In the forest, everything changed and nothing changed. A few months after becoming chief of the troop Audra was taken, cut down by a volley of arrows from ambush, just as her predecessor Sunni had been, and had died almost instantly. Erin, whose rust-red curly hair and light freckled skin announced her Irish ancestry as much as her name, took over the leadership; she hadn't been in that position a week before a situation arose requiring them to sacrifice one of their number. Newcomer Maria, a pretty girl with dark skin and long black hair, volunteered herself. She led the hunters away, and, after a long chase, she was captured without being wounded, and hanged. Following the protocols, she acquitted herself wonderfully in the process, smiling and laughing after they took her, begging the hunters for sex, and encouraging them to hang her in such a way that she'd dance on the rope for a while. She even explained to them how to do that and, after they'd fixed the rope to a tree, stepped up on the stump they'd provided for her to stand on and helped to fix the noose herself. She then instructed them to tie her hands so she could not involuntarily grab at the rope, and, as they were binding her wrists, she asked that they forego taking any other girls. They agreed, and when they did she stepped off the stump herself and kicked it away. The men kept their promise, they did not hunt anymore. Three-year survivor Dana stumbled while fleeing a hunting party, broke her leg, and had her throat slit moments later. Carolyn, who had slimmed down and toned up just as Audra had predicted, fell victim to a deadfall trap, a sharpened treetrunk on ropes that came swooping down out of the forest without warning and slammed all the way through her midsection, killing her instantly. They never saw, up close, the hunters who'd set the deadfall, leaving Melanie and the others to wonder what sort of thrill they might get from the death of a girl who'd died unseen.

Amy, the Vietnamese office worker, who had also slimmed down and shaped up as much as Carolyn had, ran into an unusual situation one afternoon. The troop was being pursued, in somewhat leisurely fashion, by a young man who was hunting alone. None of them were especially worried, even though he seemed to be taking pains to steer them along a half-hidden trail they'd traveled many times before. They were well ahead of him, and he was not taking pains to be secretive. They proceeded at a fast walk; a run was unnecessary.

In the course of their flight, they came to a small rocky stream. As they crossed it, Amy, who was right at the front of the group, stopped abruptly. The other girls passed her; she remained where she was, her right foot planted on a small flat boulder that jutted up above the surface of the water. As Melanie turned back to look at her, she was obviously trying to pull her foot up. It would not come. As the other girls turned back to her, she tried again, more vigorously. Still, her foot remained planted. At first, Melanie thought she'd caught her foot between two stones, but a quick inspection showed that that wasn't the case. Her foot looked free, standing flat on the rocky surface.

"I don't understand," she said, an edge of panic in her voice.

One of the girls knelt down near the stone. "There's some kind of goo here," she said, reaching out a fingertip to touch it.

To Melanie, that seemed like a very bad idea. "Don't," she warned. "You might get stuck too." She picked up a stick and poked at the "goo" with it. Instantly, it stuck fast. "It's a damn trap," Melanie murmured.

"I've got to get loose!" Amy cried. "Help me!" The others gathered around the flat stone; Melanie and another girl grabbed her calf and pulled, and she pulled as well. "Oh, god, the skin is tearing!" she keened. "No, no, stop, I can't run if I tear all the skin off my foot!"

The girls stopped tugging. "What can we do?" one of them asked.

"Maybe some water," Melanie suggested. She'd no sooner made the proposal when one of the other girls came running up and announced in a low harsh whisper that it was too late, the lone hunter was coming. Melanie ground her teeth. The girls scattered; having no choice, she went with them, leaving Amy stuck fast to the flat rock.

And, seconds later, the hunter came along the trail, bow in hand. Amy stood looking at him, cringing a little, as if she feared he might shoot her on sight.

"Very nice catch," he said with a smile. He walked up close to her. "Now look," he told her. "We both know I can take this bow and shoot you. Or I can get out my knife and knife you. You'd probably rather I not do that, and I really don't want to do that. So cross your wrists behind you." Wide-eyed, she obeyed; he tied her wrists with expert skill, then ran a tether back to his own belt. Then he took a vial of clear liquid from his vest pocket and poured it carefully around her foot. "Give it a minute now," he said.

She shivered. "It stings..."

"Because you tore the skin a little trying to get loose. It'll stop in a second." He watched her. "Okay. Now, carefully lift your foot clear of that rock." Experimentally, she tried to lift her foot; it came free with just a little sucking sound.

"Good," he said. He tugged gently on the tether. "Let's go. Back to my camp. It's not far."

"Are you going to kill me there?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "I'm going to kill you there."

Her shoulders slumped, but she nodded. "Can we have sex first?" she asked.

He laughed. "Yes, honey," he said. "We can have sex first." Letting the tether go slack, he put his arm around her shoulders as they walked along, almost like two lovers.

By the time Melanie and the others had crept close to the man's camp, he'd gotten his clothes off and was engaged in rather gently foreplay with her. She was either becoming aroused herself by his attentions or was acting well, but she was limited in what she could do, since her wrists were still bound. Finally the hunter took a jar of some thick substance from his pack and, using a brush that was attached to the cap, painted a delicate ring around her left ankle. He then looped the end of a rope around it and tested it; it was evidently the same glue, since the rope held fast. After gluing the other end of the rope to a tree, he untied her hands. They then went back to their foreplay, and now she was as active as he was. After she'd sucked his cock for a while he drew her onto his lap, impaling her on his erection. He continued to be very gentle and affectionate with her; but at last, while she was still astride him, he put his hands around her throat.

"I'm going to do it now, honey," he said.

She laid her hands lightly on his forearms. "You're going to strangle me?"

"Yes."

She shivered. "Oh.... I like that idea... I do like that..."

He stared. "You do?"

"Yes... but..."

"But?"

She pulled at his hands. "If I have to die," she declared, "I want it this way. But don't use your bare hands. Don't you have something like a scarf or a big ribbon?"

He stared blankly. "No. I don't."

"I do. Back at my hut in the village. A big wide red nylon ribbon. It would be perfect."

He smiled. She was sitting still on him now, his cock still inside her. "Perfect except that it's in your village, not here."

She grinned, kissed him, and squirmed her hips. "We could go get it," she proposed.

He laughed. "You're just trying to get away from me!" He reached for her neck again.

Ignoring his hands now, she gave him a look of pure innocence. "How? You can hunt in the village right now. Besides, you have my ankle attached to this rope." She squirmed on his lap vigorously. "Think about it... that wide ribbon, tight around my throat... soft, not rough like your hands... oooh... I won't be able to breathe, my lips will turn blue... you'll be feeling my body jerking... oooh... oh, I want it like that..."

His hands dropped away. Obviously excited by her words, he lifted his hips and her with them and ejaculated into her. She collapsed onto him, either actually having an orgasm herself or faking one very effectively. For a while, they just clung to each other.

"Okay," he said to her at last. "Your way. Let's go to your village, let's get that ribbon." He used his solvent to remove the rope from her ankle and tied it firmly around her waist instead. Then they were off, headed toward the village. Unable to follow them--the village was much too exposed during the day--Melanie and the others waited outside, along the trail the hunter had taken.

They did not know, until later that evening, what had happened inside. Amy had used every feminine wile she had to delay; she claimed she could not find the ribbon at first, and only when he became impatient did she actually produce it. The afternoon slid to a close, and at last the siren sounded. The girls ran in see Amy standing there, the ribbon in her hand, and the hunter staring at her in confusion as his ring beeped persistently, ordering him out of the village.

Calmly, Amy untied the rope around her waist. Then she grinned at him and waved goodbye.

He laughed uproariously. "Beautifully done, honey. Just beautiful." He gathered up his rope as the night rangers came to take him out, if necessary. "Maybe I'll see you tomorrow." Then he left, and there was a little celebration in honor of Amy's success in tricking him.

The next day, for reasons she declined to explain, Amy wore the ribbon in her hair when they left the village. Almost immediately, the girls picked up signs that the hunter who'd caught her the previous day was working the same general area. Curious, they went down to the stream where he'd set the glue trap.

It was obvious even as they approached; the exact same rock had been smeared with the glue, but this time it had been laid on much more heavily. As if that were not enough, there was a little stick standing upright in the ground nearby. Attached to it was a handwritten note. "For the most beautiful and sexiest girl in the world, ONLY," the note read. Beneath the letters, an arrow pointed to the rock.

All the girls laughed as they gathered around the rock. "I wonder," Melanie said, "which one of us he could possibly be talking about!"

Shaking her head and smiling, Amy looked down at it. "That," she said, "is just plain sweet." She glanced at Melanie. "He is a sweet guy. Isn't that weird?"

"We've met others," Melanie said, "who've been sweet guys. They've killed us anyway."

"Yes, I know," she mused. She had a very odd expression on her face. "But this one--did you see, Melanie, how gentle he was with me? Even when he had his hands around my neck to strangle me, he was so gentle..." She had a misty, faraway look in her eyes. "I didn't know I could convince him to go for the ribbon. I thought he was going to kill me right then. Melanie, I've never felt so totally alive in my life as I did when I thought I was looking at the last few minutes of it..."

Melanie gave her a sideways look. She started to say something else, but before she could say a word, Amy suddenly stepped forward and planted her foot firmly in the glue.

"What did you do that for?" one of the other girls cried, staring.

The Vietnamese girl shrugged. "It was for me. The sign says so."

Erin rolled her eyes. "We are probably not," she said, "going to able to get you loose before he comes back to check on it."

"No," Amy said. She tugged experimentally; her foot was stuck fast. "I expect not."

In spite of that, the girls made efforts; water did not help, her foot remained fixed to the stone. Not long after, a lookout informed them that the hunter was coming, and they were, as before, forced to scatter, leaving Amy where she was. As the hunter approached she stood posed, facing away from him. Her left hand was on her hip and her right was slightly extended. From her fingertips dangled the wide red ribbon.

He stopped when he saw her. After gazing at her for a few seconds, he walked around in front of her and, without a word, folded her into his arms and kissed her passionately. When he broke the kiss, he used the solvent to free her foot. Then his arms around her shoulder again, he started walking her back to his camp; he did not tie her hands, nor did he use a tether.

Just as before, by the time the girls had crept close--there was talk of an attempted rescue, but Melanie was not at all sure Amy had any desire to be rescued--they were having sex again, the hunter sitting on the ground with his legs crossed and Amy sitting on his lap. After another passionate kiss, she carefully wound the ribbon around her own throat, crossing it over in front. Then she offered him the ends. He took them and, very slowly and very gently, started pulling it tight.

She frowned momentarily, but then her features relaxed again and she moved on him slowly, gazing into his eyes. Gradually, her face started to darken. The hunter pulled the ribbon tighter; it was indenting the skin of her neck deeply, and her chest heaved as she struggled for air. Twice her hands came up as if she was going to grab his arms, but both times she put them down again. After a couple more minutes, her body began to jerk, and now she did grab his arms. She tried to stop him from pulling on the ends, but her efforts came to nothing. He kept pulling as he moved his own hips, thrusting up into her hard. The timing was perfect; just as he was erupting into her, her head fell forward limply.

Quickly--and to Melanie's amazement--he unwound the ribbon. She was not conscious, but her chest heaved mightily as she drew in air. He lifted her body off his lap, carefully laid her down on the blanket he'd spread on the ground, then laid down beside her.

Then he seemed to fall asleep. There was a discussion among the girls about carrying off Amy's unconscious form, but she and the hunter were lying together; they decided it probably wasn't possible to carry her off without waking him. Time passed; the girls watching became restless. They were all hoping against hope that Amy would awaken before the hunter did. And, at last, she coughed, stirred, and finally sat up.

The hunter's eyes opened as well. "You can go if you want to," he told her.

To the surprise of all of them--except for Melanie, who had begun to suspect something like this--the Vietnamese girl shook her head. She leaned over and kissed him, then sat up and began stroking his body softly. He touched her cheek and she rolled her head into the touch. After a few minutes their touching became more passionate, and soon enough his cock started to rise again. When it did, Amy turned herself around and sucked it for quite a long time. Finally releasing it, she came up on her knees and looked down at him; he sat up, and she straddled his lap and again sank down on his erection. After just a few seconds, she picked up the ribbon, wound it around her bruised throat, and allowed the ends to drape down over her chest.

"Tie my hands this time," she asked him, her voice soft. "Last time I tried to stop you. I couldn't help it. I don't want to do that."

The hunter nodded. He reached for his pack, took out a roll of rope, and cut a short length. Still moving on him gently, she extended her hands, her wrists crossed over; he tied her tightly. Then he picked up the free ends of the ribbon.

"This time," she whispered, "I don't want to wake up."

His eyes searched hers. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. None of us survive long here. I can't hope for better than this. I just want to ask one thing of you."

"What's that?"

"Don't hunt anymore. Don't take any of my friends."

"You have my word."

She leaned forward, put her arms over his head so that her tied wrists were behind him, and kissed him. He pulled the ribbon tight; she smiled a little and nodded. Thrusting up hard into her, he pulled it tighter, forcing it into the skin of her neck and shutting off her air completely. For a few minutes, she didn't react at all, she just kept moving her hips and gazing at his face. Her own face was darkening, though, and her lips and eyelids were swelling. As before, her chest started to heave; she began to pull back with her arms, but she kept her hands behind his head. Her fingers extended and clenched, alternately. She kept trying to move on his cock, but her movements were becoming uncoordinated. Another couple of minutes passed; the hunter kept the ribbon unrelentingly tight. Her head sagged forward, her forehead touching his, and her hips stopped moving. Thrusting up into her now, the hunter kept the ribbon as tight as ever. Her legs and fingers started to twitch, and the heaves of her chest were now periodic. With a sudden gush of fluid her bladder released, spilling urine over the hunter's lap. Still the hunter kept the ribbon tight, even though her whole body was sagging against him now. Her hands twitched a final time, then hung limp over his shoulders.

Still he kept the ribbon tight. "You won't wake up, honey," he said softly. "I'll make sure, I'll make absolutely sure..."

Several minutes passed. As far as Melanie could tell, the hunter did not climax; after a while he just stopped. He let go of the ends of the ribbon, but did not unwind it from her neck. As gentle as ever, he laid her body down on the blanket. This time, her chest remained perfectly still. Again, just as before, he laid down beside her; the whole scene looked exactly as it had a hour earlier.

Except that now, Amy would not be sitting up--she was quite dead. The other girls, saddened but knowing that this had been a choice the Vietnamese girl had made herself, melted away into the safety of the forest. They did not see the hunter or his traps again.

But life went on. New girls continued to come in; some survived, some died. During this time they started getting a few more girls who, like Pi, had sold themselves to the Preserve. Most of these were, however, girls who'd been diagnosed by doctors as having an incurable disease--and, on the average, these were not long-term survivors. Having been given only a year or two to live in any event, the ten-year goal was meaningless to them. One who did survive for a while--a doe-eyed girl with light brown hair whose name was Susan--lasted well beyond the time limit the doctors had given her and never showed any signs of ill health. Melanie wondered about it when Susan told her one night that it had been the doctors themselves who'd informed her of the possibility of selling herself to the Preserve, and, to provide money for her husband and infant son, she'd done so. Melanie became downright suspicious when she learned that these were government doctors working through a free clinic. She discussed her suspicions with Erin and the others, but they felt not even the government would stoop that low.

Months passed; Susan stayed healthy, and, as long as she did, Melanie's suspicions increased. But there came a day when the troop was being hard-pressed by a group of four strong and experienced hunters, and Erin reluctantly accepted Susan's offer to lead them away from the main group. She did, and successfully, but she wasn't able to escape the hunters herself. Melanie and the others didn't see it happen, but, when Susan didn't appear at the rendezvous point, they doubled back to the hunters' camp. They were there, watching, when the hunters returned; Susan was with them, walking under her own power but limping badly and being helped along by the hunters at times. There wasn't a way she could have run away; her right leg and foot were covered in blood from mid-calf down, and there was a visible arrow wound in her calf. What had happened was obvious enough.

"So what do you have in mind for me?" Susan asked as they walked to the center of the camp. Her voice was flat; she did not seem either fearful or excited, but she was staring at a pile of logs as she spoke.

"Something we read about in a book a long time ago," one of the hunters, a large man with an earring in his left ear, told her. He gestured toward the logs; each one was about four inches in diameter, and some of them had already been nailed or lashed together. "We were building this," he explained to Susan. "We need to finish it. It's going to be a special little table; when it's done you're going to lie on it." He looked her up and down. "I know you can't run," he observed. "If you give me your word you won't try to escape, we won't tie you up."

Susan nodded. "You have my word," she answered immediately. Wincing from the pain in her leg, she bent down and picked up one of the cut logs. "I do want to ask," she said, studying it, "what you plan to do once this is done."

Silent for a moment, the men looked at each other questioningly. Two of them shrugged. The first turned back to Susan. "Well... I suppose you know we plan to kill you..."

She nodded. "Of course," she answered. "I was asking how."

The same scene repeated itself, the men looking at each other and shrugging. "You really wanna know?" the man with the earring asked.

"Yes, I do."

"Well, uh, we plan to fuck you some and..."

"That isn't surprising."

"Yeah, and, then, uhm, we thought we'd cut off your head."

"Cut off my head?"

"Well, yeah."

Susan nodded. "That's fine." She looked down at the pile of logs again. "I'll help you build the table," she offered. "And I'll be glad to suck your cocks, too... or whatever else you might want me to do sexually... if there is anything."

The man with the earring stared. "Are you kidding?"

"No."

"Why?"

Now she shrugged. "Because I imagine being beheaded isn't all that bad a way to die. When I saw all this wood I thought you planned to burn me. Call it relief, call it gratitude, whatever." She smiled wanly. "And, for me, helping build the table is better than sitting around waiting for things to start."

"Whatever, we'll take it," the spokesman, the man with the earring, said hurriedly. "Having you cooperate is going to make this a hell of a lot better for all of us."

"Well, let's get to building your table," Susan suggested. "I'd imagine I can help best by tying the lashings. I'm not going to be able to lift much weight with this leg."

The men set to work; true to her word, Susan worked with them, tying the lashings around the logs where they'd nocked them with their hatchets. Gradually, the table--if it could be called that--took shape. The men had designed it with a level top of split logs, four legs, and two slanted beams at one end which were angled strongly outward.

"I'd imagine this is going to be awfully splintery to lie on," Susan remarked as it neared completion.

One of the hunters grinned at her. "We got a thick soft mat to throw over it," he told her. "See, we were thinking of your comfort."

She grinned back, although by now she was looking nervous. "Well, that's nice of you," she replied. "I do want to be comfortable while I'm having my head cut off."

"You're something," the man remarked. "What're you in for, anyway?"

"I wasn't convicted of a crime," she told him. "I'm a volunteer. I sold myself to the Preserve."

"What!?"

She shrugged and pulled the cord she was working on tight. "I went to see the doctor," she said, "because I was having these persistent headaches. They examined me, they did all kinds of tests, and they told me the headaches were being caused by a brain tumor. Inoperable, and fatal; they said I had maybe nine months or a year to live. I have a husband and a baby son. I sold myself, they got the money." She looked sad. "Though my husband didn't want me to do it, it seemed like the best thing to me... they get the money instead of us paying out money for my illness... anyway, I came here expecting to die within a year even if I didn't get taken by a hunter. I'd reconciled myself to dying very soon, one way or another." She made a helpless gesture. "But now, I've been here eighteen months. I'm not dead. I'm not sick. I don't even have the headaches any more. I don't know, I imagine it's in remission or something."

"That's amazing," the man said. "I didn't know there were any volunteers in here, I thought all the girls were condemned criminals."

"Most are," Susan agreed. "Although just about all of them say they're innocent, and I believe them. But there are a few volunteers. Some of them are like me, they have death warrants from their doctors. Some want the money for their families. Some are just depressed and this is a fancy way to commit suicide. It doesn't matter. Once you're here you're here for ten years, and nobody makes it through ten years."

"So you didn't really mind being taken--even though you knew you'd be killed."

She shook her head. "I tried to escape," she reminded him. "I was trying to survive. I didn't succeed. Once I took that arrow in my leg I knew I was as good as dead. So what can I do? Scream and fight and beg and have you guys drag me in here and kill me anyway? There's no point to that, is there?"

"I guess not," the man agreed.

He stopped speaking; by then the table was almost done. One of the other hunters came out with, as promised, a thick and heavy mat. He test-fitted it, some adjustments were made, and, after a short while, the table was finished.

"You wanna climb on and test it out, honey?" the man with the earring asked.

"Sure," Susan said amiably. "On my belly?"

"No, hon, on your back, okay?"

She looked a little surprised by this, but she didn't argue; she climbed onto the table and stretched out, her hands behind her head. "You going to tie me?" she asked.

"Yeah. For what we got in mind we're gonna have to."

Her eyebrows rose. "I thought you were going to cut off my head..."

"We are. We're not going to chop it off, though. We're going to slice it off. We plan for it to take a few minutes. You might be ready to die and you might be willing to cooperate but nobody expects you to lay still while we're cutting off your head."

"Oh." She pursed her lips. "Not getting away quite as easy as I thought... but you're calling the shots. How do you want me?" The men, grinning and obviously getting eager, directed her to extend her legs along the wide-spread beams that angled down and out; she complied.

"Not quite right," the man said, standing close to her head. "It's a little high at this end."

"Want me to get off?"

"Yeah. We want this perfect."

With an assist from the man with the earring, Susan climbed off; the men removed the pad and set to work with a camp saw, trimming down the legs at the head end. While they worked, Susan leaned against the man with the earring; he put his arm around her waist, helping to support her.

"The leg really hurting you?" he asked.

"Yeah. Throbbing. It's hard to stand on." She gave him a wry smile. "Guess I don't have to worry about it much longer though, huh?"

"No," he answered, shortly and softly. He turned to her, brushed her hair back away from her neck and began examining it, running his fingers over it.

"Are you going to be the one doing the slicing?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," he told her. "And I don't want to make any mistakes, I want to do this exactly right." He ran his fingers across again. "You have an exquisite neck..."

She smiled. "Thank you," she murmured, tipping her head to the side and stretching her neck, giving him full access to it. She started to say something else, but by that time the other men had finished making the adjustments on the table. Without even being asked, Susan limped back to it, climbed up on it, and stretched herself out. Also without prompting, she aligned her legs with the beams at the bottom.

"Looks perfect," one of the men said. They tied her ankles to them, leaving her with her legs widely spread. They then drew her arms down and tied her wrists to the vertical legs at the other end.

"Let's see how this works now," the man with the earring said. He unzipped his pants and, with some effort, extracted his totally-hard cock.

"Good idea," Susan said, smiling at him as he stood close to her shoulder. Turning her head, she took his cock into her mouth and began sucking it. As she sucked him, he reached down to caress her throat and neck, more sensually than before. She looked up at him, then let go of his cock momentarily. "Thinking about how it'll feel when you cut into it?" she asked.

He looked embarrassed. "Uh... yeah..."

"It's okay. You should, it's what you're here for. Think about it, imagine it. I am, I'm thinking about how it'll feel. Get everything you can out of it." She took his cock back in her mouth and kept looking up at him as he stroked her neck gently. One of the other men stepped between her legs, took out his cock, and pushed it slowly inside her; she was far from dry. She moaned around the cock in her mouth. The other men surrounded her, touching her breasts, her face, and especially her neck. After a short while the men changed places, and Susan had a different cock inside her and a different one in her mouth. Twice her body stiffened in apparent orgasm.

After each man had had his cock inside her and in her mouth for a while, the man with the earring appeared beside her with a knife in his hand, a slender single-edged blade. "Time to get started," he said.

Susan looked up at him with calm eyes. "Yes," she agreed. "I imagine it is." Another of the men pushed his cock back in her vagina; the man with the earring stood behind her head.

"Turn your head to the right, please," he said.

"Okay.." she said, doing as he asked. He then held her head by her hair and laid the edge of the knife against the side of her neck, almost behind her head but not quite. He held it there a second, then began cutting into her skin, using a short back-and-forth motion. The keen edge sliced cleanly into her smooth flesh. Susan closed her eyes tightly and frowned deeply; she trembled, but she made no sound. Blood began to spill onto the pad she was lying on. Handling the knife as a surgeon might, the man cut deep into the left rear side of her neck, well down into the muscles, staying behind the carotid arteries and jugular veins. When the edge struck bone, she winced, jerked sharply, and gave a little cry.

"Now turn your head to the left," the man told her.

"I... I can't, it won't move... really, I'm trying, I can't move my head at all..."

"Oh, yeah, of course you can't, I just cut the muscles on that side. Sorry." He laid the knife down, held her head with both hands, and turned it manually to the other side. Picking the knife up again, he laid the edge against the right side of her neck and cut it just as deeply, in the same place and in the same manner. Susan moaned and wriggled a little with the pain. More blood came spilling out, and the cut expanded, showing edges that looked like rare steaks. The man then lifted her head and connected the two cuts with a deep slice across the back of her neck, provoking another cry from her when his knife scraped against the bones in her neck. He then laid her head down carefully, looking down into her open eyes; blood pooled on the mat behind her head and ran off onto the ground.

She gazed back at him. "Did you enjoy that?" she asked. Her eyes were very bright.

"Yes," he grunted. "I did."

"Good."

While the man with the knife had been cutting her neck, the man fucking her had pulled out, and another had taken his place. "Awright," the man with the earring said. "We're right at it here, I've cut down to the bone. Wes, you won the game, get your dick in her." The man currently fucking her pulled out reluctantly and another, "Wes," took his place. "Now," the man with the earring said, looking down at Susan's face as he spoke, "I'm gonna try to make this last long enough for all three of them to fuck you, but I dunno if I can. I'm gonna work this blade in between two of your neck bones and cut your spinal cord. It's probably gonna hurt a lot."

Susan swallowed hard. "I imagine it is..." she agreed.

"It's supposed to be great for the guy fucking you, though. We read it in a book."

"I hope you get everything you want out of it," she said, sounding sincere. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"You've already done it all, honey," he told her. He raised her head, located the edge of the knife against her exposed spine, and moved it around until he judged it correctly positioned. Then he laid her head down again and put his other hand on her forehead. "Here we go," he warned.

Susan watched his eyes. "I'm ready," she said.

Then he started working the knife back and forth, pulling upward on it as he did, forcing it in between two of her cervical vertebrae.

Susan's eyes flew wide open, almost starting out of her head. She screamed, loudly but very briefly. Her body went rigid and began to quiver; the muscles in her bound arms and legs were taut to the bursting point. She gasped for breath, her chest heaving.

"Oh, yeah, oh shit man..." Wes muttered. "Oh, damn, yeah..."

The man with the earring went on cutting her. "Yeah man, I got it in a ways now... I gotta be cutting into her spinal cord, right now..." He continued to move the knife back and forth, very slowly and carefully now.

Susan's body quivered even more violently; her face was a mask of agony. Her fingers opened and closed spastically as the knife cut deeper into her spinal cord. Her toes were curled sharply back and her mouth was open as if she were trying to scream, but no sound was coming out. The man fucking her erupted into an orgasm; almost before he was through another of the men jerked him backwards and took his place. While this transfer was taking place, the man with the earring stopped cutting, but as soon as the second man had his cock buried in her cunt he started again, the knife started moving back and forth delicately, surgically.

"God damn, it's... just like the book said," the man fucking her moaned. "Her pussy's moving around, squeezing my cock... damn this is great...!" Already stimulated by watching, he didn't last long, and, in another quick transfer, the third hunter took his place. Again, the man with the earring, who had once again stopped, resuming his cutting motion.

Then, abruptly, Susan's tense body suddenly relaxed. Her arms and legs jerked; her chest was still, she was not breathing. Her eyes darted around rapidly.

"I'm past the bones," the man with the earring announced. "Her spine's been cut though." He raised her head, put the point of the knife against the side of her neck in front of his previous cuts, and, with a hard thrust, ran it deep into the side of her neck. Two more hard thrusts brought the point out the other side. Her mouth opened wider and her tongue extended a little; the man cut downwards, using two slices to connect this puncture with his previous cuts. Then he turned the knife over and began cutting upwards, using long hard strokes. Blood squirted out as the big arteries and veins in her neck were severed, and there was a loud crunch as the blade passed through her windpipe. Working much more quickly now, the man sliced up through her throat, and her head came free in his hand. Her body twitched wildly as blood geysered from the stump of her neck, soaking the man who'd decapitated her.

Dropping the knife, he looked down at her head--and she, incredibly, looked back up at him. He then pushed her lips against his hard cock, and it appeared that she opened her mouth voluntarily to take it in. After jerking her head back and forth on his erection a few times, he shot his semen into her mouth--and it ran back out of the open end of her esophagus, mixing with the blood still dripping from her severed neck. When he looked at her head again, her eyes had glazed, they stared sightlessly into the unknown. Dejected--pulling off a rescue in this case made no sense, given the severity of Susan's leg wound--Melanie and the others slipped away through the forest. It didn't seem likely that the hunters would be out again soon, but in the Preserve, taking chances always had the potential to prove fatal.