Join the Dots

It was nearer forty minutes, but at least the view was nice. At last I heard crashing and banging from outside; I assumed from the huge room I had woken up in the night before. I waited another fifteen minutes with bated breath when I heard her voice from the speakers. "Mmm, nice coffee and first cig of the day. Feel better now -- fuck, that case of yours was a weight! How you doing in there?"

I assumed she'd hear me wherever I was, so I spoke quietly. "I've felt better but thanks for asking. What was that stuff?"

"Oh, just some nasty chemicals I came by fortuitously a while ago. Always carry them in case I need a quick get-out, but last night I found a proper use for them. Came in very handy. I'm going to come in and talk in a moment, but I need you to be restrained again - just in case you try anything, you understand. Once I got my life sorted out, I decided I wasn't going to be bullied again so I took Taekwondo lessons. I'm bloody good at it and I could probably put you through the window before you could blink - but I ain't taking the risk. So be a darling and dig down to the left of the mattress. There's a padlock on a chain under there about a third of the way down. Just close it over one of the rings on your left wristband, make yourself comfy and I'll be in to see you in two shakes of a lamb's tail!"

It was pointless to argue. I found the padlock and the chain was long enough to allow me free movement around the bed. Something told me I was going to have to get used to being in that situation. I lay down and waited a moment. I heard a key in the lock and the outer door opened. Bree came in carrying a wooden chair in one hand, a coffee mug in the other, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She set the chair down backwards at the foot of the bed and sat down on it, legs wide apart. She was wearing a white silky robe and she must have showered on her return with my gear. She pulled on her cig and took a long sip of coffee. The smell made my stomach lurch, but this time for the right reasons.

She smiled and looked at me. "Same rules, Chloe. Speak when I tell you to, ok? Who is in control here?

I looked at her levelly. "You are Bree."

"Good start. Sorry to smoke in your room, but it's really your fault. I just wanted to be like you and the others back then. Be one of your gang. Saw you doing it and started myself. Looks like you managed to quit, but I wasn't that lucky. Add that to the abuse and bullying and see the lasting damage you've done to me?"

Assuming it was my turn to speak, I sighed. "Sorry, Sab... Bree. I hated it, but I wanted to be part of it all too. I did it to fit in with them and I wish I had never-"

She shook her head and ran her fingers across her lips. "Zip it, Chloe. If you try to apologise once more, I'll stub this fucking thing out on your hand. Got it?"

I nodded in acquiescence. "Got it."

"Good girl. I hated it too, but I thought it might make a difference. But the ugly, spotty, half-blind kid with buck teeth was never going to make your little toxic foursome, was she? By the time I realised that, I was hooked and I was stubbing them out on my arms and carving patterns with a rusty knife because I hated myself and it hurt a damned side less than being called 'The Teenage Bitch' or 'Join the Dots'."

She took a final drag and moved towards the bed and held the stub over my left foot. Though panicking inside, I held her gaze. "Do it, Bree. I deserve it."

She let out a small laugh. "Good response, but no. That would be too easy." She moved to the window and opened it a crack. She flicked the butt out into the Saturday morning sky and sat back down. "Far too easy. I take it from your reaction to me last night, you've never fucked a woman, have you?"

I shook my head slightly, surprised by this sudden change of tack.

"Ever wanted to?"

I repeated my action. It had never even occurred to me.

Bree let out a small laugh. "Nothing to be ashamed of. I've never fucked a bloke. Just think of the education I am going to give you over the next few days. When I finally let you go from here and someone asks you that question in future, you'll be able to say, 'Yes, I have actually -- quite a few in fact!'"

As my heart sank, she went on. "I'm going to humiliate you, Chloe. Like you did to me. And when I'm done with you, I'm going to forget you like you forgot me and let you come to terms with all the shit that goes with that. Just like you and the other three left me in bits back at school. Maybe it will be easier to come to terms with at twenty-five than sixteen, but I fucking hope not."

She stood and walked towards the door, letting out a long, racking sigh. "I knew my sexuality back then, Chloe. I was confused and lonely and I knew no-one would look at me with anything but revulsion, either male or female. I hated you all, but at the same time I wanted to be part of your gang. In fact, I wanted to be you, Chloe. I wanted to be the pretty little blonde one with the rosebud lips, clear blue eyes and perfect complexion. Not the overweight girl with zits like beehives and glasses like the headlights of an oncoming hearse."

As she closed the door, I felt I had to say something. I was utterly numb. "Bree - you've changed so much. You're a beautiful woman now."

She nodded, her dark hair falling over her left eye. "Oh, I've changed, Chloe. I've fucking changed, believe me. I'll bring you something to eat in a few minutes, then someone is coming to see me. Someone who pays a lot of money to be here. That TV over there will let you see what I've become. People pay me a small fortune for my talents. You'll get it all for free. Well, unless we call it payback for years ago you will; but then you'll still be deep in debt to me." Her smile was rueful. "Watch, learn and prepare for later, Chloe. What you see this afternoon is coming your way soon. Enjoy and try not to touch yourself too much in the naughty area."

She closed the door and I lay there, shackled to a bed by my wrist in a luxury apartment, about to become the plaything of a girl I had bullied in my teens. She came back a few minutes later and without a word, placed a sandwich and fruit juice on the dresser. She released my restraint and walked out without looking back.

I shivered and felt a tear trickle down my cheek. I put a hand over my face and bit my lip to stop myself from crying like a baby. It was a long time before I ate the sandwich and by then I knew what the new Sabrina 'Bree' Longley was capable of.

If I had been terrified before, I did not now have the words to describe my feelings as I watched her take an ordinary-looking woman of around forty-years-old apart and put her back together in a slightly different configuration.

Apparently, I was next and I was shaking so hard, I thought my fillings were going to fall out.

Two -- Bree

I had barely given what I had once unimaginatively called 'The Gang of Four' a second thought in years. Since my life had changed, I had become a different person. I had buried the negative thoughts and tried to live for the present and the future; not the miserable past I had endured through my school years and beyond. Those years would have been bad enough without the four bitches in the gang, but they made them utterly intolerable and drove me to self-harm and thoughts of taking the easy way out.

I couldn't keep the thoughts buried constantly though - there were still some days when the Black Dog barked at me. On those days, it was hard to get out of bed. When the Black Dog really howled, I was glad my huge picture windows only opened a crack for safety reasons. I had a lovely balcony overlooking the Thames, but I had never dared venture out there. The key had long since been consigned to the bottom of London's great river, lest I was tempted.

It had all been plain sailing until I was fifteen. Then it all began to go wrong for me. Firstly, my eyesight, which had until then been fine, deteriorated and I needed glasses. That wouldn't have been so bad in itself, but these glasses looked as if someone had cut the bottoms off two wine bottles and wired them together. Then my teeth went haywire and began to go off in all directions and before I knew it, my mouth was full of metal. Just as I thought things couldn't get worse, my previously milky white complexion began to get rather blotchy. Then it began to redden, and before long there was a very impressive series of active volcanoes going off across my face and shoulders.

At that stage I thought I had the full set - but I was wrong. I was already utterly miserable, but just when I was lamenting the fact that I was damned and cursed, it became clear that I wasn't finished yet. It was then that the Gang of Four got their talons into me and things took a further turn for the worse.

Then, probably the biggest whammy of all hit me. One night, I was lying in bed, thinking in deep despair that no boy would ever look at me with anything but disgust and loathing when I realised that didn't matter to me in the slightest. It was an utter revelation to me that I was more concerned that no girl would look at me with anything but disgust and loathing; and the girl I was most worked up about was a tiny, blue-eyed blonde called Chloe Harper.

The problem was that she was one of my tormentors-in-chief, and while I realised I was falling head-over-heels in love with the girl, I utterly hated the way she treated me with the sneering contempt of a bully that didn't give a shit for her victim's thoughts and emotions. The conflict inside me raged on throughout my ordeal and I dreamed of Chloe gazing up at me from between my parted legs instead of laughing as her friends tried to draw lines between my zits.

At that time I was at my lowest ebb and if things had gone on for much longer, I was either going to slide unseen into the local canal or try to call out my tormentors. Then my Dad got a very shiny, very well-paid job down in London. It was a relief, as the former action was rapidly becoming the most likely outcome. The second would have meant further pain and humiliation in admitting to anyone how I had been tormented and abused. It gave me an easy way out and we moved from a medium-sized town in the Midlands to an affluent suburb of London. My parents were also delighted as they had moved away from London when I was young and they had hated being in the provinces.

Despite the relief that it was finally over, three weeks after we moved, I had my breakdown. My parents at last saw the thirty-two self-inflicted cigarette burns on my arms and the countless slashes from knives, forks, broken glass and anything else that would hurt me more than the self-loathing at my appearance. I never mentioned the girls that had drawn on my face and mocked me unmercifully. Typically with my aloof parents, they were more concerned that their darling daughter had taken up smoking cigarettes rather than the fact that she was partial to putting the bloody things out on her arms.

After a few rounds of counselling, I embarked on a series of measures to rectify the things going wrong with my body. My already strained relationship with my parents stretched to almost breaking point as they funded the work and considered my sullen responses as a lack of gratitude.

The laser treatment on my eyes was hideous but at least I was able to see again without recourse to glasses that made my eyes look like Dobbie the House Elf's huge orbs from my beloved Harry Potter books. The dentistry was even worse but after a lot of pain, I was free of my braces. The acne, however, was a different animal and took a long time and a lot of radical treatment to see off.

As I managed to crawl out of my self-spun cocoon, I was still shy and introverted, but at least now people didn't stare at me in the street or turn their heads in pity at the sight of me. My parents had become social animals now they were back in the Big City and began to see a miserable, sullen daughter as a stumbling block to their new lifestyle. Given some of the parties they attended, I suspected what may have been behind it and when I turned eighteen, I was made an offer I was unable to refuse.

My birthday present was a small flat in Camden. My father bought it as an investment and installed me as the first tenant. I tried to pay some rent as I did a series of temping jobs and the usual round of waitressing and bar work. As time progressed, I even made the occasional friend, though I still found it hard to talk to people without expecting them to mock and deride me.

Finally, when I was just short of nineteen, a scrawny pink-haired girl with a side cut, piercings and awful tattoos came on to me in a dive bar in Camden Town. I didn't care that she was a complete skank only out for an easy lay whilst on her holidays. Someone had finally wanted to bed Sabrina Longley, and I didn't give a flying one. We spent a week turning each other inside out in my flat and my world changed forever.

My relationship with my parents was now almost toxic. They knew of my sexuality and were unable to come to terms with it. They saw it as a betrayal of the things they had done to help me get myself back on track and we barely spoke. Things got so bad I feared they may evict me from my flat but given the menial work I was doing there was no way I could afford anywhere else. I felt a rising sense of panic that I may end up living rough if things got worse.

Then one day, I got news that my maternal grandmother had passed away. She was an eccentric old Austrian lady that I had rarely seen and had lived out her final years in a converted warehouse in Limehouse, in the Docklands area of East London. After the funeral, my father called me to one side. "The will-reading of Granny Schwartz is on Friday. It seems you need to be there. No bloody idea why."

The look on his and my mother's faces when Granny Schwartz left her multi-million-pound Docklands flat to her 'dearest little grand-daughter Sabrina' was a thing to behold. Inevitably they contested it, but to no avail.

I was just short of twenty years old when I moved in. The deeds to a luxury Docklands apartment were in my name, I could see perfectly without glasses, my teeth were straight and unless you looked very hard, you would never notice my acne scars. However, the burns and scars on my arms took months of tattoo work to cover up, and even to this day I am not sure if I like my full sleeve tattoos. But they do their job well and any evidence of my self-harming days is well and truly disguised physically, if not erased mentally.

As my confidence slowly grew, I began to go to clubs and bars where liked-minded people congregated and soon had a small group of friends for almost the first time in my life. Things were looking up but I was still doing rubbish jobs -- data-entry temping and a bit of call-centre work. The apartment was amazing - and of course rent-free - but the upkeep costs were high and I sometimes struggled, especially since I was now completely estranged from my parents.

I had been living there for a few months when I took an older woman back with me one night. She was in her late thirties and very experienced. When she first got a little rough with me, I was shocked. Everything I had done so far was quite restrained. By the time I had known Erika for three weeks, I had a completely different view of what being restrained meant and absolutely loved it. She took me to clubs where things went on that I never knew existed and before long, most of my meagre spare cash was going on clothes that I wouldn't dare wear out in public.

The first few times I dominated other women I was reluctant to do anything that would hurt them. When I realised how much these submissives loved it, I channelled my aggression through the memories of the Gang of Four and superimposed their faces onto those of my willing victims. I tried to imagine the voices of Ellie, Chloe, Donna and Stacey crying out for mercy as I became very adept very quickly. I took to it like a duck to water and very soon I was in demand for my rapidly expanding skillset.

When a friend of Erika's visited me one night on her recommendation, I unleashed my full repertoire on her. As we lay afterwards sharing a cigarette and a bottle of wine, she looked up at me, her eyes wide. "Bloody hell, Sabrina -- you are gold-dust my dear. I've not had a session like that in many a year. You should go pro, young lady. Erika and I know people that would pay top dollar for an evening like that."

At first, I barely gave the idea a second thought; I just took it as a compliment and went on my own merry way. Then the annual maintenance bill for the apartment came in from the property management company and I realised my three days a week on the phones in a call-centre were not going to get me out of this one.

I mentioned my predicament to Erika and she made me a business proposition. She would not exactly be my agent but would procure women for me from her wide circle of acquaintances. She wanted no remuneration but reserved the right to join in when the need arose. I had wavered until I looked at the bill once more and never looked back thereafter.

A week later, Erika sent me my first client. I had no idea how much to charge her, so she did some research for me and sent me a few links to websites of women who provided the same kind of services. My eyes nearly popped out of my head and I thought I could never command such fees. After three sessions, I had paid off the maintenance charge and had a fair bit left over for new clothing.

I had just turned twenty-two when my first website was unleashed on the world and within three months, I had rearranged the apartment entirely. What had been my bedroom in a smaller back room off the main loft area became a guest room, though very few guests used it. I split the huge open-plan loft area into two; one side with a comfortable living area, the other with a beautiful oversized brass bed in the middle of it. I had the windows treated so that I could still see out, but no-one could see in. That view was too good to waste even when I was whipping the shit out of my hapless victims.

Over the next six months, I trawled the internet for equipment and devices that would add to my burgeoning collection, and soon my work area was home to countless racks of instruments of torture. I spent a fortune on fucking-machines and had a Sybian imported at ridiculous cost, but it was worth it. There was now a separate area that I called 'The Machine Room', It was full of benches, chairs and stocks which were all geared up for one purpose -- the restraint of willing women who were eager to be put through seven levels of hell by a girl who once thought she may go through life without anything even resembling a sexual encounter.

By now, my range of clients had gone way beyond Erika's coterie and when two pairs of hands were required - which was becoming more and more frequent given the equipment I now had - we made an irresistible pairing.

Somewhere in that time, I had become Bree instead of Sabrina. Bit by bit, I was leaving my old self behind. The next two years were a heady whirl of a steadily increasing clientele base and rapidly escalating fees. At the same time, I was also mentally digging a deeper hole in which to bury my bad memories, which still surfaced from time to time and led to bouts of depression which I overcame with hard work rather than resorting to chemicals.

I was doing well in filling in the hole I had dug when the carpet was pulled from under my feet. By pure chance, I came across one of my ex-tormentors whilst having a little break from my usual nocturnal activities. I had used the bar a few times. It was a fair way upriver from where I lived, but I had been lucky there in the past. I just fancied a nice quiet one-nighter with a complete stranger, so got myself an outside seat on the riverbank, sank a couple of local premium craft beers and lit up a few Sobranies.