Chickie agreed that it was very sudden, but she saw nothing wrong in helping out a fellow whose girl had come down with a cold, especially since he was one of Paul's brothers. The party that Friday night was a nice gathering with some girls from town and some girls from colleges in Pennsylvania and here and there. Everyone was very nice to her, even Buddy and Paul who were with others girls but who each danced with her once and told her what a really nice person she was. John, the fellow who was her date, was a very good-looking boy who resembled Tony Perkins and who had cultivated the same sort of shy smile. He drove her home to Ramsey at two o'clock in the morning in a red MG convertible, and thanked her profusely at the door, telling her she had saved his life and wondering if he could see her again maybe next weekend. She said she would love to, and they made a date for the coming Saturday. But before then, she received calls from two other frat boys she had danced with, and before she knew it the weekend was booked solid. Then Paul called and asked if she'd like to hack around with him again this Wednesday the way they had last, have a soda or something, and she said yes, she'd love to. Buddy called that same day to tell her they were showing some old monster movies over at the school gym on Tuesday, and would she like to go with him?
The scheme had been devised in the reading room at the frat house, Buddy telling the others what had happened and then enlisting their aid in teaching this kid a lesson she would never forget, that you don't go around slapping the president of their frat, or anybody in their frat for that matter. The boys all agreed that this was a horrible offense and if permitted to gain circulation, if permitted to spread to all the other townies, could lessen their stature and their ability to get into townie pants every now and then.
These were all nice boys, Chickie was later made to understand, who really had nothing against her and who perhaps, for all any of them knew, simply wanted an activity to carry them through the long winter months and into the spring. Chickie was unfortunate to have been chosen as their extracurricular project for that semester, but then she shouldn't have slapped old Buddy, nor should she have been so obviously intrigued nor so obviously frightened. The boys knew she was frightened, and they also knew she was intrigued. In addition, they were all much older than she, being nineteen or twenty or thereabouts, worldly-wise in the ways of townie maids, and bolstered by the solidarity of brotherhood and the knowledge that they would not have to score this one alone. This one was to be a joint effort without a chance of failure, a little cooperative project which, if they played their cards right, could provide something steady for the rest of their college days.
The plan was rather clever, if they said so themselves, and once it proved effective against Chickie, they tried it often and with varying results against several other girls — until a supposed virgin named Violet Plimpton discouraged any further joint efforts by causing twelve boys in the frat to come down with cases of the clap. Chickie, though, was a clean girl, and a nice girl, and in fact a very sweet girl against whom they harbored no ill feelings, if only she hadn't slapped a fraternity brother. They modestly admitted that not a single one of them working unassisted would have had a prayer of getting her, but neither were they about to attempt an assault without first manipulating the odds and insuring the outcome. Permutations and combinations, said Richard Longstreet, who was a very bright and ugly boy from Palm Beach, Florida, the frat genius, peering through his black rimmed spectacles and grinning at his brothers who listened attentively as he outlined his plan.
The assault, as Longstreet explained it, had to be slow and patient because first of all she wouldn't be eighteen until May and they didn't want to take any chances with jail bait (hear, hear, the brothers chanted) and secondly because it just wouldn't work unless they played it cool and easy. She had to believe that each of the seven hand-picked frat brothers were independently competing for her favors, and she had to believe that they did not exchange notes and, as a point of honor, never never discussed a girl they were simultaneously dating. (They established this without question in the third week of the campaign, when four of the frat boys separately called to ask for a Saturday night date, seemingly ignorant of the fact that she had already made a date with another of their brothers.) To further allay any of her suspicions, Longstreet said, they would evolve a system of staggered advances that could not possibly seem like the result of collusion, but would seem instead' random and erratic. Paul would be the first to touch her breast, for example, but Mitch would only later soul-kiss her, a seeming regression, and David would then try to get his hand under her skirt. We will even, Longstreet said, make provision for a villain in the group of seven, an expendable man who will try to go too far with her, unclasping her bra and going for her naked breasts, knowing the move is premature and hoping Chickie will stop dating him. He will subsequently be replaced by a more civilized fellow, selected right now, who will participate up to the time of the final assault. Paul, until then, and as part of the overall scheme, will never try to get further with her than his first grab.
Longstreet admitted that this would all be very unfair to poor Chickie because what they were going to do was drive her out of her mind (hear, hear, the brothers chanted) without her ever once realizing she was being led down the garden. What we're going to do, Long-street said, is manipulate and control her psychological and emotional responses so that by a process of gradual conditioning she will be ready for whatever we choose to put before her next. Her responses will all be calculated beforehand, we will decide when to give her a surfeit of affection and understanding, we will decide when to deprive her or when to resume the attack. In short, we will destroy her defenses one by one, creating a permissive climate that will make it simpler for the next man to take her yet a step further in persuasion, until she is conditioned to expect a certain amount of stimulation, until she is indeed looking forward to it. And by the time we have brought her to the point of highest expectation, why then we'll see who's gonna pluck her. After that, Long-street said, it's anybody's.
The plan in practice worked almost the way Long-street outlined it, not because it was foolproof, but only because Chickie contributed a certain amount of confused eagerness to its execution. Whatever she told herself later, whatever eventual surprise she professed to the boys when they explained to her in a very friendly and open manner how the plan had worked, she really suspected something from the very beginning, and her suspicions were all but confirmed by the end of the second month. To begin with, she knew without doubt that all girls exchanged notes, and it must have entered her mind almost at once (whatever protestations they made to the contrary) that seven boys from the same frat might just conceivably say a word or two about her in passing. So she never really bought the "independent dating" routine or the "point of honor" nonsense, nor did she believe it accidental that she was being rushed by the seven best-looking and most popular boys in the frat. She was somewhat thrown off stride when Freddie Holtz took off her bra and began fumbling around with her breasts, big clumsy football player, especially when all the others were so tiptoey apologetic if they for God's sake accidentally brushed against her or anything. But even then she had the feeling she was supposed to stop dating him, which was exactly what she did. And, of course, he was immediately replaced by another of the frat boys, so that there were always seven of them (in the final week they were dating her every night, dating her in sequence and getting her so completely confused and excited that she was ready for anything) but hadn't she been aware from the very beginning? Frightened, yes, when Mitch thrust his tongue into her mouth and tightened his arms around her; surprised, yes, when she found her own tongue eagerly searching the soft inner lining of his mouth; surprised, too, when she felt so suddenly wet, and idiotically thought her period had come, and then pulled away from him breathlessly, terrified, yes, but aware, aware. And later when David provisionally touched her leg, and immediately pulled back his hand, she knew without question that one or another of them would go further the next time, and was not at all surprised when Mark worked his hand up under her bra and onto her naked breast the following Saturday. She had begun to detect a pattern by then, however erratic and hidden it was, and she was aware of a steady progression, a series of escalating liberties that were infallibly calculated to lead to greater liberties. She knew. But she permitted it.