THE REINCARNATION OF JENNIFER JANE

by

Jennifer Jane Pope

with additional narrative by

Ruth Kirkpatrick

_____________________________________________________________________________

 

PART THREE

- 33 -

[Ruth]

When I think now of what poor Janey suffered at the hands of that depraved monster, it still makes me shudder, but had I had any inkling at the time, I think I would have gone completely insane. It was bad enough waiting around with my imagination running riot all the time, but even the wildest ramblings of my mind never came close to the truth. It's still hard to believe it, even now.

Whilst I was wearing out our carpets and doing my best to overload my kidneys with caffeine, however, Caroline Flynn was very busy. When all the dust finally settled, she related the story to me and, if I've omitted an odd detail here and there, or maybe misinterpreted the odd minor point, I ask you to forgive me, for I wasn't actually there ...

 

- 34 -

[As told byCaroline, later.]

`I've found another account in Stuart Morton's name.' Caroline's hopes surged, for the speaker was Detective Constable Wallace, Gordon to his associates, one of the modern intake of University Graduates and an absolute genius with figures and computers. He had been at his terminal in the little side office that was exclusively for the use of the Fraud team for several hours and had finally emerged, waving the print out like a victory flag.

`Anything interesting in it?' Caroline asked, eagerly. Gordon Wallace placed the sheet on her temporarily designated desk, usually the home of another CID constable who was currently on leave. He jabbed a finger down five times. Caroline stared at the figures, which he had already underlined in red ballpoint. They were all records of payments, made at approximately monthly intervals, and all for the same amount, £2,000. There were also some regular outgoing payments, one in particular catching her eye, as the details column showed it to be to a hire purchase company.

`I think this is it,' she breathed, excitedly, reaching for the phone, but her hand froze in midair, as her eyes fell upon another figure. `What does this mean, Gordon?' she asked, pointing to what had caught her attention. Wallace peered over her shoulder.

`That means it was a standing order and the figure after it designates the account and sort code of the account and bank from which it was made,' he told her. Caroline's hand slowly returned to the desk, her hopes sinking.

`Shit!' She spat the word out with a vehemence that astonished Wallace.

`What's up?' he asked. Caroline was shaking her head in frustration.

`This isn't what we're looking for,' she explained, trying to force the annoyance from her tone. `If Morton's up to something dodgy, which I'm bloody certain he is, then he'd hardly be getting his payoffs like this, not from an account that easily traceable, I presume?'

`No, probably not,' Wallace agreed. `This would have to be something legitimate, or at least something that would pass as legitimate at first glance and, preferably, stand up to at least a cursory investigation.'

`And the proceeds of drug dealing wouldn't come into that category.'

`No. Besides,' Wallace went on, `these amounts are regular and always for the same amount, including the eighty nine pence on the end.' Caroline studied the statement again, annoyed at herself for missing the odd pennies in the entries, but she saw that Wallace was right.

`This looks more like a rental payment to me,' he continued. `It's every month and exactly the same figure. Most rentals fall due on a quarterly basis, but sometimes, landlord and tenant agreements change that to monthly.'

`Couldn't it be shares, or interest on some other investment?'

`I don't think so. Share dividends vary and so do interest rates. Looking at the dates, I can tell you that there were three changes just in the period covered here. The only other possibility would be a pension of some kind, but he's not old enough to have been in the services for any length of time and besides, five hundred quid a week is a bloody big pension. Not only that, but that payment there,' he said, indicating an entry in the debit column which showed nealy ten thousand pounds, `is to the Inland Revenue. It would be near enough what your Mr Morton would have to pay on an extra income of twenty four grand a year, give or take a few things he might be able to claim as allowances against it.'

`How long would it take you to dig out the truth?' Caroline asked. Wallace pursed his lips.

`All depends,' he said, `but an hour or two should do it. Mind you, the DI will have to get a warrant, otherwise I'll be in the crap. I'll have to take it to the bank that's making the payments and get them to dig.'

`That could be too long,' Caroline said. `Can't you just hack into their records, or whatever it is you do?'

`Well, I could, but if anyone finds out, the whole department will be in it.'

`Not in it as badly as poor Janey is,' Caroline muttered. Wallace looked at her strangely.

`Why do you keep refering to her as Janey?' he asked. `I thought the missing girl's name was Christina somethingorother?'

`Listen, there's no time to go into that,' Caroline told him, standing up and handing him back the printout. `Just you hack off and do whatever it is you do in there. Get me a copy of this and I'll see about getting the warrant organised. If you come up with anything we'll need to get it anyway, but right now, every second saved could be crucial. That girl's life, whatever we call her, is in real danger!'

 

- 35 -

[Jenny Jane]

I came round to find myself dripping with water, Morton standing before me holding the empty bucket which he had just thrown over me. When he saw that I had opened my eyes, he placed the bucket to one side and picked up the dreaded crop once more, flexing it between his hands.

`Can't have you passing out on us, can we?' he laughed and it was the most horrible sound I had ever heard. `Wicked sluts must learn to take their punishments properly, mustn't they?' He slapped the crop across the outside of my right thigh with a backhanded swipe. It was not such a brutal blow as the first three, but it was still enough to tear another howl of anguish from my throat. Clearly he believed in symmetry, for the crop rose and fell again, cutting across my other thigh at the same angle. I writhed against the straps that held me at his mercy, but they held firm, as they had been designed to do.

`Different bitches have different tolerance levels, Chrissie,' Morton told me, prodding my stomach with the tip of his implement. `Obviously, yours isn't as high as some - yet. But never mind. There's plenty of water in the well outside, so you won't miss anything.' He reached forward, inserted the handle of the crop into my slit and thrust it home, burying several inches of it in my vagina. It was almost a relief, for whilst that awful thing was inside me, it wasn't being used to inflict further such terrible punishment. He laughed again and flicked at the trailing end with his boot.

`You'll be begging me to put my cock up there before long,' he sneered. Never, I thought, but I said nothing out loud. The man was quite obviously demented and I had no intention of inflaming him any further than he already was. He stroked the bulge of his crotch, caressing the soft leather which covered it and made a moue with his lips, feigning a kiss. `Don't you wish you had been a good girl to me now?' he said, his voice grating. `Well, perhaps I'll give you the chance to make amends. Would you like to make amends, Chrissie?'

I seized my chance, blindly. `Yes!' I gasped. `Yes, yes, I'd like to make amends. I'll do anything you say!' His hand was moving faster now and there was a maniacal light in his eyes, behind that sinister black leather.

`Anything?' he taunted me. `Anything at all?'

`Yes!' I groaned. `Anything at all!' He stopped his masturbatory movements and instead stroked his chin, as though considering.

`We'll have to see,' he said, very quietly and without warning grabbed the whip and snatched it out of me with a jerk that forced another gasp from me. He smiled and walked around behind me. `But first, Chrissie,' I heard him say, `we have to make sure you've learned your lesson properly.'

I tensed myself, but the pain of the whip, when it came, still set me to thrashing and howling once more. Four, five times it cut into my shoulders, my back, my buttocks and the backs of my thighs, but he was whipping with more control now and the searing heat, though agonising still, was not quite sufficient to drive me into the sanctuary of unconsciousness. Only when the sixth stroke rose, rather than fell, delivered upwards, between my legs and landing squarely in the crack between my buttocks and the lips of my sex, did I finally, mercifully, pass out again.

 

- 36 -

[Caroline]

Gordon Wallace was a genius with his computer. Within half an hour, he was back at my desk, this time with several sheets of paper clutched in his hand. He spread them out in front of me.

`Any luck with that warrant?' he whispered, not wanting the two detectives who occupied the desks nearest the window to overhear. I shook my head.

`Not yet,’ I said, bitterly. `I thought we’d be able to get an inspector to authorise it, but to go nosing around in bank accounts, apparently we now need either a magistrate or at least a superintendent rank on the signature.

`The Big White Chief upstairs is at some conference in Brighton for the next two days, George Murrell’s in bed with food poisoning and the Magistrate’s Clerk won’t give us a sitting until after lunch, the wizened old bastard!

`I explained it was probably a matter of life and death, but when I showed him what little evidence we had, he just sniffed at me and said he couldn't see how payments into bank accounts could be life threatening.'

`The stupid old fart!' Wallace hissed. `Doesn't he know it's not his job to see anything? At least the information from Morton's second account is admissable. My search was still covered by the general warrant that was issued when we were investigating all the staff originally, or at least, it certainly will be if I say I found it a few weeks ago.

`Mind you, I'd rather you made sure the new warrant covers it anyway, just in case someone starts asking why we didn't follow it up earlier.'

`Will do,' I promised. `Now, what have you discovered in the meantime?'

`Quite a bit and not a lot, all at the same time,' Wallace told me. `The monthly payments are from an account held in the name of Wakelin Farms Ltd and is, as I suspected, some sort of rent. Wakelin are quite a large concern, so their computer system is on line. However, they don't seem to be hiding anything iffy, because none of their stuff seems to be properly password protected and I had little trouble getting into it.

`The rent payment appertains to a parcel of land known as Parsons Acres, some sort of farmland, which also includes some woodlands, a large lake and a few cottages, which are not part of the leasing agreement, as they appear to have been sold off individually a few years ago.

`Parsons Acres is now the property of your man, Stuart Morton. It was left to him in the will of his late uncle, John Morton, who died childless and unmarried, about ten years ago. Apparently, a lot of the land is unfarmable, but there is some of it which is valuable grazing, plus a large apple orchard and another area which Wakelin sub-let to a riding stables.'

`You've done really well, Gordon,' I said and meant it. To have discovered so much in so short a time really was little short of miraculous.

`The trouble is, though,' Wallace pointed out, `it doesn't really tell us much we can really use.'

`Maybe not,' I mused. `But then, maybe again, it does. Listen, Gordon, I need two favours from you.'

Wallace shrugged. `If I can,' he said. I smiled, grimly.

`Firstly,' I said, `if I give you my paperwork, I need you to take over getting that warrant. I also need you to apply for another one, authorising us to search any buildings, wells, woods or anything else which might be inside the boundaries of Parsons Acres, and that includes those cottages, no matter who owns them.

`And secondly, I need the address of the place right now.'

`Why?' Wallace asked. `You can't do anything without the warrant.'

`Maybe not,' I agreed. `But I can at least take a look around, play the idle tourist, or something.'

`Doesn't this bloke Morton know you?' Wallace asked.

`Yes, but he's only ever seen me in uniform, with my hair pinned up. Even my mother says how different I look in civvies.'

Wallace looked dubious. `I don't know that it's a wise move,' he faltered. `You should at least take someone with you.'

`There's nobody spare,' I told him. `Not for unofficial visits, anyway. You just see to it that you get those warrants and use the one for the farm first. The bank accounts and stuff can wait.'

 

- 37 -

[Jenny Jane]

This time when I came round, I was no longer hanging by my wrists, though I was still secured to the frame, which Morton had lowered to its original position once more. My flesh felt as though it were on fire and even the slight movement I was capable was enough to send further tongues of flame shooting through my nervous system as the vivid welts on my back and shoulders chafed against the hard ground.

Morton had drawn up an old wooden barrel and was sitting on it, the crop dangling idly from one hand, watching me intently.

`Feeling better, are we?' he drawled and broke into an insane laugh. He knew the agonies I was going through all right. He stood up, looming over me, the tip of the crop probing my slit and I tensed myself mentally, waiting for him to strike again. However, he was playing with me now, tormenting me, only too well aware of the abject terror in whose clutches I now lay.

Tossing the crop to one side, he bent over me and released the chain holding my left ankle to the frame, dragging it across to almost meet the other one and clipping the two leather cuffs together with about nine inches of chain between them. Then, moving around, he did the same to my left wrist, though this time shackling the two cuffs with only two links separating them. Finally, he released the two remaining links to the frame and pulled me roughly to my feet. As I lurched against him, unable to support myself, I smelled the raw lust in his sweat and, at that instant, almost lost the will to live. Only the thought of Ruth and my parents rescued me. That and the memory of my pledge to Chrissie's spirit to get even with this beast one day.

He half dragged, half carried me to an old, rustic wooden bench table that stood at the farthest end of the barn and I saw that he had already prepared it, with several lengths of stout rope. Throwing me along its length, face down, the rough wood tearing at the vivid swellings on my breasts, he used one length to fasten the links between my wrists to the stretcher bar which supported the end legs, pulling it tight so that my arms were drawn out straight in front of me, the other edge of the table top pressing cruelly into my lower stomach.

Now he separated my ankle cuffs once again, drawing each limb out and tying it to a table leg, splaying my thighs wide and exposing me crudely to his leering gaze.

`What's it to be then, Chrissie slut?' he purred, his mouth close to my ear. `Another good thrashing, or would you prefer me to fuck you, you whore?' I closed my eyes, trying to pretend that the answering voice was not my own.

`Fuck me,' it said, flatly. `Please, fuck me.'

 

- 38 -

[As told by Caroline, later.]

Caroline found the road easily enough, for Wakelins was signposted from the main A road onwards, but she pulled into the desrted gateway of a field, well short of her destination, and studied the maps again. She had supplemented her large scale road atlas with an ordnance survey map of the area, hurriedly acquired from the main Smith's in the High Street and it was this that was going to be most useful to her now.

Having determined her own current position, she set about relating it to what the map revealed. The boundaries of Parsons Acres were easily determined, following two B roads and a small river that fed the lake Gordon Wallace had mentioned. She pinpointed the five cottages, set alongside one of the roads and also the position of what appeared to be the farmouse itself, reached by a very minor lane, along a distance of about five miles. The farm estate itself was narrow and long, only broadening out when it reached the lake itself.

She drove past the cottages as slowly as she dared, keeping the little Fiesta to thirty miles an hour, casting furtive glances at their frontages. They all seemed in good repair and certainly lived in and she mentally discarded them as a real possibility. Too many prying eyes for Morton to be able to hide a captive, always supposing - her stomach lurched at the thought - that he hadn't already killed Janey. That lake, a sack and a few housebricks would be a perfect place to dispose of her body, Caroline was only too well aware.

However, for an hour now, she had been experiencing a growing sensation that Janey was still alive, though Caroline could not have said how she was so convinced of it. And similarly, apart from any logistical problems the cottages might have presented to Stuart Morgan, she was totally certain that Janey was not being held in any of them. She slowed around the bend, out of sight of the buildings and pulled over onto a gravelled verge, which was, according to the map, about two hundred yards from the lane leading to the farmhouse.

Logically, she knew, she ought to continue on foot, for the sound of a car engine in such a deserted area as this would alert any listening ears to her approach, but to walk that distance would take Caroline at least an hour and something was telling her she didn't have that much time to waste. She decided to look for a compromise.

From where her car was parked, Caroline could see that the lane along which she would have to drive was hemmed in on either side by high hedgerows, which, she hoped, would help buffer the sound of the little car's small engine. There was also, according to the map, an area of woodland out to the right, about a mile from the farmhouse and stretching up a hillside. From there, if she could find somewhere to hide the car, she would have a good view at her target and she silently gave thanks to the Ranger Scout instructor who had encouraged her to take up Orienteering as a teenager. Without that training and experience, the OS map would have yielded up far less information.

She started the car again and, keeping the revs as low as possible, turned into the lane and began the toturously slow journey towards the farm. After about ten minutes, the first of the trees came into view and she saw the hillside, which she knew from the map rose to a ridge of about two hundred and fifty feet, rising up behind them. Her luck held, for the hedgerow on her right suddenly finished and there was no fence between the lane and the woodland any more. Picking a spot where the undergrowth was fairly sparse and there were not too many broken branches on the ground, Caroline steered the car off the gravelled surface and nosed it slowly towards a clump of bushes. It would still be visible from the road and she wondered about trying to camouflage it with odd branches, but the time was already slipping by at an alarming rate and she decided she would have to chance it.

Grabbing a heavy flashlight from the glove compartment to use as a makeshift weapon and pocketing the small binoculars which she had also purchased during her flying trip to the High Street, she locked the driver's door and began picking her way up the gently rolling incline. It was slower going than she had anticipated, for the woods had not been properly coppiced for years and there were tangled bushes and clumps of thorns everywhere, but she finally emerged on the edge of the treeline, about six hundred yards from the main farmhouse and about two hundred feet above it. Settling herself against a tree, to minimise the chance of anyone seeing her figure at such a distance, she took out the baby field glasses and trained them on the main house.

It was, she saw at once, totally derelict, with gaping holes in the roof and the main chimney stack little more than a heap of rubble. Thoughts of sacks and housebricks came rushing back, but she thrust them aside and swung the glasses around to the second building. This one was much more promising, she thought. It was some sort of a barn, its roof more or less intact and with windows that still contained glass, which was more than the ruined house could boast. The panes looked grimy and several appeared to be cracked, though the binoculars were not really powerful enough for Caroline to be sure.

What she could see, however, set her pulse racing, for, as she continued her slow traverse, there, sitting out in the open, next to what remained of an old hay wagon, was a bright red sports car. It was then that she heard the piercing scream that came rolling up the hillside, reverberating through the trees at her back and it was all she could do to prevent herself from bursting from her concealment and running headlong down the grassy slope towards the source of the sound.

Deliberately placing the glasses down beside her, Caroline took out her personal radio and turned on the power. Selecting a channel, she depressed the push-to-talk button and spoke slowly into the microphone, praying that she was till within range of one of the relay antennae. It was only when the speaker remained totally silent, that she realised her mistake. This farm and the surrounding hillsides were within the area of the neighbouring force and their frequencies were completely different to her own. Feverishly, she switched to the next channel, depressed the PTT again and prayed.

 

- 39 -

[Jenny Jane]

I was left, bound and stretched out over that table for several minutes. I heard Pig's footsteps receding as he walked down to the other end of the barn and then a creaking of hinges, which, I presumed, meant he had gone outside. I tried turning my head to see, but with my arms stretched taut in front of me, it was all but impossible and the movement caused my breasts to scrape against the rough timbers, further aggravating the burning welts there.

Strangely, I had suddenly become very calm, though the pain from my beatings had not lessened noticably. Rather, I had become distanced from it, in a way that is hard to put into words, other than to say that, whilst one part of my brain was only too well aware of my physical agonies, another part was feverishly weighing odds and calculating possibilities, that part of the human psyche that is the reason, perhaps, why so many people come out alive from situations where all reason says they should have had no chance of survival.

The Pig had said that there were no people around for a distance of five miles, but England, I reasoned, was not that big a place. The various moors were large wildernesses, it was true, but there were no moors in our part of the country and, unless I had been unconscious for longer than I thought, he had not brought me that far from Septon House. The barn suggested that we were no longer in town, but I knew the surrounding countryside quite well, having cycled extensively, accompanied by Ruth more often than not.

Five miles was a long way to go between inhabited buildings in this area, I knew. The most remote place had to be Scutter's Mill, a restored windmill which stood alone on Scutter's Hill, overlooking the valley through which the River Eane meandered on its way to the nearby coast. Apart from that, there was the National Trust Country Park. The main museum building, with its cafes and toilets and gift shop, lay isolated in the middle of extensive woodlands, but there were at least two farm building complexes within three miles of it. In any case, this was a barn, not a mill and this certainly wasn't National Trust property. The general, overwhelming air of decay proved that.

The largest of the outlying farms was, as far as I could remember, Wakelins, followed closely by Hawksley Dairies. A single track road ran through Hawksleys, but it was mostly neatly fenced fields full of Jersey cows and rows of neat milking parlours and concrete storage barns. Wakelins I remembered for the lake, which I had been told had probably started life as a quarry of some description in the late eighteenth century and had eventually flooded from the nearby little River Meese, which joined up with the Eane a few miles further on. I had fished that lake as a boy, though it was rare to catch anything worth taking home afterwards. Later, there had been some sort of pollution scare and the lake had been fenced off, with huge warning signs hung from the wire.

I sighed and two tears splashed onto the wooden table top. What did it matter where I was? I had made enough noise when Pig was whipping me to waken the dead. If there had been anyone in the area, they would surely have come to investigate by now. My only chance of rescue was if some rambler or other happened by at the critical moment. I dared not scream for help, for fear of antagonising my captor even more, but I knew, only too well, that he had not finished with that crop yet. And, please God, I prayed, let there be more than one person. Morton would be more than a match for almost any other single man.

The rusted hinges creaked again and I heard his footsteps returning. He stopped, somewhere behind me and I heard his measured breathing. I willed myself not to try to look around. Every second that passed was a second won and maybe, just maybe, another second closer to being plucked from this living hell.

`Not asleep, are we Chrissie?'

I gritted my teeth. `No,' I said. He laughed.

`That's good. I don't want you nodding off just yet.' I jumped at the touch of his hand on my buttocks, his fingers stroking my burning skin and forcing a whimper of pain from my lips. `At least you've got some colour in your cheeks now,' he sneered. His hand went down, probing into the crack between those poor cheeks, one finger pressing against the closed ring of my bottom. After a few seconds, it withdrew, but it returned again almost immediately and my stomach lurched as I realised what the bastard intended, for this time the thrusting digit was coated with something greasy and it slipped inside me, despite my clenched muscles.

`What are you doing?' I gasped, starting to panic.

`Something I've been wanting to do to you for a long time, slag,' he grated, working still more of the slippery lubricant into my passage. `Only it wouldn't have been such a good idea before. Now there aren't any doctors to go nosing around. You won't be needing any doctors any more, Chrissie.'

The hand withdrew and I heard the sound of a zipper. A moment later, my tortured cheeks were being pulled apart again, only this time the invader that was thrust against my puckered entrance was not a finger.

`No, please!' I screeched. `Not that, not there. Pleeeaase!'

`Where then?' he mocked. I sobbed, helplessly.

`The other place, please,' I begged.

`You mean your cunt, whore?' I nodded. `Well say so then. Ask me to fuck your worthless whore's cunt.' I swallowed, gasping and shaking.

`Please,' I said, forcing the words out, one by one. `Please ... fuck ... my ... worthless ... whore's ... cunt.' My head dropped back onto my arms and the tears flowed even faster.

`Say it again,' he ordered. I said it, no longer caring, for the words meant nothing anyway. `I don't think so,' he said, when I had fallen silent again. `I think I've had enough of your worthless whore's cunt. I want to see you squirm on the end of my prick when it's stuffing your worthless whore's arse.' I shrieked as his huge knob pressed harder against me, tensing my muscles to repel its invasive assault.

`I thought you made me a promise, Chrissie,' Morton said. He drew back from me and there was a brief pause. I heard something rustling, but by now my eyes were tightly shut and I could not bring myself to open them. Morton spoke again.

`It seems,' he said, languidly, `that you haven't learned your lesson yet.' I heard the swish a split second before that wicked leather braid slashed across my buttocks and the scream the blow rent from me was testimony enough to the force that Morton had put into the blow. `Now,' I heard him say, `what's it to be?'

I felt his member against my hole again and this time I did not resist. Slowly, I was stretched wider, until, inch by inch, the thick shaft itself was sliding into me. I was convinced he would split me in two, but at last I felt the pressure of his pubic bone afainst my coccyx and knew that I had been fully penetrated. Rough fingers raked my wounded flesh and I bucked, pistoning myself on his shaft, much to his evident delight.

`That's right, Chrissie slut,' I heard him say. `Show how you like fucking nice big cocks with your whore's arse.' He raked me again, with the same result, but now he was doing more of the thrusting, that massive fleshy pole ramming in and out of me. I heard myself gasping and groaning, though I was no longer in touch with the absolute reality of what was happening to me. It was so horrible that I fought to block it all out, though the hot jet that suddenly spurted up into my depths was all too real to deny. I heard him gasping his animal lusts, a loud yell as he came, followed by a long groan and a muffled grunt. He slid out of me and I heard a thump, just as I passed out.

 

- 40 -

[As told by Caroline, later.]

Caroline had already made a phone check to Septon Hall and confirmed that David Tuttle was on duty there until six, so she knew that she was almost certainly dealing with Stuart Morton on his own, unless the duo had other accomplices. Somehow, she didn't think so. Rather, she knew so, with the same eerie certainty that she knew that Janey was in this old barn.

Leaving the cover of the trees, she jogged steadily down the hillside, watching out for pot holes or hidden stones, knowing that a fall could easily result in a broken bone or bad sprain. There was no cover between the treeline and the buildings, but Caroline knew she would have to take the chance that Morton was too preoccupied to look outside. Her only alternative would have been to go another four hundred metres or more through the edge of the woods and then approach the barn with the ruined house between herself and her quarry, keeping her hidden from view for all bar the last fifty metres. However, that would take a lot more time and time was the one thing she knew she did not have.

She approached the big doors, leaning drunkenly on their aging hinges, placing each foot down in turn with deliberate care, avoiding odd twigs, dried leaves and a couple of rusted cans. Slowly, the heavy torch gripped firmly in her right hand, she peered around the rotting timber and almost shouted out loud at the tableau before her.

Her eyes took in the abandoned paraphenalia, the ropes dangling from the rafters to some sort of timber frame which lay in the middle of the floor and ...

... and the macabre hooded figure, clothed in black leather from the waist down, who was humping in and out of the bound and helpless form that lay, bruised and bloodied, across the heavy bench before him. As Caroline stepped into the barn, she saw his hands clenching, crushing Janey's already purple flesh, his back arching and she knew she had but seconds, seconds during which the evil monster would be lost in his own world of twisted passions, unable to help himself, whatever happened.

She was running before she knew it, jumping over the timber frame, dodging around a discarded harness, her arm raised, the torch swinging through the air like a club. She heard Morton shout, saw him stiffen, shaking and groaning and then felt the shockwave up to her shoulder as she brought the rubber cased torch crashing down onto the top of his skull. He let out one muffled grunt and then his knees buckled and he slid slowly to the ground, his still erect cock sliding slowly out of Janey's -

`Oh God, no!' Caroline gasped, as she realised how Morton had been raping the helpless girl. The other was bad enough, but this ... She stood over the unconscious man, arm raised again, but despite everything, something prevented her from striking again. Letting her arm fall limply, she turned slowly back to the bound girl, hardly daring to touch her, not wanting to go any closer, fearful that the worst had already happened.

 

- 41 -

[Jenny Jane]

I was only unconscious for a matter of seconds and, when I came to my senses again, I saw hands struggling with the straps that held my wrists, feminine hands, slimmer and more delicate than Morton's huge paws. I managed to raise my head and saw the mop of fair hair, heard her muttered curses as she tried to free me.

`Caroline?' I said, weakly, in hesitant recognition. She turned her face to mine and I saw the sheer horror in her eyes.

`Oh God, Janey!' she gasped. `What has he done to you?' I tried to smile, but the muscles refused to obey me.

`Where is he?' I muttered, as the first cuff fell away. She grimaced.

`On the deck, behind you. No, don't worry,' she urged, seeing the panic in my expression. `He's out cold, only I don't know for how long. I've left my bloody handcuffs in my car, so we'd better hurry. I tried raising the local police on my radio, but this must be a black spot for reception. We'd better make a run for my car.' The second cuff was off now and she turned her attention to my ankles, straddling the legs of the unconscious Morton as she worked. `Do you think you can walk?' she asked, as she finally helped me to stand.

I looked down at the motionless form. His cock, now limp, hung ludicrously from the opening in the front of his leggings and, in a sudden blinding rage, I stamp furiously down on it. He groaned, but did not otherwise stir and I all but overbalanced, only Caroline's outstretched arms saving me. I leaned against her, panting heavily.

`I can walk,' I promised. `I can bloody well walk. Just get me away from ... from that!' I spat on the sprawled body, not once, not twice, but three times. I saw the crop, lying where he had left it and made to grab it up, but Caroline pulled me back.

`Leave him,' she snapped. `If he comes round, he'll kill the pair of us. Come on, we've got to get to a phone, or somewhere nearer the town so I can call in and get help.'

Fear lent strength to my leg muscles, but even so, I still don't know how I made it back to the car. Caroline peeled off her lightweight jacket, drawing it around my shoulders, but I was past caring about my nudity. All that I knew was that I was out of that awful place, away from that monster and the farther away I got from both, the better. My bare feet were cut and bloodied by the time we reached the car, but I did not notice them. Even the pain in my back and buttocks as I lowered myself against the rough fabric of the passenger seat seemed remote and unimportant as Caroline fumbled her key into the ignition and the engine stuttered into life.

As she backed the Fiesta carefully around onto the gravelled track, I closed my eyes, drew my arms tightly across my chest and wept uncontrollably.

 

- 42 -

[Ruth - as told to her later.]

Caroline found a telephone box about a mile after rejoining the proper road. She briefly considered stopping at the row of cottages, for there were telephone lines strung across the road to three of them, but there was still a remote possibility that one or more of the occupants could have been in league with Morton and she was not going to take any risks, no matter how slim.

She dialled treble nine, summoned an ambulance and the nearest police unit and then asked the operator to transfer her through to her own station. DI Murray came on the line and she briefly outlined the events as they had unfolded. After muttering on about cowgirl police women, the gruff detective offered her a grudging "well done" and promised to be on the scene as soon as possible.

Returning to the car, Caroline opened the boot and dragged out the little picnic blanket she kept there, unfolding it over Janey's lap to preserve her modesty a little more. The stricken girl looked up at her, forcing a smile onto her tear stained features.

`Thanks,' she whispered. `Thank you.'

`Just rest now, Janey,' Caroline said, gently, climbing back behind the wheel and locking both doors. She started the engine again and sat with it ticking over, her eyes locked unmovingly on the road leading back to where they had come from, hand hovering over the gearstick, ready to move at the first sight of a red sports car.

`Caroline,' Janey whispered, after a minute or so, `you called me Janey just then.' Caroline gave her a sideways grin.

`It's your name, isn't it?' she said. Janey sighed.

`Who told you, Ruth or Mum?'

`Ruth did, but your Mum and Dad were there too,' Caroline said.

`My Dad? Christ, they told him too?' Janey let out a stifled laugh, that was more like a sob. `And he believed them?'

`He must have done. He was going mad trying to get the order against you overturned, I know that much.'

`And you?' Caroline hesitated before replying.

`I knew Ruth believed and your Mum told me how she'd guessed,' she replied. `And, crazy as the whole thing is, yes, I believed too. I've seen a few freaky things in my time, including today. I told Wallace I was just coming out here to scout about, but the moment he mentioned this place I just knew. It was like there was a little voice in the back of my head, repeating your name over and over and the nearer I got, the louder it seemed to become.'

`What did the voice sound like?' Janey asked.

`Fuzzy and like it was just out of reach, but I think it was female. Yes, I'm sure it was female.'

Janey closed her eyes again. `Chrissie,' she whispered and went very quiet

 

- 43 -

[Jenny Jane].

I knew now that it had to be Chrissie who guided Caroline to my rescue. I still have no idea of what happens to a person's spirit after they die, unless you count my own rather unique case, but what had happened convinced me that we do all have an immortal soul, whether it belongs to a specific god, or otherwise.

The ambulance and the police arrived almost together and I was helped gently onto a stretcher and lifted up inside the vehicle, a concerned female paramedic fussing over me and promising I would soon be in hospital. Caroline climbed up alongside me for a few moments.

`I've got to stay here and go back up to the farm,' she told me, `but I'll come and see you as soon as I can. And I'll ring Ruth and tell her you're on your way to hospital before I do anything else.' I reached up for her hand and held it tightly for a few seconds.

`Thanks again,' I whispered. `I'll never be able to repay you.' She grinned down at me.

`All part of the service,' she said. `Now, off you get and I'll see you soon. I'll even bring you some grapes.'

`I'd rather have a bottle of wine,' I laughed, weakly. `As long as it isn't red.'

Two hours later, my wounds washed and dressed, a shot of morphine deadening the worst of the pain, I was sitting up in my own little single bed side ward when Ruth arrived. Thankfully, most of the damage Morton had inflicted on me was hidden beneath the crisp hospital gown they had given me, but I think someone must have told her the extent of my injuries, for she made no attempt to do more than kiss me gently and hold my hand. If she had hugged me, despite the pain killers, I think I should probably have ended up on the ceiling. We both sat there for over a minute, tears streaming down our faces, before I reached out for the box of tissues on the side table and took out one for each of us.

`Look at us,' I sniffled, dabbing at my eyes. `What a pair of soppy bitches we are.' I screwed up the tissue and let it fall into my lap. `Are Mum and Dad here?' I asked.

`They're outside. We thought it best if I come in first. The sister said not to tire you out.'

`I don't feel too bad now,' I assured her. `And I'd rather be back in my own bed as soon as possible, if Dad will have me.'

`He'll have you all right.'

`How did he take it - you know ...?' Ruth grinned.

`Well, you know Dad. At first, he said we were both crackers and he said something about you being a clever bitch and then Mum slapped him and told him never to call any of his children by that name again.'

I gaped at her, for my mother was one of the most placid, passive people I have ever known.

`Straight in the mouth,' Ruth confirmed. `He just stood there, looking completely bewildered.'

`Well, you can hardly blame him,' I said. `Even I find it hard to believe at times. By the way, have you seen Caroline yet?'

`She popped by briefly whilst we were waiting to be allowed in. She said to tell you she will be back, but she's helping the hunt for Morton.'

`Morton?' I exclaimed. `But he was knocked out back at the farm.'

`He must have come round again and realised he was in trouble. By the time the boys in blue arrived, there was no sign of him, or the car. Apparently the track to the farm goes on through some woods, past an orchard and comes out on another road near a lake. Apparently, it's a bit rough, but just about driveable. They reckon he got away that way.'

`That Pig!' I snarled. `I want to see him rot in jail for what he's done. He killed that nurse, you know. He even as good as told me so.'

`Well, at least they've got Tuttle under lock and key.'

`That's the man they called David, isn't it? Well, I suppose that's something.'

`Don't worry. They'll get Morton as well before too long.'

 

- 44 -

[Ruth]

I stayed at the hospital until very late that evening, alternating bedside visits, first with Mum, then with Dad, then Caroline Flynn and finally both Mum and Dad, after they had returned from a short trip to the shops to pick up a few necessaries for Janey. Caroline came back during Mum's second visit and I had the chance to have a brief chat with her. I thanked her again for what she had done, for only her actions had been responsible for saving Janey's life. She shrugged off the compliment in that funny, brusque way she has about her and was more annoyed that Morton had got away.

`I should have thought of disabling the car,' she explained. `The keys were probably still in the ignition, now I think about it. Oh, if only I'd remembered to put my handcuffs in my jacket.' I laid a consoling hand on her arm.

`But you saved Janey,' I reminded her. `That's the most important thing as far as we're all concerned. I lost my brother and got him back as a sister and I couldn't have taken losing her as well.'

`I know,' she said, `but the bastard is still out there somewhere. He even managed to get to his bank accounts and empty them before anyone thought of getting them frozen, so he's probably not driving the same car any more, either.'

`How much money did he draw out?' I asked. She raised her eyebrows.

`A shade over fifteen thousand pounds,' she said. `That's enough to pick up a decent secondhand car and lie low for weeks. For all we know, he may have other properties. With the cash he had coming in, even legitimately, he could certainly afford somewhere. The place he shared with Tuttle was actually his and not owned jointly and he owned it outright, no mortgage involved.

`It'll take a while to sort out his affairs, but I reckon we'll find other bank accounts, too. Tuttle isn't saying a lot, so far, though he has admitted to knowing that Morton was selling drugs illegally and witholding dosages from female patients, only letting them have their full amounts in return for sexual favours.' She shuddered, visibly. `How's Janey holding up?'

`Remarkably well, given the situation and everything that's happened to her,' I said. `After what she went through all those weeks ago and now this ...' My voice trailed off, as I tried to imagine the turnoil in my sister's mind. It was a wonder she really wasn't a candidate for a spell in Septon House. No, I refused to even consider the prospect.

`Is she under sedation?' Caroline asked. I nodded.

`Only a mild sedative,' I said. `The doctor said it'll just calm her nerves and give her a general feeling of well being. By the way, she won't say much about her injuries and I can't exactly ask her to show me. What exactly did that swine do to her?'

Very gently, Caroline explained. It can't have been easy for her to tell me and I could see that she was still shaken and sickened by the experience herself, but I did need to know and not just out of a morbid sense of curiosity.

`Oh my God!' I exclaimed, when she had finished speaking. `That man's not just perverted, he's sick!'

`Yes, I wish now I'd hit him harder, though I doubt whether he'll be running after too many other women just yet.'

`How's that?' I asked and Caroline explained how Janey had stamped on his genitals. `Shame she wasn't wearing boots,' I said, grimly. `Or, better still, her stiletto heels!'

 

- 45 -

[Jenny Jane]

The nurses were a bit worried that I would over tire, what with so many in and out visits, but I assured them I did not mind. After all that had happened, I didn't want to be on my own and I told them that, if they tried to stop people seeing me, I'd discharge myself. The senior staff nurse, a Jamaican girl of about twenty five and a grin the width of a motorway, gave a little snort.

`You, my girl, won't be going anywhere, lessen we says so,' she said, waving an admonitory finger at me. `We just got your medical records sent over from that other place and there's still an order on you, so youse better'n behave, or youse gonna find yourself right back there!' She smiled when she made the threat, but we struck a deal anyway. Only one person in with me at a time, Ruth could be with me in between any other visitors and I should try to get some sleep whilst my sister sat with me.

`Fair enough,' I agreed. `You're the boss.' Her smile widened still further.

`Yah, you got that'n right, missy,' she laughed.

The most awkward moment came when Dad sat down at my bedside. He looked uncertain and ill at ease and I could well understand why. I held out a hand to him and, after a brief hesitation, he took it.

`We haven't held hands in more than ten years,' I said. `Not since I was still a little boy. Sons and fathers don't do that sort of thing, do they? I think that's a shame, don't you?'

`Your Mum and Ruth tell me I've got to call you Janey now,' he said.

`Well, I don't look much like a Jamie, do I, unless you count that tall film actress, but then she's Jamie Leigh anyway. I think it's easier if everyone calls me Janey. It might save some embarrassing slip ups later. Besides, whether any of us like it or not, I'm a girl now. I suppose Ruth's told you I call myself Jennifer Jane up in London. Some of my new friends call me Jenny Jane.'

`Jenny Jane,' he murmered, squeezing my hand gently. `Well, I couldn't wish for two prettier daughters than the ones I've got, I suppose,' he said. He stood up and looked down at me. `Close your eyes a minute,' he said. I obeyed him, without question.

`I did this once before,' he whispered, `only you weren't there to know it.' I felt the gentle pressure of his lips on my forehead. `Goodbye Jamie ... my son,' he said, his voice near to cracking. I opened my eyes in alarm. There were tears in his eyes as he pulled back, but he still clutched my hand firmly. A slow smile spread across his features. `And hello Jenny Jane, my darling new oldest daughter.' I wanted to hug him, but then I remembered the whip marks all over my back and shoulders. We settled for just holding hands, which is okay for fathers and daughters, no matter how old they are.

They kept me in hospital for three days. It wasn't so much the bruising and the welts that was worrying them, I learned later, it was more that they were worried about delayed shock. No one knows more about shock than I do! They sent in someone called a Stress Counsellor. It was still a new thing back then and the poor woman looked more stressed than I did. Her name was Celia Ffoukes, she had severely straight hair, was about forty and spoke in an accent that you could polish diamonds with. She seemed really worried that everyone was now referring to me as Janey, even the nurses, but that the name on all my records was still Christina Margaret Hammond.

`Did you ever have a friend called Janey?' she asked, gently, stroking my forearm. `Perhaps even an imaginary friend, when you were a little girl?'

`No, but I did have a girlfriend called Jennifer,' I said. `I slept with her a few times when we were at college together. That's why my real name is actually Jennifer Jane. I called myself after her. I didn't think she'd mind.'

Poor Celia Ffoukes looked even more stressed at that. `But your name is Christina, isn't it?' she persisted. `Why won't you admit that to yourself?' Whatever happy juice they were putting into me to help me over my ordeal was working well that afternoon and I was in a devilish mood. On top of that, if this woman was going to talk to me, I didn't want her to keep calling me Christina.

So I told her the truth.

The whole story.

Except I left out the juicy bits concerning Suzi and me and I didn't go into the gorier details of what had happened with Pig Morton. I didn't think she'd have the stomach for that and, besides, she had probably read the doctor's report. When I had finished speaking, she looked as though she needed her own counsellor.

`Oh dear,' she said, quietly. `How very strange.'

`You don't believe a word of it, do you?' I said, smiling at her. `Mind you, I can't say I blame you. If some certified nutter told me she used to be a man and then woke up in some other woman's body, I'd take it all with a pinch of salt. In fact, a whole cellar full.'

`The important thing, as I see it,' she said, slowly, `is that you believe it. What I believe is not important, Christina.'

`Janey,' I said, firmly, but without raising my voice. `Either call me Janey, or don't bother. Or you can call me Jennifer, if you think Janey sounds a bit too informal.'

`Very well, Janey,' she said. `As I was saying, what I believe is not important ... Janey. It's what you believe that counts. What we don't want is for everything that has happened to leave an unnecessary scar on your mind, or for you to feel guilty in any way. A lot of women do, you know, even though it's not their fault in any way.' I was beginning to get tired of this now and her voice was getting on my nerves. It wasn't her fault, but I just didn't want her there, with her degrees and "ologies" and all her text book theories.

`The only scars I'm worried about,' I said, sitting forward and pulling my nightdress up to my shoulders, `is these.' I turned away from her and let her get a good look at my back. I heard her gasp and let the material fall again. It was blue and white, in a floral pattern, bought for me by Mum and Dad to replace that awful white hospital thing. I turned back to her and saw that she had gone quite white.

`Listen, Celia,' I said. `I know you mean well, but you've really got no idea. In the past few months I've had to come to terms with an imminent and painful death, then get used to the idea that I've ended up in a woman's body. I get arrested and banged up in a nuttery, where this filthy moron ties me up and rapes me and shoots me full of heroin or cocaine, or whatever and then I get abducted, strung up, thrashed several times and then buggered! And if you think for one moment that I think I'm in any way to blame for any little bit of all that, or that I'm likely to feel guilty, then you're even screwier than you no doubt think I am. Any more questions?'

`You wouldn't like me to come back again tomorrow?'

`What do you think. But thanks, anyway. You probably helped by letting me get that off my chest, but you can do one thing for me.'

`And what's that?'

`Forget what I said about being James Kirkpatrick. It won't help me if you go around blabbing about it.'

`Of course not,' she said. `I do understand.'

But of course she didn't. Silly bitch.

 

- 46 -

On the third day, I was absolutely amazed when the door opened and in strode Suzi, resplendent in bright blue lipstick, gold hair and a brand new pair of thigh length boots, complete with her trademark spiked heels. Her skirt, as ever, was fighting a winning battle with gravity and revealed the crotch of her black knickers when she sat down.

`What are you doing here?' I asked, flabbergasted. She grinned at me.

`What do you think?' she said. `I've come to frighten all the female patients and give heart attacks to all the randy old men. Like the outfit?'

`It's very ... you,' I said, lost for a better description. `Are the tights crotchless?' She grinned.

`Want to find out?' I smiled back and shook my head.

`I don't think I'm in any sort of fit state,' I said, though the sight of her had definitely sent my pulse racing. She looked serious, all of a sudden.

`I heard you had a rough time,' she said. `I spoke to your sister Ruth on the phone yesterday, after she phoned Dougie to say you wouldn't be back to work for a while. He didn't want to give me the number at first, but I threatened to give him a blow job if he didn't?'

`Doesn't sound like such a bad threat to me,' I said. `I'd have thought he'd have quite fancied it.'

`He's still in love with you,' Suzi said. `Besides, I threatened to do it on the bar, at Last Orders time!' We both started laughing, imagining the reactions of some of the more staid and elderly regulars at the pub.

`How is Doug, by the way?'

`He's outside, waiting to see you after me. They said we could only come in one at a time, so we tossed and I cheated.'

`Cheated? How?'

`I called "Bunnies", picked up the coin and walked straight in.'

`What's "Bunnies"?' I asked. Suzi shrugged, in that expressively over the top way she has about everything she does.

`Who knows?' she said. `Anyway, how are you feeling? Better than you look, I hope?'

`Oh, thanks for the compliment,' I said. She held up her hands in mock surrender.

`It's not that,' she said, `but I wouldn't be seen dead around all these gorgeous doctors and nurses without my face on!'

We talked for quite a while. Suzi didn't probe me too much, but I found myself gradually telling the whole story. Her eyes steadily grew wider and wider.

`Fucking hell!' she breathed, when I came to a halt. `I'd better not let you see my handcuffs again!'

Suddenly, I couldn't help myself, I just burst out laughing, tears rolling down my face, until my stomach hurt even more than my back and shoulders.

`What's so bloody funny?' she demanded, quite mystified.

`You are,' I told her, struggling to regain my composure. `No, you keep those handcuffs at the ready for when I get back. It's just that, all through that lot, when he was doing what he was doing to me, I kept my eyes shut and tried to pretend it was you, with that bloody great rubber cock of yours.'

`Did it work?' she asked, looking at me wide eyed. I smiled.

`Only part of the time,' I said. `But it was better than nothing.'

`You poor little cow,' she murmured. `Fancy going all through that and still being able to laugh at it. I'd slit my throat if it was me. I thought I was pretty strong, but you're something special. And don't you forget it.'

`I won't,' I promised. `And besides, you've got no idea just how special I really am.' I couldn't stop myself, any more than I'd been able to with Celia Ffoukes and the rest of the story came tumbling out, starting with when I was diagnosed, through my encounter on the railway embankment, right up to the moment when I finally walked into the pub. I finished my tale, took a deep breath and sat back, waiting for her protestations of disbelief. None came.

`Shit!' was all she said. `No wonder you don't fancy men, with the possible exception of Patti, of course. And she'll be jealous as hell. It's costing her a small fortune to get her new body and you got yours for free.'

`Not quite for free,' I said, suddenly serious. `We mustn't forget Chrissie.'

My encounter with Doug was not quite so easy and light hearted, but, when Suzi appeared to accept my story so unquestioningly, I thought perhaps it was only fair if I told him, too. I thought it might help explain a few things. His face was ashen afterwards.

`I don't believe you,' he said. `This is some sort of elaborate nonsense to make me feel better about things the way they are between you and me, isn't it?' I took his hand.

`Listen Doug,' I said, earnestly. `Why would I make up such a story when a simple "I'm a lesbian" would do?'

`I don't know,' he admitted, `but you don't really expect me to believe all that spooky stuff about waking up in someone else's body?'

`Maybe not,' I sighed. `But it's true, no matter what you think. Talk to my sister, Ruth, if you like. She'll be back in a while. She's popped home for something to eat and to get a few bits for me, but she won't be long.'

`For all I know, you could have briefed her in advance,' Doug persisted. I stared at him, really exasperated, though I shouldn't have blamed him. I mean, would you have believed me in his place. Do you even believe me now? I lay back on my pillows, staring up at the ceiling.

`Dougie, my darling man, if you think I would tell such crazy porkie pies just as a way of keeping you out of my knickers, then you don't know me. And I think I can prove it.'

`How's that then?' he demanded. I grinned.

`When I get out of here and these bruises are properly healed,' I began, `I'll go to bed with you and you can fuck the living daylights out of me all night. I might not like it - in fact, I probably won't - because I haven't had time to come to terms with not being male any more, not in that way, at least. However, it can't be anywhere near as bad as what that Pig Morton did to me, so maybe he's done us both a favour after all!'

I turned my head towards him and saw that he was staring at me open mouthed. `What's the matter?' I challenged him. `Don't fancy the idea now you think I might be something else?'

He caught up my hand again. `I fancy you something rotten, Jenny Jane,' he whispered. `And I wouldn't care if you were born as Attila the Hun. There's nothing better I'd like than to go to bed with the girl I've fallen in love with.' He pulled my fingers to his mouth and kissed them.

`Soppy bugger,' I whispered, but it was all I could do to stop myself from crying.

 

- 47 -

[Ruth]

We brought Janey home again just before the weekend, all four of us packed in a black cab, Janey sitting stiffly in one corner, a loose dress covering her wounds. Up in her bedroom, she showed me the marks. They were turning all colours of the rainbow now, but the worst of the swelling was fast disappearing, she assured me. I wondered what they had been like to begin with. How could any human being inflict such agony on another and how could she have stood it as she had.

But then that's my Janey for you. She's the best sister I could ever hope to have, but she's the most determined bitch you'll ever meet. That sweet face of hers and those big innocent eyes, they hide a will of chromium plated tungsten steel, I promise you. Cross Janey and you'll live to regret it. And I wouldn't change her for the world.

She was still very stiff and tender, not surprisingly and I winced when she asked me to rub in the cream the hospital had given her. As I gently eased the sticky mess over the welts in the small of her back, she laughed.

`I won't be able to wear my new basque for a little while yet,' she said. `Even a bra would be murder at the moment.'

I had bought her a pair of loose fitting black French knickers, which she could wear under her dress without the material aggravating her damaged areas and she smiled when she saw what I had done.

`They're lovely,' she said and kissed me. She thought for a few seconds. `Isn't it funny?' she said. `Here I am, getting all carried away by such little feminine fripperies and yet the male bit of me won't accept that I ought to be a woman sexually. Even with Morton, I kept thinking to myself, well, he thinks he's screwing some poor little girl, but I wonder what he'd say if he knew the truth.

`Mind you,' she said, looking down at her near naked body, `the truth is that I am a woman, so he probably couldn't have cared less anyway. Maybe I'll ask him, once they've caught him.' I stared at her in disbelief.

`You could bring yourself to talk to that beast again?' I cried. She nodded, her face suddenly serious.

`I can't wait,' she said, with grim determination. `I can't wait to see that bastard behind bars, where he belongs and yes, I will fucking well tell him and I'll tell him I can get a bigger turn on from a punk rocker girl with a rubber cock than anything he could ever hope to offer!'

`What?' I squeaked. Janey took my arm and steered me to the side of the bed.

`Sit down, little sister,' she said, pushing me down. `There's a few things you need to know about me, starting with me and Suzi.' That was Janey, straight to the point. I listened all right and, when she had finished, I just sat there ... well, amazed. I thought of the tall, panther like Suzi and could see why she would be attractive to Janey. In her bizarre, open fashion, she could make her feel almost normal and she really did have the most disgustingly funny sense of humour.

 

- 48 -

[Jenny Jane]

The dearest person in the world to me, not counting my parents, as you already know, is my little sister Ruth, though she's not so little any more. In fact, if I didn't wear the heels I do, she'd actually be nearly an inch taller than me now. A joint close second, however, are Suzi, who is a character in a class of her own, and Caroline Flynn. Not only was she solely responsible for my surviving to tell this tale (among many others) but she was absolutely fantastic in the way she lent her support after that horrendous ordeal, not only to me personally, but to the rest of my family. We have remained very close over the ensuing years, but I won't go into details here, because she still has her police career to consider. She's a detective inspector herself now, no mean achievement for any woman in a world that is still very much male dominated. She's also not really called Caroline Flynn. As they used to say on that television programme, only the names have been changed, to protect the innocent. Even so, it would not be impossible for someone with access to the relevant records to work out her real name. Be warned - leave my Caroline alone!

The marks on my body began to fade quite quickly after I returned home. I was still young (not that I'm that old now!) and the human frame is surprisingly resilient. However, the daily routine of salt baths, cream massages and enforced inactivity was beginning to wear a bit thin. Also, I was eager to wear the basque Ruth had bought for me. Yes, I know that sounds really silly, especially when you put it into the context of everything else that had happened to me, but I can't help it. Ruth told me how she sat with the silly, flamboyant thing and cried whilst I was away and it remains my most cherished possession to this day. It's getting a little frail to wear that often, but it's here, in pride of place, hanging from my wardrobe door.

Caroline called round every day after her shift had finished, keeping us up to date with the progress in the hunt for Stuart Morton. The only problem was, there wasn't any progress. The police had mounted a twenty four hour watch on the house he and Tuttle had shared, but he had not reappeared. Similarly, presumably on the basis that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, they had kept watch on the barn where he had inflicted his hideous tortures upon me. Again, no luck.

The computer whizz-kid, Detective Constable Wallace, came up with three more bank accounts which belonged to Morton. Two were in false names, but there was no doubt that they were his. And those two showed the sort of deposits that showed just how lucrative their drug dealing sideline had been.

They dragged the lake at Parsons Acres. The results were not very pleasant. Five more corpses, four young women and one man, were brought to the surface. Three of them had been former inmates at institutions where Morton had worked. The other two, the man and one of the women, were finally identified as homeless drifters and I shuddered when I thought of how they had met their ends and how nearly I had come to joining them in their watery grave.

`We will get him, Janey,' Caroline promised me. `This is a nationwide hunt now. You must have seen the news and read the papers.' I had, but I hadn't been able to bring myself to study the details. I pride myself on being a pragmatist and a realist. I thanked the powers for my lucky escape, but I wanted to try and distance myself from the awful reality of it all. It wasn't easy.

Morton was a mass murderer who had claimed the headlines of every national sleaze pedlar there was. Apart from the five bodies in the lake, he was also responsible for the death of Millicent Greaves and, indirectly, that of Chrissie Hammond. And who was to say that there weren't more corpses, buried in places other than that lake? Fortunately, the young nurse he had beaten unconscious to lend credibility to my supposed escape from Septon Hall, had made a rapid enough recovery to be sent home, though she was to remain on the sick list for a further month.

`No one can stay hidden forever,' Ruth pointed out. Fortunately, my part in the whole sickening saga was kept from the press and we were all left in peace. We had Caroline to thank for that, too. Officially, the girl whom Morton had abducted and whom Caroline had rescued, was still Chrissie Hammond and nobody was in a hurry to set that record straight - certainly not me!

I phoned Suzi and asked her if she could get a few things I needed from my room and post them on to me, as it looked likely that I would be unfit to return to work for another week or two. Daily the marks on my body were fading and I realised how fortunate I was with my physical inheritance from Chrissie. Originally, my new body had looked like a bum steer, after the various chemical and physical abuses it had been subjected to, but had self-repaired at an amazing speed, once it was given the chance. And now, thanks to the creams and the baths and the fact that I did little more than sit around reading books and listening to music, it was repeating that feat all over again. It still hasn't lost that capacity more than a decade later. Bruises come and go at lightning speed (I'm a clumsy cow at times) and minor cuts heal up and disappear in a fraction of the time they take with other people. My doctor tells me its got something to do with my metabolic rate - well, at least I still have something with bolics in it!

I was mildly surprised when, instead of the expected parcel, my bits and bobs turned up, personal delivery, accompanied by Doug. I was as pleased to see him then as I ever am. The only reason he doesn't figure in my list of three dearest persons is the fact that he's male and ... well, you know what I mean. But he's firmly at number four.

It was lunch time, but I was still wandering around in a housecoat I'd borrowed from my mother. Not very sexy, but then I hadn't planned on going anywhere. Until Doug's arrival I had had the house to myself. Dad was at work, Mum was out shopping with a neighbour and Ruth was busy organising herself for her imminent return to college after the long summer break. I made us both a cup of tea and we went into the front room.

`I've been thinking,' he began nervously, after we had sat down, at opposite ends of the sofa. `About what you said. I mean, it really does sound crazy and impossible, but your sister and your parents seem to believe it right enough, so that means that four apparently sensible, level headed people are prepared to accept it as a fact, as well as Suzi. Okay, everyone knows that Suzi is a bit of a nutter, but that's only on the outside. Underneath that she's quite astute. So that leaves me as the odd one out.'

`Is this a way of telling me you'd like to accept my offer?' I said. `About going to bed with me, I mean?' His face started to go red and he shook his head. `

`No,' he said, with perhaps just a touch too much vehemence. `No, certainly not. However crazy this thing is, I still think the world of you. I wouldn't take advantage like that.'

`How would you take advantage?' I asked, impishly. I put down my cup and stood up, slowly undoing the buttons on the housecoat. Underneath it I was naked and I let the front fall open, revealing that fact to Doug. He looked down, acutely embarrassed, but not before he'd had the chance to see what I was offering him. `I can't promise it'd be more than the once,' I said, `but I meant what I said. And whatever the brain is, the body's definitely female.'

 

- 49 -

[Jenny Jane]

It wasn't as bad as I'd feared it might be. I kept my eyes closed most of the time and conjured up images of Suzi and Patti, which was unfair to poor Doug in many ways, but it did enable me to respond a little to his gentle lovemaking. I even had a sort of orgasm, though not as shattering as the ones I had experienced with Suzi, but then he didn't have her legs, did he?

You may wonder how a girl could just give herself for sex like that, especially so soon after my previous ordeal, but then I'm not your average girl, am I? You have to remember that, even now, I have spent more than half my time on this planet as a male, so my thought processes are that much different because of it. As the years have passed, so my femininity has gradually asserted itself more and yes, I can fancy men now, but they have to be special, or the circumstances have to be right - or both.

Whether my actions that day served to convince Doug at the time, I don't know. He said he was more or less convinced anyway and that it wouldn't have happened had I not come on to him so blatantly. I can understand that. As I've said, this body of mine is pretty good and not many men would turn it down, given the chance. I suppose the truth of the matter is that I used Doug's scepticism as an excuse, as a way of exorcising Morton from my body, if not my mind. It's a bit like the falling off a bike thing. If you don't get straight back on, maybe you never will again. So I got remounted at the first opportunity, pun fully intended!

That evening, I went out for the first time in ages, accompanied by Doug and Ruth. We only went as far as the nearest pub, but it was a start and I confess I got pretty drunk. I wasn't the only one and Mum offered Doug a bed on the sofa for the night, which he accepted gratefully. I lay awake in my bedroom for over an hour, wondering if he might be thinking about me up here, all alone in my bed, wearing a flimsy little nightdress and a smile. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to make the first move, I got up, pulled on my black satin robe and tiptoed downstairs. Well, I had to be sure, didn't I?

 

 

- 50 -

[Ruth]

Janey's recovery really was remarkable and Doug's visit seemed to complete it in some way or another. I guessed at the time that something had happened between them and, although in Janey's case I knew she wasn't in love with the man, I also had a shrewd guess as to what that something was. I didn't press her on the subject though. If that was her way of sorting things out in her head, then that was fine by me. Janey always has had her own methods, which is one of the many reasons she has been so successful in her career.

There was still no news of Morton and as the days passed, the media began to lose interest in the police hunt, which, in truth, had come to a dead stop. Caroline continued to call around every day, but her news was always the same. By now, Janey was beginning to talk about returning to London and, whilst I was sorry I wouldn't be seeing so much of her, I understood her reasoning. She had to return to her new life and work on maintaining the independence that she has always treasured.

Dad's annual leave arrived and we insisted that he continue with his and Mum's original plans, which had been a touring holiday of the Lake District. Janey assured them that she would be perfectly all right for two weeks and that she would postpone her return to London until they came back. Left with the house to ourselves, we decided to hold a small party, inviting Doug and Suzi, as well as Caroline.

Suzi arrived with the most exotic creature in tow. Janey had told me about Patti, but I was not prepared for actually meeting "her" in the flesh. She was, not to put too fine a point on it, bloody gorgeous and easily the best looking "girl" among us. True her hips were still a little on the narrow side, but that merely served to add to her model girl looks. Her hair was dyed a deep auburn and she was wearing a silver minidress that vied with Suzi's PVC affair for altitude records and her heels were even more extravagant. Her voice was a little husky, but I would never have known the truth if I hadn't been forewarned, I promise you.

Caroline arrived with her latest boyfriend, a quiet chap of about thirty, named Richard, who had prematurely receding hair and a rotten taste in shirts. Apparently, they were only seeing each other casually, Caroline being well involved in her work and he living in Birmingham for most of the week, but they made a nice couple. Much later, she was to marry a solicitor by the name of Barry Allison (again an alias) and they've even managed to fit having two healthy sons into their jointly hectic lifestyles.

The party was not a noisy affair and eventually finished at about three in the morning. Caroline and Barry disappeared in a taxi, Suzi and Patti disappeared into our parents' bedroom and Doug made up a bed on the sofa, as he had done before. Janey and I retired to our respective rooms for what was left of the night. Whether Janey stayed in her own bed all night, I don't know, but there were some peculiar noises coming from behind the door of Mum and Dad's room!

 

- 51 -

[Jenny Jane]

I explained to Ruth later that it would be unusual indeed if there weren't peculiar noises coming from any bedroom in which Suzi was, sometimes even if she was sleeping there alone. Ruth pretended to be scandalised, but I could see she was fascinated by my bizarre friend and even more curious about the beautiful transsexual Patti. The two of them - Suzi and Patti, that is - emerged next morning looking bleary eyed, though their habitual black makeup would have camouflaged even the biggest dark circles around their eyes. As to where I slept all night, well, you don't need to know everything, do you?

I will tell you what I slept in, however, for I hadn't been able to bring myself to take off my new basque, which I had finally been able to wear for the first time that evening. Basques and corsets are really sexy; not just for other people to look at, but also to wear, or at least, I think so and I know I'm not alone. The feeling of confinement as those laces are drawn tighter is wonderful and, when added to long stockings and high heels, you feel like a goddess. Okay, so I'm a fetishist in so many ways, perhaps my judgement doesn't count for the majority. On the other hand, perhaps it does!

Doug was eager to get an early start back. He'd left Doug Senior with plenty of staff cover for the Saturday night, but he explained there would be a lot of barrels to be shifted in and out and he still didn't want his father overtaxing himself. Accompanied by his two exotically dressed passengers, he left at around ten o'clock, leaving Ruth and myself to restore the house to its normally tidy state and change the bed linen in our parents' room.

We were just turning down the top sheet and smoothing it out, when Ruth suddenly stopped, a look of concern on her face.

`What's up?' I said, seeing her expression. She held a finger to her lips.

`Didn't you hear it?' she whispered. We both stood in silence, listening and this time I heard the noise, too. It sounded like a sharp crack, as though someone had hit a two pieces of metal together. As we listened, it came again, only this time it was accompanied by the unmistakable tinkling sound of breaking glass and it was coming from the direction of the kitchen. Ruth, who was nearer the door, made her way to it.

`Careful,' I hissed. `Don't go down.' There was an extension telephone in my parents' bedroom and I reached for it. People don't usually break into occupied houses in broad daylight on a Sunday lunchtime and I had an awful premonition. When I held the receiver to my ear and the familiar purring sound was not on the line, I knew the truth.

`Quickly, get back in here and lock the door,' I cried, trying not to raise my voice above a loud whisper. Ruth, who had one foot already in the passage, stopped and turned, her expression questioning. `It's him!' I gasped. `It's Morton. The phone's dead too. He's come back for me.'

`Oh God, Janey, it can't be!' she gasped, but I could see she knew I was right. She jumped inside the door, slid home the little bolt that had been on it since the days when our parents had wanted a little privacy from two inquisitive toddlers and looked around her, desperately searching. We both knew that that bolt, whilst it would keep out two small kids, would not hold against Morton's brute strength. Her eyes fell upon the heavy chest of drawers, which stood against the wall a few feet to the right of the door.

`Quickly, give me a hand,' she almost screamed. I ran to her and together we heaved at the heavy oak monster. It refused to budge. `The window!' Ruth shouted. `Open the window and scream. Scream for your life, Janey!'

Beyond the door, we heard the heavy tread of boots on the top of the stairs.

 

- 52 -

[Caroline, as told later.]

Caroline Flynn woke up suddenly and sat up in bed with a start, momentarily disoriented. She looked across at the bedside clock and saw that it was half past eleven. Outside, it was a cloudy day and the street was quiet. The flat had double glazing anyway, but something had definitely woken her up. Something, she could feel, was most definitely wrong.

She reached for the phone which sat alongside the clock and dialled the number she now knew by heart. The unobtainable signal bleeped back at her. She dialled again, this time slowly, making sure she had not made a mistake. Same result. She dialled the exchange and asked the operator to check the number. After what seemed like an eternity, the nasally female came back on.

`I'm sorry, caller,' she said, `but there appears to be a fault on the line. I'll report it to the engineers, but it is a Sunday, so they may not be able to do anything until the morning.' Cursing British Telecom, Caroline stabbed her finger on the rest to clear the call and feverishly dialled the number that put her directly through to CID. There was no reply, but the station exchanged picked up her call after a while and transferred it to the front desk. She recognised Sergeant Thomas's Welsh accent immediately.

`Sarge, it's me, Caroline Flynn,' she said, trying not to gabble. `I think Janey Pope is in danger. That's Chrissie Hammond to you. She's staying with a family called the Kirkpatricks, only there's only her and Ruth Kirkpatrick in the house at the moment. The parents are away for a fortnight.' She gave him the address, but he did not seem too impressed.

`Not much to go on, is it?' he said. `I mean, you get this feeling and the phone line's faulty? Bloody telephones are always breaking down, aren't they?'

`Don't ask me how, Sarge,' she pleaded. `I just know. Please, get someone round there.'

`Look Caroline,' he replied, `this is Sunday morning and we don't have too many units on. There were a couple of breakins and a pub brawl last night. Everyone we have is fully tied up at the moment, aren't they? Listen, I'll get the area car to call round as soon as they're clear of what they're doing. Sorry, cariad, it's the best I can do. Why don't you drive round there yourself? Only don't log it as overtime or the Inspector will have your guts for his supper, won't he?'

Caroline was about to say that she was quite probably still over the legal alcohol limit, but she had already wasted enough precious time and, when she even thought about it, that hardly mattered anyway. Banging down the phone, she began struggling out of her nightshirt and stumbling across to the wardrobe at the same time.

The Fiesta decided to pick the most inappropriate time to be t

emperamental, refusing to start at five attempts and finally flooding altogether. As she sat waiting for the engine to clear itself, her foot hard on the accelerator pedal to hold the carburettor intake open to the maximum airflow, Caroline felt like screaming. She looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of any other human activity. She had chosen this little cul-de-sac especially for its isolation and serenity, but now she would have given anything for the sight of another car on the move, which the Fiesta certainly wasn't at this moment in time.

Caroline was almost crying by the time the little engine finally stuttered into life, but she managed to regain her composure enough to keep it revving for a good half minute before she finally risked putting it into first gear. She breathed a sigh of relief as the vehicle pulled away from the hardstanding and onto the tarmac surface of the road itself.

 

- 53 -

[Jenny Jane]

I opened the bedroom window, leaned out and screamed for all I was worth. It was an ear piercing shriek, which echoed eerilie up and down the deserted street and should have been enough to deter any normal intruder from hanging around. Morton, however, was far from normal, as we already knew. I heard Ruth cry out behind me and turned to see the door handle moving. From behind the door itself, I heard him laugh.

`Playing hide and seek, Chrissie, are we?' he called to me. Desperately, I looked around for something to use as a weapon. All I could find was the empty cut glass vase that stood on my mother's bedside table. It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. Snatching it up, I put my head back out of the window and screamed again. Somewhere, I thought I heard a door opening and closing, but it could have been wishful thinking. There was a splintering crash behind me and I turned back to see the bedroom door gaping open, the little bolt torn from its mountings and the huge frame of Stuart Morton framed in the doorway. In his right hand he held a long, thin bladed knife, which glittered horribly as its honed edge caught the light.

Ruth flung herself in front of me. She was clutching our father's golfing umbrella, holding it in front of her as a soldier would hold a rifle and bayonet. Morton looked her up and down, madness and contempt alive in his eyes.

`How nice, Chrissie,' he growled. `We've got company. Another little slut bitch for me to fuck, eh? And what's this she's got? My, my, I didn't think it was raining.'

`Keep away from her you pervert!' Ruth screeched. `Leave her alone you fucking bastard, you sick fucking bastard!' I remember, even in that awful situation, with death staring at us across a twelve foot wide room, being shocked to hear my sister using such language. Ruth hardly ever swore and if she did, it was usually a slip of the tongue, for which she would apologise, looking quite embarrassed. Now, however, my normally placid Ruthie, my sweet baby sister who wouldn't normally say boo to a gosling, let alone a goose, was like a hellcat, spitting scorn, fury and defiance at a monster who could undoubtedly crush the life from her with one hand, umbrella or no umbrella.

`Another dirty whore, eh?' Morton snarled. `A taste of the whip would do you a world of good, too. Pity we don't have the time today. Chrissie can tell you about the whip, eh Chrissie? It makes bad girls do good things, doesn't it, bitch?'

There was no doubt now that Morton had completely lost the plot. His eyes were staring and glazed, his mouth twisted into a cruel, distorted grimace. It wasn't just lust now, in fact it wasn't lust at all. It was pure evil, hatred, wickedness, viciousness - I was paralysed with terror, my knuckles white as I gripped the stem of the vase, but Ruth had just got started. Pushing me back against the wall, she half lowered the umbrella and squared her shoulders.

`You are an utterly contemptible, filthy, perverted, sick cunt!' she said, her voice suddenly calm and much quieter than during her initial tirade. `You are the lowest form of life I have ever met,' she continued, still in a tone which a schoolteacher might use when ticking off an errant pupil. `Personally, I don't think you're fit to even lie in the gutter and there are better things than you floating in the sewers under the streets.' Morton stared at her, his features rigid. A new light came into his eyes.

`Do you know what I'm going to do, bitch?' he said, his voice icy. `I'm going to use this blade to open you from throat to crotch and then I'm going to give you the good fucking you never had, before you die. Only first, you're going to watch me cut Chrissie's throat. She won't die immediately, either, so she can watch while I have you and then watch as I cut your throat too. It's not like on the TV you know. People don't die the moment the knife goes in.'

He started to move forward and my brain was screaming for my muscles to do something.

`Time to say goodbye, Chrissie,' he said, holding the knife up and waving it at me. `You thought you were such a clever bitch, didn't you? You thought - '

He stopped in mid sentence, his eyes suddenly round with surprise and he stared down in disbelief at the growing crimson stain on the front of his teeshirt and at the two inches of polished steel that had appeared through his chest. He opened his mouth to speak again, but all that came out was a horrible gurgling sound. He took half a step forward and fell to his knees and behind him, in the doorway, I saw the pale ghostly face and the sunken eyes I had last seen on that fateful night by the railway line.

`Chrissie!' I gasped, my body suddenly coming back to life. I pushed Ruth aside and stepped forward, blinking in disbelief and suddenly it wasn't Chrissie at all. Clutching the doorpost for support, Caroline looked as though she were going to be sick, but she managed to hold herself together with a superhuman effort.

`Are you both all right?' she panted. Ruth started to say something, but I took no notice of her. Instead, I walked slowly past the end of the bed, tossing the glass vase onto it as I passed and moved around behind Morton, who was on his knees, his hands clutching at the exit wound, still choking and fighting for breath. I looked down at the handle of the knife and immediately I recognised it. It had once belonged to my grandfather, who had worked as a butcher and it had been in the family for years. My mother used it for preparing joints and chopping vegetables, though with its blade of nearly eighteen inches, it was a cumbersome thing. My father had even used it for trimming away rogue branches from the front hedge. Finest Sheffield steel set in an ivory handle, which I grasped and slowly drew back. The blade slipped easily from Morton's body and there was surprisingly little blood on it, I noticed, idly.

I grabbed at his hair, but it was cropped too short to afford me any purchase. Instead, I seized his left ear and pulled his head back. His eyes stared up at me, strangely vacant now. I looked into them and at the empty soul behind them.

`Pig,' I said, softly, `you're nothing but bacon now.'

And then, very calmly, very deliberately, I cut his throat.

 

- 54 -

[Ruth]

I can remember thinking, as I watched Morton's life ebb away and the light finally go from his eyes, that he had been quite right. In real life, people don't die the moment the knife goes in. Even when Janey drew that blade across his throat and the red torrent cascaded down to merge with the blood already soaking his shirt, it took that monster some thirty seconds to finally go, toppling onto his face, his hands still clutching at the gaping wound that looked for all the world like a second mouth. The three of us stood motionless until he finally collapsed and then Janey was the first to move, the first to break the silence. She tossed the knife contemptuously onto his motionless form and turned to face Caroline.

`That's twice you've saved my life now,' she said, perfectly calmly. `Hopefully now, it'll be the last time.' She looked back at the sprawled corpse at her feet. `I wish you'd taken even longer than that,' she hissed. `Dying's almost too good for you.'

I just stood there, transfixed, staring at my big sister's utterly composed features and at the blood speckled all over her hands and her blouse. For several seconds, I couldn't speak.

And then I was heartily sick, all over the bedroom carpet that my parents had only finished paying for two months before.

 

- 55 -

[Jenny Jane]

Unbelievably, I thought, there was some talk of charging me with involuntary homicide, or manslaughter over Morton's death. Caroline stabbing the bastard was one thing, coming under the heading of "justifiable force", because Ruth and I would have both taken an oath that we had heard her call out a warning to Morton to drop the knife, before she had to run him through to protect us. However, my cold blooded (they called it cold blooded, anyway) cutting of his throat was a different matter. Detective Inspector Murray was very sympathetic, but he couldn't understand, no matter how hard he tried. He did say, though, that no court would ever sentence me, considering what I had suffered at the brute's hands, together with the fact he was a mass murderer anyway.

Fortunately, the post mortem showed that Morton would have died from the first wound anyway, though probably not for several minutes, for the blade had pierced some vital parts of him on the way through and even if anyone could have got him to hospital straight away, it would have certainly been too late. No charges were made against me, but I didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed. Had I known that his injuries were already fatal, I maybe wouldn't have done what I had done, preferring to see him suffer for as long as possible. On the other hand, I did have the satisfaction of knowing that I had struck the final blow and that he had been only too well aware of it.

When we finally got home again, Ruth and I both bathed and washed our hair and then sat in the front room with a bottle of Dad's brandy between us. Outside, darkness had already fallen and we drew the curtains and put on the wall lights, lending the room a friendly air. The kitchen door was still broken, but somehow it didn't seem to worry us. Morton was no more and everything was going to be all right again. I felt strangely calm, but there was one thing I had to talk to Ruth about.

`Did you see her eyes, Ruthie?' I said. I was already on my third or fourth brandy, I can't remember which now. Ruth looked at me for several seconds before replying.

`Whose eyes, Janey?' she asked, though she knew who I was talking about.

`Caroline's,' I whispered. `Just after she'd ... after she stabbed the bastard.'

`She looked a bit odd,' Ruth agreed. `Her face was quite different.'

`Yes, it was,' I said. `It was more like mine.'

`Yours?' she said, raising her eyebrows. I downed the rest of my glass.

`Would you say Caroline looked a bit like me?' I asked. Ruth nodded immediately.

`I did notice a sort of resemblance, though she's a good bit older than you are. But I didn't think her face looked like yours then. It looked ghastly, pale and drawn, but then that's hardly surprising. I don't think I could have nerved myself to do what she did.'

`I'll bet you could,' I said. `You were quite brilliant up there. And if it hadn't been for the way you stalled him, he'd have got to us before Caroline got to him. You saved us as surely as she did. But there was someone else involved as well.' I paused, staring down into my empty tumbler. `Caroline didn't look like me at all,' I said, slowly. `At least, not the way I do now, but she did look the way I did several weeks ago. I last saw that face just before I touched the live line and it was Chrissie inside it then. And I spent enough hours looking at its reflection afterwards, watching it start to fill out again and soften.'

`What are you saying?' Ruth asked. I shrugged.

`I had the chance of a few words with Caroline earlier and she told me she woke up, knowing that we were in danger. She said it was the most overpowering thing she had experienced, apart from when she came looking for me at Parson's Acres that day. And we both thought that had something to do with Chrissie then.

`Caroline also reckons she has no memory of anything much, not from the time she entered the house. She doesn't remember picking up the knife, nor can she clearly recall coming upstairs. As for stabbing Morton, she says the first she knew of it was when she suddenly saw him kneeling there, with the handle sticking out of his back.'

`Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting,' Ruth said. Her hand was trembling as she raised her own glass to her lips. I stood up to go and refill mine.

`What do you think?' I asked.

There was quite a fuss in the papers and the elctronic media when the news of Morton's death broke. Fortunately, my parents were still away and when they phoned to check that Ruth and I really were all right, I told them to stay away. The street outside was crawling with reporters and cameramen and we spent several days hiding behind drawn curtains, the first two with the phone off the hook until we managed to get the number changed.

In the end, DI Murray arranged for a proper press conference, with properly regulated questions, to which we had all carefully planned answers that seemed to satisfy the pressmen. One popular Sunday paper and two of the dailies came up with extravagant offers in exchange for my exclusive story, but with Tuttle still to come to trial, a lot of it was sub judice and I didn't want to do it anyway. All I wanted was to get away from everything and put the whole awful episode behind me.

After a week of enduring our seige, Ruth and I packed bags and, under cover of darkness, escaped via several neighbouring garden walls, until we were well clear of the cordon. They were even watching the alleyway I had used for my earlier escape in the clothing I had borrowed from Ruth's bedroom. We made it to the railway station, hid ourselves away in the ladies waiting room and waited for the first train. Ruth had suggested going back to our auntie in Hereford, but I had a better idea. I made a couple of quick telephone calls and two hours later, when we stepped off the express at Waterloo, Doug, Suzi and Patti were waiting there to greet us.

We all went back to the pub and got noisily drunk behind closed doors.

Gradually, all the fuss died down, only to be revived, albeit briefly, when David Tuttle finally came to trial. He pleaded guilty to a string of charges, including one of conspiracy to murder. The judge sentenced him to thirty years in prison, recommending that he should serve the full sentence, but he won't be coming out again. Six months later he was dead, allegedly slashing his wrists in his cell, though with the outrage felt at the crimes he had jointly been responsible for, the truth may never be known.

Ruth went back to college and qualified as a teacher of English and Physical Education. She's also married now, with two children, one boy and one girl. I won't tell you their names, because although Ruth is Ruth, neither her surname, nor mine, was ever Kirkpatrick. For myself, I don't care about the publicity. As they say in showbusiness, there's no such thing as bad publicity, but Ruth is not an author and does not court the limelight as I do. She deserves her privacy and so do the rest of our family.

And you can even look up the old newspaper files, but it won't do you any good. In court, I was only ever referred to as Miss X and Ruth as Miss Y. I was a rape victim, you see, my anonymity guaranteed. Oh yes, the press at the time new our real identities, but they were never allowed to print them, not without our permission, but please, I beg of you, leave well alone. You have the truth here, in these pages and the past is best left as just that, the past.

Why, you may well ask, do I write under my own name? Why not use a pen name if I am so worried about people raking over the ashes of my early years? The truth is that, for some time, I did just that. You have probably read a dozen of my early novels without realising it. I wonder if you can guess which ones they are.

Eventually, though, I thought: `What the Hell?' and reverted to the name I first adopted at the beginning of this, my second incarnation. I am proud to be Jennifer Jane Pope to my fans, to be Jenny, or Jenny Jane to my friends and to be Janey to Ruth and the rest of my family, aunts, uncles and cousins included. I thought I had enough choices, without confusing the issue more. One identity crisis in a lifetime - even two lifetimes, if you want to be pedantic - is enough for any girl or boy. Or both!

And why, you may also ask, do I write about the subjects I do, considering the horrific experiences I endured? Well, I'm not so sure about the answer to that one. Curiously, I have never been that badly affected by the sufferings Pig Morton imposed upon me. I will never forget what happened, nor the abject terror I felt at the time, but I do not have nightmares about it and it is somehow now locked into a separate file of the databank that is the Jennifer Jane Life Files. I can't delete it, but I can leave it in limbo when I choose.

No, I suppose it is because I can still enjoy myself to the full, with partners of my own choosing and of both sexes and I can indulge my little fantasies and pander to my various fetishes, which, I promise you, are legion. But, when you read my little tomes of escapist fiction, remember one thing, boys and girls. You may attempt this at home, even without a safety net, but never forget that fantasies are just that, fantasies. The genuine article is something completely different.

It is not exciting, it is not enjoyable, it is not sexy and it is not me. I've been there, done that and had the teeshirt ripped from my back. I wouldn't want to go there again.

And neither would you!

 

 

 

 

THE END ... But Read On Anyway.

 

 

 

BONUS BIT

WHICH WAY IS UP?

[Jenny Jane - who else?]

You thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? Though to be fair, I didn't exactly promise I'd tell you about my first threesome with Suzi and Patti. I will though, because you've been good enough to listen to me for all this time without complaining and, well, I think you'll enjoy hearing about it almost as much as I enjoyed experiencing it first hand.

As I've tried to explain throughout this book, mine is an unusual sexuality, to say the least. Your normal male to female transsexual is somewhat different. Usually, it's fair to say that they are women born in male, or mostly male, bodies, so they make the psychological transition throughout the various processes of transfiguration. In my case, it was totally different.

I grew up as a normal boy and would have continued through life as a normal young man, had it not been for my illness. Then bang! One minute balls, the next boobs and everything else that belongs with them. Everything, that is, apart from a female brain. I had to learn from scratch and completely re-evaluate myself, life and all its little quirks and oddities. One thing that still bugs me, even after all these years, is having to stand on a stool to reach high shelves. As a young man, I was over six feet tall and now I'm six inches or so shorter than that. Even my five inch heels don't really compensate, though maybe that's part of the reason why I love them so much.

One thing that has helped me is my vanity. I was lucky enough to end up in a body which, despite its previous owner's neglect and abuses, was better than average and it recovered pretty well. With no chance of reversing what had happened to me - and I certainly didn't want my old body back in that state anyway - I decided to make the best of what I had been handed. If I was going to be a girl, I was determined I'd be the sort of girl who could turn men's heads, even if I didn't think I would ever fancy any of them as such.

Funnily enough, as the years have passed, some instincts innate in this body have usurped my natural unwillingness to be intimate with a man. Doug was different, is different. He's a special friend and I'd love him just as much if he suddenly decided to don wig and high heels. Not that there's much chance of that. Doug is a bit of a fuddy duddy in matters of sex, though I notice he doesn't complain when I turn up in my tartier outfits.

Having Ruth as my sister and Suzi and Patti as my best friends has made all the difference. Two of them are so outlandish and bizarre in everything they wear, do and say and the other is so understanding and supportive of my needs to do things properly, that I now feel I really am a whole woman. Like Suzi, I am bisexual, though we always joke that at least I've got a valid reason and although I don't usually go around Sainsbury's in six inch heels and micro rubber miniskirts, I do love to dress up, same as most fun loving girls. And Suzi and Patti have taught me that anything that goes on behind closed doors and between people as close as we are is perfectly all right.

Having said that, Suzi had to get me pretty drunk before I could go through with it that first time.

It happened about three weeks after Ruth and I had made our escape to London. Ruth had stayed two weeks and then returned home, being a week late for the start of the new term already. When I arrived at Suzi's flat, she said nothing about Patti, but I noticed that she took me through into the spare bedroom to get changed. I sat in front of the mirror, drinking vodka and fresh orange juice, whilst she worked on my hair and makeup. As I've already hinted, she is an artist when it comes to makeup and so, incidentally, is Patti. Thanks to their coaching, I'm pretty good myself nowadays, but I don't have their flair for the theatrical and innovative.

When Suzi had finished, I didn't recognise myself. My hair was like a spangled explosion and my eyes were rimmed with black, purple and silver. My lipstick was black and my complexion a deathly white. It was Hammer House of Horror and then some! But, for people who appreciate these things, it was also dead sexy.

I slipped out of my own clothes, including my basque and Suzi handed me a PVC corset in place of it. She helped with the back laces and, when she had finished, not only could I barely breathe, I had lost about five inches off my waistline and my boobs were thrust up on twin platforms, like two pink melons waiting to be sucked. Well, one out of two isn't bad, as they say. She rolled PVC stockings, the front of which were divided by two long black net panels, up to the tops of my thighs and clipped them to the suspenders and then laced ankle length boots onto my feet, the heels of which were so high I could barely walk in them. The ankle straps were secured with two little brass padlocks, they key to which Suzi wore on a chain around her neck.

Next came shoulder length PVC gloves and then a highwayman style mask, again in PVC, but velvet lined. Huge pendant earrings completed the effect, for there were, as I learned when I asked her, no panties for me tonight! In fact, Suzi had a further surprise up her sleeve, for, with me now too drunk to care, she took out her battery opereated razor and deftly sheared off all my pubic hair.

`It really needs finishing off with a proper wet shave,' she said, `but I've had a few myself this evening, so we can leave that till the morning. Unless you don't like the effect?'

I studied myself in the mirror. The pale skin of my denuded mound contrasted starkly against the shiny blackness of my outfit and my slit itself, with the pink inner lips just showing, looked totally vulnerable. No doubt about it, I liked it for its sheer sexuality.

`Get a razor and do it now,' I said. `I trust you.'

`Fool,' Suzi laughed, but she came back with a can of foam and a disposable razor and within a minute or two I really was smooth and no nasty little nicks. `You look gorgeous,' Suzi assured me and I felt it. I also felt a sense of power and control, even though Suzi held the keys that kept me locked inside my towering heels.

Suzi herself was wearing a red rubber sheath dress that molded her every contour and reached from the neck to the ankle, the hobble skirt forcing her to take tiny steps when she walked. Underneath, she wore long red rubber boots, their tops just visible beneath the clinging latex of her skirt and on her hands she now pulled matching latex gloves. Even her eyemakeup was predominantly red tonight and so, just for a change, was her lipstick. There was a red tint to her hair, ensuring that she was every inch a Scarlet Woman.

`Do you want another drink before we go into the other bedroom?' she asked. My head was already floating somewhere near the stratosphere, so I declined the offer. Knees trembling, I followed her through the lounge to the door of the main bedroom, teetering and swaying like a bizarre catwalk queen. I was totally unprepared for the sight that greeted me as we entered the room.

Spreadeagled on the bed, wrists and ankles held firm in leather cuffs, from which chains stretched to the four corners of the frame, lay a nearly naked figure, clad in just stockings and high heeled sandals and a very brief rubber skirt. Her breasts, which were flattened against her chest by the effect of gravity, rose and fell with her measured breathing, the gold rings through her nipples glinting as they caught the light from the ceiling lamp, but what was even more unexpected was the leather hood which completely covered her face, save for narrow apertures for the eyes, two round holes beneath the nostrils and an oval opening for the mouth. Not that she was able to speak, for a black ball gag had been placed between her teeth, its securing strap buckled tightly to prevent it being expelled.

`Patti?' I said, turning to Suzi. She nodded, smiling. I looked back at the helpless form. `My God, how long's she been laying here like this?'

`Since about half an hour before you arrived,' Suzi replied. `Don't worry, it's not that uncomfortable and she loves it. She's a right little masochist and submissive, is our Pats. Aren't you my pet,' she continued, walking over to the side of the bed. In reply, Patti gave a little grunt, but remained totally still. `She's getting a bit frustrated by now, I should think,' Suzi went on. She reached down and began unbuckling the cuff on Patti's left ankle, or at least, that's what I assumed at first. What she actually did was to leave the cuff in place and unclip the chain from the ring set in it.

`Patti likes to be fucked whilst she's tied up,' Suzi explained, moving around the foot of the bed to release the other ankle. `But first, we have to punish her for being a naughty, randy little baggage, don't we Pats?' There was another muffled grunt from behind the gag and Suzi laughed. `I've brought you a new Mistress tonight, Patti,' she said, making it sound like she was offering a box of chocolates. `Doesn't she look beautiful? You'll have to show her just how you've been trained to show your appreciation to your Mistresses, won't you?'

From beneath the bed, Suzi drew out two hanks of white cord. She shook out the first and began knotting one end to the ring in the right ankle cuff, paying it out and threading the other end through the ring on the right wrist cuff, to which its chain was also secured. She moved back around and repeated the process on the other side, indicating that I should go around the bed to take up position opposite her. Taking my cue from Suzi, I began to pull on the free end of the cord and Patti's legs came up into the air. In truth, she could have bent them at the knee, but she obviously knew what was required, for she kept them ramrod straight until, by the time they had passed through the vertical, she had no other choice.

She really was very supple, for her ankles were no more than six inches from her wrists by the time we tied off the cords, her wrists, in their turn, lifted a few inches off the bed. Patti's buttocks were raised high in the air, revealing the tiny pair of rubber panties she wore beneath the skirt, but, to my surprise, no sign of her male parts at all, though I presumed those were somewhere on the inside of the taut bow shape we had forced her into. If her new position was painful, she gave no indication, staying completley silent throughout the operation.

I signalled to Suzi to come away from the bed, hopefully out of earshot and whispered close to her ear.

`What am I supposed to do now? You'll have to show me.' Inside, I was getting more and more fuelled up, inflamed by the sight of the helpless she male, my desire inflamed by the sight of her slim, boyish bottom so beautifully presented. Suzi went to a drawer and took out a black leather object, paddle shaped, the wider end about four inches across. She handed it to me and whispered my instructions in turn. I had one fleeting picture of Morton with that awful crop, but I banished it immediately. This was completely different. Patti was a more than willing victim and she knew we would never really hurt her.

All the same, the sound that paddle made as it smacked against her unprotected flesh, made me jump. Suzi, however, was quite unmoved and so, it appeared, was Patti.

`You'll have to do it harder than that,' Suzi said. I tried again, but there was still no reaction from our captive.

`Here, let me show you,' Patti said, taking the paddle from me. She took a quick aim and then brought her arm swishing through the air with a ferocity that made me gasp. This time as the leather cracked down. Patti jerked and let out a grunt. `That's more like it,' Suzi grinned. Her little boy's clitoris will be straining now, but it can't get hard yet, can it Pats?'

We changed places again and this time I succeeded in getting a reaction myself. Between each stroke, Suzi held up a finger to indicate how long I should pause. It seemed to be a long time, but I learned afterwards that it added greatly to Patti's enjoyment. A good spanking, or a good paddling, even a good caning, should be carefully paced and never rushed.

I gave Patti about a dozen strokes in all, by the end of which her bottom looked awfully red, before Suzi signalled for me to stop. Then, from another drawer, she produced a device I remembered only too well. It was the double ended dildo, complete with its harness straps, only this time I was to be the one to wear it. My sex was already wet and my half of the beast slipped in easily. I felt a tremendous surge in my lower stomach as it buried itself deep inside me and I was close to coming as Suzi adjusted the straps and buckles about my hips. I looked down at the bobbing black phallus jutting up from between my legs and knew that I had never been anywhere near as well endowed in my former life.

`It looks far too large,' I said. Suzi merely smiled.

`Patti's well used to it,' she assured me. `She's had so many cocks and vibrators up there, her muscles have stretched and adapted themselves. And she's already well lubricated,' she added. `I took care of that earlier on.'

I climbed up onto the bed, trying to work out the best position to adopt. `What about her panties?' I asked.

`Leave them on for now,' Suzi said. `Just pull the gusset to one side. The rubber stretches quite easily.' I did as she suggested, also pushing aside an elasticated strap which I found running in the same direction, revealing the puckered entrance beneath it. It looked far too tiny to accommodate my temporarily reinstated, albeit artifical, manhood, but I knew from my own bitter experience just how elastic that particular orifice can be. As promised, the flesh glistened from the lubricant Suzi had liberally applied in advance. Grasping the shaft in my right fist, I raised myself up and leaned over the prostrate figure, guiding the bulbous knob towards its target. Just as Suzi had predicted, it met very little resistance and, with just a little push, it widened the entrance around it until it slid smoothly in. I heard Patti gasp, but she thrust her hips up to meet my advance, until the black cock was completely buried inside her.

Slowly, rhythmically, I began a pistoning motion, already into the first throes of orgasm myself and being drawn deeper and deeper into the well of abandonment by the muffled groans that indicated Patti was enjoying this every bit as much as I. Whether she came or not, I had no idea, but I most certainly did, collapsing over her and sucking her left nipple into my mouth, the gold ring strangely hard on my tongue. Her head was rolling wildly from side to side, her breath rasping in and out of her nostrils and around either side of the black ball which filled her mouth. I heard Suzi calling out to me.

`Wait! Wait Jenny. Don't let the little tart come yet, or she'll be no use to you.' With an effort, I pulled myself up again, withdrawing the phallus from its tight sheath and sitting back onto my haunches, shaking all over and completely shattered. Unsteadily, I got down from the bed, as Suzi began loosening the first of the ankle cords. By the time I had recovered some of my composure, she had returned Patti to the original spreadeagled position in which I had first seen her, although she had first removed her rubber panties, revealing just how she managed to conceal her own male genitalia.

Her penis and balls were enclosed in a tight rubber tube, like a tick condom with the end widened to allow for the testicles. This was held in place by a rubber strap which went up over the hips and around the back of the waist, drawn in so tightly that even Patti's lean flesh bulged around it. The end of the tube was also attached to a strap - the strap I had had to move aside in order to penetrate her bottom hole - and this was drawn up and back between her buttocks, attaching to the waist strap at the back and holding everything firmly out of sight, leaving a bulge that could easily have been nothing more than a particularly well developed mons veneris.

Quickly, Suzi unfastened the second strap and drew it back through Patti's thighs, until she could then remove the pouch itself, leaving Patti's shrunken manhood fully exposed. It did not stay shrunken for long. Freed of the severe embrace of the rubber, it began to swell and rise at an astonishing rate, until it stood rampant, long, slender and slightly curved. Beneath it, the balls were small, but the skin of the testicular sac was stretched and shiny, with not a single pubic hair to be seen. I began fumbling with the straps that held my own cock in place.

`Take the mask off her please,' I begged Suzi. `I want to see her pretty face when I do this.' I was ready before Suzi had finished and could hardly contain my impatience. My belly felt as though it were being consumed by an inferno as Suzi finally pulled the smooth black leather away, leaving Patti's flushed features laid bare as evidence of her own efforts and arousal. I leaned over her, lowered my head and slowly kissed her, our tongues entwiningin her mouth. When I drew back, she was smiling up at me.

`Dirty little tart,' I admonished her, but there was no anger in my voice. Slowly, I straddled her, taking her stiff organ in my hand and using it to frig the entrance to my slot, frigging my swollen clitoris until I felt the first tremblings of a new orgasm. As I slowly sank onto her, impaling myself on that beautiful long cock, I saw Suzi, buckling on the harness I had just discarded.

I sighed and a tremendous spasm of unleashed passion racked my entire frame. Dimly, as I bucked and writhed and rode my new lover to our joint climax, I felt Suzi climbing onto the bed behind me.

It was going to be a long night.

The first of many.

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And one final thought for you to take away with you ...

The answer to another of the questions I’m frequently asked:

"Just because I write about it, it doesn’t mean to say I’ve done it - and just because I’ve done it, it doesn’t mean I’m going to write about it!"

 

I just hope you enjoyed my little tale!

 

 

 

 

© 2000
The above work is copyrighted material. Anyone wishing to copy, archive, or re-post this story must contact the author for permission.