Amy sat at her desk in her room, looking over her returned test paper to see what she'd missed. She was reasonably satisfied with her score of 98, but each student in the Anatomy and Physiology class was required to turn in a short report on her errors, saying what the correct answers should have been. On Amy's paper there was a red mark against the name she had written next to one of the muscles on a diagram of the chest and lungs. She smiled and shook her head. She'd remembered not feeling sure about that one.

Amy didn't know most of the other girls' scores, but she'd seen Megan, sitting two seats ahead in the row to Amy's right, put her paper into her notebook with a smirk -- not before Amy had seen "100" written at the top. Amy had been able to see some other scores for nearby students, a couple in the low 90's, a few more in the 80's. She sighed with relief. She was used to scores like this in school, but had been worried that she was entering a different level of competition.

Amy looked up as Susan came into the room. By the look on Susan's face Amy could tell something was wrong. "Susan? Okay?"

Susan sat abruptly on her bed and pulled out her own test paper. Amy had seen Susan color slightly when the paper had been handed back, but didn't know her well enough to be able to tell quite what the reaction meant. Her feelings were more on the surface now.

Susan handed the paper across to Amy, and brushed at her eye, seeming to be fighting to keep from tearing up. "I've never got scores in school like that before."

A large number of red marks jumped out at Amy's eye as she looked at the paper. The score at the top, 72, didn't seem that bad, but then a lot of the questions, especially the multiple choice part, had seemed fairly easy. At least to Amy. "Most girls I knew in high school would be happy with a score like that."

"I'm not most girls! I always got A's! High school was always just easy stuff. I hardly even had to study for it! I read all the material for this, but it's not sticking." A tear did manage to escape Susan's brushing finger and dribble down her cheek.

Amy had been wondering if something like this was coming. Susan did indeed spend time studying, but Amy never saw her marking up the book or taking down notes while reading. Or flipping back and forth to try to connect ideas together. Amy suspected high school might have been sufficiently easy for Susan that she hadn't really been forced to learn to study. To Amy, studying came naturally, but one thing clear about Susan was that she had a hard time making herself do things her heart wasn't in. "Well, look, it's just one test. It's kind of a new environment here. You'll get used to it."

Susan's lip was quivering. "We've got that Chemistry test tomorrow. I'm just not getting that at all." She took the test paper back from Amy and threw it down on the bed. "I don't get why we need to take Chemistry anyway! We're supposed to learn to hang, not do experiments in a chem lab!"

Amy smiled. "Well, I guess the way I'm seeing it is, our lives depend on chemicals. Especially when we're hanging. I think we can probably get a lot out of learning what oxygen is and how it works in our bodies." She stopped as Susan shot her a sour look.

Amy thought a moment about how to word her offer. She didn't want to just say "Want me to help you?" since she didn't want to sound superior. And Susan couldn't be used to needing that sort of help. "Ummm... I'm kind of confused about those last chem assignments, too. If we worked together we could help each other."

Susan looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears now. "That... yeah. That would be good." She looked yearningly at the rope hanging down from the ceiling ring. "Could we practice hanging first? I'd feel better after I do that."

Amy knew it would relax Susan. It did seem to be the only thing that really made the girl happy.

Amy closed the door of the room -- most of the girls did that when they practiced hanging -- and hunted for the handcuffs while Susan discarded her uniform. Amy had found Susan looked really attractive when she was naked, but Amy didn't intend to force herself on the girl. Amy hooked the platform out from under the TV with her foot, and centered it under the rope.

She followed Susan up onto the platform and put the rope around Susan's neck. She reminded Susan, "We only get to do it for sixty seconds." Susan nodded that she understood.

Moments later, as Susan lost contact with the platform and began to kick, Amy, as always, felt her own arousal rising. She forced it down. She'd practice hanging later. I've got to help Susan first, she told herself. She needs that a lot more than I need to have some fun.

There was a knock at the door. Amy called out "Hold on!" and kept her eyes on Susan. Amy wondered if Susan had seen Megan hang yet. Amy decided to tell her later some of the things Megan had been able to do.

Amy's watch beeped, and she raised the platform. Susan sighed yearningly as Amy loosened the noose. Amy knew she'd want to do it again before they went to sleep. More than once, probably. Amy intended to take at least one turn, but studying came first.

Amy went to see who was at the door. Linda was standing there. "Amy, want to come watch 'Headhunters'?" It was one of their favorite TV series.

Amy ducked out into the hallway with Linda and pulled the door closed. She whispered softly, "I'll try to get with you guys later, but I need to help Susan study. She's kind of worried about her grades."

Linda nodded. She whispered back, "See you in awhile." She kissed Amy and trotted back up the hall.

Amy reentered the room, smiling. "Feel like a little fun with chemistry?"

Susan laughed. Hanging had really done her a lot of good. "Okay. Let's use my book." She sat at her own rarely-used desk, waiting as Amy pulled her own desk chair over. "I'm really not getting the stuff about electron shells in the atoms. I mean, what are the shells supposed to be made of? I thought atoms themselves were what everything was made out of."

Amy sat down. "Well, they don't mean the shells are something physical. It's just a way of thinking of it that helps explain what the electrons are doing..."

Amy started carrying her tray towards the table Linda and Laney were sitting at in the caf, but stopped when she spotted Megan sitting by herself. Amy sighed heavily. It's worth a try, she thought.

Megan looked up as Amy reached the table. She didn't look too welcoming, but Amy was resolved. "Mind if I sit with you?"

Megan shrugged, and pulled her tray back slightly to make room for Amy's on the other side.

Amy looked for an opening. "How are the eggs?"

Megan looked down as if actually examining them. "Scrambled."

Okay, Amy thought, enough of that. "I can tell you're not big on small talk, so I'll just say it. Could you go a little easier on some of the girls in class?"

Megan looked surprised. "Me? What did I do?"

"It's... Oh, you know what I'm talking about. Those little snorts and shaking your head when somebody asks a question in class. I know it hurts Susan, and I'm sure it makes the others feel bad too."

Megan gave a short laugh. "Well, when they ask stuff like 'If the protons all repel each other, why do they stick to each other in the nucleus?', what am I supposed to do?"

"You know that's not a dumb question!"

"Yeah, if somebody hasn't read the assignment. It talks about that right in there."

Amy shook her head. "You know everybody's working hard. We're all trying to learn a lot of new things all at once. You just don't have to be... nasty. If you're not happy with somebody's question, just let it go."

Megan put a forkful of eggs in her mouth. "I could tell you that you don't need to keep being nice to everybody all the time."

"That's not something I do because I feel like I have to. I'm just being the way I am."

Megan nodded. "Well, there you go. So am I."

Amy searched for some way to get through. "You know how hard the school works to try to make sure everybody learns something from everybody else. You're so good at all of this -- all of this. You could raise all of us to a higher level if you'd try to help. Laughing at everybody just pushes them down."

Megan took a bite of a sweet roll. "You're not as bad as the rest. You've got some good moves when you're hanging. Why don't you help them?"

Amy tried not to react to the compliment. "That's the point! I do! At least I try to."

Megan smiled. "Guess they don't need me then." She finished the sweet roll.

Amy stared at her for a minute, then gave up. She stood and picked up her tray. "See you in class." Megan gave her a vague wave.

Amy went over to sit next to Linda. She felt soiled, like she did after talking to Andrew.

Before Amy could say anything to Linda, she noticed Jackie had come up and squatted next to Amy's chair. Jackie put her hand on Amy's shoulder. "Thanks for trying, Amy."

Amy sighed. "For the record, it didn't accomplish anything."

"Some things need to be done anyway." Jackie patted Amy's shoulder and went back to her own table.

Amy stood beside her mailbox and pulled her one-month report card out of its envelope. She couldn't help feeling a little nervous, though she knew her grades were good.

The card showed her grades for the first month of classes, including hanging practice, as well as a score based on her time spent on her exercise program at the gym. At the bottom was an overall average, and a class rank. Amy's eyes shot open. She was number two in the class! She felt elated that all her work was paying off so far.

She didn't need to ask around to figure out who was number one.

She felt she was almost floating back to her room. I can handle the Hanging Academy! I'm one of the top students!

She noticed the door to her room was slightly ajar. Hope Susan's in there, she thought. And I hope she got some good news.

Amy entered the room and stopped abruptly.

Susan was there, on her bed, pressed back against the corner of the walls, her knees drawn up, the back of her hand against her mouth as she gnawed at it nervously. Tears were running down her cheeks.

In front of her, Amy could see Susan's report card on the bed, out of its envelope.

Amy closed the door of the room and walked towards Susan slowly. "Susan? Are you okay?"

Susan seemed to hunch farther into herself, and shook her head.

Amy wasn't sure what to do. She gestured towards the card with her head. "Do you want me to look at it? Or not?"

Susan nodded her head briefly, more tears welling from her eyes.

Amy sat on Susan's bed and picked up the card carefully, as if it were a snake that might or might not be dead. She knew where to look first.

Susan's class rank was 55, out of 58. She was in the bottom five.

From the bottom five, this month and every second month thereafter, one of the five names would be chosen at random, and the chosen girl would be hanged at a class demonstration. This month's demonstration was scheduled for tomorrow.

Amy squeezed onto the bed next to Susan and put her arm across her shoulders. The girl seemed to melt against Amy. "Susan, it probably won't be you. You know that. Look, after dinner we'll figure out what to do to bring your grades up higher. Okay?" Amy tried to get Susan to look in her direction. "Okay?"

Susan looked at Amy vaguely for an instant and then away. Amy looked at the card again. "I mean, one thing we could get higher right away is your gym participation. You just need to start logging more time on the equipment. You know you can do that."

Susan shrugged, sniffling. "S'boring."

"I know, Suse. I get bored too. But it helps make us what we want to be. Our bodies have to be perfect. We're Hanging Girls!"

"I know, I know." Susan ground her fists into her eyes.

"And then later we can work on some assignments together. I don't mind, really. It helps me too." Long gone was any pretense that Amy and Susan were at the same level academically. Susan could see through that easily by now.

Susan sighed. "Thanks, Amy."

Amy was about to go on when the announcement speaker in the room made a slight crackling sound. The girls were used to that. It preceded announcements made to all the rooms.

This one seemed strange, though. It was Gail, one of the two "dorm sisters," graduates who acted as immediate supervisors for the First Year girls, and she was speaking very softly. "I need to see Susan Fennel in my room, please." Amy felt sure the announcement hadn't gone to any of the other rooms.

Susan let out a gasping breath. "Amy? Come with me?"

Amy reached up and stroked Susan's hair, the first time she had done anything remotely like that. "Sure. Look, this probably doesn't mean anything. They'll tell you it's not you. They'd have to tell all the candidates, no matter what. They wouldn't want four of them worrying all night for nothing."

Susan managed a smile. "Yeah." She scooted towards the side of the bed and took Amy's hand. Amy didn't think Susan intended to let go of it anytime soon.

The dorm sisters, Gail and Bridget, recent graduates, shared a room just around the corner from the First Year dorm hallway. Gail opened the door to Amy's knock. She looked a little surprised to see Amy, but nodded slightly when she saw Susan beside Amy. "Susan, come in. Do you want Amy to come in with you?"

Susan nodded. Amy could feel Susan squeeze her hand more tightly.

The room was larger than a student room, and had a table with chairs around it in addition to the usual dorm furnishings. Bridget was already in one of the chairs, resting her chin on the backs of her hands, her elbows on the table. Amy and Susan took the seats nearest the door as Gail sat across from them.

Amy tried to read both girls' faces before either spoke. Her heart sank. Gail broke the silence. "Susan, I think you already know what I'm going to say."

Still silent, Susan nodded again. A new tear rolled from her eye, following the tracks of the others.

Gail sighed. "I know it can't feel very good, being the first. Every girl here has dreams of going much farther than this. But I want you to know that you'll be doing a great service to the Academy. And I promise that your body and your meat will be treated with all of the honor and dignity you've earned by serving the Academy."

She stopped, waiting for a response from Susan. Susan nodded once more and said in a tiny voice, "Thank you."

Gail bit her lip. "The demonstration is scheduled for 11 am tomorrow. Would you be ready by then? It could be postponed up to an hour if you need more time."

Susan shook her head slightly. In that same tiny voice, she said, "No, eleven is okay."

Bridget spoke up. "We'll be up early tomorrow. If you have any requests for who you'd like to have speak at your banquet, or who should get any particular cuts of your meat, please let us know." She looked at Susan sympathetically. "Okay?"

Gail spoke again. "Do you have anything you want to ask now?"

Susan shook her head.

Bridget asked quietly, "Do you want us to leave you alone for awhile?"

Susan took a deep breath, and shook her head. "Could I go back to my room now?"

Gail reached out and held the one hand Susan had available that wasn't clutching Amy's. "The Academy will always remember you, Susan."

Susan said, "Thank you," again.

Amy suspected it would be her job to get Susan moving. She stood up, giving Susan's hand a very gentle tug upwards. She looked at both Gail and Bridget. "Thank you. I know that was hard."

Gail gave her a small nod and blinked back a tear of her own.

Susan was standing, now. Amy rubbed her own shoulder against Susan's, and whispered, "Let's go, Suse."

Back in their own room, after Amy closed the door, Susan let go of Amy's hand and sank onto her bed, in a fetal position. Amy shook her head. We can't have this, she thought.

Amy sat beside Susan on her bed, and put her hand on Susan's nearer shoulder. She said softly, "We're women, hon. We're all ready to be eaten at a moment's notice."

Susan shook her head against the bed, and said in a tired voice, "It's not that. You know it isn't. I'm as ready to die as any woman. It's just..." She ground her palms against her eyes. "I never failed at anything before!" The tears were flowing freely now. "I was always one of the top students. It came so easy. Too easy, I guess. I didn't know how to handle it when it got hard."

Amy watched her roommate crying for a minute. Then she shifted her hand down to Susan's farther shoulder and started tugging on it. "Sit up, babe. Sit up for me."

Susan slowly sat up on the bed, not because she wanted to but because she had, at this moment, very little will of her own. If Amy wanted her up, she'd be up.

Amy moved around to sit between Susan's legs, wrapping her own legs around Susan's waist. She put her hands gently on either side of Susan's face. She wanted Susan's full attention -- wanted to be so directly in front of Susan that it was impossible for Susan to look anywhere else. "Susan, listen to me. You are not a failure. You know there were over three hundred girls who applied for admission this year. Only sixty-five of us got in. You're the cream. When the cream comes to the top, some of it gets drunk first. But you are part of that cream."

Amy was glad to see that brought a tiny smile. It vanished quickly, though. "Then why do I feel like a failure? I'm the first one out. I barely made it through a month!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw Miranda's head. She closed her eyes for a moment, drinking in the inspiration Miranda always gave her. She opened herself up to Miranda.

Suddenly Amy saw beyond the surface of Miranda's head. To what lay underneath. Within.

Amy opened her eyes and looked at Susan again. "You know, just because you're here, just because you earned your way here, just because you're an Academy girl, you get something that goes beyond what most women ever dream of."

Amy was glad to see she seemed to have Susan hooked. "What's that?"

"You know for almost all women, the biggest thing they can have, the thing that can make them happiest of all, is knowing that their bodies will become part of all the people they love the most. Not every woman gets that, but it's what they dream of. You have more than that."

Susan's eyes went wide. "What is it?"

"Every girl in our class will carry part of your body around with them, as part of their own, but... we'll also have you in our heads. And I don't just mean we'll remember you. We will, of course. But the knowledge we have, the training we have, everything that makes us what we're trying to become -- part of that will be what we learn from you, from your hanging." Amy took her hands off Susan's face and touched her own head with them. "You'll be part of my body, and you'll also be part of my mind. In the most important part. You'll be part of my identity as a Hanging Girl."

Slowly, the corners of Susan's mouth twitched upward. She said, softly, "Yeah." She sighed then. "I still just wish I could have... you know, put on a show. I know what you're saying, but... you understand what I mean, right? I love hanging, but there's more to it than just that."

Amy swallowed her instinctive response that Susan had already done a show, something Amy suspected few of her classmates could say. That would just remind Susan of her lost dreams of reaching a higher level...

Amy's eyes shot open. "You were Janeen before. What if you could be again?"

Susan looked lost. "What?"

"Tomorrow, what if it could be more than just a demonstration in front of all your classmates? What if we put on a show for them? That show. You already know all your lines. You could write down mine for me."

Susan's wide-eyed stare matched Amy's. Amy hoped Susan was following her. Amy relaxed as Susan's lost look slowly turned to excitement. "Yeah! YEAH!! Let me think if I'd need anything... wait!" She frowned. "They wouldn't let us do that. We can't mess around with a demonstration."

"We wouldn't have to mess with it! Once you're up in the air, would you act any different? I mean, when you're hanging, you'll try to do the best you can no matter what, right?"

Susan nodded excitedly. She fingered her lip, thinking. "In the play, I wore kind of a ragged dress, more like a gown, that they ripped off me just before the hanging."

Amy laughed. "I've seen something like that. But..." She tried to think how they could obtain an appropriate prop on short notice. "We can make do with a bedsheet. Anything else?"

"Amy, really, what if they don't let us?"

Amy jumped off the bed and grabbed Susan's hand, almost yanking her towards the door. "Let's ask Gail and Bridget."

Amy threw the door open and together they pounded down the hallway, almost knocking flat one of the girls who was just coming out of her own room at the time. After they rounded the corner, Susan herself pounded on the dorm sisters' door. "Gail? Bridget?"

Gail opened the door in a hurry. "Is there a fire? Why aren't the alarms going?"

Susan laughed. She blurted out, the words almost running together as one, "Gail Amy and me want to put on just a quick little show before the demonstration it'll just take a few minutes please can we do that?"

Gail stared at her as Bridget came up behind her. "Could you go through that again, a little slower?"

Amy said, "Gail, we have just this little short show from a play we want to put on, just before we do the demonstration. It won't take anything away from the demo. Like the kind of show you'll put on when you're sold, only scaled down. Please?" Amy gave both girls her most winning look.

Gail looked at Bridget, neither of them knowing what to say. Finally Bridget said, "Let me call the dean." Their room necessarily had a phone for internal use.

Amy and Susan returned to their room, holding hands again, giggling. The dean had said yes.

Susan ran for her bed and waved Amy towards her. "We still have to plan some. I'll write down some lines for you, like you said."

Again, seeing Miranda's head reminded Amy of something. "What about your hair?" Her memory of Beth putting Miranda in "princess" mode filled her mind. "Did they do anything to it for the play?"

Susan shook her head. "Not really. Just regular me."

Amy laughed. "Well, you had to go back to school the next day. But you're a prisoner. Your hair should be really short. Prison cut."

Susan nodded emphatically. "Right! Amy, you cut it. Make it look really raggedy, like they didn't care how they cut it."

Amy almost went to her drawer for some scissors, but stopped. "Wait. We can't make it look ugly. Your head is going to be in the Hall of Honor forever!"

"Oh yeah!" Susan sighed, grinning. "I didn't want to end up there, but it sounds really good right now." The Hall of Honor was inside the secured area, not the public area - it was maintained for the students, so they could see the girls who had gone before them and given their lives for the school. The head of every girl who had been hanged at a demonstration or at a party was displayed in the Hall, each in its own separate niche, each niche with special lighting that was never turned off. Her name was engraved on a plaque, with the date she died, and there was a drawer underneath containing handwritten notes from students in remembrance of her. Every girl in the school had visited the Hall, many of them more than once.

"Let's do this, then. In the morning, we'll go to the hairdresser." The school maintained, for students, at no cost to the students, who of course had no money anyway, a permanently staffed hair salon, which became very busy just before parties. Luckily, there was no party this week. "They can figure out just how to do it."

Susan nodded again. "Yeah! Oh, this is so..." Susan stopped and blinked several times, looking at Amy intently. She reached out and put her hand on Amy's hip. "Amy, you're the best roommate anybody ever had. You've done so much for me, even before today, and I think maybe I've kind of taken you for granted a little. I want... maybe you don't want to. You've never said." Susan's hand was lightly stroking Amy's waist now. Her face, Amy now saw, was lightly flushed.

The way Susan was rubbing Amy's hip, accompanied by the look in her eyes, left no doubt what she meant. Amy felt a flush of her own spread through her body. She was suddenly aware of a desire for Susan that she hadn't felt before. Nobody in her class but Megan had made Amy feel that way before, and with Megan the feeling was tainted with repulsion for the girl's personality. "Susan, I thought you said you didn't like doing it with girls."

Susan shook her head, her eyes never leaving Amy's. "You're not a girl."

Amy laughed. "I always thought I was."

Susan leaned closer. "You're just a person who's very special." Susan's flush grew deeper, and her voice came out quavery and husky. "This is my last night, and I want to make love to you. I want to see you, and hear you, and feel you, and smell you, and taste you, and nothing but you, all night long."

Amy smiled, her lips parted, breathing in quick, shallow sips. To answer Susan's question of whether she wanted to, Amy reached behind herself and popped the clasp on her uniform bra. As the cups fell into her lap, she absently swept the bra aside onto the floor.

Susan grinned, her mouth wide open, and popped off her own bra.

They fell towards each other then, giggling as their arms battled momentarily to see whose could get around the other first. They held each other tightly, their breasts pressed together, their open mouths locked together and moving against each other, both girls making soft moaning sounds as they pushed each other's arousal higher.

They had stopped giggling long ago. It was almost hypnotic, being so close to each other. After their first orgasms, it had been Amy's idea, eagerly subscribed to by Susan, to try to maintain each other on a plateau of arousal without falling over into another orgasm.

They were lying naked, motionless, on their sides, locked together in an embrace on Susan's bed, facing each other, in what Amy thought of as a "double fetal" position -- each with her knees drawn up, each with her right leg between both of the other's, right upper thigh pressed snugly against the other's sex. Their open mouths were pressed together, each girl breathing sufficient new air through her nose while they shared breaths back and forth through their mouths. The fingers of Amy's right hand were threaded through the hair on the back of Susan's head, and she could feel Susan holding the back of her own head. Amy had never before felt so absorbed in the body of another person. This, among her life's memories, Amy knew, would be one of her favorites.