Needing Leah Ch. 01

It's my belief that taking a little time to set up the characters and situations, before diving deep into the good stuff, is necessary to make the sex scenes more impactful and the relationships more fulfilling. So please excuse the relative slowness of chapter 1. I have already written drafts for the later chapters of this story and I can promise you, things absolutely ramp up. I'm really excited to share the world of Bryner and the life of Leah and the characters around her.

1

My parents always insisted I had to get the best education possible. They had grown up wealthy, my dad even ran a large company manufacturing sports bottles until it went bust. My parents were used to wealth and so, even now, even after the business went bust and we lost almost everything; they still wanted me to have the best education possible. Never mind if that meant a school I didn't like. Never mind if it meant a school for girls.

My name is Liam. I grew up in Germany until my dad moved the factory to the UK, where we then went bankrupt and found ourselves living in a council house. That was six months ago. Now, I was enjoying the summer holiday whilst my parents fretted about how to afford to get me back into private school. I was 18, however. I had completed the legal schooling age for the UK, I had earned good grades in my GCSEs and my A Levels. If I was so study further, heading to university was the most common, sensible next step. My father didn't agree. Many private schools had introduced an SLD programme of School Led Diplomas. An extra two years of school where the students earned several different diplomas so that, when the students then went onto university at 20 instead of 18, they were fully prepared. When my dad wanted the best education possible, the idea of earning extra diplomas was one he became adamant about. "It would give you the edge" he argued.

They applied for endless grants and scholarships, endless schemes ran by the different private schools across the UK, desperate one of them would accept me. The summer drew on without success, which I was secretly pleased about. Not only would I rather go straight to university but the six months I'd spent in a state school when our money ran out had been better than any of my years in private education.

It came to the last week of the holidays, however, and my parents did find their success. A school out on the east coast called Bryner Academy. Dad explained it had 200 acres of ground, a lake, and some of the best results in the country. I'd have liked to flick through a few leaflets or scan their website first, but Dad had already organised everything before they told me, as was often his way of doing things he thought I might disagree with.

They told me ten in the evening. I was then to go straight to bed because I'd be waking up at four in the morning. It was the other side of the country, and trains were too expensive, nor could dad afford to lose a day of work driving me. He had wangled a favour out of a taxi driver called John. It wasn't unlike my dad to miraculously make friends with useful people out of the blue whenever he needed favours. They told me they'd pack my bag while I was sleeping and then, when I woke, I could add anything from my room I needed.

So that was it. One day, I'd been thinking I could go on to university, the next I was in a taxi with a large, angry-looking man, on my way to a place I'd never heard of before. John didn't want to speak much. I got the sense he was angry at himself for agreeing to help take me. I feel asleep for most the journey, and only woke up when John was shouting through his window at a speaker before the gates.

"Dropping off Liam. Yes, Liam with an L!" he shouted. He'd parked badly and was a metre or so away from the microphone. "What do you mean 'that's not a girly name?' why should it be?" He turned to me when he noticed I was awake. "I can't sort this bloody thing. What's your surname?"

"Weber."

"Weber!" He repeated. I couldn't hear the response but he turned to me again.

"How do you spell that?"

He was annoyed about it. Somehow it was my fault for having a German surname he couldn't spell. "Look, it's fine. I'll get out here and talk to them myself. You can go." I took my luggage from the boot, made a wave of thanks, which he gave no response to, then walked over to the speaker.

"Sorry, Weber. It's spelt W-E-B-E-R." I said calmly. I was trying to sound deliberately calm in contrast to John, who had already turned the car and was gone with a loud revving of the engine.

"Yes." Answered a woman's voice through a crackling speaker. "I was just saying we have an L. Weber recorded, the first name is listed as Leah."

"Leah? It's Liam." I answered, frowning. "That must be a typo."

"You'll have to speak to admin to change that." She said sharply. She sounded impatient. If my surname had annoyed John, my first name seemed to have annoyed her even more. "I wasn't aware Liam was a girl's name."

"It isn't." I said, confused. Why was she asking that?

"But it is your name?"

"Yes."

"Well you can explain it to admin, then. I'll let you in. Normally, new students would begin by meeting the headmistress, however normally students don't drive down early morning on a Sunday."

"They don't?" Why had my parents insisted I'd left at 4am, then? I dismissed the question. They probably just wanted me to settle in as quickly as I could.

"Your roommate is listed as E. Brooks. I think..." she seemed to turn away and talk to a colleague. "E. Brooks, is she the one who...yes." She came back to the speaker. "E. Brooks was here just a moment ago. I'll see if my colleague can fetch her to greet you."

"Her?" I asked. "My roommate is a girl?" That seemed strange to me. I hadn't heard of dormitories that shared boys and girls room before, certainly not if it's only two people to a room. The question made the receptionist laugh however, as though I'd made a joke. She laughed enough for me to feel stupid, so I didn't press the question any further.

"Come through the gate at wait outside the main building. She'll meet you there in a moment. You have to visit the office for proper registration when you're ready."

"Thank you."

I came through, feeling nervous, and taking a moment to try and adjust my appearance. My blonde hair had been ruffled from sleeping in the car. It was only now, in trying to flatten it, that I realised just how long it had grown over the holiday. "Get it cut at the first opportunity." I told myself. I was wearing an ordinary black top and a pair of a skinny jeans. I always preferred baggier jeans because I had slim figure that could sometimes look quite feminine. Skinny jeans made it more obvious, however they were dark jeans and I had hoped they'd look slightly smarter for my arrival at a new school than my preferred baggier, lighter pair.

As I stood before the main building, trying to sort my appearance, the door opened behind with enough force to startle me. Out burst a tall, lightly-tanned girl with red hair draped down over her left shoulder. She looked beautiful, which immediately added to my nerves. She had soft, brown eyes, squinting a little as she smiled at me. She was slim but with a slight broadness to her build, wearing a white sports top through which her large breasts seemed to bulge. A pair of red shorts and some shoes. I couldn't tell if this was sports uniform for the school or just what she wore on hot days. The warm smile she gave me was followed up by what would've been an energetic wave and greeting, only she stopped herself, looking confused.

"Leah?" She asked, disguising the wave by scratching the side of her head.

"Liam. You're my room mate, then." I said. My mouth had gone a little dry. The idea of sharing a room with a girl as stunning as her, or any girl in general.

"Strange name." She said, smirking, looking me up and down. It made me laugh nervously.

"You're the second person to say that today." I said, expecting her to look surprised, but she just nodded. I thought Liam was an ordinary name in the UK?

"Well, I'm Ellie or Elle or Ella. I don't really care which you call me as long as you stick to one of them and you don't call me Ellen. Why've you come up on a Sunday morning? Most people arrive either last Monday or tomorrow."

"I don't know. I suppose it's just when my lift was."

"From your parents? Where are they?"

"No. Taxi. My parents...they were busy. I got in on a scholarship, I think." I shook my head. "I'm not really sure."

She laughed. "Wasn't your idea to come here, then? A lot of us say that. It's the parents the school markets to, not the students." She nudged me playfully on the shoulder. "Come on, I'll take you to the dorm and you can unpack."

"Ok." I was trying my best to hide my nerves. She walked ahead of me, skipping a little. She seemed surprisingly lively, considering it was still only seven in the morning. Rather than enter the main building, we walked left across a stone pathway through an immaculate field towards an old, wooden building.

"This is Selene building, our dorm. They're all named after Greek Goddesses, which I think is really tacky." She laughed.

"Only the Goddesses?" That made her laugh again.

"Well, knowing the tendency a lot of Greek Gods like Apollo have for...chasing women...that wouldn't be the best name for a girl's dormitory, would it?"

I stopped. "A girl's dorm?" She then stopped and turned back, confused and frowning.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Not a girl's and boy's dorm?"

Her frown deepened, then her brown eyes grew wide in shock. She gasped.

"Oh my God, you are! You're a boy, aren't you? What the fuck?"

"Yes!" I said. She looked appalled, then she gasped again and held her hands over her mouth.

"Sorry, I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry, are you trans? Just, in an old-fashioned place like this, I didn't think they'd, we're not used to...I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"I'm not trans." I said, starting to get annoyed. "I'm a boy. You can see that, can't you?" I felt a little put out that it hadn't been obvious. My hair may have been a little long but even so...

"How can you be here?"

"It must just be a mistake." I grumbled, looking down at my body. I had hair on my arms, for God sake! It should be obvious I was a boy. "The office thought my name was Leah, they must've thought I was a girl and put me in the wrong dorm."

She shook her head. She looked even more shocked. "You don't even know? This is an all-girls school. There isn't a boy's dorm. The school doesn't accept boys."

"What?"

"We have to get you sent back. We'll go see the office now."

She started to stride off ahead of me. I didn't know what to say. For a moment, I didn't say or do anything, then suddenly started in a panic. I grabbed at her arm.

"No, stop! You can't."

"Can't what?"

"Send me away. My parents spent all summer trying to get a scholarship at a private school. We don't have any money. We lost it all. It was sheer luck I was even able to get a free taxi lift here. I don't know how I could get back. And my parents..." I looked down at the floor. "They sent me here. There must be a reason."

She folded her arms. Those warm, brown eyes had turned hard and fierce. She intimidated me. "You mean to say your parents deliberately entered you as a girl called Leah because this is the only private school that would offer you a scholarship?"

"I don't know what they did. They could get in trouble if anyone finds out, though. I could get in trouble. This must count as fraud or something."

"I should bloody well think so! I'm not happy, Liam. I can't share a room with, with a boy! You could be a little pervert!"

"I'm not." I said, pleading. "Please. Just let me stay until I can sort this with my parents. I'll speak to them and get myself transferred. That way, nobody needs to find out and I don't get in any trouble. Please."

I faltered a little under her fierce glare. It weakened my voice, then I added. "I'd really, really be in your debt."

She inhaled sharply. "Come on." She said at once, turning and striding back past me towards the dorm. "I'll take you to our room, but you are in my debt, ok? You really are. This is serious, Liam."

"I know. I'm sorry, I mean...thank you."

She led me through the Selene dormitory. Luckily, it was early enough that nobody else seemed to be awake. We walked in silence, up to the third floor and into a corridor of four rooms. Ours was 3B, the second door. She unlocked, slipped me in quickly, then closed it behind us. It was a nice room. The floorboards creaked like an old ship but it was large with a wide window. There was an ensuite, two beds, two desks, and a spare table set up with a tv on. Her bed was covered with a heap of unwashed clothes which, spotting me looking at them, she quickly went and covered the duvet over the top of them.

"That bed can be yours." She said, pointing to the other one.

"Yes. Thank you."

"When can you call your parents?"

"Erm." I thought carefully. Dad would be at work on a Sunday until the evening, possibly later, if he was able to get any overtime. Mum would be out, too. She didn't have a mobile. She'd never wanted one, which meant I'd have to wait until she got home to ring. "Not yet. Probably not until the evening."

"The evening?" She looked furious.

"M-maybe even tomorrow, it depends when they get home. They're trying to work as much overtime as they can right now. I'll send a text though, I can do that, maybe Dad will get it."

"Liam, you don't understand." She'd folded her arms again. "If you can't get hold of them until the evening, that means you'll be here at least until tomorrow, maybe even the day after, right?"

I nodded. Even then, it depended on when my dad could wangle a free taxi ride out of someone again. She continued. "Which means you're a student here, at least for Monday, and possibly more. If you don't want to explain to the office in case your parents get into trouble, then you have no other choice."

"Other choice than what?" I asked.

"Pretending to be a girl. You'll have to dress like one and attend classes tomorrow. If your name's down as Leah, then that's who you're going to have to be."

My mouth fell open. I could feel my heart beating harder. "Pretend? D-dress up like a girl?"

She was looking at me closely. For a moment, I thought she was going to get angry, but then a smirk appeared on her face and her voice softened.

"Yes, Leah. We're going to dress you up. That's going to have to be your name while you're still stuck here. Leah."