Chapter 5

Day 9

I lay on my stomach, my chin on the backs of my hands. Runner, about fifty feet in front of me, crawled a little closer to the cabin nearby. The rare blue sky above did nothing to lighten my mood. I couldn’t shake the black cloud hovering over me that owed nothing to local weather phenomena.

I was conscious of the discomfort from lying on the vines wrapped around my waist. Mostly my hanging vine. I hadn’t practiced hanging since meeting Runner. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t make myself do it. Why did my mind shy away from even thinking about it?

The morning after that first night with Runner, I had awakened with a feeling of determination. I have help now, I told myself. Yesterday Runner was resisting the idea of crossing the mountains, but I know I can talk him into it.

I tried. But as my coaxing turned into pleading, it provoked ... not our first disagreement, since we’d been over this same subject before, but the first one that rose to the level of a fight. Runner refused to believe in my description of the land across the mountains. He pointed out that I’d already admitted I’d never been there, nor so much as seen it. Both of us became more upset by the minute. Runner at last waved his arms, symbolically pushing the subject away, and had told me that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. That he didn’t want to stay with me if I kept wanting him to fall over the end of the world.

I sucked in a quick breath and shut my mouth, my heart pounding as hard as when I met the doggirls. I was terrified at the thought of Runner leaving me.

I’d intended to practice hanging immediately after breakfast, and for the first time encountered that internal resistance to the idea. Meanwhile, Runner had immediately proposed a raid on the nearest cabin. I was eager to seem agreeable and restore our relationship to a friendly level, so I went along, and followed Runner as near yesterday’s farm as I dared. I waited until Runner returned with several strips of jerky and a vest for me. I thanked him very much but explained why I couldn’t wear it. Runner looked disappointed, and suggested I could use it for cover when the hard rain returned. I hadn’t thought of that, and I thanked him again and hugged him.

Over the next two days I looked for an opening that would let me talk about a mountain crossing again. I couldn’t open up the subject myself, but I was hoping that circumstances would lead a conversation in that direction. But there was a monotonous regularity to the days that frustrated my hopes. Each day Runner would raid a farm while I waited behind. Then we would escape, walk on toward another farm, rest, eat, and not much else. We were friends again, but conversations tended to lag. Runner had no knowledge of any wider world, and no curiosity about my life if it involved anything beyond the island. I waited for just the right time to suggest a foray beyond the mountains without making Runner mad again, but the opportunity never came. Runner seemed patient with my slow progress as we traveled, but I could read his irritation at having to move slowly enough for me to keep up.

My mood went steadily downhill. By the end of each day, I needed the comfort of our nighttime sleeping position. There was a softness and warmth to it that allowed me to blank out my thoughts and simply feel.

But then day would return, and with it, a growing certainty that I would never leave the island. The Academy was gone from my life. My friends, all of the people I loved, were gone from my life. And my dream of a wonderful hanging, one just like Miranda’s hanging. It was gone.

Lying on the ground now, my third full day with Runner, my—I had to stop and think ... my ninth on the island—the feeling of being trapped rolled over me. I was trapped, I knew it. I couldn’t get home by myself. I needed Runner’s help. And Runner wouldn’t help.

I suspected Runner would not carry out his threat to leave, but I couldn’t be sure. We both needed each other, in different ways. Runner’s need for me was purely emotional. He had been so terribly lonely, trying to survive by himself without the youngters he had grown up with and loved. I knew exactly how Runner felt, but my need had something extra. Without Runner to masquerade as my owner, I would inevitably be caught. I nearly had been before. I would eventually stumble into a farm and be spotted by doggirls again, and it would be all over.

I didn’t dare leave Runner, and that was the nature of the trap. Runner was tied to the wrong side of the island, and held me there in exactly the same way one of the mechanical traps would.

Tears began streaming from my eyes. My shoulders heaved, and I had to struggle to keep my anguish silent, so close to the farmers’ cabin.

I had cried myself out by the time Runner returned. He had a delighted grin, and signaled for me to follow him away from the farm. I followed listlessly.

At a safe distance, Runner turned to reveal his treasure: a large slab of cooked meat—not jerky, a real steak. My spirits rose at the sight of it. I looked around nervously, and suggested we continue on, to put a greater distance between us and the farm.

After another twenty or so minutes, we stopped in a small grove of nut trees, beside a flowing stream. As always, I swept my hands along the muddy ground, feeling for traps, then I sat with a sigh.

I spread my leather vest, and Runner set the steak down on the vest, reaching into his bag to retrieve a knife, obviously the booty from an earlier raid. I watched as Runner cut the steak into two equal pieces, and gave one to me.

I bit into the meat while Runner was shrugging out of his clothes—Runner usually stripped at the first opportunity.

The steak tasted wonderful, if a bit salty. Obviously the farmers made use of nature’s original preservative, readily available from the ocean.

Runner sat down and started eating. “I don’t get very many big pieces like this. Mostly just that little tough stuff.”

“It was just sitting out there?”

“It was in ... I don’t know a word for it.” He looked at me hopefully, no doubt eager for some more “teachering.”

I put the meat down. This can’t last. Runner’s going to get tired of doing everything for me, without me doing anything in return—I can’t go on a raid, I can’t even get close enough to a farm to serve as a lookout—and he’s going to get tired of waiting for me while I plod along behind him.

Suddenly the tears came back. I felt the loss of my world more strongly than ever. I buried my face against my knees, sobbing.

I was aware of Runner suddenly in front of me, cooing softly, wordlessly, gently rubbing my knees, then pulling them apart. He knelt between my legs, and pulled my head gently toward his chest.

I opened my mouth and kissed Runner’s nipple. He’s treating me like one of the babies, I told myself. I guess I am like a baby. I’m that helpless, and that useless. And it does feel nice, just letting him comfort me with warmth and softness.

I pushed myself away, suddenly. It was as though a dam had just broken in my mind, long-withheld thoughts flooding through. A stern inner voice told me, Amy, you are not a baby. You are a Noosemeister. You are one of the best Noosemeisters. You are the Noosemeister the rest of the Noosemeisters look to for advice. For encouragement. For help. Amy, it’s time to be who you are!

Runner was trying to draw me back to his chest. I pushed him away, shaking my head. “I don’t need that. Runner ... I want to show you something.”

I palmed the tears out of my eyes and stood up. I started untying the braided coil of vines around my waist.

Runner looked up at me, worried. “Amy, you need that to stay out of traps.”

“I’ll leave that part on. I need this part, I really need it, but not for that.”

I looked around for a fallen log in the right place ... there, there’s one. I walked as quickly as I could in my tiny steps over to it.

“Amy? What are you doing?”

The rain had diminished to a heavy mist. I was glad there would be no rain distracting me for this, my first performance for an audience in—it seemed to be forever. I quickly tied the noose and threw the other end of the vine over an overhead branch. I stepped up onto the log and tied the vine to the branch. “Runner, you were right about me being a teacher, but that’s only part of it. I want to show you what I do.”

“What you do when?”

“I mean, this is my place. I’m going to show you what my place is. This is something I spent a long time learning to do. To make people happy. To make them excited. To make them horny.” I wasn’t sure Runner understood the last adjective, and maybe the one before it, but he surely knew what the first one meant. And, I thought, he’s about to figure the others out. I pulled the noose down over my head, around my neck, adjusting it.

“Amy, I don’t get it.”

Runner started to walk toward me, but I held up my hand, and smiled. “Just watch. Don’t do anything else. Don’t come here and try to help me or anything like that. Only watch.”

Beneath my excitement, I was angry with myself. I knew, now, why I hadn’t hanged myself in front of Runner. Everything about my world was so alien to Runner, and I’d been afraid Runner wouldn’t understand, wouldn’t see the performance as being sexual. That he wouldn’t see any sense in it at all. That would hurt at the very core of my being—it would be a rejection of me as a Noosemeister. The fear of that rejection, though barely conscious, had been controlling me for days. I berated myself furiously—Amy, you were so worried about that rejection, you rejected yourself as a Noosemeister.

I am what I am. If Runner doesn’t understand it, fine. But I’m going to show him what I am.

I closed my eyes and took a moment to settle my breathing. I clasped my right hand firmly around my left wrist and stepped off the log.

A glorious feeling of release bubbled up within me, stronger than I had ever felt it. I barely even had a sense of the vine around my neck. It felt more as if I were flying, gliding on air currents above the clouds. Automatically I began cycling through my practice regimen.

Then I remembered I had an audience. Runner is very focused on the nipples. Probably all of the slaves from the pens are. That may be a primary area of sex play, or at least a very common one.

I concentrated more than the usual amount of attention on my breasts, timing the flexing of my shoulder muscles to make them bounce. I performed the hip thrusts automatically but downplayed them slightly. Runner might not be that familiar with vaginal sex, though he might have seen farmers and their slavebirls together since his escape. Instead, I worked more on hip rotation, presenting my pussy as something to be fingered or licked.

I hadn’t been watching Runner at first, but now I kept an eye on him when I could. Runner was standing and staring, one hand touching his cock, the other on his right nipple. I began using Runner’s reactions as a gauge for which motions I should emphasize.

I started to get tired after about fifteen minutes. I could, perhaps, have gone on another ten, but there was no reason. I reached up, took hold of the branch to steady myself, and stepped back up onto the log.

I smiled at Runner. When Runner did not smile back, it took me a moment to notice that no other part of Runner’s body was moving either. He stood as still as a statue, an unlikely one sculpted in a slight crouch, one hand between his legs and the other on his chest.

I loosened the noose, pulled it off and hopped down from the log. As I approached Runner, I was relieved to see Runner’s eyes and head were tracking me. Good, at least he hasn’t gone completely catatonic.

Runner suddenly unfroze, although his eyes remained wide, they were now fully focused on mine. As I reached his side, he said in a tight, breathy voice, “Amy, I have to do that, I have to do that!” Runner burst into motion, dashing past me toward the log and overhanging noose.

I spun. “Runner, wait! It’s dangerous...”

Runner was already up on the log. “I have to!”

“I was just trying to tell you that you need to wait for me!” Oh, wow, I never thought about this happening. I’ve created another Kathleen! Or, well, another me.

I shuffled as quickly I could over to the log and Runner. “You can do it, but I have to help you, Runner. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Runner nodded vigorously, holding the noose but not yet putting it over his head. “Teacher me this, Amy.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “It’s ‘teach,’ Runner. I’m a teacher, and I teach things. And what I was doing is called ‘hanging.’”

Runner was still nodding. “Teach me hanging. Please?”

“Okay, okay. Just give me a little time.” Keeping one eye on Runner, I looked past him to the nearby trees. Okay, there’s one. I held up my hand. “We’re going to do this, Runner. Just wait a little bit. Stay right there. I need to get something first.”

I shuffled to the tree, picked up a rock, and used it to cut off about three feet of vine running up the trunk, remembering belatedly that there was a knife lying just ten yards away that would have made the job easier. I came back to Runner. “Put your hands behind your back, like I had mine. I just had to hold my hands there, because I didn’t have anybody to do this for me. But you can be hanging the right way.”

I quickly tied Runner’s wrists together with the vine, then hopped up beside him on the log. I put the noose over Runner’s head, adjusting it carefully. “Don’t step off. Don’t do anything. I’ll help you. If you just jumped off it would be really dangerous. Wait for me.”

Even lost in this hinterland, where it was unlikely that Runner would ever contact anyone from the mainland, I firmly reminded myself not to give away anything the Academy considered secret. But there’d be no problem with Runner getting a feel for hanging. People do it all the time, with no training at all. I put my hands firmly on Runner’s hips to steady him. “Okay, just really slow ... bend your knees a little ... like that, now a little more. Lift your feet up...” As Runner’s feet left the surface, I gave him a gentle push away from the log, to hang just in front of it.