Amy and Megan stripped off their uniforms for another evening's hanging practice. It was becoming their habit to do it after dinner. Even without the arousal of watching Megan hang, Amy had still not succeeded in suppressing the flutter she felt when she saw Megan naked, but she believed at least there were no visible signs of it. Not that she had any hope of hiding her reaction when Megan's turn came to hang.

As Megan secured the rope around Amy's wrists, Amy had a vague feeling that Megan was acting oddly. Megan had never fumbled with the rope before, and she looked slightly flushed. Probably has some new move she wants to show off when it's her turn to hang, Amy decided. I know she thinks it's the funniest thing when I still run into the bathroom after her little show. I wish I didn't have to. I know she knows I'm masturbating in there, so it's not like I'm managing to keep any secrets. But I'll be damned if I'll let her watch.

Amy managed to push thoughts of Megan out of her head as she felt the platform descend to leave her hanging by the neck. As always, it was the one time in any day when the pressures of schoolwork could be put aside, and she felt... self-realized, she decided was the word for it. When I'm hanging, she thought, I'm being the most innermost me I can possibly be. Doing what I was always meant to do.

As usual, she tried a little of Megan's hip-thrusting. She felt she was getting better at it, yet, as quickly as ever, the first signs of hypoxia brought her concentration back to drawing air into her body and giving her blood a path up to her brain. Don't worry, she insisted to herself as always, you've still got nearly three years to learn how to do it right.

It occurred to Amy that Megan was standing a little farther away than usual, her arms folded across her chest, looking at Amy with an unblinking concentration that exceeded any amount of attention Amy had seen in her before.

Amy was tiring sooner than she had lately. Megan's odd behavior, she speculated, was probably disrupting her concentration. She wriggled her foot to signal Megan to let her down.

To Amy's astonishment, Megan continued staring at her. Amy angrily waggled her foot again, and reached out with her leg to try to kick Megan, but the girl was standing just out of her reach.

Amy's heart suddenly raced, and she could feel its beat throbbing in her neck. She's going to kill me!

Amy's last kick had twisted her so that she could see Miranda out of the corner of her eye.

Miranda! Give me some help now! I can't die now! I've got to graduate, I've got to get to my show!

Amy rolled her head frantically, trying not only to breathe but somehow to call out for help. There were other girls so near, just on the other side of the walls on either side of the room. She couldn't seem to make any louder sound than a light choking noise that seemed hopelessly muted, too soft to penetrate the walls, and too similar to the sounds all the girls made at some point while hanging to be interpreted as a sound of distress anyway. She struggled meanwhile to free her hands, but Megan, despite her fumbling, had Amy's wrists wrapped in rope as securely as ever.

In twisting towards Miranda, Amy had lost sight of Megan. In a way that was good -- Amy didn't have to watch that maddening intense stare, and the immobility of the only person who could save her. She tried blindly kicking back in the direction in which she thought Megan should be standing, but the girl was still too far out of range.

Amy could only look helplessly at Miranda. The room seemed to revolve, yet Miranda was still in view. It must just be dizziness. Amy wasn't even sure her legs were moving anymore.

Through a slight haze clouding her vision, Amy suddenly was aware that Megan was standing right next to her, reaching up towards her with her arm. Though her face and neck were feeling numb, Amy could sense that Megan's fingertips were lightly on her neck. Like she's taking my pulse, thought Amy... no, not like that. That is what she's doing. She wants to know when I die.

Miranda!! Amy screamed in her mind. Give me some strength for just one second!!

Amy lashed sideways with her foot, catching Megan in her stomach and sending her stumbling backwards onto her bed with an astonished look on her face, her shoulder thumping loudly on the wall. Amy bent her head back as hard as she could, putting all the pressure she could on the back of her neck and managed, finally, a loud choking "Arrgh!" sound.

That's all I can do, she thought miserably, all hope fading out along with her energy. The redness closed in, and sound vanished. Unexpectedly the thought flashed through her head: I never told Daddy to make sure Scott gets some of my meat! Then everything went away.

Amy felt lips covering hers, forcing air into her lungs. She jerked and started coughing, and heard a triumphant voice shout, "She's awake!"

She opened her eyes, squinting against the bright light in the ceiling, and felt the floor spin around under her back. She saw it had been Bridget kissing her -- no, she realized. Giving her mouth to mouth. Nothing personal.

Amy's hip and the back of her head hurt. Her neck ached, and she tried to reach up with her hand to soothe it, but found her wrists were still tied, her arms pinned under her back as she lay on them. She closed her eyes to stop the spinning, and became aware of being addressed. Bridget's voice, worried. "Amy? Amy? Can you hear me?"

Amy decided it was important to answer. "Wha... Okay... yeah." She breathed deeply, feeling her head begin to clear.

"Amy... Do you know where you are?"

Amy gave her a faint smile. "Academy."

"Do you know what day it is?"

Amy tried to get her brain up to full speed. "Had... A&P class s'afternoon. I guess it's Wednesday. Can't be Friday. I'd be happier."

She opened her eyes. Things in the room seemed more stable now, and she could see the relieved grin on Bridget's face. Surrounding her was a circle of girls, as many as could fit in the room, and behind them more girls in a line stretching to the doorway and into the hallway. The noose lay in a loose tangle on the floor beside Bridget. Megan was sitting on her bed with her arms folded, biting her lip, looking scared.

Bridget straightened up into a kneeling position beside Amy. Standing behind Bridget, Gail was the nearest person, her arms held out to try to keep the girls on that side back. She said grimly, "Okay, who found her?"

Jenny, from the room next door, nervously raised her hand. "I was in my room, and I heard this banging noise, and then some other weird noise. Then it stopped. I... I waited to see if there was anything else, so I could figure out what was going on..." She looked miserably at Amy. "I'm sorry, Amy, I know I should have come in sooner."

Amy struggled and at last sat up awkwardly. "Could somebody untie my hands?"

Bridget quickly bent to do that, and Amy reached up to her neck and coughed again. The throbbing feeling was already receding. Her fingers brushed the smooth metal of her Academy slave collar, and she drew strength from it. I'm alive! she thought. I can still graduate! I can go out the way an Academy Girl is supposed to!

Gail looked at Jenny. "Was she hanging when you found her?"

Jenny gulped and nodded. "Sh-she was just limp. You know, unconscious. And..."

Gail's jaw clenched. "And where was Megan during all this?" Gail was clearly mystified as to how anything like this could have happened.

"She..." Jenny pointed at Megan. "She was just standing there, with her hand on Amy's neck. She wasn't doing anything else. I ran over to the wall and hit the release button." A tear rolled down Jenny's cheek. Amy suddenly realized that was why her head and hip hurt -- from the fall to the floor.

Bridget bolted suddenly to her feet. "What???" She stared at Megan, her jaw hanging loose. "Anybody else see that?"

Darla raised her hand, visibly shaking. "I - I was right behind Jenny. Then I went and got you guys."

Megan stood, wringing her hands, her voice quivering. "Look, I was just trying to..."

Gail snapped at her, "Save it!" She was visibly shaking with anger. "You can tell it to the dean tomorrow. If you were about to say why you were doing it, I don't think that's going to matter. He'll have to approve, but I think he'll agree with me this is a clear Level 2 violation. For now I want you to follow me to the detention room."

Megan's face went utterly white, her breath now coming in quick pants. A stream of urine cascaded down from between her legs. "N-no, please, wait..."

Level 2. The threat in the back of every student's mind. Not that any of them constantly fretted about it, nor even gave it much conscious thought -- they were all sure they could never do anything that bad. But, Amy reflected, Megan had done it, to a point beyond the possibility of any explanation saving her. And it looked to Amy as though Megan, for all her usual obliviousness to the consequences of her actions, seemed to understand that now.

Tomorrow, following the dean's approval, Megan would be executed. She would be hanged, as indeed would all of the girls here eventually, but not in the sensual, satisfying way to which all of the girls aspired.

Megan would be led from detention to an adjoining room, naked as for any hanging, her pretty Academy slave collar taken away from her and replaced with a dull generic slave collar. In the middle of that room, her hands would be tied behind her in the usual way, and her feet as well -- there would be no sensual kicking -- and she would be blindfolded. A noose would be secured around her neck. All witnesses except the designated executioner and the dean would leave the room. The trap door would then open under Megan's feet for the Long Drop, and she would plunge downward a dozen feet, into a darkened room beneath the execution chamber, her fall ended by the rope breaking her neck. No one would see her actual hanging -- that was the most fearsome feature of all to any Academy student, who lived for the day she could perform her last dance in front of an enthralled audience. There would be no dance, no performance, no culmination of all her training. There would simply be a quick death.

Afterwards, her body would be given to a meat processing plant, and her meat would be ground up for distribution in anonymous cans. Her head and bones would be reduced to ashes.

Everything she had dreamed of, every shred of honor she had sought as an Academy Girl -- all of this was lost. The Academy did not even so much as record the names of the girls in the past who had earned this punishment. They were written out of the history of the Academy.

Amy found she was looking at Miranda, as she always did when she felt a need for guidance. And to her own astonishment, Amy found herself opening her mouth. "Gail... It was my idea."

Gail whipped around to stare at Amy. "Wh... What?"

Amy kept her eyes fixed on Gail's, understanding what she was doing, though barely knowing what her words were going to be until they were out of her mouth. "I asked her to let me go until I passed out. I wanted to see... you know, how long."

Gail continued staring at Amy, now completely unable to speak. Out of the corner of her eye, Amy could see Megan equally stunned, wide-eyed, jaw slack. All of the girls around her, in fact, who had been looking at Megan in astonishment, had shifted that same look to Amy -- except for Jackie, who shot Amy an exasperated look, with her jaw clenched and her head shaking slightly. Amy could tell Jackie knew exactly what had happened and what Amy was now doing.

Amy herself was still trying to decide exactly why she was doing it. She had no worries that Megan's death sentence would be transferred to herself. It was clear that Amy had suddenly changed a case of Attempted Murder to Teenagers Being Really Stupid. She had saved Megan's life, at the expense of exposing herself to the lesser punishment that was about to come. She knew what that would be, as well. She tried to understand what made Megan worth it.

Bridget caught Gail's eye, held up one finger and then used it to gesture back and forth towards Amy and Megan. Gail nodded and cleared her throat. "As dorm sisters, Bridget and I don't need the dean's approval to declare a Level 1 violation. Intentionally experimenting with hanging to the point of unconsciousness without prior approval from higher authority is a clear violation." She brushed Bridget's arm. "Hon, would you secure the dorm and shut down the systems? I'll get the key to open up the equipment closet and get them set up." She turned to face the students clustered around the half of the room nearest the door. "Everybody, out of this room and back to your own. Amy, Megan, stay here until I come back."

Like toothpaste being slowly squeeze from a tube, the students made their way out of the room, followed by Bridget and Gail.

Megan, still pale and wide-eyed, her voice shaking, started out, "Amy, I..."

Amy glared at her, her jaw clenched, held up her hand, palm out, and shook her head. At first sight of the expression on Amy's face, Megan froze. They waited in silence for Gail to return.

Amy had to keep telling herself, I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't do anything wrong. It didn't help. She still felt paralyzed with shame -- not that she could move anyway.

Gail had returned with the key to the closet at the far end of the corridor, beyond the last dorm room, and pulled out two punishment stocks, one for Amy, one for Megan. Amy was secured in hers now, bent over at the waist, her neck thrust through a hole just big enough for it between the two wooden boards that were now locked together, her wrists similarly held in smaller holes in the boards on either side of her head. Down below, she was standing on her feet, with her ankles held in holes about a foot apart between another two wooden boards, her feet invisible beneath them.

Megan was secured the same way, next to Amy, facing the same direction, towards the back wall of the corridor. Behind them, Amy could hear the murmured conversations of the other students, waiting to take their turns participating in the punishment. That Amy couldn't see them should have helped, but didn't -- it only served to make her that much more self-conscious, knowing they were looking, in some cases giggling, at her exposed, vulnerable butt, as she helplessly mooned all of them. Megan and Amy had both been naked for practice anyway, which saved a small amount of time -- the Level 1 punishment was always received naked.

The worst part, thought Amy, was having to suck on the handle of the paddle that the girls would be using, making sure her mouth didn't lose its grip on it. There would be added punishments for dropping it.

Gail had pulled up a chair and sat to Megan's left -- Amy was to the right of Megan -- and announced, "Okay, everything's ready. I'm going to keep time, for now -- Bridge, could you take over about halfway through?" Obtaining assent, Gail went on, "Okay, who's first?"

Gail waved her arms to quiet the hubbub her question had created. "Let's go in order of room numbers, back to front. You guys just decide who goes first from your room. I want to do three minute intervals. That will get us done in about three hours. So it'll be awhile before we get to the front rooms. While you're waiting for your turns you can go back to your rooms, or you're welcome to stay and watch if you want."

Amy couldn't hear anyone leaving, for the moment. Presumably all fifty-five girls would be watching, at least for now. Her sense of shame and embarrassment flared up again, full-force. She had never before been punished for anything, at any school she had ever been to. It wasn't in her nature to get into any sort of trouble. And certainly she'd never been to a school that offered a punishment resembling this.

But I'm not just a student now, she reminded herself. I'm a slave. Amy loved being owned by the Academy, but slavery did have its drawbacks.

Gail spoke again. "Okay, room 29. Who's first?"

Amy groaned. Things were already bad enough, but they were now about to get worse.

Gabrielle, a girl Amy didn't yet know very well, came around Amy to the front. As required, Amy lifted up her head to "present" the paddle to Gaby, who took it out of Amy's mouth, looked at Amy sourly as she wiped a bit of spit from the handle, and took it back behind Amy. Amy squeezed her eyes shut and gritted her teeth preemptively, but was unable to stifle the yelp of pain as the paddle slapped stingingly against her buttock. Gaby came back around with the paddle, and Amy, with the first of a long line of tears trickling down her cheek, said to Gaby, as required, "I'm sorry." Gaby nodded and replaced the paddle in Amy's mouth before moving over to Megan and repeating the process.

It was hard to tell, since the physical sensation was absent, but Amy thought the slapping sound of the paddle against Megan's buttock was louder than the one for herself, and that Megan's squeak of pain was louder than her own. That was some comfort, anyway.

Gail watched three minutes tick off on her watch before letting Gaby's roommate take a turn.

Bridget had locked the doors of the dorm, so that none of the girls could leave to go to the caf for a snack, or to one of the rec rooms, or the library, or the other dorms where they might have friends. She had also turned off the entertainment system. All of the girls were missing any favorite TV shows for that night, couldn't watch a chosen movie, nor even listen to music. The fact that all of the girls were being punished for something Amy and Megan had done, albeit to a less painful degree than Amy and Megan, ensured that every girl was pissed off, some more than others. And they all had just the two targets on which to take out their irritation at the unfairness of their loss of privileges -- the girls who were responsible for it.

In any case, every girl was required to participate. If any girl administered an especially light, token swat, Gail could require her to give the rule violator another, more sincere one.

The fifth girl to take a turn was Jackie. Amy felt an especially strong surge of shame that a close friend could see her this way -- she held up the paddle for Jackie to take, but closed her eyes to avoid looking at her.

As Jackie went behind her, Amy tensed again, preparing her already-sore buttocks for the now-familiar sting. She flinched as she felt something tap against her butt, and then heard the loud slap accompanied by a harder bump against her butt, but unexpectedly, there was no pain to go with it. She realized that Jackie, with her actions sufficiently shielded by her own body from Gail and the onlooking students, had put the back of her hand against Amy's butt, before swinging the paddle and hitting her own hand with it. Amy, full of gratitude, the more so knowing Jackie's palm must really sting like hell right now, resolved to do something very nice for Jackie the first chance she got.

Erin and Shawna did the same thing Jackie had done -- in Shawna's case, Amy knew the girl felt she owed Amy so much that this was the least she could do.

Of course, none of the girls performed the same trick with Megan, and Amy could hear Megan's gasps of pain as Jackie, Erin, and -- even harder -- Shawna gave Megan her swats.

Unfortunately, the conspiracy of Jackie, Erin, and Shawna didn't seem to have spread any farther -- the girls knew they were exposing themselves to a possible violation of their own by defrauding the dorm sisters during a punishment. Once Room 27 had completed its participation, the real swats started again.

Amy, her face awash in tears as the punishment went on, the pain in her buttocks going deeper and lasting longer between swats as time went on, and at last becoming continuous, tried to get her mind off her humiliation by thinking over what she would say to Megan after it was all over. Her anger at Megan burned as redly as her buttocks, and she kept her eyes on Megan, other than when she was offering the paddle to each girl in succession. Megan, for her part, kept her face turned away after her first look at the expression on Amy's.

Amy had no need to keep count, since she knew who occupied most of the rooms and could easily track the painfully slow progression to Room 1. After three endless hours it was over. Bridget having taking over supervising, Gail went down to unlock the dorm doors as Bridget released first Amy, then Megan from the stocks.

Amy groaned, her hands pushing against the small of her back as she straightened up from her long-enforced bent over position, and shortly heard Megan do the same. All of the rest of the girls had retreated to their rooms, or had taken advantage of their regained freedom to go somewhere else more entertaining, despite the late hour -- by now it was after 11 pm.

Megan looked apologetically at Amy, started to speak, and seemed to realize they were in a place a little too public for that. She started towards their room, but froze at a barked "No!" from Amy.

Amy walked down the corridor, past their room and the contrite-looking Megan, and growled a tense "Come with me" at Megan as she passed.

Megan blinked. "Let me get some clothes on, at least."

Amy stopped, turned, and glared at her, and hissed through gritted teeth, "Come with me!" She spun back around and continued down the hallway, not looking to see that Megan was following, able to hear that she was. The girl owed Amy far too much to argue with her now.

They continued wordlessly, as Amy led Megan to the Hall of Honor. The cleaning staff was long gone. Amy and Megan could be alone here for hours.

Amy yanked the door open and walked in, moving past the revered heads until reaching a point where the greatest number of heads were visible at once, and snarled over her shoulder, "Close the door!"

Megan shakily pulled the door closed and approached Amy. She hurriedly started speaking. "Amy, I can explain..."

"Bet you can't!"

Megan was talking so quickly the words ran together, probably knowing Amy would cut her off soon and wanting to get in as much as possible. "I was reading about the carotids and of course the rope cuts off the flow of blood but I saw all those studies were done a long time ago and I couldn't find any that involved girls with Academy training and I thought maybe with the sort of muscular development Hanging Girls get in their necks it might be possible that some blood was getting through and there might even be some new exercises we could do that would make the flow even stronger so we could last longer..."

"And you thought you'd test out your theory on me without even asking?!"

"Would you have said yes?"

"Of course not, because the whole thing is nuts, and there's no way I'd risk my life..."

"It wasn't a risk, I was like two seconds from hitting the release button when Jenny came busting in..."

"Look where we are!"

Megan blinked. "What?"

"Look around you. See where we are?"

"Well, yeah, but what..."

"I wanted you surrounded by girls who are better than you."

Megan looked irritated. "Better how? They couldn't have been better at hanging or they wouldn't be here..."

"They're better human beings! And they're better students, too! They knew what the Academy was about! You're headed towards ending up in this room..." Amy stopped for a moment to seethe, and continued in a voice husky with fury, "...and I can't stand to think of somebody like you in here. These girls deserve their honor!"

Megan stared at Amy. She moved her mouth wordlessly for a moment, and finally managed to sputter out, "I'm not going to be here! I'm going to graduate!"

"No, I don't think so. You don't even know how thin the thread is you're hanging from."

Megan's eyes shot open in panic. "Y-you're going to tell the dorm sisters what really happened?"

"It's a little late for that, isn't it? If I admit I lied to them to cover up, I could be in as much trouble as you'd be!"

"Look, Amy, I understand you're really, really mad. I never thought the thing would blow up like this, and I'm really sorry. Could we go back to the room, calm down, get some sleep and talk about it in the morning?"

Amy shook her head violently. "We're not going back to the room until you convince me I should still take the risk of being your roommate."

Megan held up her hands, trying to find some gesture that might have the calming influence her words did not. "If that's a problem, I can try to find somebody else to room with..."

"Are you kidding?! Who the hell else would room with you now? Look, there are girls in this school who know me a lot better than you do, and I know for a fact they've figured out what really happened. They know I'm not stupid enough to do what I said I did, and too stupid to let you hang for what you did. They're going to spread the story around, and no matter what the official version is, every girl in this school is going to know what you did."

Megan looked stunned. "B-but... I'll explain to them what I was trying to do. It was really stupid, I'm sorry, I'll never do anything like that again..."

Amy threw up her arms. "You idiot! After all this you still don't even know what rule you broke! With all your reading, did you miss that part of the handbook? Never thought any of that would apply to you?"

"What are you talking about?"

Amy pounded her chest to emphasize each word. "YOU... BETRAYED... MY... TRUST!!! Every girl who's hanging trusts her partner because she has no control over her own life! When I tell you I want down, I expect to be let down! I have to have that trust. Right now you have to tell me why I should. I guarantee nobody else trusts you now. If you want to keep living, you'd better start convincing."

Megan shook her head. "The teachers know how good I am. Everybody does. They aren't going to want to lose me. They'll train me alone, I can get practice with the teachers..."

"No, because no matter how good you are, as soon as they figure out what all the students think of you, they'll know what I already know, and you'll be hanged at the next demo!"

"What do you mean? What do you know?"

Amy's clenched hands shook at her sides. "That you're a cancer at the Academy! You've already got most of the girls doubting their own abilities, from all that crap you do in class. They'd be learning more if you hadn't already convinced them they can't. And now you've showed them that a partner might not be trusted. What if they start wondering that about their own roommates? 'Can I really trust her with my life?' How can they keep doing hanging practice if they're worried about that? You're a disease that's spreading its way through the student body."

Megan's face, so recently streaked with tears during the punishment, was wet again with a new flow of them. "S-so why did you save my life, if you think that?"

Amy closed her eyes. "I don't know. It was a mistake. It's too late to take it back. I think I was thinking you could be the best Hanging Girl ever, but you can't. You're the best in our class right now, but others will get better while you coast on the plateau."

Megan thrust out her jaw defiantly. "I will be the best ever!"

"No! Because you keep yourself totally outside the process, the learning process. I know you won't ever be as good as Miranda. She kicked for thirty-one minutes! You'll never get there!"

Megan's eyes flew open wide. "Thirty-one is impossible!"

Amy pounded her chest with her fist. "I was there, remember? I watched her do it! And you know why she could do it? Because she shared with everybody around her. She taught the other girls, she learned from them -- from her roommate and everybody else. That's what you don't do, and that's why you'll never be the best. All you're going to do is bring the Academy down. It's going to crash and burn because of you."

Megan shook her head. "You're overstating it so much..."

"Am I? What happens when our class graduates, and they do crappy shows because you shot down their confidence in themselves and their trust in their partners? What happens when people don't want to pay anymore for Academy Girls because they just aren't as good as they used to be? You know how much it costs to train us for three years, feed us, entertain us, do everything they do for us? How can they do that if they can't sell us anymore at the end?"

Megan was shaking. "That's not going to happen!"

"Don't tell me! Tell them!" She waved her arm to indicate the dozens of heads visible from where they stood. "What's going to happen to them when the Academy closes? When everything they died for is gone?"

Amy was about to go on, but she suddenly realized she had finally said something that got through. Megan was whipping her head left and right, her eyes blinking rapidly, her breath rasping.

Megan suddenly threw her arms up to her face, covering her head as if the ceiling was collapsing on it. She sank to her knees, saying shakily, "Stop looking at me! Stop looking at me!"

Amy, not sure what was going on, opened her mouth to remind Megan she'd already seen her naked dozens of times, but realized then that Megan wasn't addressing her. Megan was talking to the heads.

Megan curled up further against herself, into an almost fetal kneeling position, shouting in a steadily more panicked voice, "Stop looking at me!! Stop looking at me!!"

Amy, glad to see some sign that Megan was human, reacted instinctively, reaching down to pull Megan into a half-crouch by her armpits and pulling her at a stumbling run farther down the back corridor of the room, past the last occupied aisle and into a not-yet-used area. As she stopped and Megan sank back down to her knees, still repeating the "stop looking" litany, Amy knelt in front of her and, with an effort, pulled the girl's arms away from her head. "Megan! Look at me! They can't see you from here! It's okay! Open your eyes and look. They can't see you!" She slapped gently at Megan's cheek, then harder until Megan finally jerked back, opening her eyes and looking around. Megan's hyperventilating lungs gradually came under control.

Amy held Megan's eyes for a moment. Then Megan's face crumpled, she threw her arms around Amy and buried her face against Amy's shoulder, her body wracked with sobs. Amy let her cry for a long time.