Chapter 27

Twenty minutes later, Gabbie lay in bed, Lucy’s comforting arms around her, “was today horrific, Lucy?”

“Actually, it wasn’t, we’ll go through it tomorrow though, just be calm tonight.”

“But what I said, will it give you nightmares? I don’t want to have given you nightmares.”

“Allison controlled the session well, you didn’t say anything horrible, she steered your thoughts away from bad details, so nothing on the recording is horrific on the surface. Obviously if you think about the circumstances, then yes, it’s nasty, very nasty, but you didn’t give details.”

“Will you be able to sleep?”

“Yes honey, I’ll be able to sleep.”

“That’s good,” Gabbie replied as she drifted off, her head snuggled against Lucy’s breasts.

Lucy though, she didn’t sleep, her mind played over the details Allison carefully steered Gabbie away from, her thoughts troubled by the horrors Gabbie endured, and Chelcey witnessed. Would Gabbie ever recover, and if Gabbie did, could she ever stop worrying about Gabbie, she loved her so very much, and thinking about the torment hurt her almost physically.

It was way past 3am before Lucy finally drifted off to sleep, she was lulled by Gabbie’s steady breathing against her chest, and her last thoughts were if Gabbie could sleep so peacefully, maybe she should stop worrying, but not yet, they had to have the talk about the session first.

Lucy was woken at 7:30 by Diane knocking on the door, Lucy carefully lifted Gabbie’s head off her arm and tried to shake some life back into it as she padded through the sitting room to let Diane in.

“Good morning Lucy,” she said as she stepped into the room.

“Good morning mum,” Lucy answered sleepily.

“Oh dear, are you ok honey?”

“Not enough sleep is all, I was awake for hours thinking about stuff.”

“Ahh, how’s Gabbie?”

“I guess she’s fine,” Lucy laughed, “she went straight to sleep, and is probably still asleep, I’m trying to convince myself if she seems ok I should stop worrying about her, but I can’t, or at least not until we’ve gone through the session with her.”

“You know Lucy, you sound more like a parent than a girlfriend.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

“For Gabbie it’s a good thing, for you, I don’t know. It’s not in your nature to stop worrying about Gabbie, you care for everybody, but for Gabbie you care so very much, I think maybe you should try to relax a bit, Gabbie is a lot stronger than you imagine.”

“Allison said Gabbie has a psychic link to me, she can feed off my strength.”

“mmm, I’m a bit sceptical about things like that, she definitely has a strong link to you, and she probably reacts positively to your touch, but to psychically feed off your strength, I’m not so sure.”

“Allison said even with her eyes shut in a trance, she’d know it was me touching her rather than you, that’s psychic isn’t it, how would she know otherwise.”

“I don’t know honey, what I do know is she loves you as much as you love her, and that alone creates a link, almost like twins have a link. I also know breakfast has started, so you both need to get up and make yourselves presentable.”

“Ahh, good idea. Back in a few minutes.”

Gabbie was just stirring when Lucy re-entered the bedroom, “ahh, good morning sweetie, did you sleep ok?”

“I did thanks,” Lucy lied, “how did you sleep?”

“Very well, I always do when I’m in your bed.”

“Mum’s here, we need to get ready for breakfast.”

“Oh poo, is it that time already, I wanted a bit of fun this morning.”

“Later sweetie, we need to go through the recording and see if yesterday’s session worked for you, or if you need more help from Allison. Mum stayed over special so we could talk it all through this morning.”

“Sorry, I’m just trying to avoid the inevitable, I guess. Yes, let’s get ready, then we’ll talk.”

Lucy had a quick shower while Gabbie chose their outfits for the day, then she dressed as Gabbie showered. They were ready in 20 minutes and were in the dining room with a full fried breakfast, a regular Sunday treat, before 8am.

Word had got round the house that Lucy’s mum had stayed the night, so during breakfast a constant stream of girls visited their table with books for Diane to sign, Millie tried to stop them, but Diane assured her it was absolutely fine

Lucy felt almost human after the breakfast and three cups of coffee, she refilled her mug with a 4^th and they went back to their room.

Diane opened her bag and took out a notepad and pen as Lucy sat her Macbook on the coffee table. They only had the two-seat sofa, so Gabbie dashed down to the common room and borrowed a chair.

“So, before we start,” Diane said, “do you remember anything from yesterday’s session?”

“Not really, I remember we talked about the woods, and the squirrels.”

“Right, so my next question before we play the recording, do you still have the niggling feeling about needing to remember something.”

Gabbie sat back on the sofa, she thought hard, “no, I don’t, it’s gone.”

“So, I guess the next question is, do you want to know what you talked about? Some of it is quite upsetting.”

“Lucy said I didn’t say anything horrific!” Gabbie cried, a worried look on her face.

“She’s right, you didn’t say anything bad, because Allison made sure she steered your thoughts around the really bad things, but you did reveal something that is upsetting, and when you hear it, it may bring back other memories that will be horrific.”

“Oh shit, this is the reason I wasn’t sure about this whole process, but I decided on balance I had to get that memory out of my head, and you’ve heard what I said, so fuck it, I’d better find out what I said.”

Diane had been sitting on the sofa with Gabbie so Lucy could control her MacBook, she decided that maybe Gabbie would be needing Lucy more right now, so she swapped places after checking with Lucy how to control the playback.

“I think we can skip the first 20 minutes,” Lucy said, “start with the nice thoughts about the billiard room.”

Diane moved the curser along the audio file timeline and clicked the play button, Gabbie’s voice came through the speakers.

“I used to lie on it and watch the sunbeams break through the gaps in the boards over the windows, they’d move across the old paintings on the walls, the ladies were pretty, but the men all looked angry.”

Gabbie screwed up her face, “I still don’t like listening to my speaking voice.”

Lucy gave Gabbie’s hand a quick squeeze of reassurance as Gabbie voice on the recording described the walk back to the cellar.

“Can you pause it,” Gabbie said, she sounded distressed and Lucy put her arm around her, pulling her close.

“Are you ok?”

“I don’t know, what do I say?”

“You talk about the cellar, you describe the walls, you comment about the bright lights, you name a few people.”

Gabbie pulled away from Lucy, her head in her hands, she was crying as she spoke “oh fuck, it’s coming back, mum was there wasn’t she, and a guy with a camera, he filmed it, or was it just photos, I can’t, I don’t want to remember that. Mum was wearing a dildo wasn’t she, but she didn’t use it on me, she fucked dad with it, oh shit, Chelcey was there, they both fucked her, yes, they didn’t film me, the camera was there for her, a few other people were there, they had me, he wouldn’t let anyone else fuck Chelcey, she was special, anyone could have me though.”

Lucy mouthed to Diane ‘skip to near the end’, so Diane moved to the end of the timeline, to the squirrels again, and clicked play.

Gabbie calmed down as soon as she heard herself talking about the squirrels, then she heard herself talk about Chelcey drawing in her caravan.

“Shit, pause that, I need to think a minute.”

Gabbie got up and started pacing the room, like she did in Sylvie’s office when she was thinking.

“Chelcey was drawing what happened to me, I saw some of her drawings once, and I saw her maps, but never realised what they were, I never connected the things together. I guess I was blacking stuff out back then. I don’t ever remember thinking about Chelcey being in the cellar with me, or seeing her being horribly abused by him and her.”

Gabbie paced some more, “can you play the bit about the billiard room again, there’s a trigger there, I part remembered something.”

Gabbie paced while she listened, she stopped as she was describing the family kitchen, “there, that’s it. The table, loads of wine bottles and 8 wine glasses, so there were 8 people downstairs, him and her,” Gabbie’s mum now treated the same as her dad, she was now just ‘her’, “I remember the chief constable, I knew he was bad, but I only just remembered he was there, then there was who, on the right of Wheeler, Duncan Collins, yes that’s him, he was running for parliament, didn’t win though, despite the bastard’s help. The guy with the camera, who was he? Michael, no, not Michael, Matthew, no, ahh Malcolm, Malcolm Johns, that’s him.”

Diane stiffened, “what did you just say?”

“Malcolm Johns,” Gabbie replied.

“What did he look like?”

“Not tall, pudgy, bald, smelled real bad.”

“Did he have a wart on his chin?”

“Nooo, I don’t think so, he had a mole on his cheek though with hairs sticking out.”

“Fucking hell!”

“What’s up mum?” Lucy asked.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, the porn industry was a lot smaller then, and he always struck me as a complete pervert.”

“What mum?”

“Sorry Lucy, but the guy Gabbie’s talking about, it’s your father.”

“Oh my god, you mean, the guy who took the photos of you and mum, we saw him in one of the magazines.”

“Oh Jesus, that’s what’s been bugging me all this time!” Gabbie cried, “that’s the itch! The magazine, I bet seeing him there is what sparked it.”

Gabbie held Lucy, who’d started crying.

“It’s ok Lucy, really, it’s ok, do you know why I know it’s ok?”

Lucy wiped her eyes with a tissue, “no, how can it be ok, my dad was filming your dad raping a kid, a kid we spoke to a couple of weeks back.”

“Because they’re all dead, all the men in that room, there’s three more who’s names I never knew, but they’re all dead. The only people from that room who are still around is that bitch, me and Chelcey. Sir Peter, he died a couple of years ago, a massive heart attack on holiday in Thailand, I’m guessing a ladyboy was involved, Collins, he was killed in a car crash not long after the election he lost, Malcolm, he was murdered in Newcastle, a lot of drugs were found in the room and the police report mentioned sex toys, I’m guessing it was BDSM gear. The other guys, I wish I remembered their names, but I remember him talking about them dying in a fire in a brothel in Amsterdam, ha, yes, Jack Simms, he was one, blonde guy, very small penis but sharp fingernails, urghh, he made my skin crawl, the other two were brothers, Tony and Will Turvey, I always felt sorry for them two, they were basically nice but a bit slow, Jack would bully them, oh yes, Will, he was very well hung, must have been 8 or 9 inches, but totally impotent, he just couldn’t get a hard on, no matter how hard the bitch tried. Tony, he was just normal sized, I guess they had different dads or something.”

“So, you’re not angry with me because my real dad was involved?”

Gabbie laughed, “how could I be, it’s not like you had any control, you didn’t even know he existed. I’m not even bothered that Diane showing us the magazines is what triggered all these memories, I’m glad she did, because all those memories, they’re coming out now, so I can cast them all off. You told me how none of it’s my fault, so I can start to let them go, and you should too.”