Needing Leah

Needing Leah Volume 2: Redirection

Needing Leah Volume 2: Redirection

11: Danielle

My name is Liam Weber. I am an 18-year-old boy enrolled at Bryner Academy in the south of England for a programme of SLD education. I arrived last Sunday to discover Bryner Academy was actually a school for girls. Since then, I have passed the five most eventful days of my life.

It has been a hurricane; barely able to wrap my head around one change before the next thing rocked me. Forced to adjust to beingLeahwithout giving away my true identity. Forced to adjust to girl's uniforms, bras, and makeup. Forced to adjust my voice and wax the hair from my body. Forced to adjust to a roommate who can be as cruel as she can be kind. Then forced to...Anna...

Sometimes I like to imagine that, had I been given any space to reflect, to think through my decisions...instead of just reacting to the hurricane; that it all might've gone very differently. Some storms are just too big to handle, though. I wasn't prepared for so much. It buckled me. Anyway, how could I wrap my head around life in all-girl's school, until I actually knewwhyI was there? For that, I would have to speak with my dad. Either this was some strange accident, or he had deliberately altered my records and enrolled me here under the nameLeah. I still didn't know.

It was Friday now. One more day, then I would see my dad. The possibility he might've sent me here deliberately made my stomach twist. Part of me had wanted to delay finding out, to run, hide, focus on the brief rays of comfort and fun that Ellie provided. At first, I had avoided it entirely, too caught up in the madness of everything else. I had been passive, anxious...pathetic...after a week in that storm, however, I felt ready now. Ihadto know. I felt more confident again, and I knew exactly where that confidence had come from. Realising it made me laugh.

"Ready, Leah?"

Fridays began with a study period, which meant there had been no rush. Ellie had gone for a run, showered, and finished making notes onPlato's Apology. I had been lying there half-dozing, half-thinking about tomorrow. She was now watching me from her desk. It was 8:30am.

"I had a dream about Anna, I think. Just her laughing. I hate the sound of her laugh." I could almost hear it echoing through my skull.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" She asked.

"No." There were other things on my mind. She noticed my expression.

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"It's nothing." I sat up and pressed my back against the headboard, quick to change the conversation. "I might be leaving soon. You know, if things go well tomorrow."

"Do you think they will?"

I shrugged. It would be the most humiliating, difficult conversation of my life. "I've been thinking...I'm eighteen. What if I don't need my parent's permission to transfer away? Or even just to drop out? If worst comes to worst, if my dad did send me here on purpose and wants me to stay...then I'll see if I can leave without parental permission. You know, screw him."

She nodded. "It'd be worth a shot."

"Yeah. Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?" I said. She was smiling. It struck me as a brave smile, though. I wasn't sure what it meant. "You know I'll miss you when I go?"

"Yeah, I know." She said, rather too quickly. "Until then, you're my girl, ok? So if you're gonna sit there looking all sexy in bed, I want you wearing your breasts."

It was a strange request, really. I almost laughed but she handed them over and helped me into them. Ellie was dressed in her school uniform but was yet to button her light-blue blouse, for which I could glimpse her black bra and heavy cleavage through the gap between the fabric. Again, I found myself smiling. She noticed.

"What is up with you this morning? Normally you wake up all groggy and annoyed to move!"

"Nothing, just..."

She realised, then. She let out a gasp of recognition. "You're feeling proud of yourself, aren't you? The morning after sex. You realise we didn'tactuallyfuck?"

"Yeah, but I made you cum. Four times, you said." I couldn't keep the pride from my face. After everything we'd been through, it should've seemed such a minor thing to give me confidence. Perhaps it was only temporary, perhaps not. My expression made her laugh.

"I almost forgot you're a virgin." She said, amused.

"It's nice to not be so passive for once, you know? I enjoyed it."

"I'm still in control."

"Yes, Goddess."

My sarcasm earned me a shove. "Oi, you! Sass like that gets a girl spanked! Don't go thinking you can barge in while I'm showering again, either. Especially not when you were one step away from trying to fuck me."

She was being playful but that last comment hit on something I'd been wondering about. She read it in my face, then sighed. "You wanna talk about that, do you?"

"Kind of." Getting to make her cum with both my fingers and tongue had been wonderful and made me feel like I actually had some power in my life again. I could accept she didn't want me to fuck her, but I also wanted to understand why. "I mean, are you, like, a lesbian?"

"Lesbian?" she started laughing. "Fuck off!"

"You always want me to hide my penis, you call it a clit and things. I just wondered, does this only work when you pretend I'mactuallya girl?"

She took a moment to tie her red hair back into a high ponytail, then ground her teeth a little. "First, you doubt I want you around, then you think I only want an object to punish, now you think I only want a girl?"

"I'd just like some clarity on all of this before..."

"I'm not a lesbian, ok?" She interrupted. "I don't know what I am and, to be honest, I don't much care. We're young, for fuck sake! People are meant to experiment and figure shit out, right? Yeah, I enjoy calling your cock a clit, calling you my girl, teasing you. Would I enjoy that more if it wasactuallya clit? Would I enjoy it less? I don't know. Who the fuck cares? You are who you are. I enjoy you."

"You don't hateit, then?"

She stood up in frustration and began buttoning her blouse. "I've watched you play with it. I've touched it myself, Leah. If you're trying to ask if you'll ever get to fuck me, I don't know. All of this is new. Do you want me to start asking if you'll ever let me fuck you, how about that?"

The question made me lean away towards the wall. "You mean...like..."

"I mean pounding you hard in that cute little butt with a strap-on, making you squeal for more." She was grinning. She enjoyed the way her overly-vivid description made me flinch. "See? Don't worry about the future. You said it yourself, you might be leaving soon. If new things are meant to happen, they'll happen naturally. If not, then we'll enjoy what we have while it lasts."

I supposed there was truth to that. I had made her cum, after all. It was best to savour that victory for now and hope it would get me through another day of classes. Ellie was grinning.

"Speaking of enjoyment...lie back and stay still."

"First thing in the morning?"

It was probably my fault for starting a conversation about sex. I'd probably gotten her excited. As far as I'd learned, what excited Ellie most was games, although she called this onetraining.

"You need to learn discipline and control, remember?"

My task was to stay still. Perfectly still, wearing nothing but my pink briefs and breasts. Her task was to touch me, caress me, tantalize me, press me with the vibrator. If I moved, she would stop for ten seconds. If I made a noise, I'd get a slap.

"If you make a really big movement, then you get slap...down here." She said, spanking two fingers against my balls. When that made me groan, I was given a light slap to the face. "You've got your safe words. I know you're not always keen on slaps, so I can switch it up if you're not having fun, ok? Don't be afraid to tell me. If you cum...though, you know better than that...but if you do, you'll be given something new as a punishment. Something you won't like. This is about learning discipline, so focus on your job."

I was hard in no time. Desperately so. Something about the pressure made it twice as arousing. My task was near impossible. I'd get close to cumming, then suffer a ten second penalty for the faintest of movements. The more I was tortured, the more difficult it became. She ran her hands over my panties, my thighs, breasts. The way she kissed or pinched at the nipples aroused me more than I would've expected. She touched every inch of my body, stroked my face and hair, and even tickled me on a few occasions. The tickling was unfair and resulted in my balls being spanked more than I could bear, for which I used my lighter safe word,wax off, and she stopped hitting me there. All the same, I found myself begging on a few occasions, which meant punishment for making a noise. The vibrator was the worst. I don't know how long I endured. I wanted to writhe and moan and curl up with the feeling but I couldn't. It went against my every instinct, and Ellie loved it.

"Cute little sweetheart, are you struggling?"

I didn't respond. I'd made that mistake twice already, and earned slaps for it.

"Good girl! That's the discipline I was talking about. A far cry from you throwing the TV remote at me." She pressed me hard with the vibrator. I moaned. I so, so, so nearly came.

"No, no, stay quiet." She comaplined. "You said it was good to be less passive, so take control of your body, instead of all this whining and wriggling."

I hadn't envisionedbeing less passiveas meaning tolie still and endure torment.She had a point though, strange as it was. I had the power to resist, to not flinch or give in to myself. Ellie'strainingwas another kind of storm that I had just been reacting to without decision or intention. She was right. Storms could be weathered. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes.

"Good girl!"

Determined or not, the struggle was near-unbearable. She relished the moments I failed, and yet there was genuine pride in her voice when I was succeeding. So much so, she gave me a big hug and kissed my forehead when we eventually finished.

"There's another thing to feel proud of, Leah."

I blushed. "I still prefer making you cum."

She laughed and kissed me again. "I know. You'd prefer getting to cum yourself, too. Still, I wanted you to know you're stronger than you think, ok? I'm glad asserting yourself yesterday made you feel good but submission shouldn't make you feel bad about yourself. I don't want you to associate it with being worthless or anything. There's still power within submissiveness. A different kind of power, more subtle...but it is there." Her words seemed to peter out until she was absently staring off at the wall in thought. Power in submission? I didn't have a clue what she meant. I said as much.

"That sounds like a load of bollocks, to me."

"Oh, fuck off, then. Jump in the shower, we need you ready for class soon."

Friday was languages day. We had the study period in the morning, and an athletic class at the end, but everything in between consisted of Latin class, and then one language of our choice: French, German, Spanish, or Mandarin. Because it was mine and Ellie's first year at Bryner, we were allowed the first week to dip in and out of whichever language class, before settling on one of our choice. We discussed our options over a late breakfast in the canteen.

"You'll ace it in German, eh?" Jess said, appearing from nowhere and tapping me on the back. I resisted the urge to flinch.

"I doubt they'd let me take it. Feels like cheating. Maybe we'll just go for whichever has the best teacher?" I said, biting into a smoked salmon bagel. "Did you see what was happening with Fred?"

"Fred the Gardener?" Jess asked, as she sat down beside me. I can't imagine what otherFredshe thought there was in an all-girl's school. He had been having some sort of public argument in the courtyard with the headmistress, Mrs. McIntyre. Ellie and I had arrived too late to catch what it was about. Jess filled us in.

"Subrosa. A rumour broke about Fred the Gardener last night. Apparently he used to be in a relationship with Miss Warren, the old headmistress. I can't help but wonder if that's why she resigned."

"What's so bad about that?" I asked.

"And what's Subrosa?" Ellie added.

"It was the nature of their relationship.Kinky affairs.Some of what you might callbon-dage."Jess said the words in a goofy French accent, then started laughing. "No doubt there were parental complaints. I would bet my every shilling that Mrs. McIntyre asked him to resign, and Fred the Gardener refused. He sounded drunk."

I exchanged a look with Ellie, who was clearly thinking about our ownkinky affairsand grinning. "So what's Subrosa?" She asked again.

"Who she is, no one knows." Jess waved her hands and made a noise like a smokescreen, before accidentally knocking the glasses from her face and having to retrieve them. "Are you in the Bryner Academy group chat? Far too many messages for me to keep up with but there's an account that goes by the name of Subrosa. She only ever pops up to spill some sort of secret about someone. It's been happening for the last three years. The scary thing is that the secrets always turn out to be true. Whoever she is, she's a mind reader, a witch, a hacker-extraordinaire!" Jess started laughing again. I exchanged another look with Ellie, a more concerned one.

"What kind of secrets?" I asked.

"Anything juicy. Fred the Gardener was having affairs with Miss Warren. Miranda Bunce's dad is in prison. Erm..." she tried to think of more examples. "Kiara Pleasance wets the bed."

"Kiara?" Ellie asked.

"Yes, but she lived it down years ago. How she discovers all of these secrets is a mystery."

Hacking seemed the most likely explanation. I waited until Jess went to pester another group of people about her photography club, before speaking to Ellie.

"You should delete all your purchase history, just in case. And...and maybe we only speak aboutthingswhen we're in the room?"

She nodded but seemed more relaxed. "Jess is probably exaggerating. It's the sort of thing people might exaggerate about. Interesting about Kiara, though...do you think she still wets the bed?"

I didn't find it funny. "Whoever Subrosa is, we don't want to piss her off."

One more day of classes to get through. Suddenly I was feeling tense again. That wasn't even the worst of it. The rest of the day could scarcely have gone any worse.

Ellie and I were free to wander about, mostly unsupervised, between French, Spanish, German, and Mandarin classes. Kiara was studying French but with a teacher named Miss Thornton. A large woman with a raspy voice who kept loudly chewing gum. The sound of it made Ellie shiver. Anna and Jojo were in the German class. Which left Mandarin and Spanish. Spanish was taught by the only male member of staff besides Fred the Gardener. Mr Tomkins was a short but well-built man in his twenties. His teaching style was engaging and energetic. The only downside was the dreamy way most of the girls looked at him, and how very red Mr Tomkins became when he noticed. His short black hair and beard were well-trimmed and he had vibrant green eyes. I wasn't the person to judge whether or not he was attractive, though. I kept checking to make sure Ellie wasn't swooning along with the rest of the class. It was only once he split us into pairs that things went downhill.

Any teacher with a shred of humanity knows to let the students pick their pairs. A teacher who assigns pairs themselves is either cruel or woefully stupid. Ellie was paired with another red-haired girl I didn't know. I was paired with Danielle.Please no.She had been Anna's accomplice that day in the changing rooms. I hadn't even realised she was in this class until she awkwardly shuffled up from behind me to take the seat at my right. She avoided looking at me. We were supposed to test each other on Spanish pronouns.

"You're here." Was all I could stomach to say.

"Mm."

We did no testing. We lapsed into silence. At first, I looked away from her. My heart was pounding. I could feel myself flitting erratically between anxiety and temper, until eventually I found myself staring her down. I wanted to see if she'd dare meet my eyes, if I could make her squirm. I wanted her to squirm.

"Why were you late to class after lunch the other day?" She said. It made me tense up. Why was she asking?

"Busy." My meeting with Mrs. McIntyre had overrun that day.

"Do you get out of class whenever you feel like it?"

"I don't want to get out of any classes."

She scoffed. She glanced quickly at me now before turning away again.

"It's not my fault." I said. "I don't want panic attacks. It's not a fucking privilege!"

"Yeah?" She sounded unconvinced.

"What have you got against me?"

"Nothing."

Silence again. She wasn't going to mention it, was she? I didn't want to mention it, either. I could feel its presence hanging between us, though.

"Yeah, you do." I said. I was starting to shake, trying to keep my voice quiet.

"You put on this innocent act, but Anna told me you and your mental friend bully Jojo. She doesn't deserve that kind of treatment."

"Us? We haven't done anything! Jojo was the one picking on me! And Anna?"

She shook her head. Suddenly she was as angry as I was, both of us keeping our voices icily quiet. "See, you're acting innocent again. You don't fool me."

"Youknowwhat Anna did." I said. Danielle looked down sharply. I didn't want to be the one to mention it. Even saying it made me feel faint.

"I don't want to know."

"You already do. You knew what was happening and you did nothing to stop her."

She looked repulsed. She was leaning away in her seat, then came back with anger. "We know why your friend came to Bryner. She was expelled from her last school for violence, wasn't she? She broke a girl's leg with a cricket bat."

"What? Ellie?"

"She's lucky they accepted her here. I bet her parents had to bribe the school."

I wasn't going to believe that, not for a second. Ellie wasn't like that at all. "That's bullshit. Someone's made that up."

"Have they?" She had a look of triumph on her face now. It chilled me.

"You could've stopped Anna but you didn't."

"I'm nothing to do with it. I'm not even really Anna's friend, just Jojo's."

"You helped pinned me down! You tied my arms. You're the one playing the innocent act!"

"You bitch." She spat in a whisper. She looked stunned. "You bitch." She said again, then slapped me across the face. I gasped.

"You're the bitch, not me."

"You bitch." She went to slap me a second time but I batted her hand away, knocking it back into her face. She grabbed my hair and pulled me forwards, down off the chair and onto the floor. I kicked my legs out in retaliation, knocking her chair. She toppled down onto me. Blind rage. I screamed and hit out with all my limbs. She slapped. I kneed her in the stomach, punched her in the jaw. She grabbed my hair again and then we were wrestling, tussling. A crowd formed around us and started cheering. Mr. Tomkins came to the centre. He was shouting for us to stop but I could barely hear him. I could barely think beyond the thunder of my fury. I would fight. Fight. I was done with being pathetic. Not again. Blood spluttered over me. I hit far harder than she could. Mr. Tomkins kept shouting. I was shouting but I couldn't hear the words. Ellie was screaming loudest. Suddenly a weight was lifted from me and I was kicking out at nothing.

"You leave her alone!" Ellie was holding Danielle by the collar. She pushed. It was too forceful. I saw Danielle slip backwards and crash her head. The corner of the table. The crowd went quiet. Danielle bounced to the floor then went deathly still. Deathly silent. She lay there. Nobody moved.