The audience quieted suddenly as the overhead lights grew dimmer, and spotlights brightened the stage. A series of unintelligible but angry-sounding shouts came from behind the curtain. Two stags came on stage, holding a skunk between them. The two stags wore desert-sand-colored uniforms that looked military — epaulets, berets, shiny black boots, and insignia of some sort — although their "uniform" shirts were open across their chests and ended just above the knee. Pat was now dressed in a robe, with his ankles shackled together so he couldn't walk. The "guards" held Pat with hands under his armpits as his bare feet dragged along the floor. His headfur was mussed, his right cheek smudged with dirt. Several other boys, dressed in more civilian fashion with worn, faded jeans and t-shirts, trailed along behind. One of them, Dale, shouting "Who is he? What's he done?"
The "soldier" on Pat's right, Riley, snarled, "He killed the king, that's what." The civilians gasped in horror. The soldier on the other side, Samuel, said, "Let's get him strung up now and then start looking for accomplices."
One of the civilians, Halley, was wearing somewhat more formal clothes. He said, "You can't hang him without a trial." He sounded like a lawyer.
Samuel snapped back, "Don't need a trial. We seen him do it!"
Halley responded, "Well, you need to say so at a proper trial."
Both soldiers heaved heavy sighs, and dragged Pat across the stage, in front of the bemused graduates, toward the desk from which Mr. Bennett had awarded the red collars. Monty sat behind it, wearing a judge's robes. The soldiers brought Pat to stand in front of Monty, who intoned, "Prisoner, you are accused of the foul murder of our beloved king. How do you plead?"
Pat said, in a ringing voice, "I am guilty, your honor."
Riley threw his free hand in the air. "Then what'd we need a trial for?"
Monty held out his hand, palm up. "My fee will be five gold coins."
Samuel groaned. "That's why," reached into the pocket of his shorts, and dropped several coins to clink into Monty's hand. The audience, graduates included, chuckled. This was an abbreviated, fast-paced version of the Assassin scenario, with some extra amusing touches thrown in. In a normal show, older men — generally the Hanging Boy's owner and his friends — would have played most of the roles, but this was entirely a student production.
Chris, dressed in the traditional black of the executioner, came out from behind the curtain to stand beside the hanging platform, and now stood at parade-rest, awaiting his turn in the play. Riley and Samuel now pulled the unprotesting Pat once more across the stage in front of the graduates. As the attention of the audience shifted to that side, Shaw's roommate Garrett quietly left his seat among the graduates. He went around the far end of the row of seats and crouched down behind them, disappearing from the audience's view.
The soldiers now hauled Pat onto the platform, which was in its "down" position, its surface only a few inches above the floor of the stage. Chris pushed the lever to raise the platform, and then hopped onto it beside the Pat. When the platform stopped in the "up" position, Chris grasped the noose, slipped it over Pat's head and tightened it around his neck. I was close enough to see Pat and Chris, their lips barely moving, exchange some whispered words one last time. Chris then took a fistful of Pat's robe and leapt down from the platform, ripping off the loosely-secured robe and taking it with him.
At that moment, two brighter spotlights from different angles suddenly shone directly on the skunk. The audience, nearly all new to an Academy hanging, gasped in astonished appreciation at the sight of Pat standing alone and naked. His perfect body was coated with shiny powder, and seemed to glow of its own internal light. The skunk's hands were cuffed behind him to a metal belt circling his waist.
Samuel intoned formally, "Executioner! Perform your duty!"
Pat shouted, "Wait! I'm allowed to speak!"
The civilians all nodded, and the soldiers groaned and shrugged in resignation. Riley said grudgingly, "Make it fast."
Pat, his posture already perfect, somehow stood even straighter, his jaw thrust defiantly forward. "You don't have to do this! Don't you understand? I've killed the tyrant! You don't need to follow his laws anymore. You're free, all of you! You should be dancing, not killing!"
Samuel said irritably, "In times of trouble, the traditions must be followed."
Pat, pleadingly, said, "We can make new traditions! We can be a new people, live our own lives, free from oppression!"
One of the civilians said impatiently, "Okay, he's had his say. Get on with it." Heads all around nodded to indicate consensus.
Pat sighed. "Okay. It's too soon for you to understand. You don't yet know how your lives will change. Someday you'll know. Just... remember me."
With only the most subtle change in his posture, it was clear that Pat's next words were addressed to the audience rather than the cast. "That's all I want. Just remember me."
Heads, with mouths slightly open in fascination, were nodding all around the room. I knew, we all knew, that Pat's sentiment expressed every Hanging Boy's wish. And I knew that Pat was going to get his wish.
At a hand signal from Riley, Chris reached over and pulled the lever. He had done this for Pat over a thousand times, but this time Pat would hang until he was dead.
The audience seemed breathless as the platform slowly sank. At last it went below the reach of Pat's feet, leaving him to dangle by the neck, as he had so many times before.
Whatever nerves Pat may have been feeling during the play, I was sure that Pat would now be feeling comfortable for the first time today. I knew well the combination of focus, self-confidence, and peace that only reached their maximum levels at the end of a rope.
Pat wriggled with no particular pattern at first, his movements somewhat hindered by the joining of his feet, but not enough to cause his to lose the instincts for what he needed to do. After a little less than a minute, he made his first hip thrust.
It was a variation on Maverick's original motion, but different in character. Zuchter had developed it as he and Maverick had worked on coming up with a routine for this type of hanging. Maverick had then helped Zuchter refine it. It started with bent knees, and a sudden downward thrust of bound feet, straightening the lower body and pushing the hips sharply forward. Rather than being sexually receptive, suggestive of a male on his back on the bed during lovemaking, his legs entwining around his lover, it suggested something much more aggressive, a male on top, controlling the fuck, grunting in combined effort and ecstasy — most of the boys watching Zuchter doing it swore he had been grunting, even though it was impossible while hanging. Several times in practice, Maverick had been so aroused, watching Zuchter, that at the end of the session he would push Zuchter onto the bed as soon as he got the noose off him and make love to him, not stopping to untie his hands or feet. Zuchter, of course, didn't want to be untied. When I wasn't otherwise occupied, I usually joined Maverick in playing with the helpless Zuchter.
Pat now switched for a time to the "flag in the wind" move, involving his whole body, from neck down to feet, with ripples of back and forth movement flowing from his shoulders downward, each ripple not even complete before the next started. Zuchter had visualized it, and he and Maverick together had practiced, standing on the floor, working to teach their bodies the sequence of muscle movements needed before trying it in mid-air. It wasn't easy to learn, and it was the move on which Maverick and Zuchter had spent the most time with Pat. Over the past week, they'd helped Pat improve on it to the point of feeling confident enough to do it in public.
Now Pat alternated the hip-thrust move with Shaw's desperately-seeking-support move — Shaw and Maverick were still the best at that.
I was barely able to tear my eyes away and look at the audience. I'd been nearly unaware of their presence for some minutes. They were, as always, enthralled, many of them near orgasm. Next to me, Maverick was whispering instructions that Pat couldn't possibly hear, willing Pat to remember everything he'd been working on.
With feet together it was much more difficult to turn and show his back to the audience, but Pat succeeded and gave the audience a chance to watch his arm and back muscles straining with the effort to "free" his hands, before turning back.
Tiring now, some ten minutes in, Pat now began working on his own pleasure, trapping his cock between his legs and rubbing them back and forth; his movements became more jerky as his arousal mounted. As always, this took the audience to a higher level of sexual consciousness, and there were gasps of orgasm, from audience members of both sexes and even some of the students, who were a lot more accustomed to what they were seeing but never, ever immune to its effects. (Maverick and I had laughed over the invitation Maverick had sent to his father, suggesting that all guests wear some sort of absorbent undergarments.)
The end was near. The graduates began clapping their hands, joined immediately by the students behind the guests, and then the guests themselves. The recognition, the approval, the excitement of the assembled witnesses gave Pat an extra burst of energy that I could feel.
At last Pat stiffened, his entire body wriggling in something like a completely disorganized rippling-flag move, and a few seconds later his semen shot from the end of his cock. Spurt after spurt came out, flew to the edge of the platform and even beyond. Drained of all energy now, Pat swung back and forth, his muscles making a few random, jerky movements, until at last only the pendulum swinging remained, slowly dying down until Pat hung altogether motionless.
He had kicked for thirteen minutes. Joining the feet usually cost a Hanging Boy three or four minutes, in addition to the two or three minutes for the energy-intensive choreography, so I was sure that Pat would almost certainly have passed the Fifteen a few weeks from now. I smiled, sure that Pat had been aware of that.
Chris was holding the heart monitor. After another minute, he nodded to Garrett, who now rose slowly from behind the seats of the graduates and lifted his bow into position. Sighting along the arrow, waiting a little longer than he probably needed to, he let the arrow fly at last across the stage. The head went into Pat's right side below his ribs and emerged from his left, releasing a spray of blood in an arc across the stage, and a brief flow of it down Pat's hip and leg afterward. Pat twisted and swung in renewed motion from the force of the arrow, and gradually subsided again.
The applause began again, punctuated by raucous cheers from the students, everyone standing, some of them stamping feet. I knew how far Pat had come in just the last week, and wished he could somehow hear.
Feeling a little nervous, I stood with Maverick, his arm around my waist, as he introduced me. "Daddy, this is Wynn, my roommate." Several of my classmates and their families were assembled near the still hanging Pat, discussing his performance, the boys fielding their families' questions.
Maverick's father was a pleasant-looking jackal, only a little taller than Maverick himself, his face creased in a way that suggested the smile he wore now was often there. He held out his hand, and I shook it. "Paul Sadler. It's nice to meet you, Wynn." He looked around. "Is your family here? We could get together."
"No, sir," I replied, shaking my head, "They couldn't make it." To change the subject, I asked, "What did you think of the show?"
He grinned. "Well, I've seen a graduate performance, but this was really something. Second Year, was he? I'm very impressed. I remember the boy mentioned you and Maverick had helped him."
Wynn smiled. "We really worked hard with him. Oh, and I know about your brother-in-law. Seymour."
He was about to reply, but Maverick, biting his lip in anxiety, interrupted. "Daddy? Where's...?"
His smile dipped a little. "Kelly?"
Maverick nodded.
He sighed. "Well, you know how kids are. Or, well... You have to remember you haven't seen him since he was nine. He's twelve now, if you can imagine that — I can't -- and he can't tear himself away from his friends. They're at the mall, planning to take in a movie. I understand femmes are involved. One of his friends' mothers is along as a chaperone, so I trust he's on his best behavior. He's really a good kid, Maverick. I'm sure you're not surprised by that."
"But..." I could have read Maverick's face even without my special training and years of love for him: Kelly had skipped this for something he could do any day? "Did... Did you at least try to get him to come?" Maverick was near tears.
Paul now gave him a serious, understanding expression. "I did try, Mav. But you know I never forced you to do anything. I don't force him either." He smiled again. "Not that it would do much good. He's as stubborn as you, if that tells you anything."
Maverick gave him a fleeting smile, and turned to watch as the staff took Pat's body down and rolled him away on a cart to send to the furrier.
Paul spoke again. "You're still coming to the house next week, right? Both of you? I have a feeling getting to know you again will take as much time as getting to know Wynn." He chuckled. "You'll see Kelly then. I'm sure he's really eager to see you, whether it sounds like it or not."
Maverick smiled again, and kissed him on the cheek. "Of course we're coming. Anyway, get me caught up. What's been happening at home?"
That Night
I wriggled slightly against Maverick in the bed, feeling Maverick's chest against mine, the fur of Maverick's back against my arms, and Maverick's arms around mine, the warm feel of Maverick's thigh against my cock. I was aware of the slight dampness, from our earlier lovemaking, and the soft movement of air moving in and out of Maverick's nose beside my own.
I was nearly asleep, but a thought tickled my mind. I pressed my lips against Maverick's for a moment, felt Maverick's move in automatic response. I mumbled, "That was so neat today, the way Pat went. All those parents getting to see what we do. It's like he really represented all of us, even more than when any of us usually does a show."
"Mmm-hmm." Maverick was poised just on the border of sleep.
"Do you think you'd want to go like that?" Several times a day now, my thoughts returned to Maverick's hanging. It had to be right. It had to be special. And it had to be what Maverick wanted. It always seemed to stay teasingly just out of my grasp.
Maverick was silent long enough to make me think I'd already lost him to dreamland. At last he mumbled sleepily, "Don' think so. Was nice, iss jus... people din't know what they were seeing. Nothing to... compare him with. I bet my dad was only one there who... ever saw Hanging Boy b'fore. You know I want to... be the bess..." He stopped, seeming to drift off.
In an instant. A single instant. That idea, that image I had spent months groping for. It assembled itself in my mind, fully formed, perfected and complete. I sucked in a gasping breath. I had it! That was it! I blurted out "Honey!" before I realized I'd said anything.
Maverick was instantly awake, alert, alarmed. "What?? What's wrong, Wynn??"
In one move I disentangled myself from Maverick and pushed myself out of the bed to stand upright beside it, pumping my fists jubilantly. "Your hanging! Your hanging! Listen! Listen!"
Maverick, now sitting upright, still hadn't grasped whether this was something good or bad. "Wynn, what's going on?"
I went on, in a tense whisper, not wanting to wake up the boys in the other rooms. "You said when you hang, you want people to really know what they're seeing."
"I said that? When?"
"Just now! You do, don't you? You want people who can watch you hang and think, wow, he's the best ever! They'd all have to be familiar with Hanging Boys."
Maverick nodded slowly, his eyes wide, as if he was starting to see where this was going. "Uh-huh..."
"The members! The club members! We need to hang you at a party! The members have all seen Hanging Boys before. They wouldn't even be members if they hadn't, and when they come to the parties they've seen lots more of them! Imagine them watching you hang! They are connoisseurs of hanging! They're going to know exactly what they're seeing when they watch you!"
"But... Wynn, the Dean's not going to go for that. He's going to want to sell me, not give me away."
"No!! Not give you away! He can..."
The Next Morning
"...charge admission?" The Dean's eyes, skeptical up to this point, lit up suddenly.
"Yes, sir!" I grinned, knowing I had him now. "They all know who Maverick is! They've seen him when we do our shows at the parties! And they've heard boys thanking him for teaching them stuff. They know what he's capable of... or no, I mean they can imagine what he's capable of. Think how much they'd pay to see him hang! A once-in-a-lifetime thing. You could... I don't know, you know more about the money end of it than I do. But maybe, what... five thousand each, for a ticket to see Maverick hang? Or even... the price could be the standard selling price of a Hanging Boy — but each person pays that much. Announce it about a month ahead. Do it separate from the parties, a standalone event. For members only! Only people who know him would pay that kind of money." I stopped myself from going on. I decided I had given the Dean enough to think about. I really had no clue about the actual amount of money the Academy might charge. I just wanted the Dean to start thinking big. He alone knew the finances of the members, could guess at the amount of money they might be willing to pay. Charge too little and he would be passing up greater amounts he could have made. Charge too much and nobody would buy a ticket. But he could work that out.
The Dean sat back in his chair, tapping his finger idly against his lips, lost in thought. He looked up at Maverick. "This is what you want?"
Maverick leaned forward. "Oh, yes sir! Wynn thought of it, but the moment he started talking about it, I knew... I just knew. I have to go like this."
The Dean resumed the lip tapping. Eventually he said, "Let me do some figuring, and look at the calendar. We can figure out when we want to do this..."
I nearly jumped to the ceiling. "So we're doing it??"
The Dean smiled. "You know how to sell an idea, Wynn. Now, I want to wait a few months on this, at least. The two of you are the best teachers I've got, and I'm not ready to let go of either of you just this instant. And in the time that remains, I want both of you to work out a timeline — decide what there is left for you to do here, what sort of instruction you still need to do. Decide who is the best student or students among the undergraduates who might take over some of your duties when you're gone. Understood?"
We both nodded eagerly. Maverick said, "So, about three months, you think?"
The Dean thought for a moment, then nodded. "Let's say that. Work toward that as your goal. Wynn, are you actually speaking for both of you here? Do you want this sort of hanging as well?"
I blinked at the suggestion that I was in the same league with Maverick, but I already knew the answer. "No, sir. I want to go in the more usual way." There was no goal higher in my mind than to have exactly the kind of final show Marshall had had. "But I'll wait a few months too. That planning you're talking about, that is something for both of us to be working on, right?"
He nodded. "I've never set an assignment like this for any of our graduates before their hanging, but... well, I've never before had a pair of students do quite as much stirring things up." He smiled. "In a good way, I mean. You've set some things in motion that I think should be brought to some sort of completion, with a guarantee of continuity, before I let you get out of here."
I hugged Maverick, both of us almost bouncing in our chairs in excitement. Maverick let go suddenly. "Oh! Sir, there's just one more thing. This is really important to me. If it's okay."
He raised his eyebrows and waited.
"When you do set a time for my hanging, could you issue two free guest passes? One for my dad, and one for my brother?"
The Dean laughed. "I thought you were going to ask something hard. There's no problem with that."
Maverick grinned and hugged me again.