THREE MONTHS LATER

Amy shuddered, shifting her footing on the custom-designed platform, her heart fluttering, as she heard the growing murmurs of club members from all directions beyond the curtains that enclosed her and Megan in the party pavilion's hanging cage. She whispered to Megan, "They're starting to let them in. This is really it!"

Megan smiled calmly and kissed Amy's shoulder. "Listen to me. As soon as we're up in the air, we'll be at home. We'll stop being nervous right that instant."

Amy couldn't see any signs that Megan was nervous to begin with. At Megan's words, Amy's fears began to recede. She was right, of course. Home was hanging by the neck. All of her tensions would drain away, as they always did. Everything would flow naturally.

From the time the dean had approved their idea, Amy and Megan had both been counting the days to this first public performance. They had spread the word out beyond their immediate circle of friends after that, and, a few at a time, every Academy student and teacher had come by Linda's and Laney's room to watch the practice sessions in which Amy and Megan gradually developed their routine, occasionally making suggestions for additions. Most of the Third Year girls expressed the wish they had seen something like this earlier in their student days -- by now, they were all so fully absorbed in preparing for their own post-graduation solo performances that they had no time to try anything requiring so many hours of practicing techniques so different from standard hanging. The First Year girls all wished they felt the confidence in their abilities they would need to give it a try, but watching Megan and Amy always seemed to leave them in intimidated awe.

The most satisfying thing, to Amy and Megan, was that it left their fellow students, in any of the classes, horny.

Amy took a deep breath, trying to clear her mind. She whispered, "Half hour, right?"

Megan nodded. "Supposedly. Most guests should be here by then."

Amy put her arms around Megan's waist and rested her head on her roommate's shoulder, as Megan did the same. This fully works both ways now, Amy thought. The physical contact between us that calmed Megan so much in the first weeks after That Night, as Amy thought of it -- we both need that now. She could feel peace washing through her from any part of her body that was touching Megan. She could tell from Megan's soft sigh that she was feeling the same thing.

The murmuring grew louder. A few minutes later, the other First Year girls began their one-at-a-time entrances -- Amy could tell by the reactions. Conversations between guests and students began, and from all around came the sounds of curiosity. None of the members had been told what to expect.

The next time, of course, they would know. Assuming there was a next time. If there was enough positive response to tonight's show, announcements of the show beginning the next First Year party would go out in the mail. The party, starting an hour earlier than usual, would begin with a performance by Amy and Megan, and members would pay a hundred dollar premium for admission at that earlier time. Those wishing to skip the show and come at the regular time would pay the regular price.

It all depended on how the show went tonight.

For the hundredth time, Amy reminded herself that she shouldn't put so much pressure on herself, since in any case, she wouldn't be the direct beneficiary of the proceeds from future shows, if any. As a slave, she had no legal means of controlling any of the money, all of which would go to the Academy. And the dean understood that this was in the nature of an experiment that he was willing to try. It was clear that Amy and Megan would suffer no penalty if it didn't work out. But this was important to Amy for reasons unrelated to monetary rewards.

Though she was expecting it at any moment, it still startled Amy to hear Denise's voice call for everyone's attention. As a dorm sister, sharing duties with her new roommate Paula following Bridget's sale and hanging, Denise was serving as spokesperson for the First Year class.

Denise began, "On behalf of the Hanging Academy and all of the First Year students who will be your hostesses tonight, I'd like to welcome all of you to tonight's party. Of course, at the end of the party, you'll be able to see a member of the class, April Bondurant, snuffed in a hanging she hopes all of you will enjoy." The background noise of quiet conversations among the guests grew momentarily louder -- Sela's hanging four months ago, followed by Connie's at the most recent First Year party two months later, had led the club members to have high regard for the techniques of the First Year class.

Denise continued, "We have something a little different for you at the start of tonight's party. Two of our students, Amy and Megan, are going to put on a hanging show of a type new to the Academy and, as far as we know, never before done anywhere. The only thing I've been asked to say is that the Academy wants all of our guests to understand that this hanging will not be fatal. Our performers will end the show alive and well, though for dramatic purposes they will appear to be dead. Afterwards, each girl's services for tonight will be auctioned to the highest bidder."

Amy and Megan both were a little disappointed with that. They had wanted to be offered for rental as a pair, but the dean strongly felt that it was crucial for every graduate to have consummate skills at satisfying the sexual desires of their owners in a situation that was almost always one-on-one, and the parties were exactly the place where Academy girls honed those skills. He did, at last, promise to study the videos of their private sessions, and to allow them to work together starting in a year or so, once he was satisfied that their solo sexual skills were up to Academy standards.

Denise went on, "Aside from that, please remember that this will be a dramatic performance, and we ask that you have respect for the performers, for the benefit of those around you.

"And now, without delaying any further, I present Amy and Megan, as well as Jackie and Erin, who will play their executioners."

The curtain surrounding the hanging cage began to roll itself upward from the bottom, seemingly of its own accord. There were several appreciative gasps from the audience as the occupants of the cage were revealed.

Amy and Megan were standing on the platform, back to back, so that everyone could have a frontal view of one or the other of them, at least, after the unveiling. They were already naked -- the raising of the curtain, they had decided, would serve in place of the usual dramatic shedding of clothes prior to the hanging. Judging from the reactions of the onlookers, it seemed to have worked very well. With the small part of her mind that was not concentrating on the choreography of the upcoming performance, Amy reflected that Megan, clothed or not, always had the same stunning effect on the occupants of any room she entered -- though to Amy's perception, it seemed that the gasps came in equal numbers from the viewers on her own side of the cage. Maybe, she thought, I'm looking better than I imagined. She struggled to keep the grim, determined look on her face.

With their arms straight down along their sides, each girl was holding the other's right hand with her left in a lover's grip of interlaced fingers.

Amy looked over towards a barred window to the secure area and saw, as promised, that Linda and Laney were looking on from behind the window. Both girls had begged to be allowed to attend the party, but the dean had decided that security for a party involving the whole large First Year class was hard enough to maintain without adding extra students from other classes, and he didn't want to set a precedent that might lead to the security nightmare of keeping track of the entire student body in the semi-secure Party Pavilion. Amy's friends had a limited view from where they were, but Amy could see Linda grin suddenly and give her a thumbs-up signal. Amy closed both eyes briefly in a double wink that wouldn't be perceived as breaking character.

Amy couldn't see Grace, who perhaps was on the other side, facing Megan, but she spotted Benjamin at the far edge of the crowd, and again clamped down on her instinct to smile and wave at him. It was easy to interpret the smile on Benjamin's face. He knew he'd been the inspiration for this.

The dean himself was in the pavilion, the first party he had attended, from what Amy heard, in several years.

Jackie and Erin, dressed in the traditional sexy black outfits their roles required, weaved their way forward from the outskirts of the mixture of guests and students, from opposite sides of the room, each carrying a length of rope and a rolled-up scroll. They stopped in front of the cage, Jackie facing Amy's side of it, Erin facing Megan. As they unfurled their scrolls ceremoniously, the room became as quiet as if everyone in it had suddenly vanished. Speaking loudly without needing to, since a whisper would have been clearly audible at that point, Jackie and Erin began alternately reading lines from their scrolls -- Erin's idea, so that neither Amy nor Megan would spend the entire reading with her back to the speaker:

"Amy Cameron..." began Jackie.

"...and Megan Sadler," continued Erin.

"You have been found guilty of the attempted murder of our beloved emperor..."

"...and have been sentenced to death by hanging, as a penalty for your crime."

"Furthermore, in recognition of the conspiratorial nature of this heinous act..."

"...each of you is condemned to watch the other die."

"The court has decreed that, if you express your sincere regret and your love for the emperor..."

"...your sentence will be commuted to a lifetime of solitary imprisonment."

"Have you anything to say?"

Amy straightened, glared defiantly at Jackie and spat -- carefully directing it straight down to the platform, though she doubted she could have reached any of the onlookers from where she was anyway -- and growled, "I say that to the emperor."

Behind her, Megan said to Erin, "We'd rather die together than live apart!"

Erin responded, "Very well! Turn and face each other!"

Amy and Megan complied, renewing their grip on each other's hands afterwards. Amy lifted Megan's hand to her lips and kissed the backs of Megan's fingers. "One last time together, my love."

Megan responded with her own kiss of Amy's fingers. "We'll make the last time the best."

Erin opened the cage door, entered and sprang up onto the platform behind Megan, followed by Jackie who took her position behind Amy. Jackie said sternly, "Hands behind you!" Amy crossed her wrists behind her back so that Jackie could tie them, while Erin was doing the same to Megan. Amy and Megan had agreed that the inability to use their hands would make the movements of which they were capable seem that much more erotic. In future shows they would vary the format, but this was what they had decided on for the first program.

Then, with solemn formality, Jackie and Erin placed the dangling nooses over Amy's and Megan's respective heads and tightened them around their necks. Jackie and Erin stepped down from the platform and backed out of the cage to kneel beside it, leaving Amy and Megan alone, waiting to be hanged.

With the rope caressing her throat, Amy found that her attack of nerves had washed away unnoticed. You can't be nervous, she told herself, when you're being yourself. Up to this point in the show, she had played a role. From here on, what remained would be the ultimate expression of herself. She and Megan both took a small step forward, each putting her left foot between the other's feet and right foot on the outside. Each had her mound rubbing the top of her partner's left thigh. Amy looked into Megan's eyes, her lips almost touching Megan's, and said quietly, knowing it could nevertheless be heard throughout the room, "I love you."

Megan said equally quietly, "I love you," and moved her head barely an inch farther forward to kiss Amy.

The kiss was Denise's cue. The platform on which the girls stood was not only wider than a normal one, to accommodate both of them, but also mechanized to an extent not previously used. Its motion was controlled electronically by a remote in Denise's hand. At the signal of the kiss, Denise pressed the down button, and the platform began descending. The girls appeared to hold the kiss, though now with their mouths closed and breathing deeply through their noses in preparation for the hypoxia to come.

As they lost contact with the platform and hung freely, the girls, in long-rehearsed unison, each tightened her feet around the other's left ankle and pulled their bodies forward, in slow, deliberate motion, each pushing her knee between the other's legs. Continuing the motion, their upper bodies joined afterwards, their stomachs rubbing, their breasts compressing together. Each girl then rocked her hips backward, again slowly, almost ritualistically, pulling their upper bodies apart while their legs remained intertwined, then thrusting forward again -- lovemaking as ballet.

The onlookers, staring raptly at the erotic display taking place primarily from the hips upward, was not aware of the work going on below the waist. The flexing, tightening, and relaxing of thigh muscles was visible, but only seemed a minor addition, contributing to the general arousal but not otherwise significant. But it was the most important part. As Megan's left thigh had reached Amy's crotch, Amy had tightened her thighs on it, and pushed herself upward, feeling the pressure of the rope squeezing her neck gradually vanish as it stopped having to support her weight. Now she could breathe, and the blood could flow to her head. After taking several breaths, she gradually relaxed her legs, and felt Megan in turn tightening hers. Within seconds, Megan had used her thigh muscles to lift herself, and Amy felt her neck muscles strain as they began supporting both her own weight and Megan's. After Megan had taken her breaths, she relaxed her legs, and Amy began the cycle again.

Both girls had agreed, almost from the beginning, that the standard method a hanging girl used for breathing would not fit in with their vision of the type of performance they wanted to put on. In a normal hanging, the head-rolling gave the appearance of being just another of the girl's desperate movements to save her life, an attempt to breathe (ironically assumed to be futile), an obvious thing to do, yet not really noticed by onlookers because the legs kicking for support that couldn't be found, the arm muscles straining to try to free the hands, both were more visually arresting and arousing.

In this performance, rather than trying to save their lives, the girls wanted to be seen as making love. Rolling their heads to breathe would ruin the illusion.

So they had evolved, over the last several months, a technique that would be appropriate to the fantasy they were trying to weave. They would breathe in alternation, and each would support the other's weight while her partner lifted herself, to make it possible. It had taken two months of strengthening their neck muscles before they could even begin working that all-important detail into the choreography they had been developing.

Amy was only peripherally aware of the sounds around her, as nearly all of her conscious mind now was absorbed in her dance with Megan. It did register on her that, from various directions, she could hear what sounded almost like moans of passion, not coming from herself or Megan. They had agreed to remain silent, even though they could have moaned and sighed while breathing. Neither had thought it was wise to waste the breath needed for that, and they also didn't want to make it obvious that they were breathing. It struck Amy as funny that the crowd around them was taking up the slack and, probably involuntarily, making the sounds that Amy and Megan weren't. Then she pushed the thought aside and concentrated on her next move.

At this point Megan, letting her thighs relax once more, gave Amy's thighs a quick double squeeze. At this prearranged signal, again in slow-motion unison, each girl raised her right leg, bending her knee, and twisted her leg around to wrap it around her partner's waist, as their left legs remained hanging straight downward against each other. In this new configuration, they resumed breathing -- Amy going first, since Megan had breathed last, tightening her leg around Megan's waist to lift herself, all the while continuing the upper-body thrusting-together-and-apart they had been doing throughout. There were much more obvious gasps from the audience at this point, some masculine grunts, and several high-pitched panting moans, most likely from women in the crowd, which suggested impending orgasms.

They had prolonged the show as far as they could -- possibly future shows could be longer, as they refined and improved their breathing technique while adding new elements to the choreography. Each girl was forced to hold her breath for more than half of the show, and it wasn't possible to make up for the accumulating oxygen debt during the brief breathing periods. In their last dress rehearsal (at least Jackie and Erin were dressed for it), they had managed twelve minutes, though it seemed to the First Year students watching that it had been much longer than that -- subjective estimates of the length of the show had run as high as thirty minutes. And a number of roommate pairs had run back to their rooms, flushed and obviously horny, immediately after the end.

Amy gave Megan the signal to go into their closing. Each girl tightened her leg around her partner's waist, tensed all her muscles and clung to the other quivering spasmodically as if in orgasm. Slowly they relaxed, each letting her right leg drop downward, their upper bodies drawing apart, and they let the point of contact of their legs slip down until only their ankles were touching. They went limp at last, each with her ankles hooked behind her partner's, as if in death they were holding hands with their feet.

Denise pushed the button on her remote, and the curtain quickly rolled down along the sides of the cage, after which, unseen by the audience, the platform began rising. Jackie ducked in under the curtain and entered the cage, one of her purposes being to make sure the platform really was ascending -- if there were a mechanical failure, Jackie would have supported both girls while calling for help. Since the mechanism did, in fact, work, Jackie had nothing else she needed to do other than untie both girls' wrists and duck back out again. Moments later the curtain rose once more, revealing Amy and Megan back in their original back-to-back position, holding hands once more, the nooses, now removed, dangling beside them.

The audience erupted in applause that seemed to make the room shake, most of the guests and students taking a break from masturbating to clap their hands, as Amy and Megan grinned and made small bows. Amy saw Linda and Laney at their window, applauding wildly while jumping up and down.

Paula and Denise, themselves still applauding, made their way inward through the crowd and stood in front of the cage. Paula spoke up loudly over the applause, which died down as she began speaking. "We'd like to start the auction now. As you heard earlier, Amy..." Amy raised her hand and waved, grinning, "...and Megan..." Megan echoed Amy's greeting, "...will each be happy to spend the next three hours with the highest bidder. Keep in mind that there will be a ten percent surcharge for the optional use of the toy drawer. In any case, with or without toys, each of the girls, as always, will be glad to perform any of the services listed in the members' handbook, in whatever positions you desire." There was a brief wave of excited conversation and chuckles at that announcement.

Amy spotted a young man at the edge of the crowd fidgeting indecisively during the announcement. At the end, the man suddenly turned and sprinted to the members' entrance to the pavilion, from which he urgently signaled to someone outside.

Amy felt a flutter of nerves, suspecting what was happening. Moments later, to Amy's complete lack of surprise, Andrew appeared at the entrance and presented his ticket, listening and glowering as his friend described the situation.

There was no way to be sure yet, but Amy fervently hoped she had been right about the amount of funds Andrew could possibly have at his disposal. That had been the whole original point of the performance.

As Paula and Denise entered the cage, Amy and Megan turned to face the same direction, side by side, their hands behind them in the traditional pose for slave auctions, with the dorm sisters each stepping up to the platform and taking positions behind them, Denise in back of Amy, Paula behind Megan. The crowd behind them drifted around towards the front. Denise spoke up. "We're going to start the bidding at $4000."

Megan had persuaded the dean that they should each do a single three-hour session, rather than the usual three one-hour time slots, since an unusual "scarcity value" would add to the members' interest, and hence to the amount of money that would be bid. That had been the best rationalization she and Amy had managed to come up with, to hide the true strategy of simply wanting to make Amy's services as outrageously expensive as possible. Amy herself had then suggested the $4000 amount. The dean pointed out that that would be more than any student had ever before earned in one night, to which Amy responded that the members had never before had a chance to spend an evening with one of the girls who had just put on the sort of show they were going to do. When the dean at last acknowledged that it was worth a try, Amy could hardly contain her joy.

And now the joy returned, tentatively, when Amy saw Andrew go pale as Denise specified the minimum bid.

Behind Megan, Paula held one hand up and put the other on Megan's shoulder. "Can I get four thousand for Megan?"

Immediately a woman near the front held her hand up. A man farther to the left said, "Forty-one." Another woman said "Forty-two," just ahead of a man near the back shouting, "Four thousand for Amy!"

Amy gasped, and immediately looked at Andrew. She failed to catch his eye: he was already turning away, whipping his arm out in an infuriated gesture and stomping towards the door. He paused there, looked back once, his lips compressed into a tight line, turned away again, slammed his fist against the doorframe, and left.

It had worked! All that work she and Megan had done had put Amy out of his price range!

Amy clapped her hands, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her face alight, knowing she looked as if she were applauding the mere fact of having received a bid, rather than its consequences. Not even realizing it, she excitedly slapped the flat of her hand against the small of Megan's back, several times, until Megan grabbed her wrist to stop her. Megan was laughing, though, and leaned over and kissed Amy.

All of this was less noticeable to the crowd than it might have been, as there was confusion behind Amy and Megan as well. Denise was laughing and waving her arms in the air. "Slow down, slow down! We haven't done this before, so could you bear with us? We're trying to keep track of all this. Please don't offer an amount until I ask for it, okay?" There was chuckling and good-natured agreement all around.

Denise nodded and breathed a theatrical sigh of relief. "Okay, I heard four thousand for Amy. Anybody going to forty-one? Okay, thanks. Forty-two?..."

Amy smiled and sighed in the glow from her orgasm, and kissed Stephen, tightening her arms around him, as he lay spent on top of her, his erection still buried within her but gradually shrinking. She giggled at the tickle in her pussy lips as it slipped out of her at last, slick with her own fluids and his. "Thank you, sir."

He laughed. "Well, no, thank you."

She laughed and patted his buttock. "Well, that just felt really good." It occurred to her that in the six months, actually seven, she'd been at the Academy, Stephen was the first man she'd had inside her other than Andrew. The best part of that, aside from the physical sensation, was the fact that it pushed the memory of Andrew that much farther into the past.

She was still marveling that he had paid so much for her. Megan had gone for a higher price, which Amy regarded as right and proper -- sixty-nine fifty, to a smartly-dressed woman who looked hungrily at Megan and was obviously thrilled to win her -- but it surprised Amy how close she had come to matching that. Five or six people had bid on Amy, including Grace, about which Amy had some misgivings, but it wasn't like worrying about Andrew -- Amy knew she could handle Grace. Grace dropped out early, though, and Stephen had won the bidding war that had come down to himself and a pretty red-haired lady, at sixty-five hundred. (Amy had finally had an opportunity, during the auction, to wave happily at Benjamin, who smiled and waved back, but had not participated in the bidding. Amy understood that Benjamin intended to meet several of her fellow students tonight.)

Amy couldn't stop herself now from satisfying her curiosity. "How come you wanted me and not Megan?"

Stephen blinked at her in surprise. "Why wouldn't I want you?"

"Well, really, she's a lot hotter than me."

He stroked her hair where it lay against her cheek. "You're way too modest. Anyway..." he chuckled, "...you smile more."

Amy leapt to Megan's defense. "She smiles a lot more than she used to. Her face is getting more used to it." She pushed up the corners of her lips into a smile with her fingers, and giggled.

He kissed her chin lightly. "You were really sensational..."

She gave him a mock pout. "Don't talk like it's over already. We've got lots of time left."

He laughed. "Oh, don't worry. It'll take a little time, but I know I'll make a comeback. And I did mean you were great in here, but I was also thinking about..." he waved vaguely behind him, in the direction of the main hall, "...out there. You and your friend. I've seen a lot of hangings, but I've never seen one remotely like that. How..." He seemed at a loss for words for a moment, and took a deep breath. "How do you do that?"

Amy decided there was no reason to keep it a secret. There would probably be very few imitators willing to put in the required amount of practice. "We lift each other up."

It occurred to her, then, that he had not necessarily been asking for technical details, so much as he was wondering about the source of the inspiration and spirit behind the performance.

And it occurred to her that the answer she had just given still applied.

"In every way possible," she added.

Read about Amy's third year at the Hanging Academy in Book 4, "Departures." Click here to go to Chapter 1.