March 2022 Story - College Gas 101 (Chapter 6) (Patreon)

The cheers from the rugby teams were deafening. Everyone roared them on and shouted at the top of their lungs. Emilia kept eye-contact with Rita as they drank their cups across from each other. This was much different than Beer Pong. These cups were filled to the brim with beer. By the time Emilia reached her third, she was incredibly full. She heard someone throw up behind her, but she didn’t look back. Rita was holding up her own. She was ahead of Emilia by one cup, and suddenly Emilia really felt the competitive urge. She even had an ounce of jealousy. Rita never did any of these things or played many sports, and yet she was here. Emilia wasn’t going to let that Mary Sue win.

Emilia caught up with Rita, and they both stopped at their fifth cup. She was really feeling the bloat now, as was Rita. Rita moaned aloud and gripped the edge of the table for support.

Emilia straightened out her back and let out a wild, rip-roaring belch.

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRP!

“Uggggghhhh!” she moaned, in utter satisfaction.

She could continue.

By the time she finished, she had to let out another belch before moving onto the bongs. She hesitated, thinking about Rita still being stuck on her fifth cup. Nobody else had moved onto the bongs yet. Rita looked at her and nodded, waving at her to keep going.

Tess reached a bong first. The crowd went wild egging her on.

Emilia picked up a bong and hesitated again, looking at it like it was the most alien contraption she had ever seen.

Out of nowhere Rob came over to help her figure it out. He picked up the lighter and lit it up for her. She breathed in the weed and immediately started hacking and coughing.

“That’s okay!” Rob shouted over the noise. “Everyone coughs when smoking weed! That actually means it’s really hitting you!”

He stood there helping her take the hits, and she felt a warmth emanating from him, like he was a nurturing soul. She liked that, and blushed.

Her impression with weed was that it would take effect immediately. She went through ten hits but nothing happened. She shrugged and moved onto the Beer30. She tore open the 12-pack like a wild animal and started opening her first beer.

Rebecca was right. This was really diluted. It practically tasted like water. It was gross as hell, but at least it went down easily. She finished her first beer and realized she was in the lead. She crushed the can in her hands and tossed it behind her, moving onto the second. All the boys went crazy, especially Rob.

“SHE’S SO BADASS!”

“AW MAN! HELL YEAH!”

Emilia smiled. She loved the attention, but at the same time was embarrassed.

Around the seventh beer, Emilia underestimated the beer. She was now officially bloated. Her stomach tightened around her skirt, and she really needed some relief. She had stopped for so long that Tess and Rebecca had caught up and were drinking through their beers around her. Rebecca let out raunchy, unapologetic burps like Melissa. She kept going and going with the beers, only stopping to belch in between like she needed to let off steam. Any second now she was going to reach the jigsaw puzzle.

Rita was still on her last cup in Flip Cup, trying to flip it right-side-up. She gave Emilia a look from across the room and could tell that she was purposely stalling time. She probably didn’t want to smoke weed, and was intimidated by the Beer30.

The crowd cheered when Shannon moved onto the jigsaw puzzle.

Emilia had to win. She had to.

She had an idea. She unhooked the back of her skirt to give herself more room. It might be very embarrassing but she had to do it. The second she unhooked it, her stomach jutted out and she immediately let off a belch that made some room.

Time to finish this, she thought, gripping her newfound confidence.

She finished the remaining six beers, not without belching in between several beers that would make any frat boy shy, and then finally moved onto the jigsaw puzzle. All the puzzles were fairly complicated with over 200 pieces of some famous painting. Emilia dumped them all on the floor, set the box aside as a reference, and started piecing them together.

It was then that everything started to hit her.

Oh God… she thought.

Her world turned upside-down. Everything looked right-side up but her mind felt like it was turning around and around without her consent. It was the most bizarre, contradictory sensation. There was the tingling from all the beer she had mixed with this newfound experience of sensory confusion from the weed. She stared at the box for a good minute just zoning out, thinking about everything and nothing. Her brain was turning into mush as the seconds rushed by.

Shannon looked up at her, and she had the same glazed look in her eyes. She had finished half of the puzzle but then stopped as if she forgot what she was doing. She then lazily tried lifting up a puzzle piece but failed, and then snickered.

Shit. I’m high, Emilia said. I’m fucking high. I can still somewhat---think? But holy shit. Oh my God I’m getting so high right now.

Every second that ticked by she felt herself getting dumber, and dumber, and dumber, like someone was banging her head with a mallet and she was growing a comically large bump like in Looney Tunes, complete with Tweety Birds and stars flying around her head.

She wasn’t sure yet whether she liked it, maybe because in that moment she was being rushed to finish something, but she giggled a lot regardless.

“I’m gonna fucking beat you.”

Emilia looked up to see that Shannon was glaring at her. She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She had the competitive urge, yes, but lacked the will to retort. Shannon was somehow putting together piece by piece in a dizzying speed.

Emilia had to do something.

She leaned over and blew as hard as she could. Several pieces flung around Shannon. Shannon gasped and cried out, “BITCH!”

Emilia cackled. She returned to her jigsaw puzzle when Shannon nearly headbutted her and messed up her entire puzzle.

Boys in the crowd started going, “OooOOOOOOoooOOO!”

Emilia belched in Shannon’s face. It was the only immediate defense she knew at the moment since the gas had welled up inside of her. Shannon coughed and wafted the air. Emilia took the time to quickly piece together her puzzle. But her pieces had mixed with Shannon’s!

There was no hope now…Tess was next to them completely unperturbed and nearly finished with her puzzle. Before Emilia could do something about it, Tess plugged in the final piece and bolted for the bathroom across the hall.

“NO!” Emilia cried. Shannon and her tried to get up and rush for the bathroom. They instead budged shoulders and fell over.

Tess reached for the dirty old shoe that lay waiting on top of the toilet seat, like an ancient idol waiting to be snatched.

She grabbed it without hesitation and chugged the entire beer in one go. When she finished, she raised the shoe like a trophy and belched loud and messy. She heaved and patted her bloated stomach, but luckily she was wearing leggings anyway.

The party went wild. Everyone walked past Emilia and Shannon and picked up Tess and carried her over to the center of the common area, cheering and hollering. Rita had stopped drinking her case of Beer30 and went over to Emilia.

Emilia didn’t want to get up, not necessarily because she was pissed off but because her body had finally succumbed to all the alcohol and weed. Her muscles felt like jello and she began seeing double no matter how hard she tried to focus.

“Emilia?” Rita said, a bit dazed. She needed to hold onto the wall with a hand to support herself, but she was still hanging onto a thread of sobriety. “You aight?”

“MmmmMMMmmmmm,” Emilia said, mumbling nonsense.

With one hand, Rita was able to hoist Emilia back up. They needed each other’s support. Emilia reached out to offer Shannon a hand. Shannon glared at her, but then gave in and let her pick her up. The three girls swayed, burping and hiccupping, watching the rugby team clamor over Tess.

“Uh-oh,” Rita said, in the middle of hiccupping, “here she comes.”

Julie walked over to them with a devilish smirk on her face. Emilia was so nervous she could have puked, but in reality it was another burp building up.

Julie breathed in deeply, and took in their worried, drunken stupor.

“Congratulations,” she said.

The girls exchanged confused, dazed glances.

“Welcome to the team!”

Julie offered her hand. The three girls were too confused to shake it. Emilia finally murmured, “There’s…what? That’s it?” Her voice wavered in pitch. “We ARen’T gunna get HAZED?”

Julie cackled. She had a certain evil laugh, as if she derived pleasure from people’s misfortunes. She laughed so hard she had to wipe a tear from her eye. “Ohhhh, freshmen. You’re so easy to mess with. You’re cute. You’re all cute. No, we aren’t going to haze you. We just fucked with you. But we are heavy drinkers. You don’t have to come to every party. We don’t care. Just do your job on the field.”

And with that, Julie left.

Emilia, Rita, and Shannon stood there dumbfounded. They looked over at the group, and Shannon said, “I’m gonna get FUCKED up!” and left them.

Emilia and Rita looked at each other. Rita said, “Thanks for being there for me!”

“I didn’t do shit.”

Rita started getting drunker by the second, it was more difficult to form words. “You were okay with me losing. You made me feel okay with it. If I were gonna lose I would have been okay because you would have been there for me.”

“Aw, Rita! I would have never let them haze you!”

“Me neither.”

“You wouldn’t let them haze you neither?”

“No. Yes. Wait. What was the question?”

They cackled until they snorted, which made them laugh even more. The two went into the center of the party, where people were now dancing and grinding on each other. Emilia felt butterflies welling up again for some reason – ah – it was actually another burp. She figured that now would be the best time to text Melissa and let her know what was up. Everything was hitting her all at once and she knew she might black out sooner or later. It’d be best that Melissa try to get inside McConoughey.

Her text was less than coherent. Melissa couldn’t decipher anything she was texting, and instead called her up.

“What’s wrong?” Melissa shouted. “Are you okay? Did they haze you?”

“NooooOOOOOooooOOOo—hic---urp!”

“What? No what? What’s wrong?” Melissa’s voice reached its zenith. “ARE THEY HURTING YOU?”

“No, no. I’m fine. Rita’s fine. We’re ALL FINE. They were just messing with US. Hahahahaha.” Emilia’s laugh turned into a belch. She officially turned into a nonstop belching machine. It was like something triggered inside her stomach and they kept coming one after another every few seconds.

“Ufff. I’m DRUNK!”

“I can hear that. Do you need help?”

“No. RITA’S with ME!”

“Is she drunk too?”

“No…maybe?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. I know a senior who could come up and get you. His name’s Seb.”

“I don’t WANNA LEAVE YET. I WANNA HAVE FUN!”

“Okay, okay. If I don’t hear from you in another hour I’m gonna have Seb check up on you.”

Emilia nearly put the receiver in her mouth. She giggled and said, “Whateeeevvvveeeeerrrr!”

Before Melissa could say goodbye, Emilia ended the call. She jumped when she noticed Julie standing near her.

“Boyfriend?” Julie asked.

“NO. Friend.”

“So you don’t have a boyfriend?”

“No, I DO.”

Julie seemed to frown. “Oh. Cool. What’s his name?”

“Zack!”

“He’s invited to these things too from now on.”

Emilia smiled, but then frowned thinking about him. She had a strange gut reaction, and the alcohol in her released all inhibitions. She blurted, “I’M WORRIED HE WON’T VISIT ME!”

Julie seemed taken aback, then it hit her. “Oh, long-distance?”

“Yeah! He hardly answers my calls! I wanted to tell him that I got into the team but he still never answered me!”

“That’s not nice.”

Emilia lit up. It was the first time she heard someone be on her side. “Yeah! Isn’t it? My girlfriends say I’m being clingy. Is it clingy? I don’t knooooow!”

Julie put a hand on her shoulder. Emilia felt at ease and looked into Julie’s bright blue eyes. Julie said, “Girl, you just gotta go after what you want.”

“That’s right.”

“Fucking take what you want and don’t be sorry about it.”

“It’s SOOOOOO hard though!”

Julie nodded with a comforting look. “It’ll take time. But it’s okay. Baby steps.”

BRAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRP!

Emilia casually emitted a massive eructation directly in Julie’s face. She was so drunk that she didn’t even feel it coming. She had no warning until it actually escaped her lips. She yelped and covered her mouth, cheeks red. “I’m SO SORRY!” she shouted; voice muffled behind her mouth.

Julie threw her head back as she cackled. “It’s okay. We don’t care. Everyone here burps and farts as loud as they want. WE’RE THE RUGBY TEAM!”

Even you? Emilia thought. She could hardly imagine someone as perfect as Julie farting or burping out loud.

Rob came over and patted Emilia on the back, which inadvertently made her belch again.

“You almost won back there! Whoooo! You really know how to chug.”

“Thankssss.”

Emilia smiled again, and felt warm and fuzzy, not just from all the swirling alcohol but because she found herself enjoying the party. She belched left and right without anyone scolding her. Her skirt was loose but she didn’t care, which was a rare feeling. She enjoyed setting her belly free and nobody around her caring one bit about it.  All her nerves eased and she picked up a can of Miller Lite and gulped it down.