The Hanging Club

Prologue: The following story is a work of fiction. Though a "hanging club" has been rumored to exist in the Tri-State area for years, the combined police agencies of the three states, both at the state and local level maintain that there is no solid evidence whatsoever that these rumors are anything other than urban myths spread through comic books, gossip, and above-all, the internet. Nonetheless, reported sightings of a tall and athletic auburn-haired woman being seen with young women who have disappeared and left suicide notes over the last few years, have become as common as Elvis sightings in the years immediately following his death. Aside from conspiracy theorists, no-one has ever paid much attention to them.

Part I

             The party was being held in a large boathouse overlooking a remote private lake upstate. Upstairs was a living area with bedrooms, a large open-concept living area with exposed wooden beams running across it at three different points. They were essential to the purpose of the party as it was from these beams that the nooses would be suspended. Down below was the boat garage and in it were two small powerboats that would be used to dispose of the bodies in the lake once the evening’s festivities were concluded.  Though the property was private, the shutters of the windows had all been closed so that no-one, not even a trespasser could tell what was happening inside. This was a good thing.

             It was Judy’s first hanging party with the 6-36 club. As such she knew that she would have to put her neck in a noose that night and stood a one in six chance of being hanged right right then and there at her first party. More if she really wanted to gamble. That was part of the thrill. The odds of survival got a lot better after your first party but like everyone else here for the first time, the possibility of being hanged naked in front of a crowd was a part of the attraction. The other part of course, was watching others hang. Judy stripped out of her clothes and and jewelry and put them all into a small suitcase that had been provided for her. She donned the black fishnet stockings and heels which along with her bra and panties were the only articles of clothing allowed. That way, no-one present could have a concealed weapon on her or a cell phone or anything that might be helpful to them if the chickened out at the last moment, but everyone still had a place to tuck away a wad of cash and a small cigarette case and lighter if they happened to smoke, though not many did. Ready to join the party, she stepped outside the powder room and into the corridor and met her friend Tanya who had sponsored her for membership. Their little suitcases in hand they went down the stairs to join the party, turning in them in to the party’s hostess, Greta as they did. The suitcases would be returned to them if they survived the soirée and if not, their contents would be disposed of as discretely as their bodies.

             Judy had known since her early teens that she different from almost everyone else she knew in one key respect: she was secretly fascinated, sometimes to the point of obsession with nooses and hangings. She’d first noticed this interest while watching old westerns on TV in which hangings were depicted. There were a lot of those it seemed. Still a virgin at the time, she found something bizarrely and inexplicably erotic about the thought of standing on a scaffold, or even a chair with a noose around her neck, and on several occasions, when her curiosity and sexual obsession overpowered her, had thrown a rope over a beam in her parents basement when no-one was home, stripped naked, noosed herself and climbed on top of a low footstool and jumped off it while holding the free end of the rope behind her back with her hands.  She had been surprised by the intense pain it caused, but even more surprised by how much it aroused her.

              She soon combined nooses with masturbation; sometimes hanging herself for as long as she could while playing with a sex toy, but more often, lying on her back with a rope around her neck while she masturbated to a photo of an imaginary sexual partner of either sex who was also noosed. Being a gifted sketch artist even in her teens she also took to exploring her fantasy through art. Most of the time, she made sketches of herself, but on a few occasions, she sketched her friend Tanya whom she had discovered shared her obsession with nooses and hanging. Tanya was tall, auburn-haired and quite beautiful. Boys in the school chased after her relentlessly and though she often flirted with them, she never seemed to be going steady with any of them.  Unfortunately, Tanya’s family had moved out of state when Judy was sixteen, and the two had lost touch until very recently when Tanya suddenly came back into her life without warning.

             Now 28, Judy had been freelance writer-illustrator for several erotic and BDSM publications for several years. Though publishing under a nom-de-plume, she was noted for her images of beautiful young women, often teenagers, gleeful to have their heads in a noose, or hanging themselves without sorrow. On a more personal side, she had incorporated consensual hanging into her sex life when a willing partner was available, but deep inside, she wanted to see other girls hang for real and wanted to feel the thrill of risking her neck in a real hanging game, in front of spectators. These were ideas that she couldn't get out of her mind. 

Moreover, for years Judy had heard and read about what was generally supposed to be an urban myth concerning a group allegedly known as the 6-36 Club, in which members would meet from time to time and take turns putting their heads in real nooses and betting on whether they would hang or not. Winners, they said, could walk away from an evening with a lot of money in tax free cash. Losers hanged until dead, their bodies disposed of and their disappearances explained as suicides. Whenever Judy had asked anyone who purported to know that 6-36 was real how someone could find them, she had always gotten the same answer:

             "You don’t find them. They find you.” It was a dead end.

             Then one day, out of nowhere, Tanya came back into her life with a phone call, asking her to meet her by Bethesda fountain in Central Park. As they sat together on a park bench, Tanya pulled out some of the sketches Judy had made of her years ago, in secret in her parent’s basement. She confided to Judy that 6-36 was no urban myth; she had been a member for some time and persuaded her to attend their next hanging party.

             “Judy, I’m here to invite you to join us,” Tanya answered matter-of-factly.  “Don’t you see that this is something that you’ve wanted most of your life?  It’s not about wanting to die today, tomorrow next week or whatever. It’s living as who we are and cheating the noose for as long as we can and betting that it will be the girl standing next to you that gets her neck stretched this time. It’s a wish that when we do die, the way we—you, I, the others like us—all go is the way we’ve known since childhood that we were meant to die, with a rope around our necks and with an applauding and appreciative audience, not as old women in nursing homes.

            "Judy was stunned by the frankness of what Tanya was telling her, but at the same time it played to her obsession. She wasn’t at all suicidal or unhappy, but the darker side of her personality had always craved exactly this thrill and now here at last was the opportunity to experience it for real.

         "When is the next meeting?” she gasped in a small, low voice, half disbelieving her own words. Tanya smiled for a moment before answering.

    
     "Soon, Judy, very soon, but first, you have to start working on a really good suicide note to fool the cops in case you don’t survive.” She paused again before continuing. “We meet next Friday night so don’t make any plans for that weekend. You have until then to chicken out. Once we’re there….there’s no backing out.” 



Part II

            Judy looked about the and counted over twenty people in the room, some on the main floor, others on the second floor gallery. There was a layout of finger food, pre-poured glasses of red and white wine, a betting table with a modified roulette wheel with only the numbers one through six, each one appearing in sequence six times, plus the zero and double-zero. Then of course, there were the nooses and chairs, six of them to be precise. The rules stated that a maximum of six participants might be hanged in one night, and Judy being here for her first time, was required to take her chances on the evenings first round. If she survived it, she was free to step down at that point. She wondered if she would. She had been directed by Greta to go stand over with the other newcomers. There were a total of four, including Judy. The others were LaVonne, Maggie and Shirley. Maggie seemed the most shy of the three, while Shirley confessed to having been part of a similar group out west that used to meet out in desert ghost town in Nevada every few months and do the same sort of thing, but on a much smaller scale. LaVonne was the loudest of the three, openly boasting the intended on being big winner tonight. 



            "Just watch; you’ll see, if you’re still alive, that is.”  There was something in her manner that rubbed Judy the wrong way.
        
            “Bloody bitch,” she thought to herself. “I hope you’re the first to go.” She was surprised at herself for thinking it, but in a minute or two, she would have her own neck in a noose and could very well be dead within the next ten or twenty.

           “Ladies, may I have your attention please?” It was Greta, the hostess for the evening. We are about to begin. As some of you already know, we have four new members present tonight who will participate in our first round. “Does any one else wish to participate in the first round of the contest?” To no-one’s surprise, there were no other volunteers at this point. There simply wouldn’t be enough money pot to make it worth their while to risk it all on the first few spins of the wheel.
 
 

          “Very well,” Greta continued. “The ante for the first round is $1000 per chair.” She nodded over to another young woman carrying a large fishbowl in her hands who at the signal, walked over to the newcomers who each put in a thousand dollar bill. She waited until this step was completed before speaking again. 



            “Our first round will be carried out in execution style. The contestants will be hooded and the chairs randomly numbered afterwards. The executioner will pull out the loser’s chair without prior warning.” This drew a good deal of applause from the guests. It was a surprise to them, as this was the first time this was being tried in quite this way.

    

         “Are there any volunteers to be the executioner? Asked Greta. A dozen hands at leas shot up immediately.

             “Me, me! Oh please me,” some of them cried.

             “Very well, replied Greta, since we have several volunteers, we’ll open the position to bidding. The highest bidder gets the job.”

             “Well this puts an interesting twist on things: thought Judy to herself. People are going to pay money for the pleasure of hanging me.” She immediately wondered what sum of money that might be worth. The answer was nine-thousand dollars when the bidding was complete. A wealthy, tallish redhead named Nicole won the honour. She obviously had more money than she knew what to do with and had too much of a look of smug satisfaction on her face thought Judy.

            “Oh, I hope you don’t get me this time, bitch,” she though to herself. Then she realized that there were at least a dozen more bitches in the audience; they just didn’t have as big a bankroll. On the other hand, the money in the pot immediately went from four-thousand to thirteen-thousand dollars. "That could be interesting," she thought. 


            “Ladies,” started Greta as she turned to the contestants, “will you please now go pick a chair and stand behind it then strip down to your stockings, putting your bras and panties on the backs of the chairs and your shoes underneath. Once you’ve done this, please climb your chairs and noose yourselves. I’ll come around an pass out hoods once you’ve done this, then you’ll have to put your hands behind your back so that Nicole can handcuff you.

             "Good luck to all of you,” said Greta with a smile that denoted sincerity. Greta, Judy had been told, was a veteran of six years who’d put her head in the noose many times. She began to like her almost as much as she did Tanya. With that, Judy arbitrarily picked a chair, knowing full-well that it this little act of choosing might be the most fateful decision of her life. More fateful even than the decision to accept Tanya’s invitation. To her dismay, the loud-mouthed bitch LaVonne took the chair right beside her.

             “Whats’a matter, Sugar Britches?”  asked LaVonne sensing Judy’s distaste for her. “You think that rope’s gonna hurt you any less if I go stand over by the end. I’ll bet you’ll be the first one to dangle.”

            “Don’t bank on it,” replied Judy as she adjusted her noose. The two just glared at each other until Greta came up and handed them their hoods. Reluctantly, they donned them then put their hands behind their backs as Nicole handcuffed them one by one. Once everyone was hooded, Greta placed large, randomly shuffled number cards at the foot of every chair. None of the contestants knew what their number was. While this was going on, the others…the ones with money to gamble at any rate, placed their bets at the roulette wheel. If the the ball stopped on the number you bet on and that chair was occupied, the person standing on top of it would be immediately hanged and the winners were paid at six to one odds, minus five percent for the house. If the ball stopped on the zero  or an number with an empty chair, then all bets were lost and put into the pot. If it stopped on the double-zero, then all the competitors would be hanged and all bets cancelled. 

    

           “Ladies, betting is now closed for this round,” announced Greta, and with that, the wheel was spun and the ball rolled. Judy felt the tension mount in the room, and under her hood she could hear her heart thumping more and more loudly as the ball rolled around noisily. The room hushed as stopped on the number “4.” 


             “And the lucky number is four,"announced, Greta. “Chair number four is empty so all bets are lost and added to the pot. Ladies, there is now thirty-tree thousand dollars in the pot. The rules say that any can now bow out and take your share with you.” Shirley, who had risked her life many times in the Nevada desert already was the first to back out. Her share would be $8,250.00. Like all the others, she’d payed two thousand just to to be admitted, plus her ante of $1,000, which left her a tidy profit of over five thousand. There was no need to take any further risk tonight, she thought. 



              “Does anybody else wish to step down at this point?” inquired Greta.

             “Take the opportunity Judy,” thought Tanya to herself. You don’t want to hang before you’ve seen someone hang.” Judy was trying to make the decision when she heard LaVonne’s voice beside her, taunting her. 


              “Hey Sugar Britches, I’m still here. You gonna stay or chicken out?”

              “Drop dead, bitch,” answered Judy in a low voice. 


              “Not before you, Sugar Britches,” was LaVonne’s reply.

             “I’m in for another round if LaVonne is," announced Judy, loudly from under her hood. “Only if LaVonne is in.”  This drew the attention of the audience who hushed in anticipation of the response. 

      

            “LaVonne, are you in for the next round?” asked Greta sweetly.

             “Oh Honey, I am in this until the end,” replied LaVonne loudly. “To the end,” she repeated loudly, in a voice that Judy found increasingly irritating. Tanya too, standing on the sidelines, was beginning to truly hate LaVonne and started wishing for her demise. 

   

              "That, would be entertaining,” she thought to herself, as she sipped a bit of red wine, being careful not to take in too much at this point.

               LaVonne’s boast however drew wild cheers and applause from an audience that unlike Tanya was increasingly amused by the rivalry that was developing between her and Judy.  Judy meanwhile, realized that she’d been outplayed by LaVonne for the audience’s love in this round. She would have to turn the tables get the upper hand somehow. Maggie too, enthralled by the thrill she’d experienced with the first spin of the wheel, decided to remain in. To everyone’s surprise, a new contestant, a beautiful blonde girl named Charlene anted up $1000 to take up the space left by vacant by Shirley. That brought the number back up to four and the pot back up to 24,500.00. It turned out to be the worst decision of her life.

              As soon as she had been noosed and hooded, the numbers of the chairs were re-arranged and the bets placed. The ball stopped on the number six, which now happened to be the chair Charlene had chosen for herself. The room exploded in a cheer at first, which turned into a roar as Charlene’s chair was pulled out from under her and she fell eight inches or so, the rope sharply tearing into her neck as it constricted. The pain was incredible but if Charlene was able to make any sound at all as her feet kicked wildly in search of a floor that just wasn’t there, it was drowned out by the cheering and applause of the audience. 


             It was only Charlene’s second time in the noose; her first since being admitted to the club eighteen months ago. She she didn’t compete at all in her second meeting, and though she really enjoyed watching others hang, the meeting had left her disappointed because she hadn’t had the thrill again of putting her own neck in the noose. Struggling for breath, she knew she was a goner, but in the last seconds before the darkness closed in around her, she started to feel some sort of satisfaction hearing only the cheers of the spectators. The pain aside, she was experiencing in those brief minutes between when her chair had been tipped over and the darkness started to envelop her, emotions she had not known were possible and which could not be experienced in any other way.  Judy was in a cold sweat now. Two rounds survived, but she knew from the audience’s cheering for  Charlene that it wasn’t LaVonne who had hanged. 

        
            "Damn," she thought to herself. “Why couldn't it have been the bitch?"

             “Yeah, Sugar Britches, I’m still here,” she finally heard LaVonne’s voice say matter-of-factly as the cheering died down a bit. 



            “That’s a shame,” answered Judy, quite honestly. “Why don’t you just step off the chair get it over with?” she almost added.  Before LaVonne could answer Greta took centre stage again.

             “Ladies, we’ve just had our first hanging of the evening, and by our rules, we will now take a short pause for drinks and chit-chat. Contestants may drop out now if they wish to or go on to the next round which will be a suicide round, starting in one hour. LaVonne, Judy and Maggie all announced their intention to on to the next round, much to the pleasure of the audience. The three were uncuffed and allowed to step down in the interim and offered short kimono type robes to wear until they once again put their heads in the nooses. Tanya walked up to Judy and handed her a glass of wine before saying anything. 


             “Don’t let that bitch LaVonne get to you,” she said. "You’ve already survived two rounds your first night and you haven’t seen anybody hang. Don’t you want to see LaVonne get hers?"

             “Yes,” replied Judy, “But, not from ten or fifteen feet away. I want to be right fucking-well beside her when she chokes.”

             Tanya knew it was pointless to argue with Judy right now. She had gotten too caught up and let it get too personal. She also knew too well the craving one gets to feel the rope around the neck as the wheel was spinning. She was feeling that very tingling herself right now. 
Would she be able to resist it? 

              "Then don't drink too much of that," responded Tanya. "You'll want your wits about you in the next round."


Part III
                  
               It had been forty minutes or so since Charlene had had her chair pulled out from under her and everyone being certain she was quite dead, her body was now being gently lowered to the floor, where tarpaulin had been laid out to receive the body which was then wrapped tightly in it and bound with quarter-inch polypropylene rope. The body was then transferred to one of the boats below where were it was it was weighted down with a hundred pounds of rocks. Once in the lake, it would never float back to the top. Charlene’s billfold, which she left in her stockings had three thousand dollars in it and this was added to the pot, which now at $27,500. The contents of her suitcase and other personal effects were divided a among three bags. The jewellery and other items that were heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the lake without being weighted were tossed into a sack whose contents would be scattered all over the lake while her clothing went into a large laundry bag. It would be laundered the next day and dropped off in charity clothing drops around New York and Newark. Finally, her wallet with ID cards would be dropped off in some place where they would be easily found in her home town if possible.

               LaVonne meanwhile, convinced of her invulnerability, took to drinking more than she should have been during the break, and alcohol directly caused her loose tongue to get a little looser. She’d drunk maybe two glasses of wine before the evenings festivities and was now finishing her third since the end of the first round. They weren’t small glasses either. 

 

             “I say Sugar Britches over there will be the next one to dangle, and if she doesn’t, she’ll chicken out at the end of the round. You just wait and see.”
  
              Judy used tried to use the pause to calm herself down a bit and get her focus back.  Unfortunately the truth was that she was still very exhilarated not only by the thrill of possibly hanging and finally finding out what it really felt like in the way Charlene just had, but also that a natural rivalry had developed between her and LaVonne and LaVonne just had to die tonight, right in front of her, for Judy to walk out satisfied. She looked up at Tanya for a moment, and handed over all the money in her wad; $2000.00.

 

            “Tanya, would you place a bet for me?” She asked. Tanya just looked at her and said nothing. “If it comes to just me and that cast iron bitch left in the contest, I want you to place the bet on me hanging.” 


             “Why would you want that?” asked Tanya. 



             “If I win,” Judy replied, I’ll have a pile of cash and we’ll split it. If I lose, you’ll walk away with about $12,000 given the odds. 


  
              “I can’t” replied Tanya. "I’m going to take the chair beside you in the next round. I’ve made up my mind.” 


             “What are you talking about?” asked a thoroughly baffled Judy. There’s no need for….” Tanya cut her off before she could finish.

 

             “I got you into this. We’ll either both walk out of here alive together, or both hang tonight for our foolishness. Don’t argue. My decision is made.” Judy looked at Tanya’s eyes and for a moment saw her again as a sixteen-year old friend posing with noose around her neck in the basement of Judy’s house after school. She wished she had sketched one of them together and vowed aloud to do so if they both survived the evening, but at the same time, she realized that if Tanya hanged tonight, Judy herself could not walk out alive either. It was fine with her, she decided. She knew now what it felt like to survive, but had yet to experience what it felt like to lose. She smiled back at Tanya before speaking. 


            “Okay, let’s do it, Tan! she exclaimed. 

       

            A few minutes later, the contestants were back on their chairs, stark naked and noosing themselves. Each had first clasped one handcuff around one wrist leaving both hands free to noose themselves. There was no executioner this time and no hoods. If their number came up, the losers were expected to jump off on their own. If they couldn’t somehow manage it, Greta would push them off the chair herself.

            “Hey Red!” Judy called out to Nicole. “Have you got the guts to come here and join us? It’s easy to hang someone else, but are you woman enough to hang yourself?”  Everyone in the room when silent and looked to Nicole. She was under no obligation to accept but the challenge had been so direct she could not but look a coward if she refused. Nicole’s face grew red with anger. Like LaVonne, she was on a high and had had a few drinks during the break.
 
            “Fuck-you newbie! Do think I’m chicken? I'll fucking-well show you!” Nicole called back as she stormed forwards, tugging at her bra as she did. She dropped her thousand-dollar ante into the fishbowl and selected a chair, stripped and down and took her place among the others. There were now five girls with nooses around their necks standing on the chairs in front of the audience with nearly $30,000 in the pot. The audience was loving it. A few minutes later, the bets were all placed and the wheel and ball were in motion. The audience gasped at the ball stopped rolling.

            “And the winning number is “Five,” announced Greta as Nicole’s face went ashen. She had picked chair number five. She could could have picked sixth chair right beside it which was also vacant, but she hadn’t, and now it was expected of her to walk or jump off it, rope around her neck.

           “Oooooooh SHIT!” exclaimed Nicole, then at the top of her lungs. “SHIT, SHIT, SHIT! You fucking newbie cunt!“  Tears began to come our of her eyes as she struggled with disbelief. “How could this be?” She thought. How could she have been so stupid, so unlucky?

           The audience was starting to boo and Greta looked up at her signalling with her eyes that if she didn’t jump then Greta would push her of the chair. Nicole took a very deep breath, looked up for a second or two, then closed her eyes as she jumped. Nicole’s head twisted violently to the left as she hit bottom tearing flesh off her throat as with Charlene. Nicole was heaver than Charlene however and the drop exerted more force, crushing her windpipe immediately and compressing her carotid arteries to such an extent that she lost consciousness in less than a minute. This was as disappointing to the spectators as Nicole’s reluctance to jump, though no-one booed her since in the end, she did the right thing.

           “Ladies, one again, does anyone want to drop out at this point?, asked Greta. Maggie, decided just then that surviving three rounds was more than good enough for a first-timer and that to stay in any longer was just foolish. She was essentially correct and not having any personal feud with anyone, decided to opt for her cash and quit while she could. Her share came to $7375, which though somewhat less than Shirley’s still left her with a decent profit at the end. This meant that only LaVonne, Judy and Tanya were still standing up. LaVonne, quite predictably chose to remain in the contest. Tanya and Judy looked at each other smiled tenderly at one another and with the slightest nod, Tanya signalled she would play another round. Once again the bets were placed and the wheel and ball set into motion. Judy could feel her heart pounding again.

              “Don’t piss yourself, Sugar Britches” she heard LaVonne say softly as the wheel was spinning. Judy ignored it, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Perfectly focused, she could hear the ball spinning in the roulette wheel. It came to a stop. She held her breath.
      
             “And the number is “six.” Six is empty, all bets are lost and go into the pot. The lost bets added a further thirty-two thousand dollars to the pot which now stood at $54,125. Tanya took a look at the audience and judged by the looks on the faces of the spectators that several were now contemplating jumping in to fill an empty chair. This could go on all night but Tanya, experienced as she was at this knew that neither she nor Judy would likely survive that long. The jig was up. 


             “I’m getting out now,” said Tanya to Judy as she signalled Greta to come undo her cuffs.

             "Judy, it’s time for you to get out also,” Tanya told her in all earnestness as she stepped down off her chair.  Judy was paralyzed with indecision for a moment. She didn’t want to bow out before LaVonne, but LaVonne had been drinking heavily during the break and probably wasn’t on thinking on an even keel. 
She looked straight into Tanya's eyes and something she saw in her Tanya's expression won her over.

             "Hell, thought Judy, “that crazy bitch LaVonne wasn’t on an even keel even before she started drinking.” She realized also that that the pot now split four ways was over $18,0000 each and Even of LaVonne was the last one to quit at this point, she couldn’t claim more than one third of the pot, which would make it a tie. She’d have to keep on playing to call it a victory. With that thought in her head, Judy signalled Greta that she’d had enough for the evening. 


         "Ha! I knew it,” LaVonne heckled. “I knew you’d quit first, Sugar Britches.”

              "You’re right LaVonne, I’m simply not so fucking stupid as you are, you loud-mouth bitch,” was Judy’s measured reply, and with that she turned away from LaVonne and started to walk away.
  
              "Don't you walk away from me, Sugar Britches," LaVonne screamed back angrily as she tried to follow after Judy. He drinking had not only impaired her judgment but also her memory and her coordination causing her to forget  for just fraction of a second that she had a rope around her neck. The mistake was fatal. She remembered the noose too late as her foot started for floor that wasn't where it should have been and she she started to fall forward.  She tried to recover from the miss-step, but this only had the effect of throwing her completely off-balance so that in her final attempt at saving herself, she succeeded only in kicking her chair a good three feet behind her. Judy turned her head back towards LaVonne just in time to see her accidentally kick her chair away in the final split second of her fatal mistake. 

             The crowd had not expected this and there was a collective gasp of surprise when LaVonne's neck found the bottom of the rope. The rules about the suicide round were clear however; whether you jumped, fainted or fell off your chair, no-one was required to help you get back up. Someone might have done exactly that, but LaVonne’s frantic struggling at the end of the rope was just too hilarious for anyone to want to help her get back up.  LaVonne it was also realized had  been the one driving the entertainment all night, so this was a fitting end. It got more entertaining still as LaVonne, having drunk too much wine quickly lost control of her bladder, leaving a big puddle beneath her. 

             Realizing that her ploy had worked, Judy asked Tanya to find her a glass of wine somewhere before going back to her chair and once again donning her undies and stockings. She was through for the night, not that she thought there would be any more competitions tonight as there would be three bodies and Nicole’s car to dispose of. She was putting on her heels  just as as Tanya brought her a glass of white wine. She walked back to where LaVonne was still struggling, albeit weakly. She was careful to avoid the puddle of urine that would have to be cleaned up before it stained the beautiful hardwood floor.
  

             LaVonne’s head was drooping badly now and she didn’t have much time left, but on hearing Judy’s footsteps, she managed to open her eyes one last time one last time. Her final vision of this world was seeing Judy wave bye-bye with the fingers of her left hand before by tilting her head, sticking out her tongue an crossing her eyes a mimicking her swinging motion. LaVonne was beyond pain now. The darkness closed in around her. 
Tanya, still buck-naked but with another glass of wine in her hand came up behind Judy to whisper in her ear.
 
            "I never knew you were such a calculating bitch," she said softly and warmly as Judy eyed the two young women dangling in front of her, one already dead, the other soon to be dead. She hadn't killed either one of them, but she'd prompted each into making mistakes that killed them by teasing their tempers. She realized at once that if she ever came back, and she knew she would, she must never allow herself to react in the same way as Nicole and LaVonne had when taunted. Never.

             "Nor did I," replied Judy.  

             “Greta says we’re done for the evening. What say we get the fuck out of here? The others’ll clean up and there are a couple of decent motels 45 minutes from here. We could get a room,” she suggested.    

             Judy paused for a moment. She realized that Tanya was offering sex and Judy was eager to take her up on it. She never done it with Tanya when they were younger but she had every intention of doing her tonight. Before she could go however, she needed to burn the scene before her into her artist’s memory for later recall.

            “Sure, she replied. Let me cash my chips and we’ll blow this joint. With that, she turned her back on LaVonne’s dying body and went to collect her winnings. The party was over as far as she was concerned.
 

Part VI

            The drive to motel should have taken some 45 minutes. but Tanya, still feeling the exhilaration of the hanging party and of having risked her neck alongside Judy’s put the pedal to the floor. This was dangerous enough on these Adirondack back roads in perfect daylight, it was near suicidal at night, but there was no sense explaining that to either woman, at that point, still high on the adrenaline rush from the evening’s activities. Tanya’s driving in any case, helped keep that rush going. They made it to the motel in just under 30 minutes. It was now just past 11:00 pm and the pair found a motel with cabins of the type probably built in the 1950’s. The sign boasted of colour TV, radio and air-conditioning, not to mention vacancies.  There was an all-night, drive-through counter. It was a popular place for both road-weary travellers and for locals from a few of the nearby towns to discretely cheat on their spouses.  Tanya paid cash for the room and the two paused only long enough on there way to their cabin to purchase a bag of ice from an ice machine which, which they Tanya placed in the room’s wastepaper basket while Judy was locking the door and already tearing at her clothes. Within minutes, they were both taking a long, steamy shower, at the end of which they stumbled onto the bed at best half dry. 


             The sex was rough throughout and at times, quite painful; Tanya had brought a variety of sexual aids from the trunk of her Mercedes to assist in the fun. They included handcuffs and a short length of rope with a noose at the end of it. Lacking any suitable fixture to hang it from, they both used it to control the other, during their play. At first, Judy made Tanya to kneel before her on the bed while she stood behind her pulling tightly on the rope, putting her knee into Tanya’s back. Tanya struggled hard against the rope; she was both taller and stronger than Judy, and finally pulled Judy down on top of her.

 Judy loosened the rope around Tanya’s neck and removed it, placed it around her own then asked Tanya to bind her up with a a pair of wrist to waist restraints from her suitcase of goodies.

             “Now take that double-ended dildo out and ram it up me,” Judy instructed, as she knelt beside the bed and bent her torso over it. “And don’t forget to pull hard on that rope.”  

   

             “Don’t you worry,” replied Tanya. “I’ll hurt plenty.” Tanya first lubricated the angled dildo with a bit of oil then inserted one end of it into her own vagina, positioning it just to her satisfaction. She started to insert the other into Judy’s vagina when Judy stopped her. 

   

             “Not there,” she said. “Up my ass. I want it up my ass.” Tanya complied and pulled on the rope as she drove the dildo home. Judy moaned at first, then started to scream in delight as Tanya’s rhythm increased. “Pull, goddamn you pull!” she shouted, nearly breathless. 


              They gave each other pleasure this way and others for over two hours. Sometime around two in the morning, when they’d exhausted each other out, Tanya brought out a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey from her suitcase, which they drank on the rocks with ice from the hotel ice machine located just outside their cabin. The lay down their tummies, side by side, with their feed towards the headboard of the bed and their elbows on near the edge at the other end. Though physically exhausted, neither was yet emotionally drained enough to sleep. Their necks were both raw and bruised from the rope, and so each figured they’d have to wear a scarves or turtlenecks they’d had the sense to pack for a day or two…maybe even three.

             “You know,” started Judy, “I was just thinking what must have been going through that dumb bitch LaVonne’s mind at the instant that she lost her balance and realized she was cooked?” 


            “At first, she was probably thinking Ohhhhh fuck!” ventured Tanya. “You could see it in her eyes. Then when she hit bottom, she was probably thinking avout what a clever bitch you are.”  Judy just giggled for a bit.  

           “She didn’t see it coming, did she?” asked Judy, though it was more of a rhetorical statement.  The simple truth was that within less than a second, and owing to temperment, LaVonne’s went from being a competitor with a pile of cash to a corpse-in-waiting, swinging at the end of a rope, unable to do anything about it.

       

           “She wasn’t the only one that never saw it coming,” replied Tanya. "Charlene wouldn’t have noticed anything until Nicole pushed her off the chair. Then she must have been thinking exactly the same thing as LaVonne did before she hit bottom. God, what a dumb-fuck she was in joining the contest just then!” Up to that point, there hadn’t been a whole lot of money in the pot just yet and it made no sense for Charlene to throw her head in the noose so early in the game. She was just caught up in the thrill of it all. “Stupid little cunt she was. Promise me you’ll never be that fucking stupid.”

           “I promise,’ replied Judy, laughing as she did. “D’you know the only one of the three that really had any chance at all to come to terms with her situation was Nicole.”

     

       “There’s another dumb-shit that doesn’t deserve to be breathing,” retorted Tanya.

           “I don’t think she is anymore,” giggled Judy. The reply drew a sharp laugh from Tanya who rolled over on her side.

         “She was so fucking stupid to pay all that money to be the executioner, and so were all the others who bid for the job. There’s no way she’d get to hang more than one person for it and in the process, she made enemies of everyone up there, not just the one she got to hang, who couldn’t do anything about it anyway.”
       

          “But don’t rules require one at that stage?” protested Judy. 


        “If no-one had come forward, Greta would have done the job herself as hostess and nobody could have blamed her for it because she wouldn’t have a choice, but “dumb-fuck Nicole volunteered,” answered Tanya.

        “To be fair, that’s why I wanted her dead myself,” laughed Judy. “I’m empty,” she said holding up her glass as she did. “Can you fix me another?”

        “Sure Hon,” replied Tanya, as she walked over to the dresser and poured them both fresh drinks. “Tell me,” Tanya inquired,  “of all the new sensations you encountered tonight, which was the best?”

        “You mean aside from having you ram a two foot dildo up my ass while choking me with a rope?” asked Judy.


        “So you’ve never done that before?” retorted Tanya, barely able to contain the laughter. Her throat hurt as she laughed, which made it all the more amusing. 

       
        “I’ve never done it with you,” replied Judy matter-of-factly. “That’s gotta count for something. But the question was hard to answer. There had been so many different emotions she’d experienced tonight that were new to her. Being hooded and not knowing who was going to hang in the first round, seeing Nicole’s reaction when her number came up, seemed somehow even better than watching her hang, thought that was pretty good too. The feeling that ran through her mind in the instant that she saw LaVonne irretrievably lose her balance and knowing she was through.

        “The best feeling I had all evening; what I’ll remember most, is the sight of you just to my left, standing beside me with a noose around your neck and the knowledge that we would either walk out together or hang together,” she said in a way that Tanya knew it was sincere. Tanya looked at Judy sweetly for a moment before speaking again. She leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and asked Judy to hold her drink as she rolled off the bed and got something out of her suitcase. She tossed it on the bed. It was a sketchpad.

        “Why don’t you sketch that moment for me?” asked Tanya, throwing her a pencil as well.

        “What? At two-thirty in the morning? asked Judy almost incredulously.

        “Are you sleepy or something,” Tanya shot back.

        “No, not in the least,” replied Judy.

        “Then get cracking said Tanya as she attached the short noose one of the lighting fixtures on the wall and climbed up on a chair and put it around her neck. It was less than a perfect setup but since the fixture didn’t need to hold her weight, it would do. It hurt like hell to put the rope back around her neck, but the whiskey would help with that.

        Judy sat up and turned on the room lights and after adjusting Tanya’s pose, picked up her pencil and started drawing. Her style was minimalist, and she worked fast, and so within an hour, she’d produced several sketches depicting the evening’s events. She was careful to omit any background details that might indicate the locale and the only faces that were accurately drawn were hers and Tanya’s. That way, if anyone ever saw the drawings who wasn’t supposed to there would be nobody but the two of them to recognize and she could just claim it was a pure fantasy, like her other sketches.

         “These are very good,” said Tanya as she examined the sketches. “Excellent. Do you think you could write a story about the evening and publish it with the sketches?”

        “What? asked Judy, incredulous at what she’d just been asked. “Are you nuts? I thought 6-36 was suppose to be secret?”

       “It’s not such a big secret,” replied Tanya. “You believed we existed, didn’t you? The cops on the other hand don’t want to believe we exist and as long as they don’t have any real evidence, like someone who as at the party tonight deciding to rat us out or just maybe getting drunk and telling the wrong person about us, then they won't.” She paused for a moment and lit up a cigarette. “That’s where all of this would come into play. You write a story, omitting or changing the details that no-one can possibly be allowed to find out. But you make it a fucking best-selling story. Serialize it even…make sure it gets everywhere on the internet, on fetish sites, blogs, what-have you…”
  Judy began to see where Tanya was going with this. If it were published as fiction before anyone had the chance to leak the truth, by intent or error, it would simply be dismissed as a fabrication that someone had read in a magazine or online.
   
             “Then nobody would be believed,” Judy completed the sentence. 


            “But the people who want us to exist; the others like ourselves would just see it as evidence that we do exist. They’re not cops, remember? They don’t need evidence so much as faith. They would become easier for us to identify and find.”

          “Wouldn’t that make us kind of like a cult or something? You know like the Moonies or something?”


          “We are a cult, sweetie,” answered Tanya. “Just not like the Moonies or the Scientology cult or the Mormons or all the fucking nut-cases that that worship non-existent UFO’s oor whatever. But we are a cult like the Star Trek cult, or the Bogart or the Indiana Jones or Star Wars cults where people are just into it or they aren’t. Nobody forces anyone to to put a fedora and carry a bullwhip or dress like Captain Kirk at some comic book convention, but they do it anyway, of their own free will, usually at the expense of being ridiculed by others. We’re not any different in that sense. You didn’t see anybody being dragged to the noose or refuse to jump, did you?”

            “No,” answered Judy, “though Nicole...."

            “Was hesitant and shocked but in the end she did the right thing and followed the rules,” interrupted Tanya.

           “But I goaded her,” protested Judy.

           “And just as I said before, that dumb-cunt should have just ignored you but she was stupid and didn’t. She took her chances and lost, just like you took your chances and won.”  Judy had to chew on that. Everything Tanya has said was spot-on and Judy had spent years trying to find the 6-36 club. She never had any real evidence of it’s existence; just stories and rumours. But inside she had believed they were real and that belief had helped drive her desire to find them, or be found by them. 

   

          “Alright,” Judy finally said. “I’ll write about and make sure the story gets published in an adult comic book. I know who who to go to for that. I can start working on it on Monday.
   
         “Good,” replied Tanya. “Very good. Now let’s get some sleep. We have a long drive back to the city tomorrow."