Mary Bennett loved her school, Oldham College. The College boasted extensive grounds and a great location on the edge of megalopolis joining the tranquility and wide-open spaces of country-life with the excitement and opportunity of the big city. She loved her sorority, Eta Kappa NU. She loved her friends at school, especially Emma, Amanda, and Michelle, and the way in which they all pulled together despite their diverse backgrounds. Some came right from the nearby City and others from the Coast, all of the way across the country. Unlike their rivals at Tau Sigma Episilon where wealth was an obligatory prerequisite for membership, some EKN's came from families of more limited means. Since the Revolution, membership in a prominent national sorority was an important career step. Sororities provided housing after college and offered preferential hiring in leading firms where senior alumnae sought to advance the careers of their juniors.

However, her first few days at college became a recurring nightmare. Mary never forgot the campus-wide Sorority Rush party. All the new students were there. A great mob of them clustered around the TSE table, just like a gang of silly jacks crowded around a feeding trough.

The rushees were quite different from jacks, of course. They were all women while jacks are all male. Little time is devoted to a jack's coiffure. His facial and head hair is clipped no more than once a week, if that, in a perfunctory attempt at neatness. Less attention is devoted to couture. Gang jacks are rarely clothed as they are somehow easier to manage naked. Their odor reflects their well known short-comings in the area of hygiene.

On the other hand, the prospective pledges had devoted hours to their hair and makeup prior to the party. They wore an assortment of t-shirts and shorts or colorful sun dresses. While no one was naked, the young women did not hesitate to reveal a fair bit of bare skin, a slender shoulder, a toned tummy, or a sleek pair of legs, providing everything was done tastefully. The young women smelled of various pleasant floral and herbals scents. Though veiled by a thin veneer of politeness and skipping skillfully to a dance called by the rules of proper etiquette, they shared a primal hunger with the poor creatures. Where the jacks hunger simply for food, the young women sought social status and popularity with equal desperation.

As down to earth as she was, Mary, herself, was more than a bit proud of her slim form and good tan. She certainly worked out rigorously and regularly to maintain her shape. She obtained her tan in the pursuit of her outdoor activities with no special effort.

Violet was the clearly the person in charge at Tau Sigma Episilon, the most prestigious sorority on campus . She sat over the back of the seat of her stylish two-seater Puma convertible, strategically parked behind the TSE table. Holding court with her sisters, she exuded clouds of sympathy for those who weren't quite as lovely or as wealthy as she and her sisters. Olivia, Violet's favorite among the first year members and acknowledged successor to her mentor's prerogatives, sat beside her in the seat of honor. Olivia's hair was as naturally blond as her eyes were blue. The TSE sister were uniformly tall and slender, the same as if cut out with the same cookie cutter. Violet and Olivia were even more slender and taller than most. All frequently wore the same costume, namely a sorority t-shirt over stone washed jeans with stylish manskin patches over the knees and seat. Manskin was expensive and highly sought after. Few owned more than a manskin belt. Their patched jeans were the height of chic. The women were sure to be noticed anywhere they went and they basked in the attention and adulation that they received.

Violet and Mary had really seemed to hit it off at the start. Violet rarely spoke with any of the rushees; it was hardly worth her time. Somehow Mary had captured her fancy instantly - or at least until she learned that Mary had no car on campus - only a second hand bicycle. When she learned of the middle class suburban district where Mary went to high school, Mary suddenly became both invisible and inaudible. Mary went on talking of her hopes and dreams for a full minute before she sensed that Violet was not even listening. Others had noticed her abandonment immediately and were laughing at Mary behind their carefully-manicured hands.

When the women laughed, the music of their laughter was like delicate tinkle of the highest quality crystal - at least to their ears. The sisters from TSE, even more than the others, gloried in their authority that night. As the most prestigious sorority on campus, they had the power to lift up and to cast down. Despite their serene faces and empathetic words, they relished its exercise. In the eyes of the potential pledges, they were veritably deities come down to earth. Once Mary had failed their leader's interrogation, the others pointedly ignored her. To Mary that night, their laughter transmogrified into the hideous sound of cackling witches. Her face became red and her ears burned even to recall that night years later.

Urgently, Mary wished that she were somewhere else, anywhere else. She was overwhelmed by a feeling that everyone had watched her and witnessed her humiliation. She felt empty. Her body was covered by a cold sweat and she worried that her deodorant had somehow failed or that she had applied it incorrectly. She found that she could no longer even speak, let alone speak coherently.

With a prayer, she closed her eyes for a second and when she opened her eyes she found that she was in exactly the same place that she had been when she had closed them - despite her fondest wishes and fervent prayers. Mary tried to stay and keep up a brave face but finally she gave up and simply fled. She hated them all. She hated their pretence and phoniness at the moment, but she would not let them taint her life.

After Mary joined Eta Kappa Nu, her life became better. It was just the right choice for Mary and her life took a turn for the better. Her life was then too full to allow her to carry an active grudge for long and grudges were contrary to her forgiving nature. Her acute, overwhelming pain slowly faded into a dull, chronic ache. She had had no vast ambition at the beginning. She attended class like everyone else and enjoyed the social whirl on campus like everyone else. Things just followed, step by step, starting in her sophomore year.

Mary had always wanted every aspect of her life to be harmonious and beautiful, she had explained to the thirty young women in the sorority when she first made her modest proposal. She had grown up comfortably in a family of no more than average means. Grinding poverty was very rare since the Revolution. However, she had learned the value of frugality at a young age, unlike some of her friends. As she went on in life, 'waste not want not' had transformed from an ethic born of near necessity to an even more compelling aesthetic standard. In her mind, the word "waste" was simply ugly like the words "fritter" and "squander" themselves.

One trip through the Eta Kappa Nu's kitchen or the briefest glance at the sorority's overflowing dumpster hidden discretely behind the high wooden fence in back showed the egregious waste. Each of the sororities and residence halls similarly discarded obscenely huge quantities of food daily.

Some things simply had not changed since the Revolution. Many women worried about their appearance and would not accept the shape that nature had inconsiderately ordained for them. Some followed one crazy weight loss plan one week, and a completely different, but equally bizarre plan the next week. Many women had rigid and incompatible food preferences and nothing at all would change them. The housekeeper was at her wits' end and beyond. She had simply stopped thinking about it all together. The discarded food could well feed another thirty women and still leave a fair amount to spare.

"It's food enough for a dozen hungry jacks," Emma exclaimed, thinking to validate Mary's point by an obvious exaggeration. Everyone knew how much males or jacks, as they had come to be called, ate. The expression "hungry jack" was a patent redundancy, a cliché, like "avaricious lawyer" or "lying politician."

"You're right, you know," Amanda contributed. "I've seen the jacks eat on our ranch. They'll eat almost any amount of anything at all!"

Only strict limitation of the male population had guaranteed the gains of the Revolution. The natural birth rate threatened recovery of male numbers. An annual Hunt provided a constant check. A male had to survive three successive years in order to win his citizenship and the adult male population was held to no more than 10% of the total.

New uses for males and an eagerness to pursue them, led to an unpredicted male shortage. Males still provided unskilled labor for strenuous, unpleasant, or dangerous tasks. Some women maintained their traditional sexual interests, though now with careful provision for the female physiology and for control of male strength and alacrity for violence. For males, an orgasm was the culmination of sexual activity while for women, an initial orgasm was only the first of a possible series

The Hunt had whetted an appetite for male skins and meat. Every other creature, wild or domestic, had its vigorous advocates. Many were all too embarrassed by the unpleasant details of the brutal slaughter of trusting, harmless domestic animals. The grace and beauty of wild creatures won them many friends and defenders. Males or jacks as they came to be called, evoked little such sympathy. Some refused to eat jacques, the flesh of males as beef is the flesh of cattle, or wear garments of manskin. Their decision remained a largely personal, individual choice and not the focus for any sort of major political movement. However, a small number of radicals was even more extreme but very few indeed wanted a return to the days of the Patriarchy. Many more prized the novelty and the cachet. Some relished the bitter irony after millennia of male oppression and some just enjoyed the taste.

Nature abhors a vacuum and over time, the percentage of male births increased in order to redress that imbalance and passed 65%. Homes were set up where jacks were kept and reared when their care became too burdensome for their mothers and grannies despite the government subsidies. These came to be called "ranches." Ranch-reared jacks were not eligible for the Hunt and were slaughtered for their meat and skins like other domestic animals. The ranches could assure health, weight gain, and cleanliness, but often could not spare the individual attention to help each individual realize his full potential and to transform the ordinary into the truly extra-ordinary.

"That's it, exactly!" The idea crystallized first in Mary's mind. "Why don't we keep a few jacks here," she proposed, stopping for a moment to let her words sink in. We never had enough room at home. We can set up a pen in the basement. Our alumnae can donate the jacks. We'll feed them our excess food - they eat just about anything - exercise them, and then market them after a year or so. We can split both the subsidy and the profits with our donors."

"We kept jacks at home," Michelle offered. "Mom enjoyed the extra income. They're a bother sometimes, but they can be kind of cute and useful too."

That's how it all began, Mary reminisced. A room was set up in the basement with pallets for sleeping so that the jack's needn't sleep on the cold concrete. Squatter toilets were installed. Exercise machines were set up in a second room with electronic monitoring so that a half dozen jack might be strapped in and put through a graduated series of exercises at a time with minimal supervision. A third room served as a work area where jacks might be washed, groomed, and so on.

The College administration had been uncertain at first. While several of the sororities kept houseboys, for example TSE, livestock was something different. The Meat Science Department kept jacks on the Oldham College Station out in the country. However, ranch-reared jacks on campus were a different matter. Would they pose a threat to peoples' safety?

Violet and TSE protested vigorously. EKN might very well want to turn their House into a barn - they were all sows anyway - but jacks were noisy, dirty, and an ongoing threat to public order on campus. Women might not feel secure in their own homes or on their own streets night or day. However, Mary used all of her unexpectedly discovered persuasive powers to sway an audience just a little tired of Violet and TSE and won a temporary approval.

Jacks might be obtained from two sources. Some males were reared on ranches from early childhood. Some males were reared by their birth-families or swapped among friends then signed over for the government bonus rather than allowed to participate in the Hunt.

Their very first jack was a blond haired, blue-eyed, mild mannered ranch-reared youth who arrived at 60 kg, already as bigger than most of the sisters. The women gave him a pet name, "Sky" because of his sky-blue eyes. His eyes were as blue as Violet's, come to think. Many of the women had never been around a mature male and they were fascinated by his male apparatus.

He liked the name "Sky," he told them. The women listened much amused, because no one had really given much thought to what he might or might not like. Back on the ranch, he really hadn't a name of his own. He was usually called "Twenty-three" after the last two digits of the registration number tattooed on his left ear, on the rare occasion when someone addressed him individually. He was called "Six Twenty-three" on the even rarer occasion when differentiating him from "Eight Twenty-three," another jack in his gang, was of particular importance. He had a vague memory of another name, but he didn't know exactly what it might have been.

He didn't really remember when he himself had come to the ranch. If he had been like the others who came later, he must have arrived when he was small and he had spent a long time with the other joeys in what he had heard called the Crèche. The snow would melt and things become green and growing, then yellow and wither in turn. Daylight would become shorter and the air would become chill. Then the cold and snow would come and days begin to wax longer again. Eventually the snow would melt and green return. In the time of the chill, he and his gang were moved to the ranch proper and put to work. He broke up the soil with a hoe, then planted the seeds and weeded the rows of seedlings. Sometimes he worked in the kitchen or in the laundry where the attendants' clothes were washed. He, a jack, of course, was naked, he had always been naked, and he didn't really think anything of it. The work wasn't too difficult and there was always plenty of food. Boredom was the greatest burden and his chores were actually a diversion. He ate and grew as expected and soon was larger than any of his attendants.

The gangs were strictly segregated by age and he had had nothing to do with the older or younger gangs. He only saw them in the distance and noted that over time, he and the others in his gang went from being the smallest jacks on the ranch to being somewhere in the middle. Still later, they were among the largest.

Last year, he had noticed that he and his mates were the second largest jacks on the ranch. Rarely, an individual jack arrived, all by himself. These were kept segregated and not assigned to their age group. They rarely stayed long.

One morning, he noticed that the only group of jacks older than his was suddenly missing. Several days later, a new gang of younger joeys arrived. Several of the others had noticed also, but none had an explanation. An attendant told him only that the others had gone on to a better place and his time too would come. He wondered what that place might be like.

From the moment of his arrival at EKN, he knew that they had been exactly right. This was a certainly a better place. He helped in the kitchen, in the yard, or in the garage or anywhere else he was needed without complaint. He seemed to have a real knack with the hedge of roses that grew by the fence. When the newer jacks arrived, he even helped whenever extra strength was required.

Amanda thought that Sky must be unusually bright. Michelle just laughed. Sky was not an exception. Jacks can be trained, she insisted. She was quite pleased with her success, certainly, but cautioned them that she had had only to train one jack at a time.

Sky had never been in such close contact with people - the women - as opposed to his gang. The attendants at the ranch had never had much to do with him or any of them. He had new feelings now that he had never before had. He was terrified that he might do something wrong and offend someone. Then, they might just send him back to the ranch.

More jacks arrived at Eta Kappa Nu and soon the house was at capacity. As each arrived, he was promptly registered weighed, and fitted with an electronic collar. Michelle trained them just like she and her mother had trained their jacks to help around the house with kitchen and yard work. Amanda, having had experience only on a ranch was amazed at what a jack might be taught to do with a bit of individual instruction. Their housekeeper and their gardener were delighted to have such uncomplaining and inexpensive help. The women had whined endlessly even about their light chore schedule. The sorority grounds had never looked better. The jacks could be taught to wash cars too. With plentiful food and a vigorous exercise program, Sky and the others had built muscle rather than flab.

The jacks really were cute and even endearing in their own sort of way. Mary was worried whether she and the others would really be able to follow through with their plan. Buying sterile cellophane-wrapped packages of meat at the market was one thing. Tending daily to a living, breathing creature who seemed to return your kindness and then sending him for slaughter was another thing altogether. Hunters never had this sort of long-drawn-out personal contact with their quarry.

Amanda and Michelle laughed at the others' sentimentality. Amanda would agree that the jack's antics were entertaining at times or even enduring, but she had never seen a jack as anything other than a product. She told them that once they saw the price that the jacks brought at market, they'd come to appreciate them in another way altogether.

Michelle had been given her first jack the summer of her 14th year. She had tended him, exercised him, and groomed him. The teacher in school had told her that jacks weren't fully human, despite appearances. She had learned that thorough scientific studies showed that jacks really didn't feel pain like real people as history bore full witness time and again. In the fall, she showed him and placed highly in her age class after a sleepless night of nervous anticipation. Still, she had cried when she turned him over to the workers at the processing plant. Sometimes, still she remembered the befuddled look on his face at the end and shook her head over her girlish silliness. You always remember your first.

When Mary found Emma fucking Sky by the side of pool, she groaned aloud. Emma's bikini bottoms lay draped over a lounge chair. Emma, who rode astride Sky's hips with her back to his face, looked up and saw Mary and Amanda. Chagrined to be discovered, but not about to give up what she had started while so close to satisfaction, she grimaced and stuck out her tongue. Her face was flush with pleasure. She quickly returned her attention to the place where her sex engulfed the jack's thick masculinity. She ran her hand down his shaft and pressed him deeper inside her. She fingered the raised cuff of the sturdy condom and then massaged his balls gently. Now it was Sky's turn to moan. A thinner condom might have allowed Sky to climax too soon. His wrists pulled at the restraints that held them securely behind his back. Emma had not allowed her curiosity to place her in any danger.

At Emma's urging, Mary and Michelle tried him out themselves along with many of the other sisters. In form and function, he was very much like any male whom they had had. He was terribly earnest in his desire to please. Mary found him truly endearing, unlike the technically proficient, but jaded whores in the brothels in town, however Amanda hadn't really made up her mind about sharing intimate relations with livestock. It was certainly fun, but Mary worried about her greater project. Her sisters might be dissuaded from their plan. She felt even her own resolve weakening. Emma counseled her to try out the other jacks too. Mary learned that Sky was good but he really wasn't all that unique.

Sky learned quickly that he was allowed to touch a woman with his hands, but he was not allowed to grab or hold her. Soon, the restraints were no longer necessary.

Sky saw many things that he did not understand. The house was much more interesting and varied than the ranch. The people here spent a great deal of time staring at white papers covered with tiny black squiggles. Sometimes, he saw pictures and sometimes just rows and rows of squiggles. "Reading," they called it. Sky liked the pictures, but often the women poured over volumes of pages with no pictures. Sometimes, they stared at a talking box - a television - for hours. Sky wondered how all of the pictures fit in the box. It seemed so small, yet it seemed to hold an unending variety of sounds and pictures. He asked Emma. She laughed and said a word that Sky had never heard before, "rerun." He never asked again.

He sometimes saw jacks just like himself, walking about, outside the fence. Unlike him, they were covered with clothes, something like the clothes that the people wore. He wondered if they had some ugliness or defects to hide. Often too, their ears were pierced and showed one, two or three sets of earrings. He called out whenever he saw one. Generally, they just turned away and kept on walking as if they hadn't seen or heard him at all. However, he knew that they had heard him because they walked faster after he called to them than they had before he called. Sky enjoyed annoying them. It was all just a game.

In his life, Sky had encountered many things that he did not understand. However, he had never developed any sort of expectation that he should understand everything and he was glad that there were people to take care of him. The people whom he called out to were usually more friendly. They often stopped, walked right up to the fence, and talked kindly to him.

Once a young girl was walking with two older women, her mother and granny, perhaps. After the Revolution, children were often raised by their grandmothers. Grandmothers were generally more settled and established, giving mothers more time to devote to their careers and getting their lives in order. The step going from a care-free, self-absorbed young woman to a grandmother responsible for young children was one of life's milestones and the mark the beginning of middle age. Although reality varied, stereotypes depicted the stern mother and the indulgent granny.

The girl saw Sky and squealed, "I see a jack." She ran over to the fence before anyone could stop her. "Granny, can I give the jack a candy? Hi, jack!"

Sky looked up and she beamed with pleasure. The two older women walked over to the fence. "Leave the poor jack alone, Hillary!" The younger one commanded. Her daughter was named after the famous woman president.

The young girl ignored her. "Jack-jack, I'm going to give you a candy." Granny shook her head at her offhand defiance remembering her equally strong willed daughter - and smiled. She didn't remember putting any candy in her purse, but she reached in anyway and - sure enough - found a Meese's Peanut Butter Cup.

"Here you go, Hillary," she said fondly. Hillary unwrapped the delicious Meese's. She looked at it and then looked again at the jack. She loved Meeses' herself and she tried to decide whether to give the candy to the jack or whether to eat it herself. In the end, she just ate it herself.

Fortunately, Granny had a second candy. Hillary held it out and called to Sky. Sky smiled and trotted over to the fence. He was naked under his big straw hat that he wore to protect him from the sun. When she saw him up close, he was big, much bigger than she expected - much bigger than either her mother or her granny. His clipped head and beard hair surrounded his head like a gold cloud and masked his more human features. His angular massiveness with his prominent muscles and his coarse hairiness, difficult to see from afar because of his light complexion and hair, were thoroughly alien and more than a little frightening. When he was close enough for her to hand him the candy through the fence, Hillary suddenly panicked and jumped back. She heaved the candy over the fence, hoping to get Sky to move further from the fence. She watched Sky snort and jump to try to catch it while trying to keep his floppy straw hat in place. His hat fell to the ground anyway, while the candy flew clear over his head.

"Thank you," he called out cheerfully as he turned and bent down to retrieve the hat. Then he trotted back after the treat. The girl had thrown it fairly far, but he really liked candy too.

Hillary looked at him puzzled. "Granny," she asked in a loud whisper suddenly shy, "why does that jack have a tail?"

Hillary's mother laughed aloud while her Granny gathered her thoughts. Hillary had really never been to a ranch. While nothing out of the ordinary, this jack's apparatus was much more impressive than the little joeys who still stayed with their families before puberty. When Hillary had seen jacks brought home by neighbors from the Hunt or hanging in the cooler in the Meat Market, the male parts had always been removed when they had been gutted.

"That, there in front? It's not a tail, dear. It's called a cock."

"What's a cock?" Hillary asked. "It looks like a fat white worm." Hillary shuddered at her own words and the images that she evoked. "I don't like worms - not at all." She was deathly afraid of worms.

"It's not a worm," her granny smiled. Hillary's grandmother had heard of a time - fortunately long gone - when a male could terrify a dozen healthy, apparently sane women simply by threatening to expose his penis. "It's called a cock - a fairly ordinary sized cock. Jacks pee with them." She thought of the monster cock that Elizabeth had taken from a jack in the Hunt several years ago and had mounted.

"When you're older, there are other things that you can do with them," her mother explained, trying to be helpful but unaware of the truism that you answer a child's directly and clearly without unasked for elaboration. Granny rolled her eyes.

Hillary scrunched up her brow, obviously deep in thought. "Can I touch it."

"No!" said her mother.

"Not today, dear," said her granny, choosing the psychologically preferred response. She had read widely on communicating with children. "Maybe we can ask the butcher at the market to let you play with one.

"Do you think that jacks really mind getting cooked up for dinner?" Hillary asked.

"That's a good question, Hillary. You know, I hadn't really ever thought much about what jacks like or don't like. It's just the way of things. Do you think that chickens like becoming your delicious little chicken nuggets?" Granny replied carefully, not wanting to lie but not wanting to trouble the girl unnecessarily.

Hillary really loved chicken nuggets, especially chicken nuggets smothered in honey, but she had never thought much about chickens. Just thinking about chicken nuggets made her hungry again and she wished that she had another Meeses' Peanut Butter cup. "I bet that chickens love being my yummy golden nuggets." She concluded forcefully.

"Maybe you're right, dear," her Granny allowed tolerantly. This time Hillary's mother rolled her eyes.

Ten meters back from the fence, Sky watched them and enjoyed his candy. He saw them talking and pointing but really couldn't hear much of what they were saying. It was, in any event, unlikely to be of much interest to him. He returned quickly to his work.

Once, he saw a jack walking with two people. He went over to the fence and called out, "Hey, jackoo!"

Sure enough, the jack pretended that he had heard nothing and increased his pace, hoping that his companions would match him. To his discomfort, one of the women turned. "Come on, guys." she said. "Let's go see the jack."

"Leave him alone," the male insisted haplessly, but he was swept along by the two women.

"Come on, Willy- Billy. The poor jack won't hurt you," said one, a brunette of medium height and build.

"We'll protect you from the dangerous jack," said the other and laughed. " I didn't know that you could keep jacks on campus."

Willy-Billy touched the three rings in his left ear for re-assurance. He had once been a jack and he had somehow survived three Hunts. Now he was free or relatively free except for his compulsory sperm bank donations. He wanted nothing at all to do with the wretched creature being fattened for slaughter. He looked a Bethany and he looked at Samantha and he saw that he had no option except to make the best of things.

"He's a big one and he's cute," said Bethany. "Really cute! The sorority got permission to keep them as some sort of experiment, I heard."

"Look at that ass," said Samantha, "and he's as white as Willy Billy here is black."

"Hey, Hommeburger!" offered Willy Billy, trying to maintain a mood of levity and show where his allegiance lay. He recalled that he had broken a lamp when he was five and his mother had been ready to send him to a ranch too. If his granny hadn't insisted that they keep him, he could be like this poor creature here or actually slaughtered, butchered, and eaten by now.

"Willy-Billy, I bet that your ass is every bit as cute as his. Sam, why don't we take Willy Billy home and check him out."

Sky smiled blandly and waved.

Sky also saw other things that he found very upsetting. He saw a paper that had a picture of a dead jack hanging head down by his heels with person standing beside him grinning. The poor creature had a hole in his chest and blood dribbled out and pooled on the ground. He showed the picture to Emma. She sighed and explained the jack must have been a very bad jack, disobedient or a shirker, not a yummy, sweet jack like Sky. On the rare occasion when Sky was bad he spent a day or two in his crate. He had only water to drink and nothing to eat. When they let him out, he had to clean up his messes before he could eat.

Once a scraggly dressed person in a formless, torn sweatshirt and baggy jeans called to him softly through the fence when he was gardening. When he went over to the fence, she looked about furtively. Seeing no one on the street, she whispered hoarsely, "They're going to kill you - you know. You've got to escape."

Sky smiled blandly and retreated a few steps toward the house. He didn't want to offend anyone but he just didn't like her. She didn't smell nice like the other people. Michelle had warned him about such people. Just like there were bad jacks, there were bad people too. The bad people wanted to steal jacks from the people who fed them and cared for them. He would tell Michelle about this strange person, if she didn't go away.

She looked around again. No one else was on the street. "They're going to kill you - you shit-dribbling asshole - and strip the bloody skin from your damned, motherless, bleeding carcass!"

Her very intensity was very frightening and made it difficult for Sky to understand her meaning. Sky just looked at her and retreated even further toward the house. His bland, uncomprehending look was crowned by his usually endearing dumb smile. Then he actually waved at her, cheerfully.

The young woman didn't find his dumb smile at all endearing. She almost called out to the damned fool. She was going to tell him that she and her friends had a car. They could meet him and perhaps one other in the alley by the dumpster at midnight and spirit them away safety. However, she looked at him carefully and he seemed on the verge of panic. She saw no hint of comprehension dawn in his eyes. This one was not worth the risk, as cute as he was. He seemed extraordinarily stupid. Jacks were generally stupid, her mother had told her time and again. She had never believed her and blamed their environment, the way that they were raised and their lack of education. That's why they put up with this crazy world. Maybe there was a reason, after all, for the Hunt, but the Hunt was not out and out slaughter. She was a vegetarian. If she guessed wrong, she would endanger her friends and destroy any chance for future rescues. She looked at him once more, cursed quietly to herself, and walked quickly away without looking back.

Sky noticed the new jacks arriving and none of those who had arrived had yet left. Sometime or other, he thought, the women must run out of room and some poor jack must be sent elsewhere. Sky did everything that he could to make sure that it would be someone else. He was not a rebel or a shirker.

When Olivia arrived home from class, Violet had already started. Olivia was glad that she and Olivia had reserved a boy for tonight. She had had a difficult day and she really needed the release. She and her friend loved to give each other pleasure, but sex with a male had a distinctive feel. Perhaps less intimate and loving, a male's 'otherness' made relations more a very satisfying demonstration of a power and dominance. Violet sat astride his hips, facing his feet and the foot of the bed. She pleasured herself with Tim's thick cock, rubbing her sex leisurely with his engorged member, now slick with her juices. She had all of the time in the world. She pressed him against her, but never allowed him entry. She was watching herself in the mirror and did not see Olivia arrive with the equipment.

He fought hard, to Violet's surprise, but he was unable to do much lying blind-folded on the bed with his arms cuffed behind his back and his legs spread and secured to the bed frame. The struggle and her inexorable triumph gave a certain spice to the whole thing. He set his jaw shut. Then she pinched off his nose and when he opened his mouth to breathe, Olivia jammed the dildo half-way down his throat. Choking, the top half of his body rose somehow from the bed taking Olivia and Violet with him despite the strong restraints. Laughing, Violet released his nose and he could breath again. When his air hunger abated and he calmed down, Olivia knew that the latex cock was positioned properly. She quickly adjusted and fastened the straps that held the damned device in place.

"Let me show you how to use it." He heard Violet tell Olivia.

In a short moment, while he tried to regain his breath, the bed dipped and creaked. He felt the soft skin of Violet's thigh and then warmth as she straddled his head. Her hand on his chin positioned the dildo exactly to where she wanted it. She pressed it against her sex and groaned - only to be embarrassed by the gutteral sound that emerged from deep in her throat. She tipped the cock down and engulfed it deep within her body.

Tim had found a way to hold his head so that he could breath. Violet's weight pushed the rod in further and threatened to block his airway. He turned his head a bit and kept his breathing slow and steady.

Violet began her rhythmic movements and sought to grind her way to orgasm. She held Tim's head in both hands. His nose bumped against her clitoris and added to her pleasure. She was so close and getting closer. Fluid poured from her vagina and drenched her thighs and Tim's face. Tim's fat cock stood straight and tall and all but ignored.

The dildo slipped a half centimeter and suddenly, Tim couldn't breath any longer. He tried to turn a bit or flex his neck and restore his airway. He failed. He tried to move Violet with the thick muscles in his head, neck, and shoulders and failed. Panic rose with his increasing air hunger. He could not scream. Violet seemed oblivious to his struggles. In desperation, he thrashed about, moving his upper body - chest, neck, and head clear off of the bed, lifting Violet clear of the bed. "Whoa," she shouted in surprise as she was lifted clear off of the mattress. His frantic movement carried Violet to her first orgasm. Olivia eagerly awaited her turn. She stripped off her panties and self-consciously placed her hand over the half-moon birthmark on her hip as she often did when she was nervous.

One Saturday afternoon in Spring, Mary sat on her porch, sipped a chilled glass of pinot grigio, and reviewed how far they had come. The pens now held a dozen jacks - all growing and thriving. Sky knelt before her and nuzzled her sex with his mouth and tongue. Over the months, he had added quite a bit of skill to his naïve enthusiasm and fundamental desire to please. He remained reliably cheerful and helpful. He talked endlessly about all of the ways in which he had been useful. He just better not stop his licking and sucking and try to talk right now, Mary thought. She'd cut his throat right now.

How nice it would be to own a male of my own, she thought. She imagined Sky, groomed for a party: his pale blond hair pulled back in a thick pony tail. His body depilated and smooth. He would look sharp with matching earrings set with blue stones - sapphires and a matching set of nipple rings to match his sky-blue eyes. Certainly, his cock would be pierced too and either suspended from his navel ring by a slender gold chain, exposing his achingly ripe scrotum or secured neatly out of the way to the ring placed between his scrotum and his anus. He was cute, even his little birthmark was cute.

Mary gasped aloud, her reverie destroyed by the sensations rising from her sex. Her pelvis pressed forward involuntarily as swells of pleasure rolled up with increasing frequency and amplitude. She wrapped her toned, tanned thighs around Sky's neck and draped her long well-formed legs over his broad back. His fair complexion - almost white - contrasted stunningly with her darkly tanned legs. She pressed his head into her with both hands - almost desperately. His blond beard hair intermingled with her thick, dark bush. When his tongue touched her rectum, she felt her flood walls of consciousness swept away by a surging tidal wave. Her last coherent thought was the concern that her Sky, with his fair complexion, might sunburn terribly. She couldn't allow his beautiful skin to burn and blister. The glass fell from her limp hand and shattered.

Sky was pleased to learn that he had been removed from all daytime outdoor duties. He much preferred being indoors and closer to the women. He was indispensable, he would declare repeatedly, often more than once a day and with conviction, as he did his work. Whatever woman was tending the jacks would nod and thank him for his help. No one ever argued him and he quickly began to believe his own claims that he had secured his future through his zealous cooperation. He simply ignored the other jacks who sometimes scoffed at his claims. His beer ration had been increased and he could swear the beer was stronger too.

Mary and her sisters looked great at the EKN booth. This year, each wore a well-made manskin vest. The costly material deserved the extra care of construction. Mary attracted the most attention. The looks of awe and envy that she evoked from those around her, added rapidly to her poise and confidence. Certainly, her manskin vest graced her slender shoulders. However, it was her leather slacks that demanded the attention. Her pale white skin-tight manskin pants emphasized her potently feminine form. They were fashioned just for her slim ass and long legs. The pants hung low on her hips - baring a fair stretch of tanned skin between her waist and the bottom of her tee-shirt and flaunting her graceful ankles. Her bronzed skin contrasted strikingly with the lustrous ivory of the manskin vest and pants.

From the front, her navel peaked out from her toned belly over her manskin belt. A second bellybutton was seen beneath the belt. Clever use of the jack's skin, allowed the presentation of his own navel on the flap of fly. The slacks might have been perfect, but Mary chose to preserve Sky's little half-moon birthmark on the seat of the pants.

A rectangular flap of leather, somewhat darker than the pearly white of the rest of the garment, stretched across her right thigh on a diagonal and formed a pocket. More velvety and smoother to the touch than rest of the fine manskin, it was the flayed skin of the jack's sex. Mary loved the feel of the supple leather on her body as well as its appearance.

Olivia and the TSE's stood revealed as 'wannabees.' Everyone could see that their denim pants with their now miniscule-appearing patches of genuine manskin were nothing more than a desperate pretense. Suddenly, the TSE's simply disappeared. Mary, flush with triumph, wounded Olivia further with her genuine magnanimity and an authentic offer of friendship. Olivia mumbled a greeting in return and looked in vain for a friend. Anxious, her hand went involuntarily to her hip, to the birthmark hidden by her clothes. Mary turned to speak with an EKN and Olivia saw the distinctive mark on Mary's slacks. Olivia remembered her long lost brother and her long buried hurt. She smelled the mesquite aroma of the jack roasting on the spit and thought she would vomit. She covered her mouth with her hand. Crying, she fled from the scene.

No one even watched her leave as all attention centered on Mary. One girl jostled another as each vied for her turn to touch the leathers. Each imagined to herself what it would be like to possess such exquisite articles of clothing. At the EKN booth, a jack turned leisurely on a spit over the mesquite fire.

Sky had been their first. Mary still remembered the day. Sky hardly noticed when he was confined to the holding cell the week before a long weekend when a half of the women returned to their homes, or more accurately, no one really knew whether he cared or not. He was kept half drunk or more on beer with added grain alcohol and no solid food.

Mary flung open the door to Sky's pen with Amanda and Emma beside her. Michelle stood behind, ready to help Emma who had had at least some experience hunting and dressing game. Sky jumped to his feet, confused and not knowing what to make of them. He never had much of a chance to know. Without a word, Amanda, offered him a tight smile for reassurance then stunned him with her bolt pistol. He fell to the floor twitching.

He was hung by one ankle in the work area. Over a pulley, Mary, Amanda, and Michelle lifted him clear of the ground and tied off their rope. Emma cut his throat cleanly. After he bled out, they scrubbed him thoroughly with antibacterial soap. Once they had removed his head, his resemblance to a human being abruptly ceased and the gutting, flaying, and butchering became less troubling.

The others returned to a banquet featuring a crown roast of jacques with a cabernet reduction sauce and a touch of clove. Sky had never been treated more lovingly than he had been treated in their kitchen. The women couldn't believe that such excellent meal could come from a jack fed more or less on garbage. A great time was had by all. The freezer was full and the leftovers went back to the jack pack and they certainly didn't complain. Sky was their first. He was not their last.

Bringing out the jack became a yearly ritual at Eta Kappa Nu and an additional excuse for a party. Throughout the year, jacks were delivered to the processing plant on the outskirts of town, but one jack was kept until just before finals. He awoke at dawn to discover a crowd of women bursting into his pen. As it was late spring, they often wore no more than bathing suits although heavier clothes may have been more appropriate. Their responsibility was to rouse the miserable creature and chase, carry, or drag him - outside into the yard behind the house. There, he would be thrown to the ground unceremoniously only to be set upon again. One woman secured each shoulder and one woman secured each leg. They maneuvered his head over a tub and a fifth woman cut his throat, often bathing them all in blood. Someone always lost a bathing suit top or bottom or suffered a scrape or a bruise, but the bolt pistol was only rarely required. It was rowdier than the annual field hockey game with Newbury College where athletes wielded sticks and chased a stuffed scrotal sac while their adherents drank beer and taunted each other in the stands. The other sisters, their friends, and chance passersby cheered and jeered the action, the size of the crowd limited only by the early hour. A new crop of jacks arrived after finals.

Mary found her interest in meat science. As she first proposed, the Agriculture Department began to rear jacks on excess food collected from the other living units, giving many students invaluable hands-on experience. Mary Bennett went on to found Bennett Enterprises. She still had the pants made from Sky's skin. She laughed to recall that she had looked like an overstuffed sausage the last time she had tried them on, fortunately in private. The patch of darker skin over the right thigh still felt smoother and more velvety than the rest of the fine leather. The half-moon birthmark had become the symbol of her company.

Mary often returned to campus now, and her visits brought back fond memories. This time, she came back to help dedicate Bennett Hall, built with the funds that she and her company had donated. She was glad that the Chancellor praised her generosity and chose not to comment on her grades. The students sat fidgeting, of course, but they listened politely and applauded at the proper cues. Mary identified the delicious aroma of jacques roasting for the banquet that would follow and she knew that the others could too.