I lay on my bed at home that evening, trying to get my mind on the movie I'd rented for my TV, a comedy in which one sloth goes through a series of misadventures trying to keep his appointment with the guillotine, while another sloth mistaken for him is nearly snuffed in his place. I tried to concentrate on the story, but my mind kept wandering. I'd felt wonderful after my interview, and certainly while having sex with Scott at his apartment, but now every point of concern kept crowding back into my mind. How important was it that I had never played any hanging games? Dean Porter seemed to like my naked body, but did he really? Would he say so if he didn't? Did the Dean, despite my efforts at redirection, figure out that I'd only been conscious of the need to go to the Academy for barely over a month? How many minuses did I really have?
I groaned when I saw Andrew looking in through my door. I had meant to close it. And lock it. And barricade it with steel bars. "What do you want?"
"So how did the interview go?"
"Okay."
"Come on, Wynn. You know I really do want to know. Just give me an impression."
I sighed. "I thought it went really well. I answered all his questions, showed him my body, let him choke me. I felt good about it after."
"You don't sound like you feel good now."
"You know me. Am I the Optimism Queen?"
Andrew looked at me, and seemed to come to a decision. He brought his hand from behind his back, showing a small, transparent capped bottle and shaking it. "I need you to take a capsule for me."
My jaw dropped as I gave him an are-you-crazy look, and then I burst out laughing. "So you've decided poison is the way to go? After all I've done for you?"
He gave me an impatient look. "Why would I kill you? Okay, yeah, I know I've got a reason, but look at all the drawbacks. I imagine the law would be with me, you being my brother-slave and all, except they'd want to know if it was okay with Dad, and there you have it. Even if the law lets me off the hook, and even if I could find some foolproof way so they don't even know it was me that did it, Dad would know somehow. Or suspect. Why would I even want to take a chance of his suspicion falling on me, when I can get you out of here just by sending you off to the Academy?"
"Thought you assumed I wasn't going to get in."
"Well, I've got that covered too, don't I? Except for one thing — suppose you get your rejection letter and just decide to disappear? That's fine if you stay away and get declared dead, but I can't count on that. I can see you showing up suddenly with some fancy lawyer who manages to find a way to void the contract. Or at least be a pain in the butt."
"You think too much, Andrew."
"Oh, right, and you don't? How much time have you spent on all that Academy crap in the last month?"
I lay back on the bed, my fingers laced under my head. "Touche'."
"Look, I just need you to take one of these capsules for now. They're slave trackers. Have you heard of that?"
I wrinkled my nose. "I've heard of tracking slaves, but not with pills. What the hell are they?"
"The latest wonder of bionanotechnology. They've just come out with them for general usage. When the outer skin of the capsule dissolves in your stomach, inside there's a tiny GPS transceiver that signals your location. I can go to a Web site on my computer and track you by that — the frequency is a little different for each capsule, and I write down the code on the capsule and log in using that. Find your location within about ten feet."
I sat up and looked at him in silence, and finally lay back and said, "Bullshit. My body would flush it out in a day."
"Look, hold on..." He went back to his room, came back in a moment, and handed me a sheet of paper. "Somehow I figured you wouldn't trust me on this. I ordered this stuff online. Here's a printout of the invoice. Go to this Web site and read about it."
I dropped the paper on the bed beside me. "Later. I'm busy."
He looked at me sourly. "Yeah, you look busy. Anyway, by tomorrow, Wynn. This is the last bit of assurance I need that you'll be around when I own you. That guarantee, remember?"
I sat bolt upright and glared at him. "I thought we were done with that. That's what the contract was for."
"Yeah, the contract is one thing, but what stops you running out on it before I get a chance to enforce it? I want this one last thing, Wynn. Then I'll stay out of your way till you hear from the Academy." He smiled. "I've got used to this idea of waiting on the sex till I own you. It'll make that first time that much more fun."
I gritted my teeth and turned away from him, turning up the sound on the TV. I wished I could stop him from even hinting he wanted to get me into his bed, but I was really out of things to use on him. "Get out. And close the door."
He pointed at the paper on my bed before closing it. "Read about it."
I sighed and tried to concentrate on the TV. The paper Andrew had given me caught my eye. I started to crumple it, then stopped suddenly with a gasp.
Andrew, when he'd reminded me of his need for a "guarantee," was doing more than just stating what he was looking for. He was reminding me of the alternative. If I refused to set his mind at ease on the possibility of me not making the Academy, he was, no doubt, still prepared to set me up for the kidnapping he'd spoken of before. To have me carried off and made a helpless puppyboy for some stranger who would be happy to train me with a whip. I would be gone before I heard from the Academy.
"Shit!" I muttered between compressed lips. I turned the TV off, and my computer on.
It was easy to find complete information on the product Andrew had bought, as described on the invoice. I read about it, and cross-checked it on several other reliable Web sites.
The capsules were for real. On being ingested by a slave, the outer covering, as usual for a capsule, dissolved in the stomach. Inside the capsule, the tiny GPS transceiver, powered by a chemical battery that would last nine months, signaled the slave's location. The transceiver was enclosed in an outer coating that was biochemically compatible with the cells in the digestive system — in fact, it attached itself to the cellular walls of the intestines, gradually being absorbed into them, safe from being ejected from the body as unused waste. Removing it required major surgery, but after the slave was snuffed it came out automatically during the gutting process before cooking. In its experimental stages there had been no cases of ill effects on the test subjects. Before its battery gave out — six months was the recommended time — the slave simply swallowed another capsule.
Up to today, my feeling of certainty about admission to the Academy had persuaded me not to bother planning an escape if it didn't work out. But I had to admit the idea had run across the back of my mind.
This would make it impossible.
On the other hand, fretting over the results of today's interview aside, I still did feel admission was inevitable. It had to work that way. How could I, with Marshall's help, have finally discovered my lifelong dream, only to have it snatched away from me?
And of course, if I did go to the Academy, it was irrelevant whether Andrew had made me swallow a slave-tracking capsule. If I was at the Academy, Andrew had no use for the tracker. He'd know exactly where I was, for what it was worth, even without it. Nothing Andrew had asked me to do, from signing the contract to ingesting the tracker, made any difference once I was admitted to the Academy. And I did believe him when he said the Academy was his preference — I would be completely, permanently out of his way without the slightest effort on his part.
Even that didn't really matter, though. The fact was, I didn't have a choice. I believed him on the puppyboy threat, his one stated way of taking my Academy dream away if I didn't cooperate with him. I couldn't afford not to believe him.
Pushing my chair back angrily from my desk, I turned off the computer and grabbed the invoice. Down the hall, I pounded on Andrew's door.
When he opened it, I snarled, "Are you going to be tracking me all around town, wherever I go?"
Andrew looked genuinely surprised. "Why would I give a shit where you spend your time every day? I'll just feel better now if I know I can find you when the time comes. I'll test it once in awhile to make sure it's still working. If I watch your progress while you walk around the house, will that violate your precious privacy too much?"
"Can I wait till early August?"
Andrew shook his head. "Who knows when the Academy might mail out the first rejections? I'm sure they've had boys apply that they wouldn't want within fifty miles of the Academy. How long does it take them to figure that out? If you're going to do it, do it now." He fixed his eyes on mine. "Otherwise I need to make other plans."
I tried to stare him down while my fury rose pointlessly. Forcing my voice to calmness, I held out my hand, open palm up. "Okay, give me the thing."
Andrew's eyes lit up. "Okay, but not quite like that. Come over here." He backed away from his door to let me in. He ducked quickly into his bathroom, ran some water, and emerged with a partly-filled drinking glass. He set it on his desk, next to the tiny bottle of capsules. On closer examination, I saw that the bottle held just two capsules.
Andrew looked in his desk and found a small square of paper. Opening the capsule bottle, he shook one of the capsules out onto the paper. Bending down, he rolled the capsule slightly until its code number came into view, and wrote it on the paper. Then he picked up the paper, folding it into a small valley with the capsule at the bottom, and brought it towards me.
I reached for it, and Andrew jerked it away. "Nope, nope, nope. Don't touch it, and don't lift your hands to your mouth. I don't want you palming the little bugger and pretending to swallow it. Then carrying it around in your pocket so I'll think it's inside you. Tilt your head back and open up."
Rolling my eyes, I did as he requested. Andrew lifted the square of folded paper, tilted it, and let the capsule roll into my mouth.
Keeping his eyes on me as he backed towards the desk, he recovered the glass of water and brought it to me. "Keep looking up. And keep your hands down." He held the glass to my mouth and tipped some water in. "Now swallow."
I didn't have much of an alternative, other than choking. With a sinking feeling, I swallowed the capsule and felt it slide down my throat towards my stomach. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, I told myself. I hadn't even made plans to run away anyway. Where would I go?
"Now say, 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.' "
I nearly choked anyway. "What??"
"Just say it."
I rolled my eyes, shaking my head, and repeated the nonsense.
Andrew nodded. "Fine. You could only say that clearly while you were trying to hide a capsule under your tongue if you were a trained ventriloquist. Just making sure you swallowed it. Now don't mind me if I follow you back to your room."
"What? Why?"
"Just go back to watching TV or whatever you feel like doing. I just want to make sure you don't stick a finger down your throat and barf the thing up in the next twenty minutes. After that it won't matter."
I walked stiffly, my hands clenched into fists, back to my room, where I flopped on the bed and turned the TV back on, starting up the movie again. I lay on my stomach, my chin propped on my fist, my eyes looking in the direction of the screen, not seeing it, while Andrew lounged in my doorway, slouching against the frame, a study in relaxation.
The movie reached its predictable ending, with the sloth who was supposed to be snuffed finally arriving just in time and straightening everything out. All came out happily, with a final scene in which the right sloth's head falls into the cushioned basket, looking towards the camera with a relieved smile on his face before his eyes glazed over.
My eyes kept trying to wander up towards Marshall, and I'd pull them back, quickly. I felt too ashamed to look at my friend. Marshall would never, ever let anyone do to him what Andrew was doing to me. He'd never let a male tie him up in knots so tightly he couldn't shake loose. I know Andrew, I screamed within. I know him better than Marshall ever did! Why can't I handle him any better than this? Or at all, in fact?
After a time, Andrew straightened up and walked back to his room. I knew the time had passed when I could do anything about the tracking device now lodged permanently in my body, giving out its signals for the next nine months. Long before it died, I would be Andrew's slave. Probably secured so that he didn't even feel a need to bother giving me another capsule. But he would anyway.
A tear rolled down my cheek, and I lay my head down on the bed. Why today of all days? The interview seemed to go so well, and I'd been so excited. But now my earlier misgivings came crashing back more intensely than before. I pictured Dean Porter going over application folders with the director of admissions. Not this one, they'd agree. No experience. Never tried a hanging game in his whole life. Didn't even think about the Academy till a month ago. Too flighty. No commitment.
I buried my face in my hands and cried. Quietly. Quietly enough that I could hear Andrew in his room. The jerk, jerking off.
Over the next few weeks, my confidence gradually returned. Andrew, amazingly, left me alone, almost entirely ignoring me. It must be that he thinks I'll get in! It's understandable he wanted a contingency plan in place, but he doesn't think he'll have to use it. It's the middle of July now. A month till I hear. He knows what's coming.
The biggest problem now weighing on my mind was Father. There was still that problem of his permission. The Academy's offer of admission, I knew from their literature, was contingent on parental permission. It might be a tricky legal point as to whether the slave contract I'd signed would be in force if the Academy accepted my application but then Dad said no.
I made an appointment with the attorney who had witnessed and certified the signing. "Andrew and I," I told her, both know how important the Academy is to me, so that's why that condition is in the contract. Does the contract take effect even if the Academy says I'm in but my father won't let me go?" Yes, the lawyer explained. The Academy's own stated policy made it clear that admission wasn't final without the consent of the parents. Or surviving parent, if only one is alive. "Thank you," I said, "I just wanted that clarified. I didn't want to end up in some legal limbo, but I guess everything is taken care of. "
Yes, I thought at home, all taken care of. Wonderful. I had to persuade Dad to let me go to the Academy. I had known that, of course, but had not been sure of the full consequences of failure. I knew now.
I knew when to tell him, of course: after the letter of acceptance came, no earlier. It was crucial to show him I wasn't dreaming, that the Academy really wanted me. But knowing when wasn't telling me how. He could easily get mad if I presented him with a done deal, worked out behind his back. He wasn't happy with that sort of thing. I had to have the right way to present it.
I did go back to considering telling him before the letter came. I soon discarded that idea: from his point of view, that was not only working behind his back, but on top of that it was backing out on the agreement to "marry" Andrew. When the time came, I needed Andrew to back me up by saying he knew the Academy was what I really wanted. He had promised to do that. I wasn't sure what the promise was worth, but I did believe he really did prefer I go to the Academy. If he didn't, he could have wrecked my chances with Dad already. But under no circumstances would he help me before the letter arrived.
I need that picture, I suddenly thought. That fake with me wearing a slave collar. I've got to show Dad that Andrew wasn't being upfront with him. That and the contract. Or no, maybe not the contract. It looks like I signed that voluntarily. I'll tell him Andrew was tricking me into being his slave, instead of marrying him like Dad thought. Dad won't like him being dishonest about that.
Andrew was out on one of his evening rambles, so there was no problem about getting into his room. I went in and reached under the bed, nodding to myself when my fingers found the sheet of paper. I pulled it out and looked at it.
I blinked in surprise. Wrong picture. I bent down to look under the bed. There was nothing else there.
I looked at the picture again, my lip curling in disgust. It was a drawing, very realistic, almost of photographic quality, but not quite. It showed a blonde squirrel, a shemale, wearing a slave collar, kneeling in front of her master, sucking on his very erect manhood. The picture was drawn from a point of view just behind the master's hips, showing the slave's tear-streaked face and the front of her body down to her knees on the floor. Her hands were behind her as if tied or cuffed, and one of her ankles was visible, showing a shackle to which a hobble chain was attached. And all of her visible skin surface was striped with whip marks, including her rounded DD breasts. It takes over a year for hormone shots to develop breasts that big. But those whip marks... Some marks were faded and healing over time, but others were fresh and angry red. It looks like she gets whipped often. I wonder if she's really that resistant to orders. Or... Maybe her master just enjoys whipping her. I felt sick.
My eye was drawn to a handwritten message in the space below the drawing:
"Wynn — like it? I'm impressed with this artist's work. I've contacted him about doing some custom work."
I threw the drawing down suddenly as if it had burned my fingers. Andrew, obviously, had known I would find the pic. What does his message mean? Is he telling me he's going to do this to me? Why tell me now? Dad wouldn't like it, would he?
I stormed back to my room — I knew it was pointless to bother putting the picture back in its place — and sat in my chair, irritably kicking my foot against the desk, my arms folded, hands gripping my upper arms tightly to prevent them from pounding on things, until Andrew came home.
I jumped out of my chair as I heard him come up the stairs, and followed him into his room. I closed his door, breathing hard through my nose and glaring at him.
Andrew smirked as he saw the drawing lying on his bed. "Pretty good stuff, isn't it?"
I snarled at him in a hoarse whisper, "Andrew, you know that's not what you made Dad think was going to happen. He's not going to go for this crap, not if he sees you lied to him! When you show him the contract, I'm going to show him this!" I darted forward and snatched the drawing before he could react.
Andrew laughed. "How will he think I lied to him?"
"He thinks we're going to be husband and wife!"
Andrew raised an eyebrow. "Is that what he thinks? That we'll get married? I never actually used that word with him."
My hands clenched tightly, the drawing crumpling in one of them. "You know that's what he's assuming, though. He used the word 'marriage.' Why would he think I want to be your slave? Especially this kind of slave?" I waved the paper at him. "He wouldn't think what we've been doing makes any sense. If we're getting married, obviously we're waiting for the gene test results to come back first. Why bother with that if I wanted to be your slave? If someone agrees to be another anthro's slave, it's not so they can make babies! That's way down on the priority scale."
"That's not true. Lots of guys keep breeding slaves."
"Yeah, if their wives can't have babies, or they want to sell the kids. None of that applies here. He thinks we're trying to start a family together!" It hit me then. Andrew planned to make children with me. He'd have a cells taken from my body, forced to meiose into eggs, then fertilized with his semen in vitro.
Andrew grinned and shrugged. "Sounds like you're doing more assuming than he is. How do you know what he thinks?"
"About a family? At least he said that much, remember?"
Andrew started to respond, then blinked as if another thought had occurred to him. "Well, if he's got the wrong idea, I should just clear it up. I saw him in his library when I was coming in. Hold on, I'll be right back." He opened the door and trotted down the stairs, his hands in his pockets, looking casual. I followed him partway, stopping at the foot of the stairs in time to see Andrew disappear through the door to the library.
Andrew's voice, a little muffled by the intervening walls but still clear enough, said, "Say, Dad, Wynn and I were talking, and it occurred to me we might have left the wrong impression about what we were thinking. It's not that we're getting married. We're talking about him being my slave. We do want to see how the tests come out, though. We're hoping to do some breeding."
My jaw dropped. I knew I couldn't run in and contradict Andrew. All he had to do was whip out that contract, and there was no response to that that I could summon up. He might even do it tonight. That would bring the Academy secret out, at the worst possible time. I sat on the bottom step of the stairs, my last hope being that Father would have some reason to object to my slavery.
But Father grunted. "That's fine, son. As long as it's okay with him."
Okay with me! Andrew has the proof that it is! I buried my face in my hands.
I looked up and saw Andrew backing out of the library, saying, "I'm glad that's cleared up. See you tomorrow, Dad," and Father grunted in reply.
I turned and ran back up the stairs and into my room, throwing myself onto my bed. By the time I remembered to go back and close my door, Andrew had already returned to his own room.
He knows he won another round, I thought furiously. He doesn't have to say anything.
Calm down, calm down, calm down. I still have the Academy. If Andrew had wanted to, he could have blown the whole issue wide open right then, tonight. He must not want to. I'm going to the Academy. Andrew wants me to go. He's just having fun playing with my head. If I'm miserable, he's happy. But I'll be out of his way in a couple of months and all this garbage will be over with.
Thinking about the Academy, my confidence rose. It had its ups and downs, but it was up lately. I was conscious of all of the issues that counted against me, but I had gone back over the interview minute by minute in my head and convinced myself I'd handled them very well.
They'll take me, I know they will. I had a feeling Dean Porter had decided already, right while he was talking to me. I dwelt on some of my best moments over and over. I know I did great.
I still have to think how to tell Dad about it. But I can find a way to handle Dad. I've still got several weeks.