Holden and I stood facing each other in our uniforms, our stomachs and chests pressed together. Each of us had his hands behind his back as Marcus requested. Marcus squatted down beside us, touching my hip. "See, I'm talking about a rope running from Holden's hands to yours, through your crotches, holding you together. It wouldn't mess up what you need to do to breathe, would it?"
I frowned. "That would put such a big limitation on the number of different moves we could make."
Marcus nodded. "I know, but you could use it to rub your cocks together really hard, you know, rough sex. And you could still do a lot of hot stuff with your legs."
The intercom crackled to life, in Tina's voice. "Wynn, could you come to the Dean's office?" Tina sounded oddly subdued.
I blinked in surprise. I looked at Holden and Marcus. "Okay, you guys, help Zuchter practice his new thing. I'll come straight back after I see the Dean." I kissed Holden — standing so intimately close, it was hard not to — and gave Zuchter and Marcus quick kisses as well as I headed out the door.
Tina directed me straight into the Dean's office without a word. the Dean was frowning with concern. I hadn't felt a need to worry about anything, but I was now getting to that point. "Yes, Sir?"
"Wynn... your father has been taken to the hospital with chest pains. The obvious guess is a heart attack."
I gasped, and felt the bottom fall out of my stomach. "Is he... do you know anything about how he's doing?"
The Dean shook his head. "Nothing more than I've told you. Your father's secretary called. I've contacted the hospital, and... well, you don't just ask whether someone is a patient, since they won't answer that, but I asked them to put me through to Preston Cameron's room, which they did. So he is there. No answer, but I think I take that as a good sign. I would think a doctor or nurse would answer, unless they've left him alone resting."
Or they're too busy with him to answer, I thought. Of course, the hospital wouldn't say anything about his condition.
I sat in thought a few moments, letting my initial nagging thought blossom in my mind. "Do you know whether Andrew knows about this?"
The Dean rested his chin on his hand. "You're wondering about the possibility that this is a trick of his?"
I nodded. I was accustomed to the Dean's near-telepathic reading of my feelings.
The Dean shrugged. "I thought from the first that was possible. The secretary who called me gave her name as Sally Baldwin. Are you familiar with her?" When I shook my head, he went on, "Well, she may be relatively new. You haven't been in contact for over three years. At any rate, I checked on the Cameron Industries Web site. It does indeed list Sally Baldwin as his corporate secretary, at the same phone number from which this morning's call came — she sounded appropriately upset, by the way. I called at that number, and the same woman answered. I asked her if he had any more information, which she did not. At any rate, the original call really did come from your father's secretary. And we do have that indirect confirmation from the hospital that he is a patient there."
He seemed to hesitate. I looked at him expectantly.
He frowned. "I don't know whether this means anything. I saw, on the Web site, that Andrew is a vice-president. You weren't aware of that, were you?"
"I knew he was going into management. I never knew where he ended up." I thought about it. "I suppose this means he has more money at his disposal than I'd imagined. Something pretty significantly bigger than any allowance he'd be getting from Dad."
The Dean nodded. "My thought as well. One wonders why he hasn't been back to one of the parties to rent you for an evening. He couldn't afford it three years ago, but I should think he can now."
I gave him a sour smile. "Not that you're actually wondering that, right? Presumably he's saving up for something bigger."
The Dean sighed. "That would be my guess."
I looked down, and after a long silence, said in a tiny voice, "I have to go see him. He's my dad."
The Dean nodded. "I know. Ordinarily, for any student beyond the First Year, I'd approve without a second thought."
I jerked my head up, stricken. "Please, Sir. I really mean it."
He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. "Let me make some arrangements. We'll do this under a little heavier-than-ordinary security."
"Thank you, Sir." My gratitude was heartfelt. "Should I wait here while you do that?"
He shook his head. "Go on back to your room, and pick up some things for a possible overnight stay, just in case."
"Yes, Sir. Could... could I bring a friend along?" I'll probably ask Marcus, I thought to myself.
After another long moment of thought, he shook his head. "Given the potential risk, no. There will be other Academy personnel there with you, but I don't want to put another student out there."
I nodded. "Yes, Sir." I stood. "I'll be right back."
I returned to the boys' room with a wan smile and an overnight bag, wearing semiformal slacks and a buttoned shirt. Marcus's jaw dropped. "Wynn?? What's up?"
I sighed. "My dad's in the hospital. They think he may have had a heart attack."
All three boys drew closer, and Marcus reached out to stroke my arm. "I'm sure he'll be okay, Wynn. These days they really..." He stopped, frowning. Hesitantly, he went on, "Have you thought..."
"Yes!" I was instantly contrite for snapping at Marcus, and hugged him. "I'm sorry, sweety. I'm a little edgy. Thank you for thinking about it. But yes, we're onto the possibility this is some elaborate trick by Andrew. The Dean is making some security arrangements."
"Well, that's good then. And I really hope your dad's okay." He smiled. "I was just remembering about how you told me he let my dad cut off Marshall's head. That was so nice of him."
I smiled back, as I always did when remembering Marshall's hanging. "Yeah, that kind of surprised me. But he has it in him." I narrowed my eyes, my face turning serious. "I was going to wait and tell you before my hanging, but it's not like it'll be a surprise to you. You know, if anything happens to me, you get Marshall's head, right? Nobody's going to argue with you. But I just want to be sure you know that's what I want."
Stunned, Marcus nodded briefly. I looked intently into each of their faces in turn. "And if anything happens, I want the three of you to be the leaders. Everybody will be looking for that from you."
Holden gave me an intense look of his own. "Wynn, nothing's going to happen to you! It's fine to be ready and take precautions, in case, but I hate to see it worrying you this way. You've got enough to think about."
I stroked Holden's cheek and kissed him. "Thank you. But I want a promise on that from all of you."
Marcus and Zuchter nodded, and, at last, Holden.
I hugged each of them. "I'll see you guys again in a day or so, okay?"
I walked out of the Academy entrance to the steps in front of the circular drive, my eyes sweeping up and down the street. Totally unnecessary vigilance, I told myself. Bill is standing right here, while we wait for Sid to bring the limo around. Nobody can grab me without Bill doing something about it. Karl is already down at the hospital, establishing security arrangements, and Mr. Bennett is there too, arranging for a room for me. He'll stay in it with me, and even come with me to the restroom, at least two big males will guard any room I'm in. Daddy's going to wonder if I got elected president somehow while he wasn't paying attention.
And it's probably all for nothing, I reminded myself. So much time has gone by since I graduated, so many months while Andrew could have executed any plan he might have. I've been off the campus several times, and nothing's happened. Holden's right. It's fine to be careful, but quit worrying about it.
Though this does smell like a setup.
But Daddy really is sick. Was it part of Andrew's plan to wait for Daddy to have a heart attack? That makes as much sense as waiting for the Academy's student area to hold an open house for the general public. Y'all come and wander around the dorms. Kidnap any boy you take a fancy to.
I tried to clear my mind, took a deep breath and smelled the fresh breeze of early Spring.
There, the limo's already coming around the corner. That didn't take long. Less time than usual.
Sunlight glinted off the tinted windows. Hard to see in, but easy enough to see out. Bill opened the door for me.
I slid in quickly, tossing my bag onto the far end of the seat, and heard the thump as Bill threw my door closed. There was an unexpected sound, the driver floored the accelerator, and the limo roared away from the curb. What??? I looked up. My breath suddenly caught in my throat.
There were two femmes in the front seat. The driver was a porpoise. The other was a hedgehog. Neither one, obviously, was Sid.
Alarm swept through my brain. I reached for the door handle and pulled. The door was locked. I looked for the lock release. It was gone.
At that instant I shouted, "No!! Shit!!" I turned around and looked through the rear window. Bill, his mouth open in shock, took a few running steps trying to follow the limo, stopped, and jerked his cell phone out of his pocket.
My heart pounded. All of the Dean's plans had involved making sure I could get safely to the limo, and safely from the limo into the hospital, staying safe while in the hospital. We never thought! We never imagined this! The words ran in a loop through my brain.
As the car skidded to take a right around the corner at the end of the block, I had one last view of Bill, now shouting into his cell phone, and the Academy limo, the real one, careening into view a block away. I saw Bill run toward it, but he and the Academy car were lost to sight before he got in.
The thought "cell phone" ran through my head. I lunged to my left, for my bag with the cell phone the Dean had given me. I froze at the sound of the first word either femme in front had spoken: "Don't."
I looked up, and saw the muzzle of an odd-looking gun, pointed at me by the hedgehog in the passenger seat, who was turned sideways and watching me intently. We all swayed as the car swept around another corner to the left. I looked quickly out the left-hand window. The Academy limo was not in sight yet. Bill and Sid wouldn't have seen where we'd gone.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, I said, proud of keeping the quaver out of my voice, "You can't shoot me. You need me alive."
The hedgehog smirked. "This isn't a killing gun. It fires tranquilizer darts. Want to spend the rest of the trip awake or asleep?"
The answer seemed pretty obvious to me. My ability to try to resist anything that might happen would be taken away as soon as the hedgehog fired that gun. And it obviously wouldn't take much encouragement for her to shoot. She'd probably been told to avoid it if possible, but shoot if needed.
The hedgehog reached toward me with her free hand. "Give me the bag."
Aside from the cell phone, there was nothing in the bag but extra clothes and toiletries. I shrugged and handed it forward. I realized that the phone could serve as a secondary tracking device, in case anything went wrong with the one inside me. It was better that I hadn't managed to get hold of the phone. As soon as the hedgehog saw it, she'd no doubt switch it off.
And yes, I thought, I'm being tracked. The Dean knows I've been taken by now, and he can find out exactly where I am. So stop worrying.
I sat back and folded my arms across my chest, trying not to look as hopeful as I felt. No point giving anything away about the tracker.
The limo slowed now. After two more turns, we seemed to be in a warehouse district. The driver reached for a button and pushed it, and the large door of one warehouse began opening as I watched. The car swung in that direction, entered the warehouse, and stopped beside a van in an otherwise empty, cavernous building.
Both femmes swung their doors open. The hedgehog with the gun used a key to open my door. "Out."
I weighed the odds on attacking the hedgehog. The porpoise had taken out a dart gun of her own. I couldn't get to both of them before one shot me, I decided.
The hedgehog opened the rear of the van and waved her gun. "Love to stop and chat, but we're on a tight schedule. Get in the box."
I looked into the back of the van, and saw what the hedgehog was referring to. The box was something like the "coffins" people used to be buried in, before cremation became popular. Except larger. I stepped up into the van and got a look inside the box; its lid was open. I gasped and froze. There was a foam-rubber cushion with a body-shaped depression, with straps at the extremities. Judging from the thick metal construction of the box, I knew what it was for.
Andrew had planned meticulously for anything that might possibly go wrong. He had no way to know I'd be carrying a slave tracker, but was well aware of the possibility. Having once, years ago, made me swallow one, it was natural he would think my current owners might do the same. Likely he suspected Hanging Boys were all carrying them, all the time. If not, no harm in being careful.
Trackers weren't foolproof, and were designed mostly with runaways in mind, rather than stolen slaves. The signal was weak, necessarily so, since there was a limit on how much battery power could be packed into such a tiny device. A slave could be tracked within a building, assuming the building had windows or other weak points of enclosure. But it was possible to block the signal.
The box I was looking at was designed to hide me from detection. Once sealed inside, I would be off the tracking screen, until the box was reopened. If, however, the box were opened in an underground dungeon, deep enough with a thick door...
That settles it for sure, I thought. I'm definitely going to Andrew's dungeon.
Good, then, I told myself. I don't need the tracker for that. Andrew doesn't realize anyone besides me knows it exists, and it's the first place the police are going to look.
In the distance, I thought I heard a siren.
The two femmes looked at each other in alarm. The one from the passenger seat shouted to the other, "Get in! Drive! We can't let them see the van." As the latter ran for the driver's door and threw it open, the first pointed the sleep gun at me. "Lay in the box. Now!"
As the van's engine started up, I nearly bolted for the still-open warehouse door, but stopped myself. If the police found me here, that was fine, but these kidnappers probably couldn't be connected with Andrew. Andrew had surely been very careful, and these two may have been hired by intermediaries, and might never even have met Andrew. I needed to be found in the dungeon. Then, Andrew would be toast.
I had to go with them, or Andrew might go free.
But, I realized, it would look suspicious as hell if I didn't resist.
Without further thought, I took a single step and leapt out of the van, letting my feet get tangled and falling headlong on the warehouse floor. Nice show, Wynn, I told myself. I gasped as I felt a piercing pain in my lower back, where the dart struck me.
Within seconds, my body felt like lead, and resistance was no longer possible. I felt the hedgehog pick me up and dump me into the back of the van. I saw her pull the door closed just as the van started moving. Just before the door closed, the siren had sounded closer.
I don't think I quite lost consciousness, but it didn't matter. My body felt like a vague lump, disconnected from my will, as the hedgehog dumped me onto the padding in the box and started fastening straps. The van wasn't speeding; the driver probably didn't want to attract attention and that was more important than speed. The police were probably arriving at the warehouse right now, and hadn't been told that I had started moving again.
Working quickly, the hedgehog finished with the straps. To my distress, she pushed something like a large nipple, connected to a long tube, into my mouth, and fastened straps around my head securing the nipple in place. The thing was so large I was afraid of not being able to breathe around it. But air was coming out of it. Then the hedgehog closed the lid of the box, which made a soft hissing sound as it settled into place, plunging me into complete blackness.
I felt an onset of panic, but pushed it away. I knew exactly why I was here and where I was going. I would have disappeared from the tracking screen when she closed the lid, but that was okay. Within hours, I'd be found at Andrew's dungeon — police units, in fact, might already be headed there. They might even beat me to it. Everything would be okay.
I thought I could still be followed by my cell phone signal, but then I remembered: the bag with the phone had been left behind in the fake Academy limo — neither femme had been holding it at any point after we'd left the limo.
I found the restraints annoying but tolerable. My arms were down along my sides, slightly away from my hips, my legs slightly parted. Straps held my wrists, ankles, around my waist, and around my neck. The last of these actually gave me a certain amount of comfort — it felt a lot like a noose. The padding that formed the depression was actually comfortable. I suspected that the cushioning and the restraints, were there to keep me from making noise by pounding on the inside of the box, not just for comfort. The nipple in my mouth was providing air, but also prevented me from making any intelligible sound. I heard a slight humming that was probably from a ventilation system. I wondered why the box needed to be quite so elaborate. It shouldn't take more than half an hour to get to Andrew's dungeon.
It seemed as though hours had passed. I wondered whether the darkness, silence, and enforced immobility had interfered with my time sense.
No engine sounds came through the walls of the box, but I could tell I was still in the van by the vibration and feelings of motion.
I needed badly to pee, but I was hoping to arrive at Andrew's soon. I could take care of it then. The hedgehog hadn't removed any of my clothes, even my shoes. It made sense: if there were other tracking devices in them, they were now silenced, sealed up in the box with me.
I passed the time by imagining my hanging, always a favorite fantasy. I replayed Maverick's hanging in my mind, and some of my favorite nights making love with him.
Then I realized that I should be planning what to do when the box was opened. I hoped I could inflict some damage on Andrew before he was arrested. So I decided to feign sleep or unconsciousness, to put Andrew off guard. Then I would spring at him like a wildcat as soon as I was released from the bonds. I smiled at the image of Andrew on the floor, his cheek bleeding, scrambling to get away from me.
The vibration and sense of motion suddenly ceased, and I tensed, adrenaline flooding my system, as I prepared myself for action.
I felt the box swaying, as if being carried, and wondered how many people if took to lift it. Maybe Andrew's got a machine for that. He's thought of everything else. Moments later the motion stopped with a thump, echoing through the box loudly enough to hurt my ears. I tried to relax, I didn't want to react visibly when the lid opened. I became aware of an unexpected difficulty: I wasn't entirely sure whether my eyes were closed. I hoped they were. Asleep, I told myself. Sound asleep. Andrew will start unstrapping you in a minute. Don't make a move.
A vibration began, heavier than that of the van. And renewed motion accompanied by a new type of swaying. Dammit! They've put me in another vehicle! This is ridiculous, Andrew.
I began struggling angrily against the straps, with no noticeable effect, other than to make me aware of how stiff my muscles had become in the hours of immobility.
The thought suddenly came to me: it can't possibly take this long to get to Andrew's dungeon; we must be going somewhere else. Maybe he's built a new dungeon. One we don't know about. One that can't be traced to him.
The panic I had fought down earlier began to return, and I yanked at the straps randomly, thrashing in the small motions the straps allowed me. Get me out of here! Let me out!!
I froze myself by force of will, breathing hard through my nose. Okay, I told myself, okay. You can't do anything right now. You can when Andrew lets you out. Just wait. See what happens. He'll probably do something stupid, something you can capitalize on. He always does.
And in fact, even in a new, unknown location, the tracker still wasn't needed. They don't have to follow me, Wynn I told myself. They can get to the same place by following Andrew. He'll lead them to it. And he has no idea.
My bladder wasn't going to wait any longer. Moaning, I peed in my pants, wrinkling my nose afterward at the smell. And I have to feel those wet briefs for the rest of the trip.
More hours, it seemed. My ability to occupy my mind was waning, and I struggled more often with the straps, but couldn't get even an inch of give.
I suddenly realized my briefs felt dry. Okay, it's not that my time sense is screwed up. There really is a lot of time going by. Of course, that fit in with the elaborate air circulation system. That was crucial, if I was going to be sealed in here as long as I seemed to have been.
I found myself getting drowsy. Have I been in here all day, into the night? Probably. It feels like it. My body's daily cycle was telling me to sleep now. I fought against it for a time, wanting to stay awake for the opening of the box. On the other hand, I reminded myself, it won't be good for me to be wasted from lack of sleep, when the time comes. I wriggled to try to get comfortable, and relaxed.
I found myself dreaming of Maverick's hanging, but Father was there, and so was Other-Dad. I didn't find that odd, though Other-Dad had been hanged and converted to fur many years ago. Andrew was there, as well, and the scene shifted to my bedroom, in the house I'd grown up in, Andrew trying to get me into bed, and I fought with him, feeling desperate to get back to Maverick's hanging. Maverick needed me...
That, at least, was as much of the dream as I could remember when I woke, disoriented to be plunged back into total darkness and immobility in the box. I fought against the restraints, trying to spit out the breathing tube, until the memory of where I was slowly reassembled itself.
I peed in my pants again. I was thirsty, and it distressed me even more than before to offload any fluids. My stomach was knotting with hunger; I hadn't having eaten since... when was it then, yesterday morning? But more important, I hadn't had any water either. I tried to get to planning for an escape, but all I could think of was a long, cool drink of water.
After perhaps another hour, more or less, the vibration and swaying suddenly lessened. Okay, he thought, finally, we're here. Got to get ready now.
I wrinkled my nose at a sudden odd taste in my mouth. It was followed immediately by a feeling of dizziness. Shit! screamed a part of my mind. Something in the air, the air coming through this tube, can't spit it out, can't stop breathing... I tried to pull my arm free, except I couldn't tell whether I was doing it. Loud buzzing in my ears as my consciousness faded out.
My head was pounding, and I felt nauseated. The sound was a steady roar now. I sat up, and instantly regretted it, as the pounding in my head increased. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and reached up quickly with my hand to press it against my aching head. Strange, my hand felt heavier than it should.
I massaged my temple with one hand and breathed in air in deep gasps, smelling the salt, feeling the humid heat. What was wrong with the air conditioning?
At last my mind registered what my eyes had been seeing when open — a vista of rippling water to the horizon, beginning about thirty feet away at the end of a stretch of smooth gray-white sand. The roaring sound was the pounding surf, and I watched an oncoming wave break and reach toward me in fingers of foam. It stopped about twenty feet away. The uniformly gray sky above stripped the prospect of all color. I felt trapped in a black-and-white photograph.
The disparity between what I was seeing and what I expected to see was so vast that I couldn't make sense of it. I could only watch, slack-jawed, as another wave rolled in over the remains of the first.
Memories came back slowly, bringing further confusion. I was bound up in a box, I suddenly remembered. In a van. Imprisoned there by two efficient, rough-looking femmes. Why can I move? Why can I see? Where's the box? The van? The femmes? Where's Andrew? Shouldn't he be here? Shouldn't somebody be here?
I suddenly realized I was naked. I hadn't been, in the box. Where were my clothes?
I moved my arms to cover myself. I was well-accustomed to standing naked in front of large crowds of admirers, but always by my own choice. It still required a certain mind-set to present myself that way, and I wasn't used to having the condition forced on me.
And I noticed the heaviness on my hands again. I became aware of metal cuffs, at least a quarter-inch thick, two inches wide, hinged semicircles closed around my wrists — no, not quite circles. Ovals, made to fit the natural shape of the wrist, to fit more snugly than circles would. Each was secured by a heavy padlock. Nothing was attached to either cuff, though each cuff sported a D-ring for that purpose.
As I moved, I noticed the slave collar. I hadn't paid any attention at first, because I'd spent two years wearing metal collars at the Academy. But this was thicker, heavier and, again, fastened by a padlock.
My Academy choker was gone!! That infuriated me more than the loss of my clothes. How could they dare! My choker symbolized my ownership by the Academy, and someone had tampered with that, had taken the symbol away from me, replacing it a much cruder, much less comfortable, and entirely illegal one. Nobody can collar me but the Academy! I shouted angrily in my mind. Nobody else owns me!
Oddly enough, the collar had a short length of chain connected to it, hanging down from the front, just a few links long, not connected to anything else. It hung down, useless, ending a little below the base of my neck.
I gasped and bent forward suddenly when I realized my ankles were cuffed as well. The cuffs, thick and wide in the same style as the wrist cuffs and collar, were also locked by padlocks. But unlike the wrist cuffs, these did have an attachment: a single thick chain, just over a foot long, connected the left ankle cuff to the right.
Shit!! I'd been a slave for more than three years, but I'd never been made to feel like one. I'd had some idea all along what Andrew had in mind. But to actually experience it... A block of ice seemed to expand within my stomach, filling it.
And what now? Where is he? I looked up and down the length of the beach in both directions. Behind me was a rocky natural wall, three feet high, eroded by the pounding of the surf when the tide was high. Beyond that I could see only trees, blocking my view of anything behind them. There was no sign of any anthro, nor even any artifact, anywhere I looked.
The thumping inside my head, and accompanying nausea, had subsided, leaving behind that powerful thirst. I looked bitterly at the seemingly endless ocean. Plenty of water around, but a supply I can drink would be nice.
It didn't help that it was so damned hot, making my body sweat away what little water it had. And so humid that the sweat didn't help cool me.
Wincing, I found I was able to stand — momentarily dizzy, but it passed. I brushed sand off my buttocks and side, and I suddenly remembered the strange taste of the air, my last memory in the box before waking up here. They knocked me out with some sort of gas, and the headache is a hangover from it. And while I was out, they stripped me, put all this metal on me, left me here, and went away.
But why?
My hair was drenched, hanging limp. I hadn't been sweating that much. I shook some water out of my right ear. Given the leaden skies, the heavy air, it was pretty clear it had been raining earlier, while I'd been unconscious.
I took a couple of experimental steps. The hobble chain didn't interfere with walking, at a slow pace. But I couldn't possibly run.
All at once, everything connected together. The ocean. The beach. The wet heat. My lack of clothing. The style of my restraints. All the puzzle pieces joined.
I knew where I was. I knew exactly.
I had, in high school, once written a research report about this place. And now I was here.
And it couldn't be a coincidence.
The thought, the wish, that this might all be a dream, occurred to me. I had dreamed about being here, years ago. Bad dreams. They had gradually become less frequent.
But there is something different about dreaming versus waking. A different quality, a different feeling. It wasn't necessary for me to pinch my arm. I knew this was all very, very real.
I dropped to my knees and covered my face with my hands. "No,: I moaned, "No. No, no, no, no...."