Jessa's hair was done up neatly, as if she were attending her debutante ball back in Tallahassee again. She was wearing a pair of long silver earrings, which matched the few rings and bracelets that she was wearing, as well as the choker that was wrapped around neck. Her tongue ring counted as jewelry, but Jess never would have counted it as clothing, even now. But the surprises of the night were the matching henna tattoos that she and Alex were sporting around their navels.
Mason did a double take when saw them. Jessa and Alex had gotten together earlier in the day to put them on, and now both of them had circular Indian designs encircling their belly buttons.
Jessa, Alex, Wendy, and Kristin all stood at opposite ends of the Pong table, all four stark naked. Kristin wanted to continue the game, but Mason interrupted them, asking for Jessa and Alex to help him with the laundry baskets. The two girls each hefted a laundry basket, both of which were stuffed to the brim with cocktail dresses and women's underwear. Mason, carrying the remaining two one on top of the other, led the way up the stairs and out of the basement.
They had to walk past the main hall to get to second floor and Mason's bedroom which meant they'd be looking into the dance floor there. All the brothers were clearly excited, but they seemed somewhat uncomfortable, not entirely sure what to do or how to act around so many naked women. The sisters were the same way, keeping their distance from the men and from each other as much as possible. This was definitely not an ordinary college dance party -- at this time in the night, the dance floor would usually be crowded with sweaty bodies, grinding together as much as possible. The rules change when one of the genders is without clothing, though.
When they got upstairs to Mason's room, four baskets of clothes were already in front of the door. These were the clothes that had been stripped off in the main hall, obviously deposited in front of Mason's door for him to take care of. The Tri Gam brother just kicked two of the baskets into his room with his feet, Alex and Jessa following close behind.
After Mason grabbed the remaining two clothes baskets, and placed them with the others on the far side of the room, it got a little bit awkward. Jessa and Alex were standing here, naked together in Mason's bedroom, obviously fulfilling any number of Mason's sexual dreams. Conversation with stifled, the proximity and sexual tension in the room adding to the edginess.
Jessa needed another drink.
With the clothing business taken care of, all three returned downstairs to their Pong game. Kristin and Wendy drifted back, and they picked right back up where they had left off, while Mason went and joined Chris Warner in another game across the basement.
That first hour was uncomfortable at best. There was definite awkwardness, as the men fought their urges to just stare at the girls, and the girls themselves adjusted to being stark naked and partying. But then, alcohol is the greatest tool of social adjustment that there is, and as the hour wore on everyone was getting more and more comfortable with themselves and their surroundings.
In fact, a good number of the girls began to feel more than just comfortable, but actually a little bit sexy, and more than a little turned on. Jessa was definitely one of them. After scoring against Kristin and Wendy at one point, Jessa decided to perform a little for the audience of men around her, and initiated a chest bump with Alex. Everyone watched in awe as the four breasts collided with each other in a congratulatory demonstration.
It was Alex, though, who shocked her. As one of the ping-pong balls went bouncing across the room, she and Jessa went to get it. Instead of just crouching down to pick the ball up, she shot a wicked smile at Jessa, saying that she was definitely going to have fun with this, and tease the guys around her. The brunette bent down, right at her mid-section, and kept her legs straight. As she picked up the ball, any of the people behind her could clearly see her pussy, out there on display for everyone. Hoots, howls, and hollers were heard from her audience.
"I can't believe you just did that," Jessa said under her breath as they returned to the table. Sure, she was naked, and people were going to every last part of her, but she wasn't sure that she could go around showing it off as much as possible, as Alex just had.
"I can't believe that I did, either."
As Jessa and Alex lost this particular game of Pong to their adversaries Jessa realized that she'd gone from being pleasantly buzzed to the early stages of being drunk. Seeing as how it wasn't even midnight yet, and there were more than three hours left of the Skin Ball, Jessa decided to calm down a bit.
As the game ended, Alex wanted to settle down on the shelf alongside Courtney and watch the next game between Kristin and Wendy and Seth McGreevey and Evan LeFebvre. But Jessa felt the sudden urge to use the bathroom, and dragged Alex along with her. Strolling over to the bathroom, they found an impressive line of girls, all waiting to take their turn. The men were all using the trough in the next room over, but the line was still terribly long. Rather than go upstairs and find a less crowded bathroom, though, Jessa and Alex waited, talking with each other and scanning the basement activities.
"How are you feeling?" Alex asked, noting that Jessa had already gotten a little bit woozy.
"I'm fine," Jessa replied. "I'm just gonna take it a little easier on the shots and mixed drinks for the rest of the night."
"And think, you're the one who drilled into us the importance of staying a little bit sober."
"Well," the blonde said, blinking at her companion, "I have you to look out for me, don't I?"
The brunette smiled. "How about we go dance after this, instead playing any more Pong? That'll give you a chance to work off some of that alcohol."
Jessa nodded, looking around the basement. There were girls behind the bar, serving beer to the brothers. There were girls engaged in games of Pong, laughing, getting drunk, talking and so on. "It's definitely not the sleaze-fest that we were worried about, huh?"
"Yeah," Alex answered, taking a step closer to the bathroom. "Everyone's been pretty good. But..."
Jessa turned to her friend. "But what?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'm a little bit sluttier than you or anyone else here. But, you know, we're NAKED! It should be a LITTLE sleazier than it is."
"So do you want to go back to Mason's room? We can invite five or six of the brothers to join us," Jessa offered sarcastically.
The brunette bumped her with her shoulder, showing her displeasure with the way that Jessa had taken the comment. "No, it's just... it's just that we're naked. And we're all done up with jewelry and heels and all else. There is something innately sexual about the whole thing, and I don't like pretending that there's not." She pointed to the corner, where Allison Huckabee and Jen Sanford were talking to three of the brothers. "See? Look at them!"
Jessa looked, but didn't see where Alex was going.
"Those guys are doing their best to be all polite and chivalrous, like they're pretending not to see that the girls are fully clothed. Look at Bobby Locke -- he’s keeping his eyes locked on Allison's eyes, not letting them drift at all."
Jessa was confused. "So you want to be stared at, ogled, and treated like a sexual object?"
"Well, maybe a little. Come on, why do we dress up when we go out, Jessa? We do so to get noticed, to get guys' attention, to be all sexy. And now we're naked, letting everything hang out there, and they're all too scared to look at us. I mean, we're naked. Let's have some acknowledgement of that fact. Let's have a raised eyebrow. Let's have a noticeable erection."
The girls ahead of Jessa went into the bathroom together as the blonde mulled over what Alex had just said. Turning to her friend, she replied, "So that's what that little peep show was about back there at the Pong table? Bending over and showing yourself off?"
"You're telling me you don't feel sexy right now? Having guys make little sneaky glances over here in your direction?"
Jessa had to admit that she felt a little turned on.
"So what's the big deal if they look a little bit longer, a little bit more openly? We're not being treated exactly like sexual objects, Jessa -- like just a set of tits to squeeze and a pussy to fuck. We're just acting like sexual twenty-one-year-old girls who are hanging out at a frat party."
The two girls ahead in the bathroom casually stepped out, allowing Jessa and Alex to go next. Alex closed and locked the door behind them, while Jessa sat down on the toilet. Alex sat her bare buttocks down on the sink to Jessa's right, and kept talking.
The blonde felt a little unsure of herself, and honestly felt bad at having belittled Acadia and Michelle's concerns earlier in the night. She had definitely urinated with another girl in the room before, but there was something so vulnerable about it tonight, with Jessa wearing nothing at all. Nonetheless, she went ahead, Alex just continuing her rant as if they were still standing outside the bathroom rather than being in it.
As Jessa waited for Alex to take her turn to pee, she began thinking about what Alex had said. The brunette was right, in her way. Tonight wasn't about art, or the female form. Tonight wasn't about women daring to do something in the nude. The Skin Ball, from the beginning, had been a blatantly sexual thing -- she certainly would have ogled the guys, and gotten turned on if Tri Gam had lost the challenge. The very thought of Mason's eyes on her body, of being out of control for the night, was enough to make Jessa get a little wet. If Alex could let her libido go and enjoy herself for the night, then Jessa was going to, as well.
In the distance, the clock tower at Van Buren Library struck twelve.