It is morning of the second day of work weekend and Caitlin and the other pledges are rudely awakened and tossed into another fun day of labor. However, the whole issue that was revealed is making things a touch uncomfortable.

Disclaimer
This is a work of fiction. There should be no way that these characters are like anyone else, but if that isn’t the case, it has definitely been unintentional. Also, if you happen to find that your life is represented in these pages, I’ll be impressed.

Sorority Boy
By poetheather
Chap 18

I was woken up rather abruptly when an air horn went off in the room. I wasn’t the only person who jumped at that as it had destroyed any possibility of sleep. Gwen was standing there looking evil with the air horn and a clipboard, a huge smile plastered on her face. “Good morning ladies. First off, you all have twenty minutes to get cleaned up and ready to go for the day. Starting… now!”

We all jumped to our feet and bolted for the bathroom, fighting for stalls and sink space. It was completely crazy but we managed to sort of work together to make the whole damn thing work faster. That was a good thing. We all scampered back into the room on time and cleaned. Gwen just smiled that same evil smile.

“Okay, I have the breakfast team. You will all take off now to cook breakfast for everyone. The cook is in there to supervise what you do. Devin and Brittany, hustle on over.”

After those two took off, still in their pajamas, she grinned even more evilly at us. “Let me show you all your uniforms for the day.”

Two other girls rolled in a rack with a number of garment bags on there with our names written on pieces of tape. “Take your uniforms and change into them. Hurry up, since once breakfast is over your work begins. Come on hustle!”

We all froze for a second and then grabbed the garment bags that had our names. Dawn was the first to strip, not wanting to take the time to go to the bathroom and back. Everyone began to follow suit and I sort of blanched. Crap! What the hell was I going to do? Holly was glaring at me and I was unsure of what the new boundaries were concerning my changing. Alley and I got in the same position we used last night and I began disrobing, facing away from them. I really didn’t want to cause trouble and I knew that if I did anything that they might consider bad I was hosed. These girls were my friends and I didn’t want to upset them for anything.

In addition to all o that crap, we had more work to look forward to. I knew it wasn’t going to be too bad, as there really wasn’t a lot to do besides clean. More of the same as yesterday to be honest, but in maid costumes? I sighed and unzipped my garment bag.

The outfit looked like something more than a costume, as it was made of regular fabric and looked more like something a maid would wear for real as opposed to something they might wear for Halloween. Maybe the House kept those for each pledge class? That might be a good thing. Save them some money if this was something that every pledge class did.

Once I was dressed, Alley helped with getting my little cap put on. I really had no clue what to do with this piece of cloth. She pinned it in place and I guess I looked like a proper maid.

“Now that you are all dressed, let’s get you all to work.”

I was set to work vacuuming. That was fairly easy all things being equal and I was okay with that. A few of the girls were outside, trimming bushes and I was okay with being inside. I might be okay with being a girl for now, but I would rather not be wearing anything this revealing in front of, well everybody. I had looked out the window and had seen several of the frat guys across the street, enjoying the view that was on display. It bugged me a lot.

I looked down at my maid’s outfit and wondered if I was the only one this nervous about wearing something like this. I think a few others might have been nervous, like Thuriya. She had worn the outfit with the understanding that she would be somewhere where there was no chance of any guy seeing her. Everyone was happy to oblige her.

There was a lot of House to vacuum, as I had to vacuum something on every floor of the building, except for rooms. I even had to vacuum the carpeted runner on the stairs, which was annoying, as I had to balance the weight of the machine as I worked. When I made it down stairs and finally turned the thing off for the last time, all of us pledges were ushered into the dining room.

The tables were filled with dirty dishes, as the rest of the House had eaten already. The sight was pretty daunting and I pitied whoever was going to get that crap job. I would rather do anything else.

However, before the return to the salt mines, there was a table for us, with our plates already there. Nadia was there, smiling. “Okay ladies, before you get back to work I just wanted to let you know that Caitlin and Holly have clean up duty. Well, enjoy.”

Great, Holly was pissed at me for lying to them and now I had to spend time with her… fucking great. I was sure Nadia did it on purpose so that we would talk things out or something. I was worried that this would only make things worse as opposed to better.

Holly looked equally as pleased to have been given this job with me. This was going to be oh so fun and I was really looking forward to it. I was getting grief when I hadn’t done anything wrong, well, okay, there is the whole girl/ not girl thing, but other than that I did nothing wrong. Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother anymore.

Breakfast was really good. It was this strange sort of, well I guess you could call it a scramble, made with eggs, potatoes, various peppers and onions and all sorts of tasty seasoning. It was quite tasty and I know I really liked it. There was also homemade cinnamon rolls as well. That was a nice treat. The rolls made a nice contrast to everything and did provide instant energy. The meal was made of pure tastiness. But alas, all good things must pass. Far too soon for me, the other girls were leaving and it just left Holly and me standing there, trying to relax while she glared at me intently. I was wondering if I was going to burst into flames from it. When she finished this round of glowering, we both turned and got to work.

The two of us started at opposite ends of the room collecting plates, cups, and such and taking them into the kitchen. Since the whole House had been there to have this meal, there were a lot of them. I am sure they did this on purpose just to make us miserable. I sighed and went back to ferrying the stuff to the kitchen. I was kind of wondering about everyone else and what they were thinking about this whole mess with the whole girl/ not girl issue but we were all separated and I wouldn’t see anyone else until lunch.

All too soon the dishes were collected. Instead of leaping into the washing of the dishes, which we were told to do by hand, we decided to wipe down the tables. Instead of starting on the outsides and working in, Holly started on the outside and I started from the center, that way we would still be farther apart. Nadia came in a few times and watched us not working together and she did look a bit concerned. I shrugged as I wasn’t the one with the problem, she was. I mean, in a lot of ways this wasn’t my fault. The House made me do it.

As I was finishing up, I noticed that Holly wasn’t anywhere in sight and her rag was on one of the tables. I looked around a bit confused and then gave the sigh of long suffering. Seeing that she had been taken away before she had finished her tables I went over and finished the last of them off. No sense in not taking care of what had to be taken care of. My only worry was that it left the kitchen and the dishes as the only things left to take care of. I collected all of the things used in cooking breakfast and got them ready to wash, as I was sure someone would need to be using those fairly soon.

While they were sitting by the sinks, I wiped down the whole kitchen. I was starting to get concerned as I was still alone. Holly had been gone quite a while and I wasn’t sure what was going on. Should I go talk to someone and see if they had an idea? Was she being kicked out of the House? Was she getting things set to kick me out of the House? I didn’t know and it was making me a bit crazy.

As I put down my cleaning rag and started to head out of the kitchen, Holly came back in. I stopped in my tracks before I plowed into her. It looked as if she had been crying. This made me even more concerned and I asked, “Are you okay?”

“Not really.” She replied, rather morosely.

“Is there anything I can do?” I was a bit apprehensive, what had happened while she had been gone? Surely, she was still in… right?

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She really seemed upset and I had no idea what to do.

Since I was at a loss as to what to do in this case, I turned to our chore for something to say. “I can wash and you can dry if you want?”

“Whatever.”

That was apparently the best I was going to get out of her at the moment and I just had to cope with it. I sighed and started on the pots and pans that had been used making the tasty scrambles. We worked in silence for a while before she spoke. “I don’t get it. I really don’t. Why are you doing this?”

I was quiet for a moment to figure out the best way to say this. Trying to get her to understand everything about this briefly might be harder than I imagined. “Well, like I told everyone last night, it started out as a ploy to bust the House in terms of it being ‘unfair’. When things were turned on me, I had a couple of options before me, one was to tuck tail and run, which would make me look like a tool that was just fucking with them and I just couldn’t do that. The other option was to agree to all of this and still look like I was serious about what I had proposed, that I wanted to join. The longer I was here in this House and around the Sisters, the more I liked this place and the girls here and I kind of wanted to belong. So I decided to just relax into this and go with the flow.”

“Doesn’t it creep you out to be dressed like a girl?” Holly put down the skillet she had been drying and faced me. Things were getting even more serious apparently and my heart started racing even faster.

I stopped scrubbing the cookie sheet I was working on and looked at her. I could tell that I was close to a panic attack but I knew I had to take care of this. “At first, sure. It really bothered me. Hell, I have had panic attacks due to this. However, the longer I was dressed and such the less this whole situation bothered me. Right now, about the only thing that really bothers me to wear is the damn bra. What is up with those things? They feel good to put on sometimes and always feel good to take off. Are they purposefully designed to be painful after a while?”

Holly actually laughed at that. That helped my heart rate drift back down out of the danger zone. “Yea, I know what you mean. And sometimes they pinch you in the strangest places.”

“I know. The design is a bit odd and I have to admit I hate underwires. They always seem to poke me someplace and it makes me want to tear them off and set them on fire.” I grumbled.

Holly laughed at that. Apparently, it was a shared complaint. “I try to avoid those whenever possible for just that reason. They are great for a date, when you want more uplift and cleavage but otherwise… just a pain.”

“Well, thankfully, I don’t have to impress any guy with my cleavage. That would be a bit of a nightmare if you ask me. I have enough issues to deal with right now than to add some guy into the mix.” I was kind of glad that my relationship with Meredith was acceptable to the House and I didn’t have to date boys for cover. Those few times with I had gone out with Paul had messed with my head something fierce, especially the kiss and I really did not need a repeat of that.

“So you honestly aren’t doing this as a joke?” Holly seemed really sincere and I was relieved by that. Maybe what I had been saying was finally getting through?

“If this is a joke I figure that it is mostly on me as opposed to anyone else. Look, all I am trying to do here is to be a good Sister of the House, like everyone else. That’s it. You know, growing up I never really had many friends because I was the smallest and the weakest and many times smarter than those other idiots I had the misfortune to be in classes with. I got beat up a few times and was pretty much a loner for safety reasons. My friend Becca helped keep me sane and she was about my only friend I had when I moved. So, now I’m here and I have made all sorts of friends, people who honestly seem to like me, and it is overwhelming. So what if I have to wear panties and a bra to do this, to have these friends. I am just ecstatic to have people I can talk to that actually seem to like me.”

Holly seemed to ponder that as I handed her the cookie sheet I had finally finished. It was quiet for a while as I washed more pots and pans and she dried and stacked things up. Soon all the pots and pans were done and it was time to get to the dishes. I added some more hot water to help get more suds in that side of the sink. Holly chimed up at that point. “Why don’t you let me wash for a while?”

I smiled and we traded off drying rag for sponge. “Thanks.”

As Holly began to scrub the plates, she said, “You know, it wasn’t easy for me growing up either. I was a bossy little girl who was into strange things, like dirt, and that didn’t help me in the friend department. One of the reasons I got into climbing was that I got to be alone and not have to deal with any of it. Didn’t have to deal with the bitchy, prissy girls pulling pranks on me or calling me names. When you are up on a cliff face, a few hundred feet up, all alone, just you versus this rock, that is true freedom. It is an amazing feeling that I cherish and you get a better buzz than anything else in the world can give you. Look Caitlin, I know I may have overreacted a lot to this revelation but I did it because of my history with girls and pranks. My knee jerk reaction was that you were trying to pull something over on me. I’m sorry for hassling you over this. Friends?”

I smiled. “Friends. Thanks Holly. That really does mean a lot to me. I just want to be friends.”

“I think I can manage that.” replied Holly, smiling as well.

I smiled as I began to start drying the next few plates, taking them from the rinse water and drying them off. It felt as if a weight had been lifted off me and I gave a sigh of relief at that. This whole situation was getting more and more stressful as I went along and that worried me. Was joining the House really the best plan? Part of me wondered if I should just quit and call it a day. I was sure that wasn’t the best plan available to me in terms of some things. I was doing well as a girl, despite all the weirdness that seemed to go along with it. I was getting quite used to having breasts and all that stuff. I was honestly good where I was and that was really a weird feeling to have at this point.

Dealing with other people was still a bit of a problem for me. I was good to deal with people in the House, since they knew what was going on, but outside of that? I really was too nervous to talk to any of my classmates or anyone else for that matter. I felt like how I was dressed was obvious for everyone to see through and that when I overheard laughter I figured it was directed at me, laughing at the boy in a dress. I knew it wasn’t true but since when has the brain been able to deal with emotions? It usually runs screaming any time those pesky little buggers appear.

We finished up the dishes just in time for Amy and Dawn to come in and inform us that they were the ones preparing lunch. We wished them luck, headed out, and got back back to the grind of cleaning the House itself. This day was turning out to be oh so fun already and it wasn’t even lunchtime. Yippee!