I felt relaxed, finally, holding Scott close in bed, the sweat from our lovemaking mixing together. As soon as I walked in, I'd peeled him out of his clothes and attacked him with my mouth. I'd waved him off when he wanted to do me the same way. Then we'd talked and kissed, cuddled and tickled, for over an hour until he was ready again. I'd presented my tail to him, inviting him to mount me. He did, but he'd held off coming until I begged him to give me the release I needed. When he finally did, it left me completely drained. Now, enjoying the afterglow, his yellow wolf-eyes looked so big, so close. I smiled and kissed him. "So you know this is our last time, right?"
He returned my kiss. "I know. This has been really, really nice. I just feel lucky we could meet and have this time together we could remember."
I sighed. "I'm lucky too. And I'd give anything to stay here all day, or just another hour. But I have to go." I looked at him with a sad face.
He reached out with fingers from both hands and pulled both corners of my mouth upward, making me giggle. "Don't give me that frown. The reason you have to go is... you're in the Academy!"
I pumped my arms in delight. "I know!!" I kissed him again all over his muzzle, and stood up to round up my clothes.
He watched me from the bed, his head propped on his elbow-supported hand. "I know you can't even call me, because you can't talk to anybody on the outside. But I'll be imagining what you're doing while you're there, making new friends, practicing hanging... just being happy. I'm so glad you got that chance!"
I bent down and kissed him one more time. "And I'll always imagine you've found a way to be as happy as I am right now. I hope you do!" I straightened up, reaching behind me to open the door. I gestured with one hand. "Turn around and face the other way, okay?" I hurriedly brushed at my eye.
He did. I left before he turned back.
I drove to the offices of Cameron Industries, and rushed up to the main office. A few minutes later I was in Father's office.
I ran around his desk and wrapped my arms around him. "I got in, Daddy!"
Father beamed at me. "That's great, Wynn! I'm proud of you."
I had never before heard Father say that to me.
"I'm leaving to go there now, Dad."
He looked surprised. "I'd had the impression you didn't start there until September. Am I remembering that right?"
I nodded. "I know, Dad. But there isn't anything in my life more important to me than being there, and there's nothing left that I have to do here. I'm sorry to cut a month off the end of the time I could spend with you, but you understand, don't you? Don't you?"
He looked steadily at me, saw the look in my eyes. "I do now, I think."
"Dad, thank you for everything you've ever done for me, you and Mom both. And..." I grinned at him. "See you one more time in about three years. Okay?"
He returned my smile. "Looking forward to it, son."
I gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Bye, Daddy. Wish me luck!" I turned and ran out the door, turning to blow him a kiss. "Luck!" he called out as I went out the front door into the hallway.
I drove at excess speed to the bank, walking out with a thousand dollars in cash. Speeding home, I ran up to my room. I grabbed the Academy letter and envelope, and ran downstairs to use dad's shredder. I nearly fed the envelope into the shredder as well, but stopped myself, giggling. No, I've got a place for this.
I took it back up to my room, filled my tote bag with the few possessions I was taking, and a large box containing my most important possession of all. The other boxes, with the names, were already gone. Melville had no doubt moved them downstairs.
In the hallway, I put my things down on the floor for a moment, and went into Andrew's room. I tossed the slave collar onto the bed. Then I arranged the ten crisp hundred-dollar bills from the bank in a sunburst pattern around the envelope, with its Hanging Academy return address, my name prominently displayed. I was so glad Andrew wasn't home, though that was normal this week — he was avoiding contact with me as much as possible in the interests of keeping a deal from which he had a lot to gain. I wished I could see his face when he saw this, but I needed to be safely away. I picked up my possessions again, and walked back up the hall, taking one last look at my bedroom. It had been the one corner of the world that belonged to me, for as long as I could remember.
I sighed and went down the stairs and took a last look at the house as well. Then I put my things in the car and sped down the drive towards the street. Heading for the Academy.
I wasn't supposed to report to the Academy for a month. Andrew would be anticipating that I would remain at home that month.
I knew, with absolute certainty, that if I did wait, if I gathered all my things and said all my goodbyes and drove to the Academy in September, I would never get there. That month would give Andrew all the time he needed to make his plans for intercepting me, or to have someone else do it.
Andrew's style, I felt certain, would be to knock me out with a drug, most likely administered by a dart. I would wake up in the dark, in that tiny underground closet, in chains. In a slave collar. All hope lost. Even Father wouldn't know I was missing. He would assume I was at the Academy, and I couldn't contact him from there. He would never guess I was Andrew's badly-treated sex toy, a shemale sex toy, secured underground where no sound I made could escape, where no one who didn't know exactly where I was could possibly find me.
There was only one way to avoid that ghastly future.
I drove into the Academy parking lot, looking at my watch. I had made it in time.
Out of breath, I entered the Admissions office, startling Sheila with the sight of a slightly bedraggled squirrel carrying a huge box under one arm and a tote bag over my shoulder. "Sheila, is Mr. Bennett still in?"
Sheila, looking as if she wondered what sort of emergency this could possibly be, picked up her phone and buzzed Mr. Bennett's office. A moment later, Mr. Bennett came out. "Oh, Wynn, you made it. Is..." He stopped, puzzled. He hadn't expected me to be quite so encumbered.
"Hi, Mr. Bennett. Could we go into your office a minute?"
Mr. Bennett nodded. "Of course, Wynn." He gestured for me to follow him.
I sank down into the chair in front of the desk in the office, relieved that I could stop moving at last. I reached into the tote bag and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. Excitement bubbled inside me. The paper completed my access to my dream. "Here's my parental permission form." I put it on the desk in front of Mr. Bennett.
Mr. Bennett picked up the form, looked over it and nodded. "I'll put this in your folder, Wynn, and your admission is complete as of now." He looked at me with a puzzled expression. "I know this can't be the reason you're here." He looked at my tote bag and the larger box on the floor.
"Mr. Bennett — I really, really hope this is possible. Could I stay here, at the Academy, until classes start?"
Mr. Bennett's eyes shot open wide. "Why, Wynn?"
I had resolved to tell as much of the truth as I could. "It's really a long story, and I'll tell you everything, if you need me to do that. The short version is, I think my brother is a danger to me."
Mr. Bennett's eyes narrowed now. "Why would he be a danger?"
I sought for a way to say it. "He had... other plans for me, instead of being here."
Mr. Bennett looked at me, and slowly nodded. "I understand. I think. We haven't really done anything like this before. I'd certainly have to consult with Dean Porter on what our policies would be."
"I understand that completely, sir. If this helps, could you tell him that I have over five... no, I'm sorry, over four thousand dollars in my savings, and I'll give that to the Academy? Here's my debit card..." I put it on the desk, "...and I'll write down the PIN number. And my car is out in front. Here are the keys... and I'll sign my ownership over to the Academy too. And if there's a job you want me to do, like... well, I'm sure you have your own cafeteria, obviously, and there must be people working there. But any job, really. I'll do it."
Mr. Bennett's jaw dropped briefly, but he closed it quickly. Tapping a pen on his desk, he said, "You know there's a security issue, don't you? There are... well, it's no secret that we have secrets."
"Yes, sir." My heart soared. It sounded as if Mr. Bennett was seriously considering it! I was sure Dean Porter would see the sense in it if Mr. Bennett did.
"So you understand that, once we let you stay here, even for a night, we can't let you leave? None of the first-year students leaves the secured area at any time, and even after that it's only rarely, under controlled circumstances."
"I know, sir. I'm prepared to... well, you must have some forms the new students sign, when they commit themselves to be your slaves."
"Of course, but Wynn... we don't have them do that until after they have an orientation session, where we make it very clear to them what they are committing to, and that it's irrevocable." He leaned forward. "You know that every student at the Academy either graduates or else is hanged?"
I looked directly at Mr. Bennett's eyes. "I know, sir. And I'll commit to everything, right now. I'm offering myself as the Hanging Academy's slave. I don't need the orientation, or time to think it over." I smiled. "I'm going to do both of those things. Graduate and be hanged. I'll do one of them first, then the other."
Mr. Bennett finally laughed. "You drive a hard bargain."
"I learned that from my father."
Mr. Bennett picked up his phone, and punched a number in. A moment later, he said, "Dean Porter? I have an incoming student here with an unusual... proposal."
A few minutes later, after explaining to the Dean all that had happened, Mr. Bennett hung up. "He wants us to come to his office. Are you ready to go there?" He rolled his eyes. "I guess I didn't need to ask."
"Yes... oh!" I pulled out my cell phone. "Can I make one call? I know I won't be allowed to do it from inside."
Mr. Bennett nodded, and I punched in the number. "Hi, Scott?"
"Wynn?" He was obviously surprised.
"I'm here, at the Academy. They're about to let me in. Scott..." I'd planned to say something else. Several something elses. I didn't expect what came out of my mouth. "I love you."
There was no hesitation in the reply. "I love you too, Wynn."
I closed the phone without saying another word, and held it against my cheek, feeling its warmth. I'd thought about telling him how great it had been, and that I'd always remember him. But I'd done all that already. There was only one thing we hadn't said to each other, and now that was done.
I handed the phone to Mr. Bennett. "I'm ready."
Epilogue
I distributed my few possessions around the dorm room, humming to myself. My tote was nearly empty now, its former contents on shelves and in drawers. I paused several times to look at myself in the mirror, wanting again to see the metal ring circling my neck, with its engraved "Slave Boy - Property of the Hanging Academy" showing backward in the reflection. The Academy's slave collars were the most beautiful I'd ever seen.
Since the school year, running from September to September, was nearing its end, there were several empty rooms in the First Year dorm wing. Dean Porter had had a staff member bring a first-year uniform and collar to his office. I turned in front of the mirror, tearing my eyes away from the collar to admire how the white short-shorts and brief shirt made me look. Andrew would probably split his zipper if he could see me!
I looked back at the collar again. I would never, ever forget the moment when Dean Porter had locked the collar in place around my neck. I replayed it in memory once more now, feeling the same tingle.
I loved the room as well. There was plenty of shelf space, though I suspected the shelves would be full of schoolbooks and instructional disks before long. There was a TV with a puzzling remote. From some of its markings, it looked as if it might be used to select movies and satellite radio stations as well as cable channels, but I put off experimenting with it.
Much more fascinating was the sturdy-looking ring in the ceiling, no doubt meant for a rope, and a platform of what I had come to realize was the standard type for training hanging boys, tucked away under the TV cabinet. Just looking at it made me hard. The Dean had said I wasn't allowed to try hanging myself until I'd been in classes, even if the students in the dorm volunteered to help. But at least maybe I could watch some of the boys here close up as they practiced.
I tried to figure out the purpose of the apparatus sitting folded up on a small shelf, one of them on the wall over the head of each bed. I'd find out soon enough.
Behind me, I heard movement at the door of the room. A lemur and a beaver wearing white shirt & short outfits and "Slave Boy" collars identical to mine, were looking in at me with matching dumbfounded expressions. Clearly, they thought that nothing could be farther from the realm of possibility than to suddenly see a new classmate, eleven months into the year. The beaver asked wonderingly, "Who are you??"
I walked towards them, my hand held out. "I'm Wynn Cameron. I'm really in the next year's class, but the Dean is letting me stay here until classes start in September. It's a long story."
The beaver looked at me with a sour expression, ignoring my offered hand. "I'm sure it is."
I should have thought of how unlikely it was that a close-knit, family-like group of students would accept a stranger suddenly thrust into their midst. I slowly put my hand down.
The lemur said, "And you're going to be in a room by yourself?"
I nodded. "I can't participate in any hanging practice until classes start, so the Dean didn't see a need for me to have a partner. It's just as well, I guess, because there aren't any to choose from. As far as I know, nobody else will get here until next month."
The beaver sniffed. "This was Sandy's and Benton's room. After Sandy got hanged at a party, Benton moved in with Kurt and Morgan."
"I'm sorry to hear about Sandy." With so much tension in the room, I felt a need to touch something more comforting. I'd saved this bit of unpacking for last anyway. I turned to open the large box and reverently lifted out its occupant.
I heard two simultaneous gasps. I turned back. The beaver was in a half-crouch, his hands covering his mouth, his eyes wide. The lemur was staring open-mouthed. He whispered one word, with almost no wind behind it. "Marshall!"
Both boys came into the room, walking slowly, carefully, almost stumbling over one of the beds in their concentration on the head I was holding. The beaver asked softly, "Where did you get him?"
"He was hanged at my house. I got to know him there." One of my special memories of that day came back to me. "He let me powder his fur before he went out to be hanged."
The lemur just stared at me. "You did his powder?"
I nodded. "While Bailey was doing his hair, and tying his hands."
The beaver reached out, and hesitated, looking at me. "Can I touch him?"
I blinked. "Sure."
The boy put his fingertips on Marshall's hair, stroking it very lightly.
His eyes still glued to Marshall, the lemur said, still almost in a whisper, "He was our kicking coach, one of them, until he went to do his show. He was so good at it. Nobody else could do it like him."
The beaver giggled. "We all wanted to find out what exercises to do so our bodies could look like his."
The lemur looked at me at last. "Do you... we were going down to the caf — the cafeteria, that is — to get some pizza. Do you want to come with us?" He held out his hand. "I'm Larry."
The beaver held his out. "I'm Cleon. Leo, usually."
I smiled and shook hands with them. "Sure." I set Marshall's head on the shelf nearest the bed.
Larry started to the door, and turned back suddenly. "Oh, they did give you a food card, right? I guess they must have. How else would you eat?"
I looked in one of the drawers and found the newly laminated card, still warm, with my picture on it and the words "CLEARED FOR ALL MEALS." I put it in the shallow front pocket of my shorts, and nodded to Larry.
Larry smiled. "That's a relief." He gestured for me to follow him to the door. "We'll want to hear about Marshall's hanging. Every detail." Leo nodded, falling in behind Larry and me.
I started talking as we walked down the hall, "Well, you know he was the Prince, right?"...