Tau Gamma Beta
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Hayley had been all lined up to board with a relative who had a place right near college and I was all set to be in the Pi Theta Kappa fraternity, being a provisional member, but things had not gone right for either of us. What do you do in a crisis? You get drunk.

“I learned something about Pi Theta Kappa today,” I complained. “They are a bunch of arrogant pricks! In particular, that Dylan Hobbs, who seems to be the leader of the pack. He has it in for me.”

“You just have to understand that it is all about who you are,” said Hayley. “You are not important enough. Your family are not rich enough. You are one of those guys from the poor side of the tracks that they might let in, just to show how magma … how magmam … whatever.”

We chinked the shot glasses and another jolt of tequila shook our bodies.

Hayley was not smart, but she was fun. The truth is that I had helped her through high school, not in the expectation of anything. Her best friend had been my girl for years, but she was not interested in leaving town, so we drifted apart in the months before I left.

Hayley and I had travelled all the way here, before her relative, her Aunt Kay, had told her that she was being transferred elsewhere and was selling up. There was nowhere for her, and now nowhere for me.

Aunt Kay worked in the Varsity administration, and she had helped to line up the “wild card entry” into Pi Theta Kappa, but any entry can be blackballed, and I was. I was really depending on that entry. I would now have to rethink whether I could go to this college at all.

“Your aunt did her best,” I said. “Pass on our thanks for what she did.”

She told me that a couple of places have come up at the sorority house,” slurred Hayley. “But I hate sororities! I wouldn’t be any part of that shit. Girls only? Where would I be without my closest friend?” She smiled at me and extended an empty glass for me to fill.

“You should take it,” I said. I still had a steady hand.

“Two places. Each room has two beds.” She swayed a little and looked into the glass as if there was a fly in it. “I should apply for both of us. You could be Judy again.”

She was talking about a Halloween party in high school. I went in drag. I looked quite good. “That would be fun.” The words came out of my mouth, but it was the tequila talking.

“Aunt Kay would help,” she said. “She is upset at having to let me down, and she is your size and looking to leave travelling light.”

To be honest, I hardly heard the last words, and they made no sense. I was falling asleep in the motel room we were sharing, but a few days later, Hayley reminded me that she had said it as I was packing up to leave town and go home.

“Not so fast,” she said. “Pack that stuff away for sure, but you are staying, or at least Judy is. We both are.” And she was waving a letter in front of my face.

I snatched it out of her hand. It read:

The Board of Trustees of Tau Gamma Beta has the pleasure of inviting Miss Hayley Joanne Kiel and Miss Judith Pendleton to be members of the sorority for the next 3 to 4 years of study…”

“You’re kidding!” I said.

“And Aunt Kay has left you this,” she said. She stepped outside and swung into the room a suitcase twice the size of the one I was making ready. “She included a couple of gel inserts for the bras. She had a double mastectomy years ago, but she has downsized so these are surplus.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, but even as I said it, I was starting to consider the possibility. I was not ready to go home with my tail between my legs. I really wanted this. “This would not be fancy dress. I would not have a hope of pulling this off in broad daylight.”

“It is all attitude,” she said. “I will be with you, and I will help. No, it won’t be fancy dress. It will be for real, but you and I can be together in college just as we planned.”

She opened the suitcase, and it was full of clothes. Hayley’s Aunt Kay was a stylish woman, but as Hayley had described it, she was hoping to rebuild her wardrobe on this trip to Europe so everything here could go to a good home. Hayley said that she would love to wear any of this stuff, but it was too big for her.

“Will the shoes fit you?” she asked. “Try them on. They are tight, but if we can soften the leather, we may able to relax them for you.”

I would not have described myself as a crossdresser then, but there was no doubt about it, when I had been Judy that night in high school, I had been excited. It was not a sexual thing. It was the thrill of being somebody else, just for an evening. I did not have to be me. I could make her be whoever I wanted her to be. That was exciting. It now seemed that I was remembering that and picturing myself wearing this outfit or that outfit. It seemed as if that suitcase was a box of opportunities – a chest full of adventure.

“I could try something on,” I said.

Hayley clapped her hands. “Oh Judy – you are going to be my BFF!”

With hindsight it seemed that Hayley was all too quick to turn me into a girl. I think that she understood that I was not interested in her in a sexual way, but the fact is that it was awkward for her having a guy as her best friend at college. It was easier if I was a girl, and having her accept me as that so completely I think was what made it so easy for me to adjust. That first day together with me trying on clothes and then the shave down and playing with lotions and makeup was just so easy for both of us.

I said that her aunt was stylish, and much of her stuff seemed too smart for school, but as Hayley put it to me, her clothes suited me, and why not look a bit different. The fact is that I was tall and had angular features that some might call masculine, but Hayley called androgynous.

“You could be a runway model,” she said. “These clothes could be stuff you picked up on the job.”

All that was needed was to buy a denim skirt and some espadrilles to tone down the high fashion.

“You’ll get a chance to wear this cocktail dress soon enough,” said Hayley. “Tau Gamma Beta always throw a meet and greet party and it usually turns into something bigger, or so I am told.”

But before that we had to meet the team, with me as Judy, and that required some strong coaching by Hayley.

As I said, it was easier than I had hoped for, even though being told “you’re a natural” may not be what a guy wants to hear. For me it was all about getting through college and coming out the other side. Tau Gamma Beta had a great record of academic support. I was going to do this and be set up for life. What are a few terms pretending to be somebody else?

It seemed like the meet and greet party was the true test of whether it could be done, but I felt surprisingly confident. It was as if I had discovered that I had “an inner woman”, and all I had to do was invite her to step forward and I could be her. It was only a matter of time before I was to discover that this was totally true, and in fact the outer me was just the thinnest veneer.

I moved easily among everybody at the party. I met the other girls at the sorority and the Board of Governors and the administration ladies. Nobody guessed that I was anything other than a normal girl among other normal girls.

Towards the end of the evening, there was an announcement about the rules applying to interaction between houses, and fraternity houses in particular, and to cement that we were introduced to the fraternity and sorority committee members from neighboring houses, and then they descended to mingle with all of us.

Among them was Dylan Hobbs, the president of the Pi Theta Kappa fraternity. Here was the guy who I held responsible for shutting me out of the fraternity I was lined up for – the man I had described as an arrogant prick. I saw him looking at me across the room. He made a beeline for me as if he recognized me. I was filled with dread.

“I am Dylan Hobbs,” he said, holding out his hand. “Pi Theta Kappa.” As if that was everything he needed to say. I felt lucky to be excluded.

“Judy Pendleton,” I said. “But I’m sorry, I don’t speak Greek.”

He smiled. It was almost a smirk, but not quite. Instead of shaking the hand I offered he lifted it to his lips, but stopped at the final indecency of kissing it.

“Judy,” he breathed the name. “I saw you from across the room. I came over to meet you. I am studying pre-law. What about you? I hope that we might be sharing some classes”.

“I am doing pre-law too, so I guess we might,” I said. I wanted to look away from him. It was something I had experienced before. The girl does not want to talk, so she looks for somebody to wave to and get away from this bore, but instead I found myself looking at his eyes and trying to understand what was going on. Why was he looking at me like that? It seemed unnatural somehow. But what was going on inside me seemed even more unnatural. I was imaging having sex with this guy!

It seemed like the more he talked the more I realized what an asshole he was, but the more I wanted to get physical with him. I wondered what it was about guys like this who talk this way to women, attracts them to them.

He introduced me to some other guys from his fraternity. I remembered meeting some of them as a guy, but they would never have recognized me. I played up a little how close I had suddenly become to their Dylan, but my mind was on other things.

It was not long before he asked me to check out his room at the fraternity. It was a prime room with direct access to the back stairs. I looked him up and down, and I agreed to go with him.

I was on my guard, and just as well. The first thing that he did was made us a couple of drinks. He called them “my special nightcap” but they looked sweet and easy to drink – just the thing that could hide a roofie. I distracted him for a moment and switched drinks.

My instincts were right. He was suddenly in a stupor, and I was able to do everything that I wanted.

I made sure that I got plenty of selfies – I mean videos as well of him with my cock in his mouth and some of me riding his ass. In all of them he just moaned and drooled, probably as I would have been doing if I had not switched the drinks. I sent them to Hayley to hold for me, just in case he took my phone, because I was ready to take a risk.

I snuggled up in bed with him completely naked, and I went to sleep.

Not good enough for Pi Theta Kappa – eh?

I woke up as he did. He complained about a headache but then seemed pleased to see that he had been successful and that there was a girl in his bed. It only took his first clumsy attempt at a morning grope to show him that he was wrong.

“What the fuck – you’ve got a cock!” he exclaimed.

“So have you,” I purred. “And it was working like a dream last night.”

“Get the fuck out of my bed!”

“Oh Dylan, but what about all the promises you made last night? You said that you would be my boyfriend. All your friends know; they just don’t know about my little secret. But that is just between us, isn’t it Dylan? Swished up between us when we make love, right? I am just the kind of girl you always wanted, aren’t I Dylan?”

There was a momentary look of confusion on his face. I have to say that it confused me too.

I had my phone on the bedside table with all those images and videos. It was my insurance policy. If he wanted to get violent, I had them right there. One nasty move and they would be all over campus. That was my message to Hayley – “If I don’t get back to the sorority tonight then I will be a prisoner of Dylan Hobbs and you may need to circulate this stuff”.

He looked at me.

“So, it stays squishy then?”

I just had to send Hayley a message that I was okay, just in case she acted rashly, but they would be there to use if needed. A girl has to keep her boyfriend faithful.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2022

Eric suggested: “A guy gets drunk with his female friend and while drunk they try to join a sorority and he(she) gets accepted and now (s)he feels trapped and (s)he wants to find a way to quit but until (s)he does he gets to experience many things and in the end (s)he has to make the big decision but is not so sure anymore.” Seemed a classic set up primed for a classic MP ending, so I could not let that happen!