THE NEXT MORNING

Amy sat at one of the computer hutches in the library, and rested her cheek on her left hand, supported by her elbow, as the video on the campus intranet began playing.

For the first few seconds, the screen showed an empty private room in the party pavilion. Runner then appeared in the doorway, holding the hand of Jimmy Pellis.

Amy bit her lip anxiously. She wished she'd been able to tell Runner what she was reading in Bailor's and Pellis's faces while they were still in the main room, but the opportunity had never come up. On the screen, Amy could see much more clearly than before, now that he was in a one-on-one session for sex, what Pellis would want from Runner, and suspected it was not behavior that would come naturally to her.

Seeing Pellis now, as Runner turned to face him, watching his eyes run up and down her body, his mouth open, his eyes wide, Amy knew what he was looking for, and helplessly wished she could tell Runner, the image of Runner on the screen from fifteen hours ago...

"Take off your clothes, Jimmy." Runner's voice coming from the screen startled Amy, coming so close to what Amy's own voice was saying automatically inside her head.

While Pellis scrambled to comply, ripping off his tie and thrusting it into his coat pocket (there, thought so, Amy told herself), peeling off his coat and the rest of his clothes and dropping them on the floor, Runner stood with her arms folded in front of her, a small smile on her face. Amy was slammed by an intense deja vu feeling, and struggled to identify the source of it. Considering that Amy had never seen Runner alone with a man before, for the good reason that it had never happened in Runner's life, Amy's sensation was that much more mysterious to her.

Moments later, Pellis stood before Runner naked, with a huge fleshy rod projecting slightly upward in front of his crotch. He looked pale, swaying as if he might faint. Runner's smile grew. She lifted her hands to her breasts, still covered but visible in a ghostly way, and cupped a hand underneath each of them. "Do you want these, Jimmy?"

That's it!! thought Amy. That movie!! The one she and Runner, along with Jana, had watched a couple of weeks ago. Runner is acting out a scene from the movie!

Amy watched as Jimmy spastically nodded, whimpering softly. Amy mouthed Runner's next line. "What are you going to do for me first, Jimmy?" Runner's voice wrapped itself sensuously around his name.

Amy, whose wonderment at Runner's behavior had abated somewhat once she knew where it came from, was struck by a thought that brought the amazement back full force. Yes, right, Amy told herself, Runner is copying what she's seen on TV. But it's exactly the right thing! This was the need Amy had read in Pellis, the interaction he wanted with perhaps the hottest woman he had ever been alone with. Whether something about Pellis had reminded Runner of the movie, or whether she had read Pellis's desires and searched her memory for something that fit, either way she had reacted to Pellis perfectly, as very few First Year students would. And with far less instruction than a First Year would have had by the time of her first party.

Pellis stammered, "I - I don't know." He didn't seem to have seen the same movie. Amy wondered whether that was good or bad. At least it would make the scene seem more spontaneous to him. And probably not any less memorable.

Runner, still with that smile, snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor. Pellis looked at the floor and, uncertainly, dropped to his knees in front of her, which turned out to be the right thing.

Amy smiled, knowing what was coming next. As Pellis stared up at Runner, nearly drooling, Runner started to sway her hips sensuously, her fingers playing with the cord serving as a waistband for her panties, directly in front of Pellis's face. "These are so uncomfortable," she purred. "Would you take them off for me? -- No, not with your hands," she went on, stopping him as he began to reach up. "You want to touch me with your hands, don't you? If you make me happy first, you can touch me." It appeared as though Runner did not recall some of the unfamiliar words in the script of the movie ("You have to earn it"), but had understood the essential idea from following the action.

Pellis, breathing raggedly, looked at her helplessly. "But how...?" He pantomimed pulling down her panties, as if to say, I need my hands.

Looking down at him, not at a loss despite Pellis being considerably more dense than the actor in the movie, Runner bared her teeth and clicked her upper and lower teeth together, a pantomime of her own apparently inspired by Pellis's.

Pellis gasped as he caught on. Nervously -- his shaking visible to Amy on-screen -- he leaned closer to her hip, pressed his face against it and closed his teeth around the waistband cord. Able only to pull it down a few inches, he knee-walked to her other side and, again with his teeth, pulled down the cord from there. At last he worked it down far enough that the panties fell to the floor. Runner casually kicked them away with one foot.

She reached down to the hem of the nightie then, her arms crossed in front of her, and slowly lifted up upward, while her upper body slowly gyrated in an almost hypnotic dance. Lifting the garment past her head, she threw it beyond Pellis, her arms still upraised, continuing the dance.

Pellis, watching her swaying naked just inches away, could barely breathe.

She lowered her arms now, still swaying, and ran her hands down her torso to her hips, with her eyes closed. "I feel so grimy, Jimmy." Amy recalled Runner having to ask what "grimy" meant, and marveled that, as closely as Runner was following the script, she kept remembering to replace the movie character's name with "Jimmy."

She looked directly into Pellis's eyes now. "I want you to lick me clean, all over. Then you can touch me." She pointed to her feet to indicate a starting place.

Perhaps it was the camera angle, but Pellis's erection looked still larger than it had been at first. That's probably getting pretty uncomfortable, thought Amy. And Amy was sure Pellis didn't care. He followed orders, licking the top of Runner's left foot, and running his tongue gradually up her leg, moaning with arousal elevated beyond anything in his previous experience.

She made him detour around her crotch and mound ("That's for later"), but did allow him to suck on her breasts, as he rose to his feet, and he moaned more loudly there, Runner caressing the back of his head, holding him against her. He raised his hands to cup her breasts while he sucked, but Runner pushed them gently away with the backs of her own.

Reluctantly, it seemed, he continued upward. As soon as he reached her chin, she took hold of his head, tilted his face up towards her and kissed him, hard, her tongue pushing deep into his mouth.

Amy thought it looked as though Pellis nearly fainted at that point.

Runner broke off the kiss. Locking eyes with him, she pointed downward. "Now finish the job."

Quickly he dropped back onto his knees, tonguing her crotch eagerly, moaning continually. Runner grasped his head more firmly than before, squashing his nose into her bush, so that he had to pause in licking frequently to catch his breath. Once again Runner pushed his hands away as he rested them on her thighs. At last she stiffened, quivering, and threw her head back, letting go a squealing sound from the back of her throat. Amy was familiar enough with Runner's orgasms to know she wasn't faking this one.

Recovering her breath after a time, she murmured, "You've been a good boy, Jimmy." She took hold of his shoulders to urge him up to his feet again, turned him as she walked around him and gently pushed him back towards the bed. "Lay down." As he lay on his back, his erection pointing straight up, hard and long enough to make a more than adequate tentpole, Runner knelt on the bed, her knees straddling him, and positioned her crotch directly above the pole. As Pellis gasped, his eyes wide, she lowered herself onto it and took it inside her.

It was, of course, one of the positions she had practiced with Amy and the dildo. There was a squeeze bottle of baby oil on a nearby table, but Amy could see that Runner, about to couple with a genuine male organ for the first time, didn't need any additional lubrication.

While she shifted her hips slowly, his manhood sliding up and down inside her, she said in a hoarse whisper, "Hands, Jimmy, use your hands now. Use everything."

Quickly he reached out, seeming to want to touch everything at once, stroking her thighs, steadying her hips as she rocked up and down harder, cupping her breasts, gasping each time she hit bottom with his manhood fully inside her, moaning in between. Runner reached behind her to lift his legs up, adjusting the angle of his erection so that she could lower her upper body onto his, her breasts against his chest, her palms against the sides of his head, her mouth and tongue finding his.

Amy, watching almost unblinkingly now, her mouth open, breathing hard, rubbed the crotch of her shorts. She saw Pellis spasm, his sudden cry muffled by Runner's mouth against his, as he erupted into Runner, Runner knowing from verbal description what she was now experiencing for the first time, the warm gush of semen within her. They both held each other tightly as his spurting went on, both slowly relaxed as it waned.

Afterwards Runner raised herself slightly, gave Pellis one more light kiss, and crept forward along his body so she could rest atop him with his face between her breasts. They both lay quietly, Pellis with his hands cupping Runner's buttocks, until a pinging tone, set off by Melissa, served as the signal that their time was nearly up. Rising up to give Pellis one more kiss, she began getting dressed. Pellis, as if in a deep trance, did the same.

Looking at the clock, Amy saw she needed to get to Holly's and Haley's room for a hanging practice session. She would have to stop by her own room first for a change of panties.

"Amy!" Haley greeted Amy at the door of the room she shared with Holly. Haley and her sister were both out of their clothes already, and Haley eagerly handed Amy two lengths of rope.

Holly said with a grin, "We want to show you what we've worked out."

Amy waited as they set the nooses around each other's neck -- they liked to do that themselves -- and then she tied their hands behind them with the ropes Haley had handed her. Amy pulled the lever and stepped back, watching the two sisters hang.

Holly bore Haley's weight first. Their lips touched for a light kiss, and then Holly, raising the thigh between Haley's legs with obvious effort, lifted Haley by the crotch several inches, enough so that she could kiss Haley's breast. Letting Haley sink down again, and kissing her on the lips again, Holly relaxed her legs to let Haley take over supporting her weight. Haley then lifted Holly in the same way, enough to briefly kiss Holly's breast, then lowering her again. They went through a second cycle, then Haley signaled for Amy to raise the platform.

Holly, breathing deeply, looked down at Amy, her face aglow. "Did you ever do that with Megan? Tell us you didn't! We wanted to see if we could come up with something new!"

Amy, her eyes wide, shook her head slowly. "No, we never tried that. I don't think it really occurred to either of us. I'm not sure we would have done it. You've got an advantage in being lighter than either of us, so as long as your legs are strong enough, you can manage it. The only thing is, you look like you're really straining. The audience likes it better very smooth and natural."

Haley nodded eagerly. "Oh, we know! We want to keep working on it to get a lot smoother, and we're doing some new exercises to build up our thigh muscles."

Holly added, "And the butt. You can really feel it there."

Amy laughed. "I'm sure. You tire more quickly too, don't you? Is this going to take away from the total time of the program?"

Haley responded, "It would if we had to do a show right now..."

Holly continued for her, "...but we're going work on that too. If we can make the transition smoother, that will also help with the breathing..."

Haley finished the thought, "It'll be that and the muscle strength together. We just need to keep practicing it."

Amy nodded. "Okay. Now take another couple of minutes, and then I want to see your other moves. Without the new one, for now."

Both nodded, and Haley spoke. "Amy, I wanted to ask you..." She stopped, and bit her lip, her smile suddenly a little shy.

Amy was about to prompt her to go on, but then was able to read it on her face. Amy smiled, deciding to make it easier for her. "You want to sleep with me tonight?"

Haley blinked in surprise. "How did...? Oh yeah." She grinned. "I have to get used to that." She knew about the expertise of Hanging Girls in reading body language, but knew little as yet about how it was done. "So it's okay?"

Holly broke in, "Runner can stay with me, unless she already made plans with somebody else."

Amy reached up to put her hand in one of Haley's bound ones. "Of course. I was hoping I could get a chance to get to know you better."

Haley beamed at her. "Great!"

Amy backed away. "Okay, get yourselves ready. I want you to start with the breast bumps, and go from there."

The girls both nodded, and closed their eyes, evening out their breathing.

Amy was just opening her door when she heard a bark to her left. She turned with a smile to welcome Puppy, and her jaw dropped. She could only stare as Puppy came bounding towards her. Puppy's hair was now bright pink.

Puppy began licking Amy's leg, and Amy squatted down to put her face in range. Stroking Puppy, Amy looked up to see Jill peeking around the corner, grinning. "So how do you like it?"

Amy stammered, "What... how...?" She blinked hard. "How did you get her to sit still for it?"

"She wanted it that way."

Amy stroked Puppy's hair, looking like so much cotton candy. "She told you that?"

Jill nodded. "Well, pretty much. We were going by the salon, and Mona was coming out. She'd just finished getting her hair turned blonde -- you know how she changes it a couple of times a year. Puppy saw her and kind of started dancing around her, barking. Not mad, you know, the happy bark. She knew who Mona was, but she was giving Mona this really puzzled look, and she really seemed fascinated with the new hair color. Then she ran up to the salon's full-length mirror and started looking at herself really intently, like she thought her own hair might be a different color now too."

Puppy was very familiar with her own image in a mirror by now. It had been Emma's idea that if Puppy could see that she looked like all of the girls around her, she might realize she was human as well, and perhaps would think that she should be able to do what the others could do -- including speaking. It was clear that Puppy quickly learned that the image in the mirror was herself, and she enjoyed looking at it. But so far there had been no sign that she'd been inspired to try to imitate the girls' vocal sounds.

Jill continued, "I was thinking she might like it to be another color, so Mona and I took her to the library and brought up a girl's face on the computer screen, and started changing the hair color. I wasn't sure at first if Puppy caught on to what the idea was, but at least she kept watching. Then Mona started getting silly and tried some really goofy hair colors, like lime green, sky blue. When she got to pink, Puppy started barking and making these really excited whimpering sounds, seeing this girl with pink hair. So we took her back to the salon. She was really sweet through the whole thing, so I knew she knew what they were doing. And you should have seen her looking at the mirror when they got finished. If she had a tail she would have been wagging it like mad." Jill laughed.

Amy, squatting in front of Puppy, put her hands on either side of Puppy's face and looked into her eyes. "You like that, Puppy?" She ruffled Puppy's hair, very short but nicely trimmed like Amy's own, but bright, glowing, almost fluorescent pink.

Puppy barked excitedly.

Amy grinned up at Jill. "Wonder if she'll drag one of us back to the salon to do it again when she starts seeing dark roots."

Jill laughed again. "Probably."

Amy thought back to the painting at Steffi's house, including the ponygirl with every hair on her body dyed green. She looked between Puppy's legs. "Wonder if she'd want her bush pink too."

Jill looked at her in surprise. "We never thought of that. I should get to studying, though. Test in physiology tomorrow."

Amy shook her head. "Oh, I didn't mean right now. There's no hurry." She waved to the departing Jill, opened her door and let Puppy precede her inside. Puppy ran quickly to the mirror Amy had set down at floor level for her a week ago. Puppy often examined herself, but never so happily as now.

Amy grinned. As rarely as Puppy demonstrated human behavior, it was funny to see her showing as much vanity as any five other girls combined. "Lunch, Puppy?"

Puppy turned and barked at the familiar word.

Amy grabbed her food card, and a leash for Puppy. Amy had made a rule that any girl taking Puppy to the caf should keep her on a leash there, so that Puppy wouldn't help herself to interesting-looking food on another girl's plate. Despite not officially being a slave, Puppy wore a new leather collar for attaching the leash. Puppy, very accustomed to the arrangement -- in fact, she sometimes picked up the leash in her mouth as a sign she was hungry -- padded alongside Amy towards the caf. She seemed more eager than usual, no doubt wanting to show off her hair.

Amy returned cautiously to the library after lunch, suspecting... yes, Runner was there, at a table near the new section of children's books. Runner was sufficiently absorbed that she didn't notice Amy coming in. Amy would ordinarily have walked over to see what Runner was reading, starting a discussion full of questions from Runner, but Amy didn't want Runner looking over her shoulder while Amy reviewed Runner's second bedroom session at last night's party.

Luckily, the computer was equipped with headphones. Having made it to the computer undetected, Amy could watch the video unnoticed.

The video resumed from the point Amy had left off viewing earlier that morning. She would have fast-forwarded through the interval of Runner dressing in her nightie and retouching her makeup, but Amy watched the normally uninteresting process with fascination. It was impressive that Runner seemed so comfortable with applying makeup, a skill so recently learned, but... well, Amy thought, that's just her.

When Amy saw Runner's final step of preparation for Bailor's visit, she gasped, then looked across the library to see if Runner had heard her. Amy gaped at the screen. She had been concerned that Runner's skillful handling of Pellis's needs might have been a coincidence, that Runner might have decided beforehand to treat every male bed-partner based on that one movie. Instantly that concern evaporated. Runner had pulled the toy drawer, which Amy had shown her just yesterday, completely out of its cabinet, and set it on the edge of the bed in plain sight.

Amy had known Bailor would want the toys but, as with Pellis, Amy hadn't managed to say anything about Bailor's desires to Runner. But Runner, somehow, had known. And Runner had realized Bailor, unlike a member, wouldn't have known the toy drawer was there unless it was made visible to him. So she had put it out there to be seen. She'd done it for Bailor in particular. She'd known Pellis didn't need the toys.

Are all Island girls, Amy wondered, like Runner? Her intelligence, her eagerness to learn, her sensitivity to the thoughts of others... the last of these really stood out to Amy as she watched the video. Amy didn't harbor any suspicions that Runner was literally reading minds, in the commonly understood sense of somehow sensing brainwaves, especially since Amy herself, like any other fully-trained Hanging Girl, had that same skill. Many outsiders did perceive what Hanging Girls did as mind-reading, but it was nothing more than watching for the outward, physical signs that internal thoughts painted on the face, the body. Amy had learned it along with all her classmates. But with Runner, the skill seemed innate. Amy and the other girls had given Runner some quick lessons in the last few days, in preparation for the party, but Runner had demonstrated the ability long before that, with no training at all. Could all of the girls Runner grew up with do the same thing?

Amy remembered, then, that there was evidence that Runner had stood out, apart, in that environment as well as this one. At the age of five, or thereabouts, Runner had already been beating teenaged girls in a game of thoughtful strategy, that game with stones in circles that she loved so much. (And no girl at the Academy so far had beaten her at it either.) Somehow Runner's mind ran at full speed, at peak efficiency, at all times, her mental focus going beyond anything Amy had ever seen -- even in Megan, who had set the previous standard Amy judged from -- and none of the girls Runner had grown up with had matched it. Runner, after all, had understood the need to escape from the control of the Island men and had found a way to accomplish that. If all of the Island girls were like her, they would have broken free and taken over the island long ago.

Runner's sensitivity to body language, which had, Amy admitted to herself, grown more accurate and powerful since she'd arrived at the Academy, was just part of a larger phenomenon.

Amy's attention was drawn back to the video screen by Bailor's arrival.

Runner turned to face him, with her head down, her eyes looking at the floor, her hands clasped behind her back. Amy recognized that Runner's posture was, again, in imitation of a scene from a movie they had watched recently.

Bailor looked her up and down, a small smile on his face. "Man, if only I'd known on the boat."

Amy shuddered. Runner's future, she knew, would have taken a very different turn if she hadn't maintained her cover on the trip from the island. Amy had known that all along, but had pushed it to the back of her mind until Bailor had forced it back to the surface.

He looked to his right, suddenly. "Where's...?" He saw the empty space where the toy drawer had been, then saw the drawer itself on the bed. His smiled widened. "Okay."

Amy blinked, then remembered Bailor had just spent an hour with Jill. Presumably Jill had acquainted him with that feature of each room's contents.

Bailor fished around in the drawer and withdrew a pair of linked leather wrist cuffs. He started to order Runner, "Turn..." then decided something else should come first. "Take that off." He gestured at her nightie.

Without looking up, Runner responded in a small, almost whispery voice, "Yes, sir," and slowly, accompanied by that same sensuous swaying of her hips as before, drew the nightie up over her head, dropping it on the floor beside the bed.

Bailor made a sound halfway between a grunt and a groan. The discomfort in front of his crotch, where his trousers struggled to contain his erection, was obvious. In a slightly strangled voice, he said, "Panties too."

"Yes, sir." Runner hooked her fingers under the waistband on either side, and writhed sinuously as she pushed the tiny panties down her leg, looking almost as if she were a snake rising up out of them. Amy groaned and shifted in her seat, reflecting irritably on the fact she was going to need to change her own panties yet again. She could usually watch videos from party sessions clinically, but this was different. This was Runner.

Bailor, unable to wait any longer, quickly stripped out of his own clothes, obviously relieved when the stiff rod at the top of his legs was freed of the encumbrance of pants. With an easily interpreted gesture, he had Runner turn around so he could buckle the cuffs on her wrists. To complete his control of her, he chose a leather leash from the box and clipped it to the back of her "Slave Girl" collar.

The fleeting thought ran through Amy's head, I hope Melissa is watching really closely, before she remembered that this entire session had taken place the previous night, and Runner, obviously unharmed, was now sitting across the library from her reading a book.

Turning to face Bailor again, with her head still down, Runner said, "Please do what you want with me, sir. I belong to you." A line from the movie.

Bailor's response was not from the movie, but easy enough to follow. "Get on your knees. Lay on your stomach on the bed."

Runner, exuding gratitude for being issued a command, said eagerly, "Yes, sir," spun around, dropped to her knees, and sprawled across the bed as ordered, her hands in the small of her back. Bailor sank down to one knee behind her, steadied her with a hand on her right buttock, wrapping the leash around his other hand, and quickly penetrated her -- vagina, not anus. Runner had practiced with anal sex, afterward saying it was "kind of fun" but that she much preferred the pussy. The position itself was familiar to Runner, even before seeing it in movies, from having watched farmers use it on slavegirls, though she hadn't really understood its purpose back then. She did now.

Runner, emitting an airy sigh each time Bailor pounded into her, gave every indication of enjoying the experience -- for real, as Amy could tell, not just for show. Bailor came at last, with a loud grunt, slowed gradually to a stop and shrank out of her, draping himself over her backside briefly before straightening with a satisfied sigh as his shrinking penis slipped out of her.

Runner straightened as well, half turned and directed a yearning look at Bailor's penis, and used another line from the movie -- "May I clean that for you, sir?", making her method of cleaning clear by sliding her tongue in a circle around her open mouth.

Bailor's eyes opened wide. "Uhhh... uh-huh."

Runner's licking and sucking, following tips given by both Amy and Melissa, had Bailor hard again within minutes.

Jill, Amy discovered later, had needed nearly ten minutes to figure out that Bailor would be interested in the toy drawer. There was no possibility she had somehow passed the word on to Runner, who had been occupied with Pellis during Jill's entire session with Bailor.

THAT NIGHT

Amy snuggled against Haley in bed, feeling the warmth emanating from both of them following their lovemaking. Haley, Amy had discovered to no surprise at all, was as adept at kiss-licks as her sister. The practice had spread quickly around the school following Holly's arrival, but no one did it quite as well as Holly. Except Haley. Amy, thinking back, now felt another tingle between her legs, just from remembering.

Amy thought Haley might have drifted off to sleep, until she felt Haley wriggle slightly against her to get more comfortable. Taking the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity, Amy whispered, "You doing okay, spending a night without Holly?"

Haley whispered sleepily, "I'm good," before coming awake more fully. "I miss her, of course. Being without her for a night is almost like when I spent a year away from her. There's... such a big part of me missing. But I know I need to do stuff like this." She suddenly sucked in a breath. "I'm sorry, that came out so wrong! I don't mean I'm with you now because I feel like I have to be. You've done so much for both of us. Fixing it so we can be in the same class, and teaching us to do shows together. That's going to be so great. I love you, Amy! I was just... well, I meant something more general. There are parts of being a Hanging Girl that we have to do individually. We both want to be the best Hanging Girls we can be, more than anything."

Amy gave her a squeeze. "You don't need to apologize. I know what you mean. As soon as I got to know Holly, I knew how... central you are to each other. The way you can't be whole without each other. I know what it feels like to love someone with your whole heart, and to be loved back the same way -- I've had that, more than once -- but it still falls short of what you and Holly have."

The subject seemed to cue something in Haley's mind, something that, Amy could tell, she'd been reluctant to ask, fearing the answer. "Amy, the dean wants us to put on hanging shows together at alternate Second Year and Third Year parties, and he'll auction us as a pair at the end, because he's thinking we'd bring in more money that way, but when the First Year parties come along, he wants us to do what all the other girls do. Hosting members one-on-one, by ourselves. He said he needs to make sure we can handle bedroom duties individually. We understand that, and we're okay with it, but..."

Amy realized where this was going. "You're afraid when you graduate you'll be sold separately? That he's getting you ready for that?"

Haley gulped and nodded, her head brushing Amy's chest. "He says he wants us to be able to do anything any Hanging Girl can do, and satisfying our owners and their guests in bed is part of it. But is that for just-in-case, or could he really want to sell me without Holly? If I'm sold by myself, I'll do the best show I know how to do, but..."

Amy knew that Haley couldn't bring herself to put it in words -- the emptiness of what should be a Hanging Girl's final triumph, if she had to do it without her sister.

Amy said tentatively, "I think he knows he has something special in the two of you. I'm sure he'd want to... make sure of using you the best way he can."

"Like we could do a terminal pair hanging? Wouldn't he need to be able to get more money for that one hanging than for two separate ones? Would somebody pay that much?"

Amy thought it over. "Anybody who knows beforehand what you're capable of. Like a member who's already seen you. They'd know."

"Oh, like with Megan..." Haley interrupted herself with a gasp and suddenly sat upright. "Could it be just like Megan's show? Holly told me all about that. Megan did her show here, and made way more money than any Hanging Girl ever, because all the members knew what they'd see! We could do that, couldn't we?"

Amy sat up beside her and grinned. "Oh, sure, that'd be perfect. We could talk to..." She frowned. "It's too early to ask the dean, I think. He hasn't even seen you do one show yet. You'll have to talk to him later, after you do that. I'll be gone."

Haley bit her lip. "But you're so good, getting him to do things! Holly's told me about all the things you've made him do."

Amy laughed. "I never made him do anything. I make him want to do things. You just have to know him... Look. I can tell you what you need to know. It's not really all about money. It may look like that sometimes, but that's not it. He will do anything -- anything -- to make the Academy a better place. Taking in more money is part of that, but just part. If something will make the shows better, if something will teach the girls more, he wants that. Anything like that. The Academy is his life. I've understood him, because I've always felt that same way. And you and Holly do too. If you want anything from him, you need to show him what it will do to help the Academy. Think about it in those terms -- only in those terms. Then talk to him."

Haley's eyes were aglow. "This is that kind of thing, isn't it? Something unique, something the members have never seen before. Something they'd want to be part of, that they'd remember for years. They'd pay to see that, like they paid to see Megan hang, so there's money in it, but it also builds the Academy's reputation! Right?"

Amy grinned. "Exactly."

Haley threw her arms around Amy and squeezed her tightly, her lips finding Amy's for a long, hard kiss. In seconds they were both moaning, their hands roaming each other's back.

NEXT MORNING

The caf was beginning to clear out by the time Amy and Haley arrived. At a table in the corner, Melissa and Jana were just finishing, and Puppy was licking up the last of a bowl of fruit salad, her favorite breakfast. Puppy, seeing Amy, sprang upward and jerked at the leash, looking reproachfully at Melissa for holding her back. Amy came over and hugged Melissa and Jana, then knelt down to hug Puppy and receive the usual excited face licks.

Jana grinned. "Everybody loves her hair like this."

Amy laughed. "I'm sure. Have Holly and Runner been in yet?"

Melissa shook her head. "Haven't... oh, there." She pointed, as the two girls just entered.

Haley got there first, running across the room from the serving line to throw her arms around her sister, giving her a long kiss. Amy hugged Runner, and had barely touched lips with Runner when the speaker in the room crackled to life. "Amy Cameron, please come to the dean's office."

Amy blinked, and completed the kiss with Runner. "I'd better go see what he wants."

Holly, holding Haley's hand, said, "We'll wait for you."

Amy bit her lip. "I don't know how long I'll be. I'll try to get Tina to let you know if it's a long meeting. I don't know what it's about."

Tina directed Amy into the office, and Amy entered, slightly nervously. Usually she had some idea what might be up.

At least the dean was smiling as he directed her to a seat. As she was settling, the dean, without preamble, went directly to the subject. "I watched the videos of Runner's sessions at the party. Very impressive."

Amy nodded. "Yes, Sir. I was pretty amazed myself."

"I can see you prepared her well..."

"Several of us worked on it, Sir, not just me."

He nodded. "How did you let her know what approach to take with each of the men? I've also reviewed video from the main room, and I didn't see you take her aside and speak to her in the middle of the party. Some sort of prearranged hand signals I missed?"

Amy shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, and was suddenly overcome with laughter. Aware of the dean's puzzled look, she worked to get hold of herself. "Sir... I know you can read whether I'm telling you the truth or not, but you're going to have a hard time with this. I didn't tell her anything about them, in particular. We did give her a lot of examples beforehand of different positions and things different men liked, to supplement what she's already learned from movies, so she had different formats to choose from, and we did give her some tips on reading sexual interests. But nothing specific about Mr. Bailor or Mr. Pellis. There wasn't really any time to do that, with everything going on."

The dean stared at her for a prolonged interval, and finally said, "What?"

"She figured it out on her own. She's been doing stuff like this more and more lately. Reading us, I mean. It seems to come naturally to her."

He was silent again for a time, and at last managed, "Indeed." He leaned forward. "The generic lessons you gave her... Were they really as detailed as it appears they must have been? Spoken scripts, and so on?"

Amy's earlier laughter bubbled up again as a brief giggle. "She didn't get that from us. I could show you clips of the movies they came from."

The dean sat back, doing the characteristic tapping with the pen he was holding. "I'll need to think this over. I believe I'll watch the videos again, with this new information in mind."

"Yes, Sir. I was just thinking, to give the whole thing some sort of context... Runner is just very..." She searched for a word. "Unusual. Special. You're probably thinking this is all very odd, because so many things suggest Runner was born to be a Hanging Girl, in a place where they don't have any. And somehow, here she is now, at the Academy. That seems to stretch the laws of probability, but I don't think that's quite what's going on. She wasn't born to be a Hanging Girl in particular. She was born with so many special abilities -- and I'm sure we haven't even seen all of them yet -- that she could become anything she wanted to be, and really excelled at it, whatever it was. It just turns out what she wants to be is a Hanging Girl. And so she's here."

He nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll accept that. At least I can't argue with it. I don't know enough yet."

Amy smiled. "You'll have years ahead of you to get to know her, Sir. I think that time will be very valuable, to both of you. You'll be able to give her what she wants most of all, making her a Hanging Girl, and she'll give back to you everything she can, which is a lot."

The dean leaned forward, with an air of ending the interview. "Thank you, Amy. For the information." He smiled. "And for bringing a jewel back with you from the island."

Amy grinned. "Always happy to help, Sir."