Waiting:
A Vignette

She stands there, straight and proud. This room is brightly lit, so she can see herself and nine other young women reflected in the black glass wall in front of her. She stands on a trapdoor with a noose snug around her neck. So do the other nine girls.

She can't see through the glass, nor can she hear what's happening on the other side. But she knows what's there: a wide corridor with a little console in front of the glass. The console has a slot for a credit card, a dial to select one of the ten girls, a switch labeled "drop: long/short", and a big red button labeled "hang her".

She waits. She doesn't know when, but sooner or later one of the trapdoors will open. Perhaps a customer will hang one of her friends. When that happens she is allowed to turn and watch. It makes her excited, wet, to watch another girl struggle and kick, little flutter kicks at first, then faster and faster, wilder, then slower, weaker. Then stillness.

Of course, she knows it could be her own trapdoor... then she will find herself hanging. Strangling to death. Kicking desperately, hands straining against her bonds, chest muscles straining for air. Weakening, blacking out, then no more, ever again.

She doesn't know when, or whether she will be the next victim. Perhaps nothing will happen this shift, and she'll have a meal and time to rest before coming back here to wait again. Or perhaps in a minute or less she'll feel the trapdoor fall away beneath her and begin the battle for air -- a battle which she will inevitably lose.

At first she wasn't sure which she would prefer: to watch one of her friends die, kicking and struggling in the noose, or to be hanged herself, to experience that ultimate sensation.

Later she decided it was better to watch. Not because she is reluctant to die. No. Because when another girl is chosen, she gets to watch and get excited -- and to get even more excited as she anticipates her own hanging. Imagining herself struggling just like that, getting red in the face and then purple, dancing faster and faster, then slower and slower, then silence.

But now she's not sure again. She has seen three girls die like that. If she survives another two she will be freed and her Master will give her a reward for her service. A fifty-fifty proposition. But then she would be denied her own hanging. Just two more. So perhaps it would be better to hang now and not have to worry about losing out to two other girls.

One thing she knows she doesn't want... the long drop that some customers choose. Only rarely, she is thankful for that. To vanish through the floor, a loud groan from the overhead beam and a crunching noise as her neck snaps. A few spasmodic kicks and... nothing. It happened once while she was here. She would feel cheated if that were to happen to her. To die without getting to experience it. No, that wouldn't be fair.

So she waits. Not even sure what she's waiting for.

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