DAY 9

Amy lay on her stomach, her chin on the backs of her hands, watching Runner, about fifty feet in front of her, crawl a little closer to her goal, the cabin just beyond her. The rare blue sky above her did nothing to lighten Amy's mood. She couldn't shake the black cloud hovering over her that owed nothing to local weather phenomena.

She was conscious of the discomfort from resting atop the vines wrapped around her waist. Mostly her hanging vine. She hadn't practiced hanging since meeting Runner. She wasn't sure why she couldn't make herself do it. Why her mind shied away from even thinking about it.

The morning after that first night with Runner, Amy had awakened with a feeling of determination. I have help now, she'd told herself. Yesterday Runner was resisting the idea of crossing the mountains, but I know I can talk her into it.

Amy had tried. But as her coaxing turned into pleading, it had provoked... not their first disagreement, since they'd been over this same subject before, but the first one that rose to the level of a fight. Runner refused to believe in Amy's description of the land across the mountains, pointing out, sensibly enough, that Amy had already admitted she'd never been there, nor so much as seen it. With both of them becoming more upset by the minute, Runner at last had waved her arms, as if symbolically pushing the subject away, and had told Amy that she didn't want to talk about it anymore. That she didn't want to stay with Amy if Amy kept wanting her to fall over the end of the world.

Amy had sucked in a quick breath and shut her mouth tightly, her heart pounding as hard as when she'd met the doggirls. She was terrified at the thought of Runner leaving her.

Amy had intended to practice hanging immediately after breakfast, and for the first time encountered that internal resistance to the idea. Meanwhile, Runner had immediately proposed a raid on the nearest cabin. Eager to seem agreeable and restore their relationship to a friendly level, Amy had gone along, accompanying Runner to a point as near yesterday's farm as she dared to come, waiting then until Runner returned with several strips of girlmeat jerky and a vest for Amy. Amy had thanked her very much but explained why she couldn't wear it. Runner, looking disappointed, had suggested Amy could use it for cover when the hard rain returned. Amy, who somehow hadn't thought of that, thanked her again and hugged her.

All through the next two days, Amy had awaited an opening that would allow for a resumption of the discussion of a mountain crossing. She knew she couldn't open up the subject herself, but thought it was possible that circumstances might arise that would lead a conversation in the appropriate direction. As time had passed, though, it became clear that the days would have a certain monotonous regularity that frustrated Amy's hopes, consisting of raids, during which Runner left Amy behind waiting for hours, followed by escapes, walking on towards another farm, resting, eating, and little else. Amy and Runner were clearly friends again, but conversation of any sort seemed to lag, due to Runner's limited knowledge of any wider world, her lack of curiosity about Amy's life if it meant discussing anything beyond the island, and Amy's fruitless waiting for just the right time to suggest a foray beyond the mountains without making Runner mad again. Runner seemed patient with Amy's slow progress as they traveled, but underneath the surface, Amy could read an irritation in Runner at having to move slowly enough for Amy to keep up.

Amy's mood went steadily downhill. By the end of each day, she needed badly the comfort of their nighttime sleeping position. There was a softness and warmth to it that allowed Amy to blank out her thoughts and simply feel.

But then day would return, and with it, a growing certainty within Amy that she would never leave the island. The Academy was gone from her life. Her friends, all of the people she loved, were gone from her life. And her dream of a wonderful hanging, one just like Miranda's hanging. It was gone.

Lying on the ground now, her third full day with Runner, her -- she had to stop and think... her ninth on the island -- the feeling of being trapped rolled over Amy. She was trapped, she knew it. She couldn't get home by herself. She needed Runner's help. Runner wouldn't help.

Amy suspected Runner would not carry out her threat to leave, but she couldn't be sure. They both needed each other, but in different ways and in different degrees. Runner's need for Amy was purely emotional. She had been so terribly lonely, trying to survive by herself without the girls she had grown up with and loved. Amy, of course, knew exactly how Runner felt, but her own need had an extra ingredient. Without Runner to provide the protection of appearing to own Amy, Amy would inevitably be caught, as she nearly had before. Amy would eventually stumble into a farm and be spotted by doggirls again, and it would be all over.

Amy couldn't dare leave Runner, and that was the nature of the trap. Runner was tied to the wrong side of the island, and held Amy there in exactly the same way one of the mechanical traps would.

Tears began streaming from Amy's eyes. Her shoulders heaved, and she had to struggle to keep from giving voice to her anguish, so close to the farmers' cabin.

Amy had cried herself out by the time Runner returned. Runner, with a delighted grin, signaled for Amy to follow her, in a moderate rain, as she continued away from the farm. Amy followed listlessly.

At a sufficiently safe distance, Runner turned to reveal her treasure: a large slab of cooked girlmeat -- not jerky, a real steak. Amy's spirits rose at the sight of it. Looking nervously behind her, Amy suggested continuing on for the time being, to put a greater distance between themselves and the farm.

After another twenty or so minutes, they stopped within a small grove of nut trees, beside a flowing stream. Amy, as was her habit, swept her hands along the muddy ground, feeling for traps, then sat with a sigh.

She spread her leather vest, which she had been carrying with her -- not bothering to use it to shield herself from the rain, which wasn't really coming down hard enough to concern her -- and Runner set the meat down on the vest, reaching into her bag to retrieve a knife, an implement Amy hadn't seen before, obviously the booty from an earlier raid. Amy watched as Runner cut the meat, carefully making sure the pieces were of equal size, handing one to Amy.

Amy bit into the meat while Runner was shrugging out of her clothes -- Runner usually stripped at the first opportunity.

The meat tasted wonderful to Amy, if a bit salty. Obviously the farmers made use of nature's original preservative, readily available from the ocean.

Runner sat down to start her own meal. "I don't get very many big pieces like this. Mostly just that little tough stuff."

"It was just sitting out there?"

"It was in... I don't know a word for it." She looked at Amy hopefully, no doubt eager for some more "teachering."

Amy put the meat down. This can't last, she told herself. Runner's going to get tired of doing everything for me, without me doing anything in return -- I can't go on a raid, I can't even get close enough to a farm to serve as a lookout -- and she's going to get tired of waiting for me while I plod along behind her.

Suddenly the tears came back. Amy felt the loss of her world more strongly than ever. She buried her face against her knees, sobbing.

She was aware of Runner suddenly in front of her, cooing softly, wordlessly, gently rubbing her knees, then pulling them apart, kneeling now between her legs, pulling Amy's head gently towards her breasts.

Amy opened her mouth and sucked on Runner's left breast. She's treating me like one of the babies, Amy told herself. I guess I am like a baby. I'm that helpless, and that useless. And it does feel nice, just letting her comfort me with warmth and softness.

Amy pushed herself away, suddenly. It was as though a dam had just broken in her mind, long-withheld thoughts flooding through. Sternly, an inner voice told her, Amy, you are not a baby. You are a Hanging Girl. You are one of the best Hanging Girls. You are the Hanging Girl the rest of the Hanging Girls look to for advice. For encouragement. For help. Amy, it's time to be who you are!

Runner was trying to draw Amy back to her breast. Amy pushed her away, shaking her head. "I don't need that. Runner... I want to show you something."

Amy palmed the tears out of her eyes and stood up. Without another word, she began untying the braided coil of vines around her waist.

Runner looked up at her, worried. "Amy, you need that to stay out of traps."

"I'll leave that part on. I need this part, I really need it, but not for that."

Amy looked around for a fallen log in the right place... there, there's one. She walked as quickly as she could in her tiny steps over to it.

"Amy? What are you doing?"

The rain had diminished to a heavy mist. Amy was glad there would be no rain distracting her for this, her first performance for an audience in -- it seemed to be forever. She quickly tied the hangman's knot, throwing the other end of the vine over an overhead branch. She stepped up onto the log and tied the vine to the branch. "Runner, you were right about me being a teacher, but that's only part of it. I want to show you what I do."

"What you do when?"

"I mean, this is my place. I'm going to show you what my place is. This is something I spent a long time learning to do. To make people happy. To make them excited. To make them horny." Amy wasn't sure Runner understood the last adjective, and maybe the one before it, but she surely knew what the first one meant. And, Amy told herself, she's about to figure the others out. Amy pulled the noose down over her head, around her neck, adjusting it.

"Amy, I don't get it."

Runner started to walk towards her, but Amy held up her hand, and smiled. "Just watch. Don't do anything else. Don't come here and try to help me or anything like that. Only watch."

Beneath her excitement, Amy was angry with herself. She knew, now, why she hadn't hanged herself in front of Runner. Everything about Amy's world was so alien to Runner, and Amy had been afraid Runner wouldn't understand, wouldn't see the performance as being sexual, as being arousing, wouldn't see any sense in it at all, and that would hurt Amy at the very core of her being -- it would be a rejection of Amy as a Hanging Girl. The fear of that rejection, though barely conscious, had been controlling Amy for days. She berated herself furiously -- Amy, you were so worried about that rejection, you rejected yourself as a Hanging Girl.

I am what I am, Amy told herself. If Runner doesn't understand it, fine. But I'm going to show her what I am.

Closing her eyes, taking a moment to settle her breathing, Amy clasped her right hand firmly around her left wrist and stepped off the log.

A glorious feeling of release bubbled to the surface within her, stronger than she had ever felt it. She barely even had a sense of the vine around her neck supporting her. It felt more as if she was flying, gliding on air currents above the clouds. Automatically she began cycling through the practice regimen she had established in the past week.

Consciousness of her audience returned suddenly. Runner, she reminded herself, is very focused on the breasts. Probably all of the girls from the pens are. That may be a primary area of sex play, or at least a very common one.

Amy concentrated more than the usual amount of attention on her breasts, timing the flexing of her shoulder muscles to make them bounce, adjusting her kicking so they would sway and jiggle more. She performed her hip thrusts automatically but downplayed them slightly, knowing Runner might not be that familiar with male sexual techniques, though she might have seen farmers and their slavegirls together since her escape. Instead, she worked more on hip rotation, presenting her pussy to view, as if to be fingered or licked, as a female partner might do for her.

She had not been watching Runner at first, but now kept an eye on the girl when movements allowed. Runner was standing and staring, one hand in her crotch, the other cupping and kneading her breast. Amy began using Runner's reactions as a gauge to tell her which of her motions should have greater emphasis.

After about fifteen minutes, Amy was beginning to tire. She could, she judged, perhaps have gone on another ten, but there was no reason. She reached above herself, taking hold of the branch to steady herself, and stepped back up onto the log.

She looked at Runner, giving her a smile. It took her a moment, after Runner did not smile back, to notice that, in addition to her facial muscles, no other part of Runner's body was moving either. The girl stood as still as a statue, an unlikely one sculpted in a slight crouch, one hand between her legs and the other on her breast.

Amy loosened the noose, pulled it off and hopped down from the log. As she approached Runner, Amy was relieved to see Runner's eyes and head were tracking her as she moved. Good, thought Amy, she hasn't gone completely catatonic, at least.

Runner suddenly unfroze, her hands dropping to her sides, and though her eyes remained wide, they were now fully focused on Amy's. As Amy reached her side, the girl said in a tight, breathy voice, "Amy, I have to do that, I have to do that!" Amy had just one more second to look into Runner's fully dilated eyes, before Runner burst into motion, dashing past Amy towards the log and overhanging noose.

Amy spun. "Runner, wait! It's dangerous..."

Runner was already up on the log. "I have to!"

"I was just trying to tell you you need to wait for me!" Oh, wow, thought Amy, I never thought about this happening. I've created another Kathleen! Or, well, another me.

Amy shuffled as quickly as her chain allowed over to the log and Runner. "You can do it, but I have to help you, Runner. I don't want you to get hurt."

Runner, holding the noose but not yet putting it over her head, nodded vigorously. "Teacher me this, Amy."

Amy couldn't help smiling. "It's 'teach,' Runner. I'm a teacher, and I teach things. And what I was doing is called 'hanging.' "

Runner was still nodding. "Teach me hanging. Please?"

"Okay, okay. Just give me a little time." Keeping one eye on Runner, Amy looked past her to the nearby trees. Okay, there's one. She held up her hand. "We're going to do this, Runner. Just wait a little bit. Stay right there. I need to get something first."

Amy shuffled to the tree, picked up a rock, and used in to cut off about three feet of vine running up the trunk, remembering belatedly that there was a knife lying just ten yards away that would have made the job easier. She came back to Runner. "Put your hands behind your back, like I had mine. I just had to hold my hands there, because I didn't have anybody to do this for me. But you can be hanging the right way."

Amy quickly tied Runner's wrists together with the vine, then hopped up beside her on the log. She put the noose over Runner's head, adjusting it carefully. "Don't step off. Don't do anything. I'll help you. If you just jumped off it would be really dangerous. Wait for me."

Even lost in this hinterland, where it was unlikely that she or Runner would ever contact anyone from the mainland, Amy firmly reminded herself not to give away anything the Academy considered secret. But, Amy decided, there's no problem with Runner getting a feel for hanging. People do it all the time, with no training at all. Amy put her hands firmly on Runner's hips to steady her. "Okay, just really slow... bend your knees a little... like that, now a little more. Lift your feet up..." As Runner's feet left the surface, Amy gave her a gentle push away from the log, to hang just in front of it.

Runner immediately started kicking -- random, purely novice kicks -- twisting slightly to the right. For the first few seconds she struggled wildly to get her hands loose, but then, to Amy's amazement, calmed down, mainly kicking. Amy had intended to let her swing for thirty seconds, but, sensing no significant panic in Runner's movements, let her go another fifteen before clasping her hips again, saying softly, "Okay, stop kicking, stop, stretch your legs down..." She pulled her back. "There's the log. Stand on it now."

Standing, as Amy loosened the noose, Runner's face was flushed and glowing with excitement, and words came tumbling out of her. "I could do it longer, Amy. But I couldn't breathe! How did you do it so long? And I couldn't do those things you were doing. Can you teach me to do that?"

Amy frowned, as a debate began raging inside her about how much she could tell this girl who was so desperate to learn. Then she gasped as her thoughts suddenly changed direction entirely. This is what I needed! This is it! This is it!

She looked into Runner's eyes. "Runner, I can teach you some things, but I can't do it all by myself. It takes more than one person. We need to go to the Academy. That's where I learned to do this. There are a lot of girls who do it like me, and we all work together, we help each other, and that's how we get so good at this." She reached down to untie Runner's hands. I am, Amy reminded herself, telling her the absolute truth. They say the truth shall set you free.

Runner now used the vine as a handhold to steady herself -- Amy could see her knees were shaking -- and gave Amy a still more intense look. "Take me there! Take me to the Academy! Please, Amy? Take me where those other girls are." Again, Runner said the new word in Amy's accent, not her own.

Amy took both of Runner's hands in hers, and looked into her eyes. "I will try, Runner. But remember, I need you to help me." Amy took a deep breath. She has to be reminded of this sometime, Amy told herself, and it might as well be now. "We have to get over the mountains. The high ground. And after that, we still have to find a way to get back to the Academy. That won't be easy."

Runner was already nodding -- to Amy's amazement, Runner was acting as if Amy was stating the obvious.

Amy felt herself floating again, this time without the benefit of the noose. Home, the Academy, was within reach again! She threw her arms around Runner and kissed her.

Runner's lips, Amy noticed, didn't move against hers. Amy backed away slightly, enough to see that Runner had her puzzled face on again. Runner asked, "Why did you do that?"

Nothing could dampen Amy's mood, but she didn't want to seem to be laughing at Runner. She took a deep breath to hold back the giggles, grinned, and said, "That's a kiss, Runner. Friends kiss to show they're happy to be with each other." Reasonably accurate, Amy decided as she played back her explanation in her head. Amy felt as surprised as Runner seemed. She'd just seen Runner masturbating, and felt positive Runner must have had some sexual experiences, growing up in the breeding pen. Somehow, it appeared, face to face contact had dropped out of the erotic playbook over the generations of isolation. Amy had read that there are cultures in which kissing is unknown. Anything, in fact, not directly related to reproduction might be discarded. Sexual preferences are very flexible.

Runner grinned and returned Amy's hug. She pressed her lips against Amy's briefly, and said, "I like to be with you, Amy." She suddenly turned, grabbed one of Amy's hands, said, "We need to go to the Academy!" and leapt down from the log. She took two sprinting steps before Amy, unable to keep up, went sprawling headlong, tripped once more by her chain. Amy barely felt it. Laughing, she looked up at Runner and waved her arm at the hanging vine, Runner's bag, Runner's clothes scattered on the ground. "Let's at least gather our things together. And finish eating. Okay? We're going, but we need some stuff."

The light was fading when Amy and Runner, following the river upstream, arrived at the geological discontinuity where the forest ended and the mountains began. Light rain was falling. Amy wasn't sure whether the darkening meant the sun was going down behind the impenetrable cloud cover, or another storm was coming in, but she believed it was late afternoon. Going entire days without seeing the sun, Amy found, forced one to rely more heavily on internal time sense. Her body was suggesting a stop for dinner, followed by a night's sleep.

The natural rock wall serving as the forest/mountain boundary was about five feet high here. Runner immediately began hoisting herself up to the higher level, until Amy stopped her. Amy sat down, gesturing to Runner to sit with her.

"Okay, here's what we have to do," Amy began. "We're going to see other people soon, and they're going to see us. We have to make sure we don't look... strange. You look like a boy -- that's a little man, a boy grows up and later he's a man -- and I look like I'm your slave."

"What's a slave?"

"That's what they call the girls who are serving men. So I was saying, maybe it's okay for a boy and a slave to be walking together, with nobody else around. But maybe it's not. If somebody thinks we don't look right, they will talk to us, and we might not answer them right. I don't think I'm supposed to talk at all, and you might say the wrong things, because you don't know very much about them yet."

Runner was nodding, visibly concentrating on Amy's explanation. "So we need to watch them for awhile. Like right after I ran away."

Amy nodded. "Yes! First we need to find the trail over the mountains -- the place where people walk up the mountain and down. Have you seen that?"

Runner nodded. "I thought they just lived close to the edge."

"Do you know which way that is from here?" With all their wanderings in the last few days, Amy had lost track of where she had been before. Runner shook her head blankly, and Amy said, "That's okay, we'll find it. For now, let's eat something."

Runner nodded and pulled the remnants of the girlmeat out of her bag, handing a piece to Amy. Amy smiled. "It's really nice being able to eat girlmeat again."

Runner asked, "Why is it called..." then stopped suddenly, her eyes widening. "Are we eating girls? But this was always in our food! You mean we get to eat girls too? Not just the men?"

Amy took another bite. "Runner, women are for everybody to eat."

Runner bounced excitedly on the ground. "Then girls could eat me! I want girls to eat me." She looked at Amy. "Amy, I want you to eat me."

Amy felt very touched. "If it works out that way, I'd love to eat you. Or you could eat me."

Runner nodded eagerly, and took another bite, chewing with a new satisfaction.

They finished off their meal with peaches, and a drink from the stream, where it fell down the wall in a tiny waterfall. It seemed still darker now. "Runner, I think we'd better stay here for the night."

Runner nodded, instantly peeling off her clothes. Amy, after her usual check for traps, unwound the vines from around her waist and coiled them neatly on the ground. She treated the vines with respect, knowing they had not only saved her from traps, but had provided the reason Runner was now helping her get home. But the irritation of having them constantly rubbing her skin made her eagerness to be as naked as possible nearly equal to Runner's.

Runner knelt and brushed her hand lightly, almost worshipfully, on the vines. "We can find the... trail, in the morning?"

Amy nodded. "First thing."

Runner's eyes lit up. "Can I do hanging again?" Her hand closed around the braided vine that served that purpose.

Amy had spent considerable time during the afternoon thinking about this. While she was not allowed to give an outsider Academy instruction, there was no reason she couldn't get Runner caught up on necessary everyday facts that everyone knew in Amy's world. "You want to learn to do it better than you did before, right?"

Runner nodded emphatically.

"I can help you do that. We can do a lot more, me and the other girls, when we get back to the Academy, but there are things I can teach you right now. We won't have time to hang you tonight..." Amy saw Runner's instant frown, "...but I can teach you things about it, and we won't even need light. Do you want to start?"

Runner nodded again.

"Okay, take a deep breath, really slow." Amy demonstrated. Runner blinked, and followed her example. Amy went on, "You're taking air into your body. Air is all around us. You can't see it, but you can feel it when the wind blows. That's air pushing on you. It shakes the leaves on the trees. You need air, just like you need food. Even more than food.

"When you breathe the air in, it comes in through your mouth or your nose, and it goes down into you through a space that's right in front of your neck." She put her finger lightly on Runner's throat. "Can you still breathe when I do this?" She braced the sides of her hands on Runner's shoulders, put her fingers on the back of Runner's neck, and pressed hard.

Runner said, "I can breathe."

Amy shifted her hands, the heels of her palms now at the front of Runner's neck, her fingers along the sides. She pressed hard against the front.

Runner's eyes grew wide, her face red. When Amy released the pressure, Runner gasped, and said, "That's just like when I was hanging!" She raised her hand up to the front of her throat. "So it's just here, that one place?"

Amy nodded. "For the air, yes."

Runner sat back, silent for a moment. To Amy, it looked as though Runner was visualizing something. Runner suddenly looked at Amy, her eyes wide. "So maybe if I tried hard to look up while I'm hanging, I could make that one place loose and I could breathe!"

Amy suppressed a gasp. She hadn't imagined Runner would jump to the basic idea that quickly. She nodded. "Yes, but there's more."

She explained about the blood going up to the head -- Runner knew what blood was, but not its purpose -- the blood carrying the "food" that the air had brought in. She had Runner hold her hand over her heart, explaining that her heart was pushing blood around inside her with each beat. She pressed her hands against Runner's carotids, and kept them there. Runner, though still able to breathe, grew faint quickly.

After Amy released her grip, Runner bounced on the ground excitedly. "So I need both! I have to get air through here..." she brushed her fingers downward on her throat, "...and the air goes into the blood, and the blood comes up through here..." brushing upward on both sides of her neck, "...and feeds my head! And the... what did you call it, that I hang on?" She touched the vines on ground.

"It's a vine. We use ropes at the Academy, but this was all I could find here."

Runner nodded. "When I'm hanging, the vine squeezes everything and stops it. But..." She frowned, thoughtfully. "I could tip my head back, and get the front of the vine loose, but I can't get all those parts loose at the same time." She looked eagerly at Amy. "Amy, can I watch you hang again?" She looked around and frowned again. "It's getting too dark to see you. I want to watch you when I can see you."

Amy looked around herself in surprise. She'd been concentrating so hard on her "lesson" that she had barely noted her surroundings. Now she could barely see them. She nodded. "Tomorrow."

Completely unexpectedly, Runner slipped her arms around Amy's waist, leaned forward and pressed her lips against Amy's. Noting Amy's wide-eyed surprise, Runner asked, "Is that okay? You said I should kiss you when I feel this way."

Amy began tingling in a way she hadn't in all her time on the island. Breathing more deeply, she answered in a soft voice, "It's more than okay, Runner."

She kissed Runner, and Runner, after a moment, began moving her lips in imitation of Amy's, following each move Amy made -- turning her head more to the side, opening her mouth, nibbling softly on Amy's lips with hers. After a time, a soft whimper at the back of Runner's throat told Amy that Runner now understood another purpose of kissing besides demonstrating friendship.

In complete darkness now, Amy felt, rather than saw, Runner shift her body, turning her head to the side and down, to lick Amy's shoulder, and felt Runner's hands begin roaming up and down her sides, her back, cupping her breasts momentarily, as she moved her head down further, her tongue running down Amy's side. Runner's licking was nothing like Holly's feathery kiss-licks. She used her tongue more the way an animal would -- different animals at different moments, sometimes using just the tip, more often the full, wet surface, lapping at Amy's skin. Her hands and, Amy realized now, even her feet were participating, the soles of her feet rubbing Amy's lower legs. Amy could hear Runner making a breathy, voiced sound, halfway between a grunt and a sigh.

Those observations were her last continuous rational thoughts for some time. All of the need within her that had been bottled up, without outlet, for more than a week, all of the longing for the touch of her friends, all of it burst forth at once, and now it was Amy imitating Runner, following Runner's lead, touching, licking, rubbing. And Amy realized, in one of her brief instants of conscious awareness, that half of the animal grunts were her own.

Licking farther down Runner's stomach now, past her navel, finding spots along the way whose stimulation made Runner gasp and shiver, crying out as Runner's tongue found similar spots on her. Both of them shifting to the ground to lay side by side, hands and feet still roaming over each other. Amy's mouth finding its way between Runner's legs now, tasting the slight uriny tang on the hair guarding the soft folds of skin there, and the familiar taste of female arousal. Amy's own thighs clamping against Runner's ears, quivering and moaning over what Runner's tongue was doing down there, feeling Runner's hands kneading her buttocks, Runner using her grip there to force her tongue deeper into Amy.

Amy hadn't noticed the rain was falling harder, and barely reacted to the lightning, each flash engraving in her memory a visual image, too brief for motion, of Runner's buttocks on either side, the skin wet and shiny in its coating of rainwater, and thousands of suspended raindrops, each frozen in place and glowing in rainbow colors in that instant.

...a sudden explosion inside her, silent yet somehow louder than the thunder outside, every fiber of her body quivering, waves of heat and cold pounding through her -- still coming -- still coming -- going now, subsiding, waving goodbye, leaving her drained in their wake.

Feeling as if she'd run a mile at top speed. Feeling the hot breath on her inner thighs expelled by Runner's laboring lungs. Both girls exhausted, limp.

Okay, Amy said to herself, too drained to giggle. I know how they have sex in the pens now.