The dinner was delicious, and probably went far beyond anything Paul Sadler might have whipped up on his own. The girlmeat steaks were cooked in a batter heavy in onions and spices that made Amy's mouth water almost painfully -- but it was a wonderful pain -- the buttered rolls almost dissolved on the tongue, and the salad had a dressing Amy couldn't quite identify, but she knew she had to find out what it was. Maya hovered around the table ready to retrieve anything that was needed.

The conversation in the dining room was less comfortable than the food. Early on, Kathleen grumbled, "Why do we need to sit through a long dinner together?" Amy suspected she was more accustomed to fending for herself in the kitchen, as Amy had often done while growing up, though Amy had to admit that, given her perfect proportions, and skin tone and complexion, Kathleen must be eating a sensible balance of foods somehow.

Her father sighed. "Your sister hasn't been here for three years, Kathleen."

Under her breath, quietly but very audibly, Kathleen muttered, "Don't see why that has to turn everything upside down."

Megan contributed a sigh of her own to the collection. Evidently deciding there would never be an ideal time, she plunged in at last. "Kathleen, I'm going to be hanged in a few months!" Amy could see her trying not to bite her lip, to maintain a breezy tone. She looked as nervous as Amy had ever seen her.

Kathleen shrugged, reaching for her glass of cola, looking only briefly at Megan. "That's kind of the point of being at the Academy, isn't it?"

Megan winced, and her jaw took on that set again. "I hope you can be there. I want you to be there."

Kathleen gave her a skeptical look. "You want me to be there?"

Megan bit back her first irritated response, and said calmly, "Every girl wants her family to see her hang. It's a special time."

Kathleen gave a look that said everything had been clarified. "Ah. Every girl does." Amy realized Megan had picked the wrong thing to say, turning the invitation into pure form-following. Megan, Kathleen had now decided, didn't literally want Kathleen specifically. She was just doing what the other girls do. It all made sense now.

Megan hadn't heard anything to satisfy her yet. "So will you come?"

Kathleen shrugged. "I've seen you hang before." She took another bite of girlmeat.

Amy could see Megan working harder to force calmness on herself, to keep it light. "In practice, not for real. You haven't seen me die before. I only do that once."

"We all do." Before Megan could summon up a response, Kathleen turned to her father. "Dad, Heather wants me to sleep over. She said to come by after dinner. Can I?"

Her father looked hesitant, as if trying to keep score of what was happening between his two daughters. At last he asked, "Is your room cleaned up?"

Kathleen nodded eagerly. When he nodded in return, she grinned and said, "Great!" She looked down at her half-filled plate. "May I be excused?"

He looked exasperated. "Honey, Maya worked hard on this."

She looked, for the first time, chastened. "I'm sorry, Maya." She cut off another forkful of girlmeat.

Megan looked helplessly at Amy. Amy mouthed back, "Patience," and Megan sighed and resumed eating, mechanically, probably more to avoid insulting Maya than from a need to put anything in her stomach.

LATER IN THE EVENING

Amy's eyes grew wide, her heart pounding. This is the room! It should be a shrine, with red velvet rope across the doorway, people paying admission to look in while listening to a tour guide. Whatever awe those people might feel, it couldn't top the awe Amy was feeling right now, in this den off the living room.

A noose, the rope looking new -- Megan said she had changed it fairly often -- hung from the ceiling. There was an exercise machine in the corner, a chinning apparatus, a low wooden box for step aerobics, a stationary bike as well as a normal bicycle, a treadmill for those days when the weather prevented outdoor running. On a shelf sat a device that looked like a posture collar, the one Megan had used to hang by the neck and continue breathing while she worked out those amazing sexual hanging moves that all of the girls at the Academy now learned as standard techniques.

And, in another corner, two platforms for hanging practice. One was non-mechanical, simply a box for Megan to stand on, step carefully off of and then kick away, trusting her coach to put it back under her feet at the appropriate time. This one, Megan had said, she had used in the early years of her training. The other was a rising/falling platform with a lever, modeled after the ones used by Hanging Girls.

In a hushed voice, Amy asked, "How much time did you spend in here?"

Megan answered, "Hours, most days. I'd work on my school lessons in my room in the mornings and meet with my tutor at the kitchen table. Then I'd spend most of the afternoon in here, usually exercising, and then go out jogging, or biking. My coach would come over late in the afternoon, several times a week, and we'd spend about an hour, sometimes ninety minutes, practicing hanging and working out different moves."

"Did Kathleen ever watch you hanging?"

"She'd look in sometimes, but she never seemed that curious. When I'd start a session she was still at school, and when she came home I'd usually still be at it, but she'd be with her playmates in the yard, or at their houses down the street. She'd usually watch TV in the evenings, here or at a friend's house. I'd come out and watch sometimes, but usually I'd be in my room reading."

"You... well, I guess you didn't play with her, right? She seemed pretty stunned when you asked to play cards with her today."

Megan gave Amy a sheepish smile. "You could tell, huh? I should have, I know that. But I was..."

Amy put her arms around her roommate from behind, rubbing her chin on Megan's shoulder. "You were you. You were the Megan I met when we first got to the Academy."

Megan gave a short laugh and rubbed Amy's head with the back of her own. "That about says it all, I guess."

Amy heard another laugh from the living room. Maya, her duties done for the time being, was on the sofa with Megan's father, watching television, while in the kitchen the dishwasher rumbled, and a load of laundry thumped in circles in the dryer. Maya was sitting with her legs curled up on the seat cushion, her feet bare now, her body turned towards her master, her left arm pinned behind him against the back cushion, her right hand idly rubbing his chest, her head on his shoulder as they both watched the screen, each of them occasionally pointing at some event on the screen and sharing a laugh over it. Even now, each time he spoke to her, she responded with "Yes, sir," along with any other sign of respect that seemed called for.

Amy had seen a variety of master/slave relationships. She had to admit she hadn't seen one exactly like this before.

Her attention returning to Megan's training room, Amy suddenly noticed the room's single non-utilitarian decoration, a framed color photograph on the back wall. She walked over to it, and saw that it showed a young woman and small child, the woman seated in an overstuffed chair, the child curled up in the woman's lap, staring at the pages of the book the woman was holding. The woman was beautiful, her hair reddish brown, smiling as she apparently read from the book. The child was light blonde, adorable, completely enthralled, wide-eyed.

Megan had come up behind Amy. Amy asked quietly, "Is this Kathleen with your mom?" Amy frowned as she said it. The woman looked way too young. When Kathleen was this age, her mother would have been in her thirties.

Amy could hear the smile in Megan's voice. "That's not Kathleen, doofus, it's me. And it's not my mother either. Take another guess."

How am I supposed to know who it is, Amy asked herself, then suddenly gasped. "It's your Aunt Serena??"

Megan, her voice suddenly husky, said, "Yeah. This is the only picture, as far as I know, of me and her together. My mom took it. She thought it looked really cute. I was about... four years old, I think. Serena was still in high school, and she lived really close. She'd come over after school, several times a week, and have dinner here, and after dinner, before I'd go to bed, she'd read to me. It was really hard for me when she went off to the Academy, and I didn't see her for... probably a couple of years, I guess. Eventually she started being able to come by again, and she was here a few times, up until her hanging. But my life went on without her, I started school, I got interested in other stuff. It's funny, I never had much of a feeling for what the Hanging Academy was, or what she was doing when she was there. I just knew nothing about it. Until that day, that day. The day they hanged her. And everything changed. Everything came in focus. I knew what my life was going to be all about."

Amy turned to look at Megan, and saw the passion flame in her eyes to a degree she'd hardly seen before. "Amy, I want that so badly for Kathleen! I'm never going to say to her, Kathleen, I want you to think about being a Hanging Girl. You can't make somebody decide to do that. It's something you discover inside yourself, not from somebody telling you to do it.

"I want her to be what she wants to be, I want her to do what makes her happy. But if it's anything other than hanging, I get worried that she'll never know the... completion, the pure buoyancy and joy I feel when I'm up in the air. I know you feel it too, you know exactly what I'm talking about." Amy nodded, unnoticed by Megan, who went on, "Nobody else in the world but a Hanging Girl knows that feeling. Serena knew the feeling, and she brought the feeling out of me, she let me find it inside myself. I want, so much, to be able to do that for Kathleen."

Amy wrapped her arms around Megan, and stood silent awhile, breathing in the atmosphere of this special room. Finally she said, "I wish Kathleen had any idea how much you love her."

In a voice even more choked than before, Megan said, "I can't tell her that either."

The bed, besides being narrow, was barely long enough. Megan could just manage to stretch out full length, with her ankles at the very foot. Amy rested atop Megan, the sweat from their just-completed lovemaking gluing their bodies together. Amy's legs were spread apart, her knees resting on the surface of the bed outside Megan's, her stomach pressed against Megan's mound, her head resting just below Megan's chin, her neck cradled between Megan's breasts. She murmured, "I love sleeping like this. We should do it this way more often."

"Mmm-hm." Megan sounded far away.

Amy reached up and stroked Megan's hair gently, then closed her eyes, feeling utterly content.

After about fifteen minutes, Megan whispered, "Amy, you asleep?"

"Not yet," Amy whispered back.

Megan was silent for a moment, then said, "I'm not going to be able to get to sleep."

Amy thought back to her own bouts of sleeplessness. "Does your dad keep any snacks in the house? Cookies, whatever?"

"He kind of likes brownies. There might be some."

Amy rose up and slid her feet to the floor, pulling Megan upward after her. "Come on." They both threw on shirts and shorts without underwear, and walked as quietly as they could to the kitchen.

Megan grunted and nodded when Amy found a foil-wrapped pan of brownies in the refrigerator. Obviously home cooked, not store-bought. Another Maya contribution, no doubt.

Megan sat at the table used earlier for the card game, staring into space and nibbling at a brownie.

Amy jumped slightly at the sound of another bedroom door opening -- the master bedroom, obviously, given Kathleen's absence. It's okay, she reminded herself. We've got a perfect right to be here.

Moments later, Maya appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. She was wearing nothing but her silver chain collar. Two steps into the room, she saw Megan and Amy, stopped with a sudden gasp, and then smiled.

Amy expected the girl to try to cover herself, but she made no such move. The only thing Amy could read in her was startlement at entering a room she'd believed unoccupied and discovering it wasn't. There was no hint of embarrassment that Megan, whom she barely knew, had seen her coming naked out of her father's bedroom. Maya clearly assumed that Megan, whether she'd known beforehand or not, would immediately understand that Maya's bedroom duties were simply part of her job as Paul Sadler's slave.

Maya had recovered her aplomb. "Hi, Miss Megan, Miss Amy. Can I help you find anything, Miss Megan? I know you haven't lived here for awhile."

Megan, taking another bite, said, "No, we're good." She shoved the pan slightly forward. "Brownie?"

Maya shook her head. "No, thank you. Mr. Sadler was having some trouble sleeping. Sometimes a cup of hot chocolate helps." She walked across the kitchen, opened a cupboard for a mug, filled it with water, tore open a packet of instant chocolate and poured it into the mug, stirred it with a spoon, opened the microwave and deposited the mug, closed the door and pressed the buttons to start it -- all of this seeming to be a single, smooth motion resulting from frequent practice.

Amy reflected on the notorious difficulty of finding really perfect slaves, and Megan's father's luck in having found one. Amy had been impressed all day with Maya's cheerfulness, with her competence, with her amazing bonding with Kathleen, who was at such a difficult age... and now with her body, not as trim as a Hanging Girl's but with a flat tummy, firm high breasts, smooth strong legs, ideally rounded butt.

Megan started, "Maya..." and stopped.

The girl turned. "Yes, Miss Megan?"

Megan, her brows knitted, chin resting on her left hand as she held the brownie in her right, asked, "Does Kathleen have... anything she's really especially interested in? I mean, what she wants to be, when she's grown?"

Maya, leaving the microwave to take care of itself, came over to the table. She tore off a paper towel from a dispenser mounted just above the table, spread it on the seat nearest her, and sat. "Well, you know, she's twelve. She gets interested in things, but it's something different every week."

"Has she ever... talked about hanging? I mean, the Academy?"

Maya thought for a moment, and shook her head. "Not that I can remember. I mean, of course she's mentioned you being there, Miss Megan. But not for herself, no."

An unrelated insight suddenly struck Amy. The way Maya seemed so comfortable right now with her nudity, the way she'd reached for a conveniently-placed paper towel without even looking and swept it onto the seat in one practiced move, at the table where she presumably took all her meals... she rarely wears clothes! She's only been dressed all day for our benefit! Obviously she was usually nude, as she was now, not just at night in her master's bedroom, but during the day when Kathleen was in school, or any other time Kathleen was out of the house -- which seemed, based on the available evidence, to be most of the time. Amy choked back a giggle of delight -- Maya really was the perfect slave for a single, middle-aged, work-at-home man. The image of Maya and Megan's father watching TV earlier, Maya so intimately snuggled up against him, came back to Amy, and she knew it would have looked the same had Megan and Amy not been in the house -- except Maya's clothes would have been absent.

The microwave beeped. Megan, sighing, said, "I guess you need to get that."

Maya smiled. "Do you need to know anything else, Miss Megan? Mr. Sadler said I was to do anything you needed, including answer questions."

Megan shook her head glumly. "Thank you, Maya."

Maya stood up, and did the little curtsey again for both of them -- especially adorable when she was naked -- and retrieved the mug of chocolate from the microwave. Reaching up to open an overhead cupboard, she pulled down a bottle of mint liqueur and poured a few teaspoons worth into the mug, put the bottle away, and took the mug with her out of the room, her buttocks seeming to twinkle in the light from overhead.

Amy smiled. "She's very good."

Megan shrugged, and then laughed. "I guess."

Megan was silent a few minutes, continuing to nibble away at the brownie. At last she sighed. "Amy, I can't leave here without knowing Kathleen is coming to my hanging."

Amy reached out and closed her hand over her roommate's. "I know. Tomorrow."

On the way back to the bedroom with Megan, Amy could just hear, through the closed master bedroom door, a rhythmic creaking of bedsprings and a high pitched "Ahh... ahhh... ahhh!..." from Maya.

THE NEXT DAY

Maya was puttering around the kitchen, dressed today in a short-sleeved V-neck sweater along with her jeans and sneakers, when Kathleen came breezing in, looking eager. "Hi, Dad. You said something on the phone about going to lunch? Where you taking us?"

"Oh!" Her father looked uncomfortable. "I didn't mean going out. Maya is making sandwiches we can eat here."

Kathleen gave him a surprised look. "I thought... Couldn't we still go somewhere, though?"

Megan cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. My fault. We can't leave the house unless an Academy limo picks us up. And then the driver would have to stay with us while we were out."

Kathleen gave a theatrical sigh and entered the kitchen. "What kind of sandwiches, Maya? Oh!! Are there still some green olive slices? I love those!"

Maya laughed. "I know, Miss Kathleen. I could put some on yours."

"Yay!" Kathleen clapped her hands briefly. She went to her room, returning when Maya called out that the sandwiches were ready.

As they sat at the dining room table, and Maya came out to distribute sandwiches and drinks from a tray, Megan started uncertainly, "Kathleen...?"

Kathleen, chewing, looked at her wordlessly, expectantly.

"I was talking yesterday about my hanging..."

"Yeah. Hope that goes well for you."

"I really do want you to be there."

Kathleen took a drink from her soda can. "Why?"

Megan leaned forward. "Because that's really important to me. You're really important to me. And this is something I want to share with the people who are important to me."

Kathleen blinked. Amy found herself nodding. Better, Megan. Much better.

Megan pressed on. "Okay?"

Kathleen rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine. I'll be there."

Under the table, Amy found Megan's hand and gave it a squeeze. And made a mental note. I am going to double check, when the time comes. This fish is not hooked at all yet.