Amy sat straddling the exercise-machine bench in the gym, a towel draped over her neck, running beads of sweat tickling her back and stomach. Beside her, on the adjacent bench, Megan sat in a similar pose, with similar towel, similar sweat. Megan made an almost imperceptible gesture with her head, and spoke with her lips moving only slightly. "That her? The third one in line?"

Amy responded, her voice low, "Yeah, the redhead."

She and Megan both now turned their heads slightly towards each other, so as not to seem to be watching the girls in the hanging class on the other side of the gym, being taught by Lucy. Amy didn't want to make any of the girls self-conscious, least of all the one she wanted Megan to see. The First Year girls had only been doing actual hanging for a few days. Being closely scrutinized from across the room by two red-uniformed graduates, famous ones at that, would likely freak them out.

As the first girl in the class was hanging, doing some frantic kicking as she listened to quiet instructions from Lucy, Amy said, imitating Megan's ventriloquist-like speech strategy, "I saw her the first day they were in here. It was like..." Amy permitted herself a small smile. "Like watching you the first time, all over again."

Megan choked back a laugh and leaned casually on her upraised palm, elbow supported on her thigh, still partly facing Amy. "It's not that unusual that girls come here with some previous hanging experience. You're kind of the weird one."

Amy grinned and gave her a slight headshake. "You'll see what I'm talking about."

The second girl in the class mounted the platform, looking a little shy, still, at being naked at the center of attention of the rest of her class -- she'd soon get over that -- and the girl Amy and Megan were watching, the cute red-haired one, jumped up next to her on the platform, with an excited grin on her face, putting the noose around her classmate's neck and adjusting it, afterwards cuffing the girl's hands behind her, then jumping back down to the floor again. Amy saw Megan nod slightly. The redhead had set the noose very quickly. Lucy had automatically stepped forward to advise her, but nodded and stepped back without comment when she saw the redhead had done it exactly right.

While the girl ahead of the redhead was hanging, Megan asked Amy, "Are you sure we want to start with a First Year girl? Melissa and Jana are both really good already, and it wouldn't take too long to give them some extra training. Jana gets some really great ideas. And they're both Second Years, so they'll still be here a long time. I want to get to my hanging before too long." At present, the dean's order given to Amy and Megan to find worthy replacements as the creative leaders among the underclass girls weighed heavily on them, the only thing, aside from the need for lead time in scheduling Megan's performance, standing in the way of their worked-for and longed-for hangings.

"Honey, there's nothing wrong with Melissa and Jana, and sure, it makes sense to go with them. And we can start that right away, but I just want to see what you think of this girl first."

" 'Kay. Look, she's up."

Amy started to turn her head directly towards the girl, but remembered not to. Resting her chin on her hand, she threw her shoulders back a couple of times as if working out a slight stiffness, while watching the redhead out of the corner of her eye.

The girl was now on the platform, and it was descending. Amy could sense the intense focus of Megan beside her, at a level only Megan could muster, as they both watched.

As the girl's feet left the platform, she began kicking, and Amy could see clearly the difference between her and the other girls. Her kicking was perfectly synchronized with the movements of her head, in a way Amy rarely saw in girls with less than twelve months' training at the Academy.

After about fifteen seconds, her kicking took on a new dimension. She lifted her right leg and threw it straight down, forcefully, and during the downstroke lifted her left leg and used it for a similar downward thrust, the entire movement resembling a diver climbing a step before leaping off for a plunge into the water. The momentum created by the move threw her hips far forward in a very erotic thrust, while her legs, now both straight, strained downward, similar to Shawna's classic desperate-to-find-support move, their muscles standing taut and quivering. It was not a case of switching, at some point, to Shawna's move. Rather, the entire sequence of movements was a unified whole, a single smooth dance performed in mid-air.

As the girl's hips swung back, she smoothly repeated the cycle of movements, and then a third time, before shifting back into more standard kicking.

Amy had heard, by the time the girl was completing the first cycle, a sharp intake of breath from Megan. When, after Lucy raised the platform as the maximum sixty-second time allowed novices was reached, Amy tore her eyes away from the girl to look at Megan, she saw Megan still staring at the girl, wide-eyed, barely breathing. At last Megan shook her head slightly to clear it, and murmured, "Okay, I've never seen that before."

Amy laughed. "So I don't have to explain why I wanted you here?"

Megan laughed as well. "Uhhh, no."

They both sat and stretched for a few minutes, to avoid leaving immediately after the girl's performance, then Megan finally stood and grinned. "We'd better go get Jana. Think she's had enough yet?"

Amy was starting to rise, but dropped back onto the bench, laughing hard. "She'll never get enough, hon."

Minutes later, Megan peeked through the door of the cafeteria, then eased herself in, followed by Amy, who let the door whisper shut behind her.

The cafeteria was nearly deserted at this time, 3:30, though individual girls dropped in throughout the afternoon for snacks. Other than Amy and Megan, the caf's only two other occupants at present were Julia, one of the Third Year girls, and Jana, who was unavoidably exactly where Megan had left her two hours earlier.

Jana was naked, atop one of the tables, her weight on her wide-apart knees and her shins, her shoulders, and the side of her face, with her butt up in the air. Her ankles were tied crossing each other so that she couldn't close her legs, and her arms, on the surface of the table, were pulled through her legs with her wrists tied to her ankles. Another rope tied to her collar made a loop behind her bent knees and returned to her collar, preventing her from raising her upper body off the table. She was blindfolded and gagged.

There was a rope around her waist, and from the rope hung a vibrator, with a note on it that said, "Use Me." Julia, who apparently had been sidetracked in her quest for a snack, was following instructions, understanding immediately, as any intelligent girl would, that she was not meant to use it on herself, but on Jana. Amy could clearly hear, in that nearly-empty room, the humming of the vibrator as Julia used its tip on Jana's puffy pussy lips and clit. Through the gag, Jana was huffing high-pitched moans, her leg and buttock muscles clenching, the sweat pouring down her body and mixing with the juices of her excitement flowing steadily down her inner thighs. At last, with a muffled scream, she came, every muscle in her body defined as in an anatomical chart, though they quivered with tension in a way the charts never did. At last she relaxed, her throat making soft moans in time with her rapid breathing, the sweat springing out anew.

Julia her heard a noise behind her and turned, now seeing Amy and Megan in the room for the first time. She grinned at them, turning off the vibrator and dropping it to let it dangle. She came to the door, giggled, and said quietly to both graduates, "I just came in because Sandy told me they had some Purity peaches in here. Turned out they were just regular peaches. She probably doesn't know the difference. But this was a lot more fun anyway."

Amy blinked in surprise. "Purity peaches?" The term brought back a memory she hadn't thought of in years.

"Yeah, we used to get them for snacks at home. My dad never knew why they called them that. But they were really good."

Funny you should mention it, thought Amy. I happen to know where they come from. She was about to start an explanation that would have turned into a longer story than Julia probably wanted, but at that moment Jana, who had probably recognized Amy's voice, began weakly struggling with the ropes again, and mmmmphing against her gag. Amy grinned at Julia. "We better get her out of that. Talk to you later."

"Okay." Julia gave her a smile and departed through the door.

Megan walked over to the table supporting a still-squirming, obviously exhausted Jana. In a conversational voice, she said, "Did you have a nice time, sweetie?"

Jana stopped wriggling, and sighed. Very softly, she purred, "Mmm-hmm."

Megan began untying the ropes, while Amy retrieved a spray bottle of cleaner with which, after Megan had freed Jana, she wiped down the table's surface, afterwards drying it with a towel. Replacing the bottle, she came back over to help Megan support Jana, who was too drained to stand on her own.

In the hallway, guiding a staggering, still-naked Jana back towards her room between Amy and herself, Megan asked, "So how many new friends did you make?"

Jana giggled. Her speech was slightly slurred, her brain fuzzy after two hours of continuous sexual stimulation. Even when she'd been alone, Amy knew that the feeling of being helplessly restrained, and available for anyone's use as a sexual toy, had kept Jana constantly buzzed. "Five. With six orgasms. Don't know if they're friends now, 'cause I don't know who any of them were. Kind of wish I did, now. 'Specially the one who made me come twice." She giggled again. " 'S funny, none of them went and brought a bunch of people in. Thought I might end up with a big crowd around me. Scared me a little. But they all decided I was... like their private little game." Another giggle.

Amy shook her head, grinning. "Must be something in the psychology of Hanging Girls. We should do a study."

Megan raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Think we just did, hon."

In the Second Year hallway, Jasmine came out of her room and stopped suddenly, in alarm, when she saw Jana. "Jana, are you all right? Do you need any help?"

Jana gave her a sideways grin, still leaning on Amy and Megan. "No, no, I'm okay, Jas, really. Better than okay." Still another giggle.

Jasmine gave Amy a seriously puzzled look. Though alcohol and any form of recreational drugs were completely unavailable inside the Academy, Jana looked for all the world as if she'd been on an all-night bender. To Amy, Jasmine said, "So she's really okay?"

Amy grinned at her. "Like she said."

They had reached the door to Jana's and Melissa's room. Jana said to Jasmine, "I'll tell you about it later. Maybe. Need a little rest now."

Amy pushed the door open, and saw Melissa at her desk, studying. Melissa looked up, and smiled as always at the sight of Amy. "Hi... oh!" She blinked when she saw Jana. Reading Jana's expression, Melissa said to Amy, "So... I should assume she liked it, whatever it was you did?"

Amy flashed Melissa a special, fond smile. "I think you could say that."

As they were about to ease Jana down to the bed she shared with Melissa, Jana suddenly put her arms around Megan. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." She kissed Megan, hard.

Megan returned the hug, and stroked Jana's hair as she kissed her. "Anytime."

As Amy took one of the chairs in Wendy's and Lucy's room, sitting beside Megan, Megan turned to Amy and said, "So will you do most of the talking? You're better at that than I am."

Amy nodded. "Well, I can start it off, sure. But you need to tell her what you want, and find out how deep her knowledge goes. That's what you're better at. Than anybody."

Megan grinned. "Well, maybe." She looked at Wendy. "We're all set, here, if you want to call her now."

Wendy, who, with her roommate Lucy, served as Dorm Sister for the First Year class, thumbed a switch on the dorm intercom. Leaning forward, she spoke into the microphone, quietly. "Holly Maitland, could you come to the dorm sisters' room, please?" She sat back and looked at Amy. "That just went to her room. If she's not there, I'll make the call more general."

Amy nodded. After a wait of no more than sixty seconds, there was a soft tap at the door. Lucy called out, "Come in."

The door opened, and the girl Amy and Megan had watched in the gym now poked her face in tentatively. Amy could see her now close up, and clothed, for the first time. She was tall and slender, perfectly proportioned for a Hanging Girl, already with the slightly longish neck that the girls all had after a year or two. The bright white of her First Year uniform made her fair skin seem a little darker, the single color of the fabric contrasting with the dotting of freckles on the girl's skin. Above her anonymous metal "Slave Girl" collar, her fiery hair reminded Amy of Zoey Hillcrest's -- or rather, of Linda's hair in Zoey mode, since, as Amy had to remind herself, she had never actually met the real Zoey, though she felt as if she had. The hair was longer than Zoey's, hanging down a couple of inches below the girl's shoulders, framing a face a little more narrow than Zoey's, with a straighter nose, but equally freckled, and very cute, though at the moment it held a frown of concern, as if the girl thought she might be in some trouble.

Wendy tried to soothe the girl's worry with a friendly smile. "Come in, Holly. There are a couple of graduates who wanted to meet you."

Wendy began an arm gesture to indicate Amy and Megan, as a prelude to introducing them, but the girl, whose attention had shifted from Wendy to the room's other occupants, suddenly clapped her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide. She stammered, "Are, are... You're Amy and Megan! Right? One of the Second Year girls pointed you out to me. The upper class girls talk about you all the time!"

Neither Amy nor Megan had met most of the First Year girls yet. Megan had suggested doing an early demonstration of the current hanging choreography for them, but Amy had worried that it might intimidate them, so early in their training. Both of them would, within about the next two weeks, start conducting classes for the First Years, but they wanted to wait until the girls had the basic hanging fundamentals down first.

Amy smiled at Holly and stood, moving towards Holly and taking the hand Holly was now absently offering in both of hers. "Yes, I'm Amy, and it's really nice meeting you, Holly. Megan and I watched you in your hanging class today, and we wanted to find out a little about you."

Amy looked behind her and saw that Megan was also rising, smiling, and offered a hand to the girl, who took as she came forward tentatively and blindly slumped into a seat, murmuring as she did so, "I've heard all about the shows you do at the parties. One of the Second Year girls described it, and I was like, oh, come on, you can't do that, but enough of them were all saying the same thing, I guess it must be true." Her initial shyness fading, babbling was starting to take over.

As the girl ran down, Megan sat again and leaned towards a nearby table, setting her elbow on it, laying her head against her upraised hand. Her eyes were taking on that focused look. "How long have you been hanging, Holly?"

Holly, beginning to relax, as if talking about her own hanging made her feel more at home, bit her lip, looking thoughtful. "I guess it's been about five years. My sister Haley and I wanted to start doing it, and we bugged Daddy about it so much he got us set up with a coach."

Amy grinned at Megan. "Well, that sounds familiar."

Megan smiled back at her, and returned her attention to Holly. "He taught you the basic moves?"

"She. It was a lady, Gloria Taylor. And, well, yeah, she helped us work some stuff out."

Amy broke in, nodding. "Taught you the head moves and all that?" She did a head roll.

"Well, not that so much. Me and Haley kind of figured that out beforehand."

Megan's jaw dropped. "On your own?"

"Yeah. See, I'd been reading some books on physiology, and one night we were watching some hanging videos, you know, from game shows and stuff like that, and I was thinking, you know, the girls who were hanging, when they blacked out, it's not so much that they couldn't breathe, I mean, people can hold their breath longer than these girls were lasting. It must be that the rope was cutting off the blood to their head. You know, through the carotids." She brushed the backs of her fingers along the side of her neck to demonstrate. "And I knew Hanging Girls can go on so much longer than amateurs, so I decided they must be getting around that somehow. When Gloria started working with us, and I saw how hanging felt, I started trying to wriggle my head around to take the pressure off the carotids. Haley asked me what I was doing, and I told her about it. Gloria helped us a lot with using our kicking to help make it all go smoother."

Amy gave Megan a wide-eyed look, and looked back at Holly. "What about the other moves? The..." Amy made a little hip thrust to symbolize the amazing series of moves they had seen Holly doing.

"Oh!" Holly giggled, her hands covering her mouth momentarily. "Haley started doing that, you know, just kind of goofing. I wanted to do it better than her, so, you know, we kind of started pushing each other to try to do it better."

Amy squinted at her. "How old is Haley?"

"She's a year younger than me. She'll be here next year." Holly said this with absolute assurance. In the face of rigorous admission standards that discouraged most high school girls from bothering to apply to the Academy, and that rejected more than eighty percent of those who did apply, to Holly it was obvious beyond question that her sister would join her as a student in another year.

And I can't say I doubt it either, thought Amy.

Holly went on, "We've got another sister, Hayden. She's twelve, now. She wants to be a Hanging Girl when she'd old enough, too. We've had her reading some books, and Haley is going to start her out on the hanging basics over the next year, before Haley comes here." Holly frowned, a sad look momentarily taking over her face. "I wish I could be there. I can go home and see her in a couple of years, right?"

Amy nodded. "One year, actually. You can have brief home visits starting in your Second Year. They'd have to be supervised, but you can visit on your own starting in the Third Year."

Holly responded, "That's what I read, but I want to go with Haley, so I'd wait for that." She looked down at the floor. "I really miss her." She palmed a tear away. "We knew this would be the hard part, being apart for a year."

Amy marveled at how different sibling relationships can be. Especially contrasting this girl's with her own. She wondered how different her life might have been if Andrew had been a girl.

Amy shook herself and hauled herself back into the real world. She looked at Megan, held her palms upraised and gave Megan a "so do we want to do this?" look. Megan nodded vigorously, responding to Amy's wordless gesture with a spoken "Oh, definitely."

Amy turned back to face the girl. "Holly, the reason we wanted to meet you is that we'd like to do some special training sessions with you. We want you to still go to all your classes, but this will be something extra. Are you interested in that?"

Holly's eyes grew wide, as she looked back and forth between the two Hanging Girl legends. "You want to work with me?"

Amy laughed. "Yes, of course you! Holly, I know you just got here, but... well, haven't you noticed you can do things your classmates can't come close to doing?"

"Well... I mean, I just figured maybe I had a little head start, and they'd catch up..." She paused uncertainly.

"And in class, like the science classes, and the rest... you know the answers, right? Like that." Amy snapped her fingers.

"It's just I've read most of this stuff before..."

Amy smiled and shook her head. "Holly, look. Megan and I have seen six Hanging Girl classes now. Two that were ahead of us, and our own, and now three that have come after us. And I know I've only seen two girls, in all those classes, who had 'Hanging Girl' written so deep inside them that it glowed from them with every move. Megan is one of them, and I've just now met the other one." Amy chuckled. "Me, I just try hard, and I manage to keep up."

Megan rolled her eyes. "Amy..."

Holly's jaw dropped. "Y-you're saying... I'm..."

Megan laughed. "Don't go all big-headed on us. I've still got some things to show you."

Holly, her eyes wide, said in a tiny voice, "I'm sure."

Amy pressed her. "So are you willing? Oh, in case you're worried we'd kind of be ganging up on you, it wouldn't just be you. You'd be in a class with two other girls, Second Years named Melissa and Jana. What we want to do is see if we can help you be the leaders of the growth movement. You wouldn't know this, but for years and years, Hanging Girls all learned one set of techniques, one standard choreography. We've been changing that, and there are a lot of exciting new things going on. The dean has told us he wants us to make sure that can keep happening after we're hanged. We've settled on Melissa for her purity and smoothness of form, Jana for her creativity, and we'd like you to be part of it, also for creativity -- you and Jana can bounce ideas off each other -- and for... well, a special quality, we don't know what to call it. For 'Meganness,' I guess."

Megan covered her face, and from behind her hands groaned a muffled, "Amy."

Amy laughed. "I know, you'll get me back for that later. But you said you wanted me to do the talking." She turned back to Holly. "So would you be interested?"

Holly was breathing rapidly, her mouth open. As if she suddenly realized Amy was waiting on an answer, she finally blurted out quickly, "Oh yes, yes!! I would love that. And thank you, so much!"

Amy took both of Holly's hands. "I'm so glad! We'll give you a reading list tomorrow, and figure out times to meet as a group, sometimes for discussions, sometimes for physical training. Listen, could you write down your schedule of classes? We'll need to compare it with Melissa's and Jana's and see if we can work around it. We may need to do it in evenings, but we might find some times during the day when we can get together."

"Oh! Sure." Her hands fluttered, as if she expected a pen and paper to be nearby. There was none. At last Wendy fished the necessities out of a drawer and handed them to Holly, who quickly began writing.

She stopped suddenly. "Oh! I just thought. I know I can't ask you for favors or anything..."

Amy smiled. "Holly, we'll try to do what you need us to do."

"Well, it's not like that, exactly, just something I was thinking. Those party shows you do -- I haven't seen one yet, but I'm really looking forward to it -- could you... maybe... show Haley and me how you do it? Teach us to do that?"

Amy frowned. "Well, the problem is, Megan and I will both be dead by the time Haley gets here. If everything goes as planned."

"Oh!!" Holly clapped her hand to her mouth. "I just wasn't thinking."

Megan broke in, "Well, wait. This could work. Holly, if we let you watch our practice sessions, so you can see how we work things out, and if we tell you how we did our original training to get to where we were able to do it... do you think you'd be able to teach Haley when she gets here?"

Holly nodded emphatically. "Definitely! We're always on the same wavelength. We've been teaching each other things for years, and we can always get together on stuff right away."

Amy cleared her throat. "Ummm... Holly, just to make sure you understand. When Megan and I do a show, it gets really very intimate. The premise is always that we're lovers. And to make that really convincing, I've always believed it's essential that we really are lovers."

Holly was nodding. "Sure, I understand that. That's what the older students were telling me about it." She sat receptively, waiting for Amy get to her point.

Amy blinked. Yes, sibling relationships certainly could be different from what she herself was accustomed to. "Okay, that's fine. I just wanted to make sure."

Megan wanted to know more. "Is Haley a redhead too? Or would there be a contrast?"

Holly giggled. "She looks exactly like me! People always ask if we're twins, ever since she caught up with me in height a couple of years ago. They can't believe I'm a year older. Even Gloria kept getting us mixed up."

Amy raised her eyebrows and grinned at Megan. "The dean is going to love this."

"No kidding."

An idea trickled into Amy's head. She tried to brush it aside, but it remained circling like a pesky fly. She finally managed to banish it by promising she would return to it later to work out its details.

Holly finished writing her schedule and handed the paper to Amy. "When can we start?" She laughed. "I'm sorry, I just can't wait!"

Amy laughed with her. "You've got us kind of excited too. But give us a chance to look at this," she held up the paper, "And we'll try to get back with you tomorrow. Okay?"

"Okay! Thank you!" Impulsively, Holly jumped up and hugged Amy, then Megan. "I've got to get back and write this in my diary."

"Diary?" Amy blinked. She couldn't recall any of the girls doing that.

"Oh, since Haley and me can't talk to each other this year, we're both keeping diaries. Then when she gets here, we'll trade them and read them, so it'll be like we were together the whole time." She brushed another tear aside, then broke into what seemed to be a characteristic grin. "Thank you again, so much! I'll talk to you tomorrow." In a second she was gone, to return just for a moment to softly close the door she'd left standing open. Amy heard her feet pounding down the hallway afterward.

Megan broke the bemused silence, saying, "I think we can talk her into it." All four girls started laughing.