chapter 1: mean girl on a mission

Beta Zeta Tau.

Anyone who had spent any amount of time on McDowell University’s campus was familiar with the name. One would have had to be. They were THE premiere sorority on campus, the “it” girls, whatever one wanted to call the popular clique. They had always been the hottest, the haughtiest, the naughtiest girls on campus and their reputation clearly preceded them. Every guy wanted to date a BZT and every girl wanted to be a BZT.

Not that that was easy. Tau had a reputation for being the most exclusive sorority there was, and the tip top of its hierarchy had always struggled to keep it that way. Such scrutiny was a task that was currently being willfully undertaken by the President of BZT, one Rachel Franks.

Rachel was the model Tau to a tee. Thin and curvy, blonde, those adorable big brown eyes… She was an instant heartthrob, that was for sure, but, as many of the other girls had come to know over time, her beauty was only on the outside.

Rachel was, simply put, a bitch. From her point of view, it was purely out of necessity. She remembered starting out as a pledge the same as any other Tau and having to claw her way to the top in order to get to her position. Things had been so different back then… Hazing had been an integral part of weeding out the weak or the unattractive, and Rachel had her own nightmares of being weighed, having her cup size measured and scrutinized, being told what she could and couldn’t eat, had had the fear of GOD instilled into her when it came to gaining so much as a pound. The hazing had gotten so out of control in recent years that enough sisters and legacies had finally complained, leading to a campus-wide banning of hazing for all Greek letter organizations, much to the chagrin of sisters and brothers alike who had had to endure the process themselves, with their only motivation to endure it being the chance they would one day have to inflict the same torment onto their littles.

Honestly, the hazing ban Rachel could deal with. Being Chapter President meant that there were plenty more outlets for Rachel to exert her domineering side and express her cruelty. But the straw that had broken the camel’s back for her was that, just before she had taken office, Beta Zeta Tau had been put on the spot in particular. It made sense; being the most popular sorority meant that BZT had received the biggest spotlight. Cries of outrage over Beta Zeta Tau’s highly aesthetically biased exclusivity had come from left, right and afar and the sorority had had to give in to pressure. Starting this year, the year that Rachel finally got to take the reigns of the whole chapter, BZT would no longer be so openly discriminatory based on looks.

Rachel hated that. Why shouldn’t every newbie have to be subject to the same selectiveness that she and her other sisters were?!

Gosh, some of these new pledges were downright porky. Sure, most of them were actually quite pretty, Rachel could admit that. Not as pretty as she thought she was, obviously, but decent enough looking that the stern sorority sister hoped that she could at least salvage their chapter’s reputation by whipping them into shape. Forced exercising didn’t technically count as hazing, right? Neither did weekly weighins, Rachel mused menacingly. Also, how could she be the one to blame if some of the chubbier pledges found her diet and exercise regimen too hard and decided to quit?

Oh yes, Rachel Franks would have her perfect super-hot sorority by the end of this pledge season. Even in the pledges didn’t know it yet.