"Can't sleep?"

"No, Miss Kezzy. I guess I'm kind of freaked knowing that my parents are here, and, well a" "

She smiled without looking at me. She was reading that big book." You know you're getting close to induction. It's an exciting time, and please know that I share in your excitement. You did very well today."

I blew my father and went down on my mother...and she's complimenting me, I thought. It was almost funny.

"And I'm sure that you know by now the reason for all of these rather, um, grievous acts that you're required to perform," she said, still skimming the book. "It's not merely to make you feel debased and degraded. It's to test your mettle, Ann. By determining, through the engagement of your own free will, to allow yourself to be debased and degraded, you demonstrate your...what, Ann? What do you demonstrate by submitting to such acts?"

"My resolve," I said.

"Precisely."

But was it really my resolve, or just my desperation?

"You're very, very close to becoming an Alpha Sister, Ann. Very few have the resolve to do what you and Hannah have done."

Very, very close? She was right but thena"f.u.c.k a"I started crying. Don't know why, it just happened. Instant waterworks right there in front of Kezzy. She was the last person I wanted to break down in front of.

"Ann! Whatever is the matter?"

"Oh, I don't know, Miss Kezzy," I sobbed, "I just think I'm going to wind up getting screwed like I always do, like even when I pa.s.s the last hazing, there'll still be some reason I won't get inducted. Nothing good ever happens to me..."

"But great things are about to happen, Ann. You must believe this."

I just kept crying. "I must be out of my f.u.c.kin' mind thinking I can be an Alpha girl."

"Ann. You practically are an Alpha girl a" "

"Oh, come on! I've seen Alpha girls! I talked to some at orientation last summer. They're all like you, they're all really pretty, and they all get great grades. I can't get good grades! I'll never be pretty!"

"Ann, I've explained the sorority's fitness plan and tutoring program a" "

"Aw, s.h.i.t, Miss Kezzy. Who am I fooling? I'll never be able to do any of that. All the tutors in the world won't make me smart, because I'm not smart, and I could diet and exercise for a hundred years and I'd still be fat! Stuff like that never works for me. You know," I sniffled. "My motherf.u.c.kin' a.s.shole father is right...What's wrong with this picture? Me."

Kezzy gave me some tissues. "Come with me." Then put her arm around me and took me down one of the aisles between the bookshelves. One of the sets of shelves was full of books that each had a year printed on the spine. "These are the Alpha files, Ann. They go all the way back to the 1700's, but here..." She took a book down. "Here are the most recent ones." The year printed on the cover was three years ago. She opened it and handed me a big photograph. It showed four girls standing in front of Alpha House, all smiling.

They were also all overweight and unattractive.

"The girl on the far left is me," Kezzy said.

Holy s.h.i.t... My knees went rubbery; I may have actually gotten light-headed by what she'd said. The girl on the left was huge, had me by a hundred pounds. But the more I looked at her balloon-face...

The more I saw the resemblance.

"I can't believe what I'm seeing, but, it is you, isn't it?"

"Indeed. I weighed 260, 270 back then, the beginning of my freshman year. And here's my last high school report card." She handed me the printout.

"A one-point-zero grade point average?" I said, staring at the grades.

"I was a terrible student, Ann a"much worse than you. I just never had an apt.i.tude for anything, and never had enough confidence in myself to find one." She handed me another sheet. "Now, here's my first-semester report card as a freshman."

Math, history, English, Latin, Sociology a" everything. Straight A's. A 4.0. "It's perfect," I droned.

"And it's remained perfect since then," she said. "At the end of this school year, I'll graduate with a 4.0, with a dual degree in Physics and Chemistry, and I've got an honors scholarship for my post-grad work. Yale."

I didn't know what to say or even think.

She put the book back and took me to the candle-lit desk. I could see the outline of her perfect body through the sheer nightie. "My point, Ann, is that if I can do it, you most certainly can. You have the power to be all that I am, and more," She smiled. "It's not easy for me to admit that you have much more potential, much more sheer promise, than I did when I started Pledge Week."

Potential? Promise? She was saying this about me.

Me...

"So don't worry." She kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Just do your best tomorrow, then on Sat.u.r.day you'll be inducted as an official Sister of Alpha House. Everything will be fine." She sat back down.

I felt so much better now. My own parents never had faith in me, but Kezzy did. I was about to say something else but then I saw that she was reading that book again...

"Miss Kezzy? What's that book you're reading?"

Her face glowed in the candlelight. "This book you can think of as a catalog of translations, Ann. The translations a" or I should say transcriptions a" were written in the late-1600's, by a man named Joseph Corwan a" "

"The man in the portrait downstairs."

"Exactly."

"I found it kind of odd, Miss Kezzy, I mean, how similar the names are."

"The names?"

"Well, Joseph Corwan, and then the college founder, Joseph Curwen. Were they related in some way?"

She paused for some reason. "Yes, but only distantly. You see, Corwan's transcriptions are important; it's not this book, so much, Ann," and she patted the book in front of her, "but the original book from which these transcriptions were made. Would you like to hear about it?"

"Sure, Miss Kezzy."

She leaned back in the old, high chair, and crossed her legs under herself. "A long time ago, a poet from the Middle East named Abdul Alhazred wrote a book in Syria. You can think of Alhazred as sort of a motivational philosopher, for in a sense, his book was one of motivational and philosophical science. The name of that book was Al Azif."

Right away, I remembered. "That's the word written under the Alpha House 'A.'"

"You're very observant, Ann, yes. Now, the original copy of Al Azif no longer exists but over the centuries it was translated, first, into Greek, then Latin, German, Spanish, and even English. These later translations were ret.i.tled The Necronomicon. But there was a problem, for some of these translations were flawed."

"You mean somebody f.u.c.ked 'em up?" I asked.

Kezzy sighed. "Yes, Ann, somebody f.u.c.ked some of them up, most probably on purpose."

"But why?"

"During the transcription process, detractors of the book would deliberately misquote it, to reduce its power as a...motivational tool."

I didn't know why she paused then, but it was still interesting. This explained why Corwan's portrait was on the wall, era" at least, sort of. "So Joseph Corwan somehow made translations that weren't f.u.c.ked up?"

"Yes, and he's the only one in history to have been able to do that," she said. "You see, Ann, we regard Al Azif as the Alpha House field guide. All our sisters read the accurate translations once they're inducted." Her eyes glittered at me. "You will get to read it too. It will help you, like it helped me, and every other girl to ever be initiated into Alpha House."

This was starting to sound like some of that crackpot pseudo-science stuff but then I thought to myself, What do I care? I didn't care about anything except getting into Alpha House. One thing did cross my mind though...

"I look forward to reading it, Miss Kezzy. But one thing I don't get is...if all the translations of the book were f.u.c.ked with, how did Joseph Corwan, well...unf.u.c.k them?"

She paused again, in that weird way. "He was a scholar with very few peers, a language expert."

"Oh." Why did I feel weird now? "I'll go now, Miss Kezzy. Thanks for talking to me; it made me feel a lot better. Goodnight," but when I started to move away, she grabbed my arm.

Now she whispered, grinning right at me. "I'm glad I made you feel better, Ann. Not only is that what Senior Sorority Sisters are for, it's what friends are for. But you know what I'd like now?"

"What, Miss Kezzy?" My shoulders slumped. "Please don't make me suck my father's d.i.c.k again."

"Oh, you morbid thing, you!" she laughed but then her look turned real serious, like even maybe desperate. "I need you to make me feel better now..."

f.u.c.k. She was making a pa.s.s at me? I mean, I know I'd dreamed of eating her out but I figured that was just some perverted lesbo-fantasy thing that was stowed way back in my subconscious.

Just dreams.

But now? Now she was putting the make on me for real?

"Please, Ann a"oh, s.h.i.t, please," and then she made me get on my knees and move under the desk. She wasn't modest-she pulled her nightie off, put her bare feet up on the chair arms, and next thing I know that perfect, hairless p.u.s.s.y of hers was right in my face. She pressed the back of my head. "Please... I just...have such a weakness for oral prowess..."

Oral prowess, huh? I guess that was the fancy way of her saying, Eat my p.u.s.s.y. Of course, I'd eat my own p.o.o.p if she told me to a"anythinga"but this was f.u.c.ked up. Why would a super-hot-looking girl like her want me to do it?

I just started licking up and down, and she started hissing and flinching right off the bat. It was just like in the dream, it was fun. When I traded off between licking and sucking, that really got her hot. Her hands opened and closed in my hair. I could even see her p.u.s.s.y kind of pulsing in and out.

"Darling, darling," she whispered. "You always do it so well..."

She was getting all musky and slick, and I was really getting into it but then a" wham! a" it hit me. What she'd just said...

I always do it so well?

That means I'd done it before!

I pulled back. "Wait a minute! I've never gone down on you before! The only time I've ever done that is in my dreams!"

She looked terrified down between her legs. "Ann! Have some courtesy! You don't just stop!"

"So they weren't dreams, were they? Since the first night I got here, you really have been coming into my room and sitting on my face! Haven't you?"

She was all in a tizzy now. "Oh, for goodness sake a"yes, Ann! So what? Seriously, what's the big deal? It's part of initiationa"now, keep doing it!" and she pulled my face right back to her cookie.

How do you like that? I thought, licking away again, but then I licked a little more and a" wham! a" it hit me again.

I pulled back. "And if that wasn't really a dream, then neither was the s.p.u.n.k-fest at the gazebo the other night! Zenas really did come in my face four times, didn't he?"

She groaned. "All righta"yes! He did! So what?" She pulled my face right back. "Now keep eating me! You're driving me nuts with this stop and start s.h.i.t!"

A couple more licks, thena"wham!

"Why was he talking funny for a while?" I demanded.

"Talking fa"Whoa""

"Zenas! The first couple times he shot his load in my face, he was talking weird, but then he started talking normal! What was that all about?"

"Oh, Ann, I have no idea what you meana""

Wham!

"And why didn't I have dried c.u.m all over me the next morning?"

She rolled her eyes, gritting her teeth. "He washed your face, then he washed and dried your nightgown, and put you to bed! Now stop this!" and now she grabbed my hair, twisted till it hurt, and pushed my mouth back on her. But I wrenched myself back.

"Is there a f.u.c.kin' ghost in this house?"

She looked at me like I didn't have a head.

"Seriously!" I yelled. "The stuff with you was real, and so was the stuff with Zenas at the gazebo, so maybe that was real, too..."

"What on earth are you a" "

"Every night," I told her, "before you'd come in and make me eat you out, Joseph Corwan would come into my room a" "

"Ann! He's been dead for centuries!"

"His ghost, I mean. He'd kind of f.u.c.k with me, and diddle with me, but I wouldn't be able to feel anything. Maybe it was his ghost"

CRACK!.

She slapped me real hard across the face. "There's no such things as ghosts!" she growled. "You dreamed it!" She twisted my hair till I yelped. "Stop being asinine and stop this f.u.c.king around. You're going to eat my p.u.s.s.y and get me off, or I will kick you out of Alpha House and you can fly back home with your parents in the morning!"

My mouth went back to her s.n.a.t.c.h so fast I swear there was a noise like a Road Runner cartoon.

"Good, good," she murmured. "Yes, yes a"oh, Ann, you do it the best..."

Then; another wham!

"The snake!" I almost shrieked.

"What?"

"Every night so far when I was going down on you...a snake shot out of your p.u.s.s.y and went down my throat!"