Needing Leah

The story so far:

18-year-old Liam Weber was enrolled at Bryner academy, only to discover it was a school for girls and that his name is recorded as Leah. With the help of his roommate Ellie, he has been forced to disguise his identity and try to get himself transferred away, before anyone else discovers his secret. So far, he has managed just over a week at Bryner, during which he had been tormented and assaulted by Anna and her accomplice Danielle. This later led to a fight between Leah and Danielle in a Spanish class. Ellie, who tried to break up the fight, finds herself in isolation alongside Leah for the remainder of the day.

12 - Otter's Drift

Isolation meant sitting in a small cubicle of space with nothing but a desk. We weren't allowed to move or talk until the end of the day. I was well-practiced at not moving. Neither me nor Ellie would've minded isolation. Our concern was Miss Daphne.

"I don't like violent girls." She told us in her fiery voice. She was short with a small build. She made up for it with large, calf-height black boots. She wore a black pencil skirt and white blouse, with her blonde hair falling against both shoulders. All her ferocity was in her face, in the blue eyes beneath her thick glasses. We'd heard the rumours about Miss Daphne. We had seen the cane in her classroom, and Kiara had told us of her firsthand experience in detention. If the rumours were true, there was a certain irony to Miss Daphne disliking violent girls. Neither of us were in the mood for irony.

"Girls get more and more arrogant each year. Social media. Validation. You think the rules don't apply, just because your elders don't understand this brave new world? You think you've got it all figured out."

"We don't think that, Miss." Ellie dared to say. We were both standing before her, rigid. She was sitting at her desk but took a composed moment to observe Ellie now. Calmly, she rose to her feet and approached.

"I don't like girls who talk back, either. Did your parents never discipline you, Brooks?"

Ellie ground her teeth. Miss Daphne was waiting.

"I asked you a question."

"Never mind my parents."

I had often admired Ellie for her bravery, her anger. That day, it caused us nothing but trouble. Miss Daphne gave an icy smile, as though she'd been hoping for defiance.

"You'll each see your desks behind you. Turn around."

We did as she said, fearing the worst.

"Now sit and stay."

"S-sit, Miss?" I asked, taken by surprise.

"Yes, sit. Are you an oaf? In isolation, you sit, you work, and you do not speak or move until we are finished."

"Yes, Miss." We both took our seats, eagerly. Perhaps the rumours were wrong? Perhaps Kiara had lied? We had both seen the cane in Miss Daphne's classroom, she had used it to point at the whiteboard and strike her filing cabinet when she demanded attention. Would Kiara lie?

"Detention is an altogether different matter..." Miss Daphne suddenly added. "As you will find out Monday morning, Brooks."

I couldn't see Ellie. The large blue divider that nestled our desks into separate bays made it impossible. I heard her body swing around though, facing Miss Daphne.

"Detention?"

"I told you, I don't like girls who talk back. You will visit my classroom at eight in the morning on Monday. Is that understood?"

"Why? All I did was..."

"Would you like a second detention?" Miss Daphne interrupted. Ellie was becoming riled. I could hear it. I could sense it. There was a long pause.Don't argue, Ellie. Don't.

"Given the choice, I'd like no detention...Miss."

"That sounds like you've earned one. The following Monday as well. Speak again, and we'll make it a third."

Ellie said nothing. She was angry, I knew. She silently boiled in anger for the next four hours of silence. She carried it all the way back to the dorm room, then was ranting.

"I wish I'd asked for more. See how she likes me talking back, then!" she exclaimed, kicking off her shoes. She had already paced around the room ten times. I sat, as I always did, on my bed.

"She probably would like that. She'd just keep on giving detentions until you shut up. Two is already too many."

"Detentions don't bother me. Just her! I didn't fucking do anything!"

"You spoke back." I was trying to make my voice as soothing as I could. For a week now, I'd been practicing a more feminine sound. It was starting to convince even me. "You should be bothered about detention. Kiara told us about her cane."

"Kiara said a lot of things, I don't believe. And there's worse troubles to worry about. Besides, you didn't get detention."

"No." I admitted. That was my wider point. "You're getting into too much trouble for my sake. You need to keep your head down."

"Says the one fighting Danielle?"

I wasn't in the mood for her joking. The sun was setting, and casting a low, orange light through the gaps in our curtains. Ellie was standing before it, loosening her hair to fall freely. Her shadow was spread large and faint against the floorboards.

"I don't want you to protect me." I said. "I know you told me I'm not a burden but we were one step away from police involvement today. When Danielle fell, there was a moment I thought...she was lying so still...Ellie, she could've been..."

Ellie didn't say anything. Her face looked grave. The silence weighed on my chest.

"I need to get away from this place." I said. "Sometimes, you make it feel ok. I can almost forget the hell, but it's not just that anymore. The longer I stay, the more dangerous it gets. I don't wanna drag you down with me."

She turned her gaze toward the window. I stayed sitting on my bed, watching her. She looked so beautiful.

"If you want me to apologise for sticking up for you, it's not gonna happen. You've needed someone in your corner, everyone does. If I fight too much, you don't do it enough, Leah."

I squirmed. Every single night I would think about that day in the changing room. How I could've fought harder. If only I hadn't slipped...

"We've got to pick our battles." I said. "Fighting Danielle wasn't a smart battle for either of us. What will Anna and Jojo do when they find out you gave her a concussion?"

She swung back round to face me, as though someone had fired a bullet. "They won't do anything. I won't fucking let them."

"This is exactly what I mean!" I stood up, frustrated but before I could speak further, she was in front of my face.

"What battles do you want me to pick, Leah? I'm not allowed to be angry with Anna, I'm not allowed to be angry with Miss Daphne. Want me to take it all out on you?" She said, putting a hand to my right breast. I didn't move away. Again, I tried to speak quietly.

"There are other ways to fight them."

"Like what?" She squeezed my breast. I said nothing. I had no reply. "Tell me how else we fight?"

"I don't know." I wish I knew. Ellie was now stroking my hair. She started kissing my neck. I didn't want to like it. We were having a serious talk. I let her wrap her arms around my waist and pull me in. Next thing I knew, I was lying back upon her bed. She was leaning over me.

"Let me worry about Miss Daphne." She kissed me. A long kiss. Tender. I liked it but this time I pulled away. I had to make my point clear.

"I don't want you protecting me."

"Well tough shit, Leah." She kissed me again. A hand came down my skirt and I felt the breath leave my body in a long exhale.

"There's a good girl." She said, smiling. She rubbed gently with the tips of two fingers. She was making me hard. "My little sweetheart."

"Are you gonna let me cum? It's been a while."

"We'll see how it goes." She spread my legs apart. My knees up and my feet flat. She climbed onto the mattress, over me. Bent low, her face lifted up, smiling. Her mouth was inches from...

"Are you Liam or Leah?" she asked.

"I...I don't know."

That seemed to amuse her. She glanced down. I raised my head to watch. Her tongue came out. Gentle, it licked against the cover of my panties. I saw their pink colour darken as they dampened. The shape of my penis became clearer through them. She licked at the tip. I moaned.

"Sounds like you're Leah, with a moan like that." She let out an affectionate laugh, then began licking again. Teasing. Edging. Making me beg.

"Please, can I cum? Please?"

"Why should I let you?"

"I've been good!"

"Have you?" She lifted her face and started slapping at the tip with her fingers. Not hard but hard enough to keep me aroused. "Who are you?"

"Your girl!"

"To do what with?"

"To...to punish? To play with?"

"To protect?" She asked, grinning. That wasn't fair.

"Ellie." I protested.

"Sounds like someone doesn't want to cum." She grabbed the vibrator from her bedside. She touched it against me in brief, light intervals. "Mine to protect?"

"No." I protested. "I don't want you to get in trouble."

"Who are you to make demands?" She took the vibrator away. She sat on the bed on her knees, between my legs. She placed the vibrator beneath herself. She was still in her uniform. I couldn't see anything beneath her skirt, nor her blouse. The large shape of her breasts. Her grinning face, then stifling a moan. Her bottom lip curling.

"Who are you?" She asked again, rubbing at me with her right hand.

"Ellie, I won't back down on this. I won't."

"We'll see."

She kept going. She kept me on the edge, all the while moaning louder and louder herself. I felt her legs tighten between me, saw her eyes shut. She was cumming. She kept cumming. She didn't stop.

"Do you want my protection?"

"No, Ellie. No!"

She stood up. I caught a brief glimpse beneath her skirt before it folded down against her thighs. She stood stiff, watching me, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so. Hungrily, I watched each button free, stared at the pale skin beneath, then the cleavage. Her hands went behind her back and I was the bra loosen around her breasts. She let it fall, but not before her hands came up to cover them.

"Would you like to see what's under here?" She said, making me nod, transfixed. She shifted so that her left arm and hand covered both breasts. Her right hand moved smoothly down her body to the hem of her skirt. She pulled it down, a taunting, meagre centrimetre. "And under here?"

"You know I do."

"What if I decide you never see anything of my body again? I have that power, baby. Or maybe worse, maybe I let all these clothes fall. Maybe I spend every second we spend in this room entirely naked, let those desperate eyes fix on every inch of me...and then never, ever let you touch yourself."

"That would be cruel."

"Would it?" She said with a mocking pout. "I didn't realise." Her smirk was growing. I was still lying on the mattress. Hard. Precum and Ellie's saliva dampening my panties.

"I could do worse, too. There are little cages to stop bad girls from touching themselves, you know? Little locks to stop you growing hard. Would you like that?"

"Y-you...you mean..."

"Are you mine to protect?"

"N-no, Ellie."

She spanked me on the balls for that. Two fingers hitting in rapid succession.

"Are you sure?"

Normally, I might've enjoyed the game. I had been enjoying moments. There was no denying the confident, domineering power she exuded over me was tantalizing...but this was serious. She began rubbing at my panties again. I so wanted to cum...I felt so close...she might've even let me if I gave in...

"No, stop. Stop or I'll use a safeword. I mean it."

She stopped. There was a moment of silence, in which I think she discretely stifled a sigh. I didn't quite know what to say to convince her. The words that came to my lips, weren't the words I intended to say.

"Were you expelled from your last school?"

"What?" She stood up straight.

"Danielle said you broke a girl's leg with a cricket bat. I assumed she was lying but..."

"She is lying! You'd believe fucking Danielle?" Suddenly Ellie strode away to the window again.

"I didn't believe her." I said. I hadn't believed her at the time. There was something in Mrs McIntyre's steely glare, when I had mentioned it to her, though...it did make me wonder...

"I told you before, I left because one of the teachers got in a scandal, and my dad didn't want me in a school like that." She sounded offended, then a faint flicker of worry. "Is that a rumour going around? A cricket bat?"

"I don't know. Danielle sounded like she thought it was true." I said. Again, Ellie looked worried and turned away to the window.

"I...I'm..." her voice was quiet. She wouldn't look at me. "I'm not a good person, Leah."

What did that mean? Her voice was numb. "What?"

"Nothing. Just...just, you know I'm not a good person, right? I haven't been good to you."

"Yes, you have." I said at once, then hesitated. She had been cruel at times. Often I enjoyed it, but I hadn't always, especially not to begin with. Was that what she meant? The room was charged with tension. I wasn't sure if I dared ask. I settled instead on reassurance.

"You are good."

"I'm the one dragging you down." She added. "Not the other way around."

Was she suggesting shehadbeen expelled, or was this some different guilt on her mind.

"Ellie, I don't know what you're trying to say?"

"Then don't worry about it." Suddenly she was facing me again with a brave smile. She exhaled deeply, as though breathing the numbness out of her. Just like that, the topic of conversation had changed. I was left perplexed. Something had just happened. Something important had hung in the air for heavy moment. I had missed my chance to identify what it was.

"If you don't want my protection, then you need to stick up for yourself more." Ellie said. "Fighting Danielle didn't end well but that was still better than just taking it."

I went to argue but she put out a hand. "And don't start talking about picking our battles again. There's one person that's definitely worth the battle. Someone you need to be fucking furious with."

I nodded, knowing who she meant. "My dad."

"Do you know what you're going to say to him tomorrow?"

"No." I had no idea. I shouldn't have let her change the topic. She couldn't raise some vague hint about being a bad person, and then drop it. All the same, I was terrified about tomorrow. A shiver jolted down my spine like a strike of lightning.

"It's time we start planning, then." She said. She leant over me. "That's our work for tonight, and if you're a good girl, maybe I'll reward you."

Sleep came hard that night. Morning light came even harder. We had planned. I had even earned a reward that had brought me perilous close to cumming. She had let me sleep in her bed but I had laid awake, playing out the conversation a thousand times over in my brain. Each time different, each with different discoveries and different words shared. My mind laid out more eloquent, convincing arguments than I could ever make in person, and my dad was either always more cold than I feared, or more understanding than I could reasonably believe. I loved my dad. I think I loved my dad. Would I still love him if he had sent me here on purpose?

He was standing at reception when I found him. He was staring at a map of the school grounds, yet to notice my arrival. The original plan had been to meet him in the nearby village Otter's Drift. Instead, he had come straight up to the school and asked reception to ring my dorm room. He was wearing his black winter coat, despite the relative warmth. He had balding, black hair that was turning grey. A firm, hard-cut face with coarse stubble, and a scar that cut through his left, bushy eyebrow. He knew how to put on charm for his friends and the many acquaintances he would make to extract favours from. I half-expected to find him chatting up the receptionist or asking the caretaker about local jobs. He knew how to play the bumbling, loveable fool when it suited him. With me, it rarely suited him to be anything other than imposing.

"Hi, dad." I said. Already, I felt angry. I didn't want him near the school.

"You took your time, son. Jane there called your dorm room twenty minutes ago."

So he had been chatting up the receptionist. He knew her first name. "I was busy." In truth, Ellie had been frantically trying to make me look less girly. She'd ordered some boy's clothes earlier in the week as preparation. Baggy tops and jumpers, so that the fact I suddenly lacked breasts would be less obvious to any passing students. I was wearing two tops with a brown jumper, just to make sure. I wore jeans and trainers. Ellie had fashioned my hair into something of a bun that fitted beneath a trucker cap. I looked ordinary enough. I suppose I looked as I had always looked, only now I couldn't deny there was a femininity to my build. A softness to my face. Had I truly always looked like that?

"Are you hungry? What's the mess hall like here?" He asked.

"The canteen. We're not going there. There's a café in Otter's Drift."

"You don't want to walk through the village on a rainy day, son."

I did. I definitely did when he was here.

The rain picked up as we walked. Even so, I felt sweaty in three layers of clothing. There was a wind, too. I watched it blow splashes of rain against the glass wall running down the left side of the Maple Leaf Café, once we arrived. We were the only customers. The lighting was dim, making the room feel grey. I sat with a tuna panini and a coffee, trying to muster up an appetite. He sat stirring his tea. I wanted to die.

"You haven't thought of cutting your hair?"

Hiding it under the cap had been a good idea until he had insisted I take it off when indoors.

"It's fashion." I said, quickly.

"You look...well."

"Thanks."

He was still stirring his tea. The sugar would've dissolved ages ago.

"How are you, Liam?"

"Fine. Busy."

"Lots of work, then?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad. I've always wanted you to have the best education."

"I didn't want it." I bit back. I couldn't help it. I was trying to remain calm. I didn't want to reveal anything until I'd discovered what he knew.

"No. I know, son...but sometimes what's best isn't what people want."

Did he have any idea what was best? He began tapping his teaspoon against the rim of his mug. For a moment, it sounded like Anna's laugh.

"How much did you research Bryner before sending me here?" I asked. I was going to have to eke it out of him. He put his spoon down.

"You asked that on the phone before. Why?"

I froze. His stare was implacable. "How much did you research it?"

"Bryner is a good school, Liam. A very good school. Your mother told me you called her last week, feeling uneasy about Bryner. Whatever it is bothering you, it's best to just muddle through." He took a sip of his tea.

"You're not interested to know what's bothering me, then?"

He became impatient. "We're going through the entiremy dad doesn't care about mecircus, are we? It's not as though you haven't been doing that for eighteen years. Eat your panini. You saw how much they charged for it."

"It's not a circus. I always thought you did care?" When he had first gone bankrupt, we'd gotten along better than I'd ever known.

"So, now you're doubting it? Why don't we just talk about the football? Bayern might not win it this year, you think?"

That annoyed me. It seemed so obvious a change of subject. He scratched at his scarred eyebrow. My eyes narrowed. My teeth clenched.

"You know, don't you?" I said.

There it was. Guilt. He tried to hide it by sipping his tea but it was plain to see. He did know.

"You know all of it. You know everything!"

"Few good decisions are easy decisions...son."

"Son?" I was so angry now. Whatever I had planned to say had gone forgotten. A whole week of misery, torment, Anna. It was his fault. "Son, yes. Yourson.It wasn't an error, then? You knew what this place was. Did you fix my records?"