The Hanging Academy, Part 3, Chapter 21

I shuddered, shifting my footing on the custom-designed platform, my heart fluttering. I heard the growing murmurs of club members from beyond the curtains that enclosed Maverick and me in the party pavilion's hanging cage. I whispered to Maverick, "They're starting to let them in. This is really it!"

Maverick smiled calmly and kissed my shoulder. "Listen to me. As soon as we're up in the air, we'll be at home. We'll stop being nervous right that instant."

I couldn't see any signs that Maverick was nervous to begin with, but my nerves steadied a little. He was right, of course. Home was hanging by the neck. All of my tensions would drain away, as they always did. Everything would flow naturally.

We had been counting the days from when the Dean had approved our idea to this first public performance. We had spread the word out beyond our immediate circle of friends after that, and, a few at a time, every Academy student and teacher had come by Larry's and Leo's room to watch the practice sessions in which we gradually developed our routine, occasionally making suggestions for additions. Most of the Third Year boys expressed the wish they had seen something like this earlier in their student days — by now, they were all so fully absorbed in preparing for their own post-graduation solo performances that they had no time to try anything requiring so many hours of practicing techniques so different from standard hanging. The First Year boys all wished they felt the confidence in their abilities they would need to give it a try, but watching us always seemed to leave them in awe.

The most satisfying thing to us was that it left our fellow students, in all of the classes, horny.

I put my arms around Maverick's waist and rested my head on his shoulder, and Maverick did the same. This works both ways now, I thought. The physical contact between us that calmed Maverick so much in the first weeks after That Night, as I thought of it — we both need that now. I could feel peace washing through me from any part of my body that was touching Maverick. I could tell from Maverick's soft sigh that he was feeling the same thing.

The murmurs grew louder. A few minutes later, the other First Year boys began their one-at-a-time entrances — I could tell by the reactions. Conversations between guests and students began, and from all around came the sounds of curiosity. None of the members had been told what to expect.

The next time, of course, they would know. Assuming there was a next time. If there was enough positive response to tonight's show, announcements of the show beginning the next First Year party would go out in the mail. The party, starting an hour earlier than usual, would begin with our performance, and members would pay a steep premium for admission at that earlier time. Those wishing to skip the show and come at the regular time would pay the regular price.

For the hundredth time, I reminded myself to relax. No matter what, I wouldn't be the direct beneficiary of the proceeds from future shows, if any. As a slave, I had no legal means of controlling any of the money. It would all go to the Academy. And the Dean understood that this was in the nature of an experiment that he was willing to try. It was clear that we wouldn't suffer any penalty if it didn't work out. But this was important to me for reasons unrelated to monetary rewards.

Dennis's voice called for everyone's attention. Even expecting it, I was still a little startled. Dennis, a weasel, was our dorm parent, sharing duties with his new roommate Paul now that Brian had been sold and hanged. Dennis was serving as spokesweasel for the First Year class.

Dennis began, "On behalf of the Hanging Academy and all of the First Year students who will be your hosts tonight, I'd like to welcome all of you to tonight's party. Of course, at the end of the party, you'll be able to see a member of the class, Ari Bonaventure, snuffed in a hanging he hopes all of you will enjoy." The background noise of quiet conversations among the guests grew momentarily louder — Sequoia's hanging four months ago, followed by Conroy's at the most recent First Year party two months later, had led the club members to have a high regard for the techniques of the First Year class.

Dennis continued, "We have something a little different for you at the start of tonight's party. Two of our students, Wynn and Maverick, are going to put on a hanging show of a type new to the Academy and, as far as we know, never before done anywhere. The only thing I've been asked to say is that the Academy wants all of our guests to understand that this hanging will not be fatal. Our performers will end the show alive and well, though for dramatic purposes they will appear to be dead. Afterwards, each boy's services for tonight will be auctioned to the highest bidder."

Maverick and I were both a little disappointed with that. We had wanted to be offered for rental as a pair, but the Dean strongly felt that it was crucial for every graduate to have consummate skills at satisfying the sexual desires of their owners in a situation that was almost always one-on-one, and the parties were exactly the place where Academy boys honed those skills. He did, at last, promise to study the videos of our private sessions, and to allow us to work together starting in a year or so, once he was satisfied that our solo sexual skills were up to Academy standards.

Dennis went on, "Aside from that, please remember that this will be a dramatic performance, and we ask that you have respect for the performers, for the benefit of those around you.

"And now, without delaying any further, I present Wynn and Maverick, as well as Jack and Eric, who will play their executioners."

The curtain surrounding the hanging cage began to roll itself upward from the bottom, seemingly of its own accord. There were several appreciative gasps from the audience when we were revealed as the occupants of the cage.

Maverick and I were standing on the platform, back to back, so that after the unveiling everyone could have a frontal view of one of us. We were already naked — we had decided that raising the curtain, would serve in place of the usual dramatic shedding of clothes prior to the hanging. By the reactions of the audience, I think it worked very well. We were already partly hard from anticipation, of course. With the small part of my mind that was not concentrating on the choreography of our upcoming performance, I reflected that Maverick, clothed or not, always had the same stunning effect on the occupants of any room he entered. But this time it seemed to me that the gasps came in equal numbers from the viewers on my side of the cage. Maybe I'm looking better than I imagined. I struggled to keep the grim, determined look on my face.

Each of us was holding the other's right hand with his left in a lover's grip of interlaced fingers, with our arms straight down at our sides.

I looked over toward a barred window to the secure area and saw that Larry and Leo were looking on from behind the window, as promised. They had begged to be allowed to attend the party, but the Dean had decided that security for a party involving the whole large First Year class was hard enough to maintain without adding extra students from other classes. Also, he didn't want to set a precedent that might lead to the security nightmare of keeping track of the entire student body in the semi-secure Party Pavilion. Our best friends had a limited view from where they were, but Larry grinned suddenly and gave me a thumbs-up signal. I closed both eyes briefly in a double wink that wouldn't be perceived as breaking character.

I couldn't see Grace; she may have been on the other side, facing Maverick. But I spotted Benjamin at the far edge of the crowd, and again suppressed my instinct to smile and wave at him. It was easy to interpret the smile on Benjamin's face. He knew he'd been the inspiration for this.

The Dean himself was in the pavilion. From what I'd heard, this was the first party he had attended in several years.

Jack and Eric, dressed in the traditional black outfits their roles required, wove forward from opposite sides of the room, each carrying a length of rope and a rolled-up scroll. They stopped in front of the cage. Jack faced my side, Eric facing Maverick. As they unfurled their scrolls ceremoniously, the room became as quiet as if everyone in it had suddenly vanished. Speaking somewhat louder than normal, Jack and Eric began alternately reading lines from their scrolls — Eric's idea, so that neither Maverick nor I would spend the entire reading with his back to the speaker:

"Furthermore, in recognition of the conspiratorial nature of this heinous act..."

"The court has decreed that, if you express your sincere regret and your love for the emperor..."

I straightened, glared defiantly at Jack and spat — carefully directing it straight down to the platform, though I don't think I could have reached any of the onlookers from where I was — and growled, "I say that to the emperor."

We complied, renewing our grip on each other's hands afterwards. I lifted Maverick's hand to my lips and kissed the backs of his fingers. "One last time together, my love."

Eric opened the cage door, entered and sprang up onto the platform behind Maverick, then Jack got up behind me. Jack said sternly, "Hands behind you!" I crossed my wrists behind my back so that Jack could tie them, while Eric did the same to Maverick. Maverick and I had agreed that the inability to use our hands would make the movements that we could manage seem that much more erotic. In future shows we would vary the format, but this was what we had decided on for the first program.

Then, with solemn formality, Jack and Eric placed the dangling nooses over our heads and tightened them around our necks. They stepped down from the platform and backed out of the cage to kneel beside it, leaving us alone, waiting to be hanged.

With the rope caressing my throat, my attack of nerves had washed away unnoticed. You can't be nervous when you're being yourself. Until now, I had played a role. From here on, what remained would be the ultimate expression of myself. Maverick and I each took a small step forward, each putting his left foot between the other's feet and right foot on the outside. Each of us had his cock against the top of the other's left thigh. I looked into Maverick's eyes, my lips almost touching his, and said quietly, knowing it could nevertheless be heard throughout the room, "I love you."

Maverick said equally quietly, "I love you," and moved his head barely an inch farther forward to kiss me.

The kiss was Dennis's cue. The platform that we stood on was not only wider than a normal one, to accommodate both of us, but also had a remote control. Dennis held the remote in one hand. As we kissed, Dennis pressed the down button, and the platform began descending. We held the kiss, but with our mouths closed and breathing deeply through our noses in preparation for the hypoxia to come.

As we lost contact with the platform and hung freely, we did as we had practiced so many times. I tightened my feet around Maverick's left ankle and pulled my body forward, in slow, deliberate motion, pushing my knee between Maverick's legs. Maverick did the same to me. We continued the motion until our upper bodies were pressed together, our bellies and chests rubbing against each other. The kiss and the sensation of hanging had made us both rock hard, Maverick's moist red jackal cock was completely out of its sheath, and mine in the same state. Each of us then rocked his hips backward slowly, almost ritualistically, pulling our upper bodies apart while our legs remained intertwined, then thrusting forward again — lovemaking as ballet.

The onlookers stared raptly at the erotic display we were creating, they didn't notice the work going on below the waist. The flexing, tightening, and relaxing of thigh muscles was visible, but only seemed a minor addition, contributing to the general arousal but not otherwise significant. But it was the most important part. As Maverick's left thigh had reached my crotch, I tightened my thighs on it, and pushed myself upward, feeling the pressure of the rope around my neck gradually vanish as it stopped having to support my weight. Now I could breathe, and the blood could flow to my head. After taking several breaths, I gradually relaxed my legs, and felt Maverick in turn tightening his. Maverick used his thigh muscles to lift himself, and I felt the strain on my neck muscles as they supported our combined weight. After Maverick had taken his breaths, he relaxed his legs, and I began the cycle again.

We had agreed, almost from the beginning, that the standard method a hanging boy used for breathing would not fit in with the type of performance we wanted to put on. In a normal hanging, the head-rolling gave the appearance of being just another of the boy's desperate movements to save his life, an attempt to breathe (ironically assumed to be futile), an obvious thing to do, yet not really noticed by onlookers because the legs kicking for support that couldn't be found, the arm muscles straining to try to free the hands, both were more visually arresting and arousing.

In this performance, rather than trying to save our lives, we wanted to be seen as making love. Rolling our heads to breathe would ruin the illusion.

So we had evolved a technique that would be appropriate to the fantasy we were weaving. We would breathe in alternation, and each would support the other's weight while his partner lifted himself, to make it possible. It had taken two months of strengthening our neck muscles before we could even begin working that all-important detail into our choreography.

I barely noticed the sounds around me; nearly all of my conscious mind now was absorbed in my dance with Maverick. But I did notice what sounded almost like moans of passion, not coming from either Maverick or me. We had agreed to remain silent, even though we could have moaned and sighed while breathing. We had not thought it was wise to waste the breath needed for that, and we also didn't want to make it obvious that we were breathing. It struck me as funny that the crowd around us was taking up the slack and, probably involuntarily, making the sounds that we weren't. Then I pushed the thought aside and concentrated on my next move.

Maverick, letting his thighs relax once more, gave my thighs a quick double squeeze. On this signal,I raised my right leg, bending my knee, and twisted my leg around to wrap it around Maverick's waist, while he did the same in slow-motion unison. Our left legs remained hanging straight downward against each other. In this new configuration, we resumed breathing — I went first, since Maverick had breathed last. I tightened my legs around Maverick's waist to lift myself, still continuing the upper-body thrusting-together-and-apart we had been doing throughout. There were much more obvious gasps from the audience at this point, some masculine grunts, and several high-pitched panting moans, most likely from femmes in the crowd, that suggested impending orgasms.

We had prolonged the show as long as we could. Future shows might be longer; once we refined and improved our breathing technique, we could add new elements to the choreography. Each of us was forced to hold his breath for more than half of the show, and it wasn't possible to make up for the accumulating oxygen debt during the brief breathing periods. In our last dress rehearsal (at least Jack and Eric were dressed for it), we had managed twelve minutes, though it seemed to the First Year students watching that it had been much longer than that — subjective estimates of the length of the show had run as high as thirty minutes. And a number of roommate pairs had run back to their rooms, flushed and obviously horny, immediately after the end.

I signaled Maverick to go into our closing. We pressed our bellies against each other and rubbed, my cock against Maverick's soft fur, and his against my nut-brown fur. Just hanging was almost enough to make me come, and being with Maverick didn't hurt any. It took me about 15 seconds to coat his jackal fur with my semen. Maverick lasted a little longer, maybe 25 seconds. We relaxed slowly, each letting his right leg drop downward, our upper bodies drawing apart. We let the point of contact of our legs slip down until only our ankles were touching. Then we went limp, each with his ankles hooked behind the other's, as if we were holding hands with our feet in death.

Dennis pushed the button on his remote, and the curtain quickly rolled down along the sides of the cage. Once we were hidden from the audience, the platform began rising. Jack ducked in under the curtain and entered the cage, to make sure the platform really was ascending — if there were a mechanical failure, Jack would have supported both of us and called for help. But the mechanism worked just as planned. Jack untied our wrists and ducked back out again. Moments later the curtain rose once more, revealing us, still facing each other, the nooses dangling loosely around our necks. We held that pose for a few seconds, then removed the nooses and turned outward to face the audience, letting them see our bellies with cum on them.

The audience erupted in applause that seemed to make the room shake, most of the guests and students taking a break from masturbating to clap their hands. Maverick and I grinned and made small bows. Larry and Leo were also applauding wildly while jumping up and down at their window.

Still applauding, Paul and Dennis made their way inward through the crowd and stood in front of the cage. Paul spoke up loudly over the applause, which died down as he began speaking. "We'd like to start the auction now. As you heard earlier, Wynn..." I raised my hand and waved, grinning, "...and Maverick..." Maverick echoed my greeting, "...will each be happy to spend the next three hours with the highest bidder. Keep in mind that there will be a ten percent surcharge for the optional use of the toy drawer. In any case, with or without toys, each of the boys, as always, will be glad to perform any of the services listed in the members' handbook, in whatever positions you desire." There was a brief wave of excited conversation and chuckles at that announcement.

I spotted a young man at the edge of the crowd fidgeting indecisively during the announcement. At the end, the man suddenly turned and sprinted to the members' entrance to the pavilion, from which he urgently signaled to someone outside.

I felt a flutter of nerves, suspecting what was happening. Moments later, Andrew appeared at the entrance and presented his ticket, listening and glowering as his friend described the situation. Surprise! Sure.

I fervently hoped I had been right about the amount of funds Andrew could possibly have at his disposal. That had been the original point of this performance.

As Paul and Dennis entered the cage, Maverick and I turned to face the same direction, side by side, our hands behind us in the traditional pose for slave auctions. The dorm parents each stepped up to the platform and stood behind us, Paul behind Maverick, Dennis behind me. The crowd behind us drifted around toward the front. Dennis spoke up. "We're going to start the bidding at $4000."

Maverick had persuaded the Dean that we should each do a single three-hour session, rather than the usual three one-hour time slots, since an unusual "scarcity value" would add to the members' interest, and hence to the amount of money that would be bid. That had been the best rationalization the two of us had managed to come up with, to hide the true strategy of simply wanting to make my services as outrageously expensive as possible. I had then suggested the $4000 amount. The Dean pointed out that that would be more than any student had ever before earned in one night. I responded that the members had never before had a chance to spend an evening with a student who had just put on the sort of show we were going to do. I could hardly contain my joy when the Dean at last acknowledged that it was worth a try,

And now the joy returned, tentatively: Andrew went pale as Dennis specified the minimum bid.

Paul held one hand up and put the other on Maverick's shoulder. "Can I get four thousand for this incredibly sexy jackal?"

Immediately a sow near the front held her hand up. A pika farther to the left said, "Forty-one." Another femme said "Forty-two," just ahead of a bull near the back shouting, "Four thousand for the squirrel!"

The squirrel. That was me! I gasped, and immediately looked at Andrew. I couldn't catch his eye: he was already turning away with an infuriated gesture, and stomping toward the door. He paused there, looked back once, his lips compressed into a tight line, turned away again, slammed his fist against the doorframe, and left.

It had worked! All that work Maverick and I had done had put me out of Andrew's price range!

I clapped my hands, bouncing on the balls of my feet, my face alight. I knew that it looked as if I were applauding the mere fact of having received a bid, rather than its consequences. I excitedly slapped the flat of my hand against the small of Maverick's back without even being aware of it, then repeated it several times, until Maverick grabbed my wrist to stop me. Maverick was laughing, though, and leaned over and kissed me.

All of this was less noticeable to the crowd than it might have been; there was confusion behind us as well. Dennis was laughing and waving his arms in the air. "Slow down, slow down! We haven't done this before, so could you bear with us? We're trying to keep track of all this. Please don't offer an amount until I ask for it, okay?" There was chuckling and good-natured agreement all around.

Dennis nodded and breathed a theatrical sigh of relief. "Okay, I heard four thousand for Wynn. Anybody going to forty-one? Okay, thanks. Forty-two?..."

I smiled and sighed in the glow from my orgasm, and kissed Stephen, tightening my arms around him, as he lay spent on top of me. The puma's erection was still buried inside me but gradually shrinking. I giggled at the sensation as it slipped out of my tailhole at last, slick with his semen. "Thank you, sir."

I was still marveling that this puma had paid so much for me. Maverick had gone for a higher price, but that was right and proper — sixty-nine fifty, to a smartly-dressed queen cat who looked hungrily at Maverick and was obviously thrilled to win him — but I was surprised at how close I had come to matching that. Five or six people, including Grace, had bid on me. I'd had some misgivings about Grace, but it wasn't like worrying about Andrew — I knew I could handle Grace. She dropped out early, though, and Stephen had won the bidding war that had come down to himself and a pretty red-haired she-bear, at sixty-five hundred. During the auction, I had finally had an opportunity to wave happily at Benjamin. He'd smiled and waved back, but had not participated in the bidding. I understood that Benjamin intended to meet several of my fellow students tonight.

I couldn't stop myself now from satisfying my curiosity. "How come you wanted me and not Maverick?"

He stroked my hair where it lay against his cheek. "You're way too modest. Anyway..." he chuckled, "...you smile more."

I leapt to Maverick's defense. "He smiles a lot more than he used to. His face is getting more used to it." I pushed up the corners of my lips into a smile with my fingers, and giggled.

I gave him a mock pout. "Don't talk like it's over already. We've got lots of time left."

He laughed. "Oh, don't worry. It'll take a little time, but I know I'll make a comeback. And I did mean you were great in here, but I was also thinking about..." he waved vaguely behind him, in the direction of the main hall, "...out there. You and your friend. I've seen a lot of hangings, but I've never seen one remotely like that. How..." He seemed at a loss for words for a moment, and took a deep breath. "How do you do that?"

The Dean and I had discussed this, and decided there was no reason to keep it a secret. We had to assume there would be spies, and anybody with a keen eye could see what we were doing. But there would probably be very few imitators willing to put in the required amount of practice. "We lift each other up."

It occurred to me, then, that he had not necessarily been asking for technical details, so much as he was wondering about the source of the inspiration and spirit behind the performance.

Next: Wynn's third year at the Hanging Academy Read about it in Part 4, "Departures". Click here to go to Chapter 1.

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The Hanging Academy

Section 3, Chapter 21