I sat slumped in the passenger seat as Andrew drove me home from the lawyer's office, late Monday afternoon. It had taken all my energy to act eager and willing as I signed Andrew's slave contract, mindful of Andrew's warning that if I looked as if there were any duress, and if the lawyer exhibited any visible suspicion that I didn't want to sign, Andrew would just take me to another lawyer. The signing had to be done to Andrew's satisfaction. The alternative was being whisked away to spend the rest of my life as a stranger's mistreated puppyboy, losing forever my chance at the Academy; so I took my own role in surrendering my freedom very seriously.
The worst part had been when the lawyer's assistant had come in to sign as the second witness. The meerkat had looked over the contract, and on seeing the names asked me, "Oh, are you married already?"
I'd forced a smile. "He's my brother."
The assistant had beamed at me. "Oh, that's really special. I was just thinking how often we work with people having divorces, with all the anger and loss. It's so nice to be part of a happy event for once. Did you always want to be your brother's slave?"
"Uhh, no," I replied. "It's kind of a recent thing."
"Well, I'm glad you two can be close. One of my friends has a brother, and they can hardly stand each other." To my relief, the meerkat had finally signed the contract and gone back to her office, waving a cheery goodbye to both of us.
In the car now, I reminded myself that the contract would never go into effect anyway.
It still upset me.
In my hand, I clutched an envelope containing my copy of the contract. It would do no good, I knew, to find Andrew's copy somehow, wherever he might hide it, and rip it to shreds. The lawyer had one in his files.
Slaves, of course, were often taken with no contract at all, and sometimes with little or no consent on the part of the slave. There were other ways to prove ownership, in accordance with various local customs, and it was rarely questioned in any case. This contract, unassailable as a fake for the good reason that it wasn't one, was mainly for Dad's benefit. It wasn't enough that Andrew could satisfy the authorities that he owned me. It would take more than mere possession to prove his ownership to Dad.
"I'd tell you this makes me even more determined to get into the Academy, but it doesn't. I couldn't possibly want it any more than I already did."
Andrew snorted and shook his head, his eyes on the road. "Wow, that hanging dude really wrapped you around his little finger, didn't he?"
Every muscle in my body suddenly was seized in a cramp. I stared straight at Andrew, my mouth a wide O of shock. He could never have heard Marshall say that phrase! I looked at his face as closely as I had ever looked at anyone's. There was no sign of irony written on it. He had only used a commonplace way of expressing his perceptions, and gave no evidence that he knew what that particular metaphor meant to me.
What it meant to me.
My entire day with Marshall passed through my mind in a flash, every word, every event, every gesture. The way Marshall had made the most significant males in my life behave in exactly the way he had wanted them to. The way he had brought them under his control. The way he had wra— ... I suddenly didn't want to hear that phrase again, not even in my head.
And the way Marshall had somehow steered me, who before that day had barely even known what the Hanging Academy was, into a passion for attending the Academy that overwhelmed every other possible future ahead of me. Do I really want to go? Or did Marshall... put that into me somehow?
When I finally got home, I bounded up the stairs. Flinging my bedroom door closed behind me, I bounced onto the bed on my knees, facing Marshall's head.
"Marshall! Is it me or is it you?? Were you helping me or controlling me? Did you see something inside me, or did you put the Academy in there yourself? Tell me! Tell me!!!"
Marshall's head was silent.
I can't do it. I can't go to the interview. It's less than two days away, it's in the morning day after tomorrow, and I can't do it. Dean Porter will read me like a book. He'll know how confused I am. He'll know I don't understand where this need came from, the need to be an Academy boy. Marshall! What did you do to me?? Did you work your magic on me? Was it just because I was the last boy you'd be able to talk to in your life? I wasn't really special to you, was I? Was I just somebody available you could mould in your image?
I hugged myself on my knees on the bed, my face rubbing the sheets, crouched in a fetal position, my body wracked with sobs. Marshall, help me, help me!!
I'll just cancel the interview. There's no point. I can't go in there like this. I can't pass the interview, not messed up like I am.
I suddenly realized I would be Andrew's slave as soon as I cancelled. I couldn't get in the Academy, and that meant the contract was in force. My whole life was in ruins. Just days from now my brother would own me, he would have my body as he'd been wanting to. He would use me, force me to service him, would buy an egg from some femme — and inject me with hormones, forcing me to lactate. Force me to nurse his offspring. Then he'd take my sperm and do the same thing. Over and over again, for as many children as he wanted — for himself or to make Dad happy.
I fell over on my side and, fully clothed, still in a fetal ball, I sobbed until I exhausted myself and fell asleep.
I woke up with my head pounding, my eyes rough and red. For a moment I thought it was still the same afternoon, but the sun was slanting through my bedroom window at a morning angle. I'd slept through the whole evening and night, not that it mattered particularly. I wasn't much interested in anything. My eyes wandered vaguely around the room, the only part of my body that wanted to be awake. I didn't move any other muscle. I couldn't summon up the will.
Tuesday morning. Interview tomorrow. For what it's worth. Something associated with the boy I had thought I wanted to be. It didn't relate to me now.
There was a knock on the door. Waldo's voice came through the wooden panels. "Mister Wynn? Is everything all right? You've usually had breakfast by now. I don't believe you went to dinner either."
I sighed. I guess I'd better answer. He'll just get more alarmed. Maybe food would be more inviting once I'm looking at it. In a croaking voice I called out, "I'm not feeling very well, Waldo. Could you maybe bring something up here?"
"Certainly, Mister Wynn." His footsteps receded down the hall and the stairs.
A few minutes later I was looking at a tray laden with a bowl of cereal, a fruit salad, and a glass of orange juice. No, I was wrong. It doesn't look any better than it sounded. I have to eat something, though. I picked listlessly at a bit of sliced fruit sticking out of the salad.
"Should I call a doctor, Mister Wynn?" Waldo was still standing there.
I shook my head, and winced at the ache across my forehead. "Probably just a little bug going around. I'll be okay later. It's okay, you can go." I hoped that wasn't too brusque. I didn't like to be rude to the only person in the house who seemed really to care about me.
"Yes, Mister Wynn." He nodded and left, leaving me alone — as I wanted to be.
I made myself finish most of the breakfast, since it seemed to be making my head feel better. The next fifteen minutes were spent in internal discussion over whether a shower would help. I finally shrugged and managed to creep into the bathroom.
The shower did seem to raise my energy level, though when I came out, I still didn't feel like putting on clothes. I locked my bedroom door to keep Undesirables out, and lay back on the bed, trying to avoid looking at Marshall.
The thought came to me at last: if I can't have the Academy, maybe that doesn't necessarily mean I'm stuck with Andrew.
After a few minutes I sat up, as creakily as if I were an eighty-year-old man, and made myself go to the desk and turn my computer on.
I began searching online for all the information I could find on the laws of slavery. There were some details of law that applied differently to voluntary or involuntary slaves, though the bulk of the laws applied equally to both. I went from one reference source to another, trying to find something that might get me out of my contract with Andrew.
Several times I shoved myself away from the desk in frustration, only to come immediately back and continue the search. There had to be something.
I pulled my mind away angrily every time it tried to wander to the Academy.
But if I never wanted the Academy, a tiny voice within me argued, why do I feel this gigantic hole inside me? Why do I feel like the emptyness inside is exploding out to consume me?
Stop it, I told myself, we're not thinking about that. We've got a job we're doing here. Concentrate on that.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I had to lean back so they wouldn't splatter on the keyboard. Absently I wiped the snot from my nose.
Marshall would know what to do. He always knew what to do.
Stop talking about Marshall!! He did something to me! I don't know what it was! He... magicked me somehow.
I gritted my teeth and thrust the Academy out of my mind again.
Everything I found in my computer search seemed to weigh against me. I had voluntarily signed the contract. Claiming I had changed my mind later carried no weight. I couldn't show I'd somehow been tricked into signing — the fact was, I knew exactly what I'd been doing and why. I could claim duress, tell about the threats Andrew had made if I didn't sign, but I had no proof of that either: my claim that Andrew had said there were vague "people" who would kidnap me and sell me as a puppyboy would sound paranoid, and would go up against Andrew's word that he didn't even know there were people like that.
Morning wore away into afternoon, and frustration decayed into hopelessness as the hours passed.
I'm going to be Andrew's slave, I told myself over and over. There's no way out. In fact, in a sense I already am, if I'm not going to the inter... stop thinking about the Academy!!!
I buried my face in my hands. Marshall, help me! No! I've got to help myself. There has to be something I can do!
The thought sprang into my mind: the law is one thing, and Dad is another. If the law can't help, maybe he can.
He doesn't even know yet that Andrew wants me as a slave instead of a wife. Sure, Andrew was probably right, Dad would be fine with that once he saw the contract. And the contract itself was binding in any case, whether Dad liked it or not. But it wasn't in effect yet. Andrew will be expecting me to wait until I get a rejection from the Acad... from that place, before either of us tells Dad anything, and by then I'll definitely belong to Andrew. But right now I don't, yet. Andrew won't imagine I'd spill everything to Dad right now, and blow off... that place. But that place doesn't matter now, does it? Does it?
Does it? I kept asking myself.
Dad might be really mad at me. For not telling him I'd applied to... that place, for signing a contract and then trying to get out of it. A contract is a contract, in Dad's world. I could hear his voice. I thought you were more mature than that, Wynn. I could already hear him saying it. Maybe you need to be a slave, if you don't have a good mind of your own.
But maybe he'd be mad at Andrew. Andrew had, after all, not been 100% straightforward with Dad either.
There had to be a chance of that. It was the only chance I had.
My stomach grumbled, reminding me I had eaten only a bit of breakfast in the last twenty-seven hours. My head was pounding again. I got dressed, and went down to the kitchen to throw a chicken salad together.
I went back up to my room after eating, to plan what I'd say to Dad. I'd show him the contract, of course. Maybe the picture of myself to which Andrew had added the slave collar, though that didn't really reveal anything but Andrew's interest in me as a slave, which the contract proved anyway. I'd have to explain the part in the contract about... that place, so I tried to decide what I'd say about it.
I sucked in a quick breath when I heard Dad come through the front door downstairs, and heard Waldo greet him. Let him settle in. I still haven't figured this out completely. I decided to organize my thoughts by jotting down a set of notes.
Two hours later, I thought I had it. I did have to tell him about the puppyboy threat, as paranoid as it sounded. The burden of proof might be a little different with Dad from what the authorities would demand by law. I had a tentative order written down for the points I wanted to make.
Nervously, I took a deep breath, and headed down the stairs, with the envelope holding the contract.
Dad was in his recliner in his library, his dinner finished, taking out his one after-dinner cigar, a bottle of brandy within reach.
I cleared my throat. "Dad?"
He looked up at me, pulling a match out of the ornate box on the table beside the recliner and striking it into flame. "What is is, Wynn?"
My eyes were drawn to the match, still hissing as the powders were igniting on its head. Somehow, everything else in the world faded away, as if the theater lights had been turned down, leaving only the flaming match.
The tiniest spark started that fire. All that energy, all that heat, has been waiting to burst forth since the day that match was made, set free now by that almost invisible spark.
The spark didn't have that energy in it. It just released what was stored in the match.
My eyes widened.
Marshall was my spark.
Marshall didn't do anything to me. All of that energy, all of that fire, all of that consuming need to be part of the Academy. It was all inside me.
Stunned, I realized that Marshall had never once made anyone do anything. He hadn't made anyone want anything. He had only seen what they had really wanted, and by knowing it, by talking about it, had let the want come to the surface from within them.
Marshall hadn't tricked Andrew into "playing nice" with him. Marshall had simply reminded Anrdrew how much he wanted to impress his friends, and made brother conscious of it. And that consciousness led Andrew to act the way he did.
Marshall hadn't made Dad slow down and take his time with him. He had found a reason why Dad would want to do that.
Long before I had known Marshall, before I had even known what the Academy was, I knew now that I had wanted it, needed it. I remembered my one day with Marshall in exquisite detail, that almost the first thing out of my mouth when I met Marshall was, "You're really going to let Andrew hang you?" Marshall could very easily have seen something in my eyes at that moment, when I spoke that question. The fuel for the fire, for the passion I had never known was there, had been waiting inside me, like the powder on the match, from the moment I'd been born. Waiting for just a spark to set it burning.
And then I had met Marshall.
Now I felt the fire burning again.
I returned to the here and now suddenly, hearing Father, after a pause to light his cigar, asking again, looking a little puzzled now, "What it is, Wynn?" I realized only a few seconds had gone by.
"Uhh, uhh... oh, sorry, nothing. I was going to ask you something, and then I realized I already knew the answer. Silly." I grinned.
Dad snorted. "Glad I could help."
"Oh, you did. More than you can imagine." I turned and raced back up the stairs, leaving Dad looking more puzzled and then setting the puzzle aside, with a "who understands kids?" shrug.
I threw the envelope with the contract carelessly on my desk and jumped onto the bed on my knees. I picked up Marshall's head and cradled my friend tightly against my chest. "Thank you. Marshall, thank you so much. I understand now, I really do this time. I'll make you proud of me. I'll be the best hanging boy ever, and not because you want me to be, but because I want to be!" I realized there were tears dripping down my cheeks.
I set Marshall's head back on the shelf, and lightly brushed his hair back in place. "I need to make sure I'm ready for my interview now." I quickly sat at my desk and started making notes for myself.