Miranda, still naked, other than her choker, following her time in bed with Preston, patted and adjusted the drape on Preston's ammunition bandoliers, then stood on her tiptoes to give him one last, lingering kiss. Preston, armed with a rifle similar to Andrew's but sporting a bayonet, with a small clear plastic button on the point to render it relatively harmless, returned the kiss eagerly. With her arm around his waist, Miranda escorted him to the tent entrance. "Could you ask Beth to come in here now? And tell people I'll need..." She bit her lip in thought. "...about forty minutes to get ready, and then Beth will signal for you to come back in."

She waited a few seconds after he'd gone; Amy, having learned her lesson, remained hidden until Miranda turned and beckoned to her. Amy saw that Miranda's face glowed with excitement. "This is it, Amy! Time for the big deal!"

Amy came towards her, puzzled. "Why are Andrew and my dad dressed like that?"

Miranda grinned. "There's usually kind of a show built around the hanging. This one's called the 'Princess Scenario.' It's kind of cute, you'll see."

Over Miranda's shoulder, Amy saw Beth come into the tent. She looked excited as well. She giggled. "Everybody's whispering about those outfits Mr. Cameron and Andrew have on. Are we ready to go, Randi?"

Miranda nodded. "I told Preston about forty minutes. That gives us lots of time, but we better get started."

Beth unzipped her leather jacket and let it fall to the ground. Underneath, she had on a black leather bra, the cups of which lifted her breasts to a very attractive fullness and were joined to each other at their lowest points by a thin strap, so that all of her cleavage was visible. Amy took in a quick breath; Beth looked sensational. Beth took off her dark shades for the first time since Amy had met her, and hung them from the strap between her bra cups.

Amy hadn't looked closely enough before -- her eyes had been so drawn to Miranda when they first met -- but now she noticed Beth's choker said, in block letters much less fancy than the script stitching on Miranda's, "Beth - Property of the Hanging Academy."

Miranda saw Amy watching Beth and said, "Beth is kind of the executioner, though Andrew's actually going to pull the lever. The black outfit and shades are part of the persona."

Beth grinned. "There were a few times in the last few years I felt like executing you. Here's my chance, finally."

Amy looked back and forth between them. "You've known each other a long time, huh?"

Miranda smiled in Beth's direction as Beth approached with a handful of items, including a glittering tiara. "We've been roommates, right from the first day. Sometimes girls change around, but we never did. We graduated at the end of last summer, but we stayed on as teaching assistants until we could get sold. We're still sharing a room."

Beth nodded. "I've got my gig scheduled for next weekend. Steffi's going to be my assistant."

Amy became conscious of the vibes passing between Miranda and Beth. "Should I go? You guys probably want some alone time."

Miranda smiled and shook her head. "That's really sweet of you, Amy. But we said our goodbyes this morning. We knew there wouldn't be a chance to make love after we got here."

Amy's eyes widened. "You're lovers too?"

Miranda smiled at the word. "Most roommates end up that way. You just spend so much time working together, studying together, and being partners for hanging practice. You look out for each other. You literally trust your roommate with your life when you're practicing." She giggled. "All the rooms have two small beds when you first move in. You can request that they replace them with a single larger one. Most of the girls end up doing that by the middle of the first year."

Amy wasn't sure she wanted to bring this up. "You must... lose a few girls along the way. Aren't there accidents sometimes?"

Beth had put down the tiara and, with a look of serious concentration, used her finger to tease out a lock of Miranda's hair just behind her temple. She gave it a few twists and pulled it straight back along the side of Miranda's head, securing it in place with a couple of hairpins.

Miranda answered, "Well, a lot of girls don't make it, for one reason or another. Accidents are kind of rare, because we have a lot of safety rules and we stick with them, but there are other reasons girls don't finish."

"How many do finish?"

"About..." Miranda stopped and thought, as Beth repeated her hairstyling strategy on the other side of Miranda's head. "It's around forty percent, I guess."

Amy's eyes sprang open wide. "Less than half graduate?"

With part of her mind, Amy was impressed with the transformation taking place. The hair arrangement suggested a laurel wreath without flowers. It gave Miranda a look that was both innocent and regal; she looked like a lovely maiden picking flowers in a meadow, or like a young woman about to make her debut at a society gala.

Miranda nodded. "There are about sixty or so girls in each entering class. Between about... I think twenty or twenty-five graduate."

"What happens to the others, then? I don't think I've heard of any Hanging Academy dropouts walking around."

Beth carefully settled the tiara on Miranda's head. There were a number of clips along the bottom edge, which Beth began using to secure the tiara to Miranda's hair.

Miranda smiled and shook her head. "There aren't any dropouts. All of the students either graduate or else die along the way."

Beth said, "Hold still, Randi."

"Sorry, honey."

Amy squinted at her. "I thought you said there aren't many accidents."

"Right. It's not from accidents. For one thing, every couple of months there's a demonstration in the auditorium for the whole class. The four or five girls with the lowest grades have their names put in a hat, and one of them is picked for the demonstration. She's hanged, and the rest of the class discusses her performance." Miranda looked directly into Amy's eyes. "Do you understand why, Amy?"

Amy blinked at the sudden question. The answer came to her. "You have to see some actual hangings, all the way to the end. There are some things you can't learn any other way."

Miranda beamed at her. "Exactly right!"

Beth finished with the tiara. "See if that'll stay on there, Randi."

Miranda shook her head, not quite violently but firmly, tilting it both ways, trying to dislodge the tiara. "Yeah, that's on there." She shook it again, briskly. "It's not getting any looser. We'll leave it like this."

Beth nodded and returned to the satchel, retrieving two lengths of silky-looking rope. She wrapped one around Miranda's waist and tied a knot in it in front of Miranda's stomach, leaving one long loose end hanging down most of the way to the floor. As she was doing this, Miranda went on, "Oh, and the other thing is the parties. Every three weeks the Academy hosts a party. People pay for admission -- that's one source of the Academy's income, besides selling the graduates -- and the students take visitors, men or women, to private rooms to entertain them. Like I just did with Andrew and your dad. Several in a night, usually. That contributes to two aspects of the learning process. Can you tell me what they are, Amy?"

It sank into Amy that Miranda intended to use her remaining time to make a student out of Amy. "Well..." She thought. "Obviously you learn more about sex that way. And..." It suddenly came to Amy, because she'd just seen such a vivid demonstration. Her eyes lit up. "And..." She grinned and held up her little finger, twirling it in a circle.

Miranda laughed as hard as Amy had seen her. "You got it! Learning how to read people and figure out what they want before they tell you. Like you saw me do. You learn a lot of that from studying about it, but there's no possible substitute for actually doing it. Anyway, the reason I brought up the parties is, at the end of each party, one of the students is hanged. They rotate that among the classes, first year, second year, third year, and she's chosen the same way as the students for the bimonthly demonstration. Of course, that's what a lot of the visitors came to see, more than the sex."

Amy examined herself deep within to see whether her determination to attend the Academy had been shaken. A day ago, the information Miranda was now giving her would certainly have done so. Now she felt, instead, a growing confidence inside herself. Only the students with the lowest grades were hanged before graduation. Amy had always worked hard for her grades. She knew she had the will to work harder still. Being with Miranda made her feel equal to any task.

Beth had finished with the first rope and bent down to retrieve the second. She hesitated, looking into Miranda's eyes. "I need to tie your hands now, Randi."

Miranda and her roommate looked at each other for a few seconds, neither of them speaking. Suddenly Miranda reached out and put her arms around Beth, drawing her against her. "One more time." They held each other tightly, leaning their heads against each other, making Amy wish, for the first and only time in Miranda's presence, that she were elsewhere.

The two friends lifted their heads, looked at each other and kissed, holding the kiss a long time. They broke it off at the same moment, and Amy could see Miranda's eyes shining. Miranda said softly, "I love you, Beth."

Beth responded, "I love you, Randi. Always."

Miranda smiled and sighed. Then she lifted both hands in front of her. "Gotta get it done."

Beth echoed her sigh, and began fiddling with the rope, working to remove a tangle, meanwhile walking around behind Miranda. Miranda exclaimed, "Oh! Here's something you can help with, Amy. Look in the satchel for a round sponge, it's like a ball, and a bottle of vegetable oil."

Amy blinked at the odd assignment, and knelt next to the satchel. There weren't many things left inside it by now, and she easily found the required items. As she brought them over, Miranda said, "Okay, now get some of the oil soaked into the sponge, and start spreading it on my body. Everywhere. I need every square inch covered with it. Except my face and neck. Stop at the choker, but get everything under that."

Puzzled, Amy tilted the bottle and let the sponge suck up some of its contents. "I would have thought this would come later. It's still awhile before they cook you." Hesitantly, encouraged by Miranda's nod, she knelt down and began rubbing the sponge on Miranda's lower legs.

"Well, it's not just for cooking. That's part of it, but you'll see what else it's for."

Beth had finally unscrambled the rope, and Miranda put her hands behind her back, crossing her wrists. Beth looped one end of the rope around Miranda's right wrist and knotted it, leaving one long end and about ten inches on the other. She looped the long end around Miranda's left wrist, then her right, then her left again, in a figure eight pattern, pushing it through between her wrists each time. By the time the remaining ends of the rope were equal in length, Beth wrapped them in opposite directions around all of the ropes running between Miranda's wrists and knotted then tightly.

Amy, watching from below, was surprised at how complete the job was. There was obviously no way Miranda could free her hands on her own -- there were so many loops around each wrist, and the knot was in a place her fingers couldn't possibly reach.

Mindful of her own job, Amy continued rubbing the vegetable oil on Miranda's skin, now above her knees. Miranda saw Amy looking at the ropes. "We always make sure it's obvious to the audience that there's no way the girl being hanged could save herself. It adds to their excitement. Keep going, with the oil. If Beth is in the way of something, remember to come back to it later."

Amy nodded. "I -- it's just funny to think you'll never use your hands again. The rest of your life."

Miranda laughed. "Well, they're not completely useless. You'll see."

As Miranda shifted her feet to move her legs apart, Beth reached between Miranda's legs and took hold of the first rope, the one hanging down from Miranda's stomach. Pulling it towards her through Miranda's legs, she brought it up and looped it between Miranda's wrists, and tied it there. Amy, avoiding Miranda's crotch area for the time being, was rubbing oil on Miranda's stomach and looking at the arrangement of ropes. She suddenly thought she understood the purpose of it. She felt a sudden tingling between her own legs.

Miranda tested the arrangement. "I'm sorry, sweetie, could you untie it and redo it with my hands a few inches lower? Right now I have to lift my hands too high to pull it taut."

Beth nodded and untied the rope. Miranda lowered her hands, and Beth looped the crotch rope around her wrists again, tying it. "Better?"

Miranda smiled. "Perfect. Thanks." She spread her legs still farther apart, as Beth came around in front of her. Beth knelt and adjusted the crotch rope, spreading Miranda's vaginal lips, now very puffy with arousal, and making sure the rope ran between them along their whole length, not pinching anywhere.

Miranda let out a sudden gasp and shivered. "WOW, that feels good! But let's let Amy get in there now. Amy, be sure to get my crotch and my butt."

Amy marveled at the smooth slickness of Miranda's mound. There wasn't a hint of pubic hair. Amy knew, as an abstract fact, that girls shaved their bushes sometimes. She hadn't actually seen what that looked like.

As the slick sponge brushed Miranda's pussy lips, Miranda moaned softly and her knees buckled for an instant.

Amy had never in her life touched another person so intimately, but somehow there was no other person she could imagine it feeling more right with than Miranda. Shyly but diligently, she concentrated on reaching every available area. Her mind was brimming with many more questions than she had time to ask, she knew, but at least asking some of them would give her something more to think about and make her less self-conscious of what she was doing with Miranda's body. "I was looking at Beth's choker. Do you become slaves of the Academy when you graduate?"

Miranda smiled. "Actually, you're a slave as soon as you enter. They invest a lot in your training. They don't want students casually leaving. Like I said, the only alternative to graduating is dying."

"After you graduate, how do you get sold? I mean, how did you end up here?"

"Well, whenever a request comes in, a description goes around to all the graduates. We can say no to any of them, though if we wait too long..." She grinned, "We start to be eligible for the drawing at the parties, so you have to take something eventually. Anyway, this one asked for a blonde, about my size, and they wanted the 'Princess Scenario,' which I had down as my first preference, so it naturally came to me first. Your dad came in and I met him there, and he seemed nice..." Amy could well imagine her dad being very ingratiating in that situation, "...so I said okay. He worked out the payment with the Academy, and it was all a done deal. Don't forget to get the oil between my arms and my back. You'll have to kind of force your way in there. I can't help you much."

Moments later, as Amy was oiling Miranda's breasts, she felt a strong need for another attention break. "What's the best thing I can do to get in? To the Academy?"

Miranda smiled at her. "You still -- OOH that feels nice -- you still want to go, after everything I've said?"

Amy stopped for a moment, her hand resting on Miranda's breast. Her answer was heartfelt. "Even more."

They locked eyes. Miranda said, "I knew it when I met you." She closed her eyes. "Keep rubbing -- OH!" She shivered and grinned. "Anyway, the best thing to do is fill in your application as soon as you can. And definitely go there personally. Don't do it by mail. You probably won't get an interview right there on the spot, they'll schedule that for later. But there are often important people hanging around the Admissions Office. And even the secretaries are worth the trouble of impressing. Just let people see you're there. If they look you in the eye, they can see how much this means to you. That's really important. Can you go in Monday?"

Amy was oiling Miranda's shoulder now. "I think so... oh!" She scowled. "I have a couple of big tests Monday."

Miranda nodded. "Tests are important. Don't let your grades suffer, no matter what. What about Tuesday?"

Amy thought. "Tuesday... yes. I can do it then."

Miranda beamed at her. "I wish I could go with you. Take that letter I gave you, for sure."

Amy patted her back pocket to make sure it was there -- for the hundredth time. "I will."

Miranda turned to Beth, who was standing by with the robe. "Two pairs of eyes, Beth. Both of you check and make sure there aren't any missed spots." She turned slowly and let both of them look her over.

Beth looked at Amy, and they both nodded. "You're all oiled, Randi."

Miranda took a long, deep breath. "Let's get the robe on." From Miranda's demeanor, Amy could tell this was the final piece of preparation.

The robe was of a deep purple color, such as had once been reserved for royalty, and was richly textured enough to pass for genuine fur. It was oddly wide open at the collar, held that way by a strip of springy metal sewn into the collar.

Amy remembered something else she'd wanted to ask. "I heard you talking to your dad about 'the girls.' You've got sisters, then?"

Miranda smiled. "Four, yeah. Melissa, Maria, Melanie, and Mindy. They're..." She frowned, trying to think. "Let's see: 16, 14, 13, and 11. I wish they could be here, but I understand Daddy not wanting them to. They're so sweet, but I always wondered what having a brother would be like. You're lucky, having one."

Amy tried to keep a straight face, reminding herself Miranda hadn't said it was good luck.

Beth draped the robe over Miranda's shoulders, and with some effort pulled the collar nearly closed. She secured it with a piece of metal whose hooks at both ends fit into small eyelets on either side of the collar. A long, silky sash hung down on both sides from the collar. Beth tied the ends to each other in front of the collar with an elaborate slip-knot, and removed the metal strip, which had just been a temporary device -- it was the sash that was now holding the collar closed. There was one more sash that encircled the waist. Beth closed the robe in front and tied the waist-sash with another slip-knot, leaving Miranda's body hidden within the robe, from her neck down almost to the floor.

Miranda was bouncing slightly up and down on her tiptoes, her face flushed. "This is it, Beth! This is it!"

Beth seemed equally excited. "I know! I know!"

Miranda sighed. "Beth, have a wonderful time next week. I'm glad you could see mine. I wish I could be at yours."

"Me, too. Thanks for everything, Randi. Love you."

"Love you too, Beth."

Miranda turned to Amy, beaming. "Have the best of luck, Amy. I believe in you. Stand still a second." Miranda took a step closer to Amy, leaned towards her and, taking Amy by surprise, kissed her full on the lips.

Amy, the Amy before today, had lived a very shy life. She had never yet kissed anyone, boy or girl. She had always wondered if she would know what to do. But it felt very natural for her lips to melt against Miranda's, as she smelled the pleasant aroma of cooking oil enveloping her.

Miranda broke the kiss, finally, looking at Amy beatifically. "That was for something to remember me by."

Amy, stunned, stammered, "It's... I... I think I would have remembered you anyway."

Miranda laughed, hard. "I hope so." She turned to Beth. "Honey, tell Preston he can come back in now. Remind him to light the fire first, so it'll be ready on time." Miranda's eyes lit up. "I love the smell of lighter fluid and hot charcoal. Especially when it's for me. Oh, put your shades back on!"

Fumbling with them slightly, Beth retrieved them from the front of her bra. She reached out and brushed Miranda's robe-covered arm softly. Turning, she left the tent.

Amy was still a little flustered. "What happens now?"

Miranda gestured with her head. "First you'd better get back in your little hiding place. Your dad's about to come in here."

"Oh!" Amy ran back to the fold in the tent wall and huddled back behind it.

Miranda went on, "Wait till we're gone, and come out... maybe ten seconds later. I promise, nobody's going to be looking at the tent."

Amy nodded, though she knew Miranda couldn't see her. She closed her eyes, remembering the kiss.