The ClubX series of illustrations are an experiment, but the heart of this site is stories. A regular reader suggested that THW could write a ClubX inspired story, THW style. An, eventually, the penny dropped that the same images could be used for a complete retelling of the ClubX story (certain to diverge at some point).
I give you Club Y— a new THW story, inspired by, but in no way limited by, the narrative line of Dolcett’s Club X.
I needed a prologue, to give a basis for the retelling that was not where the comic starts…
When we meet Robyn, she is experiencing something entirely new in her young life.
Picture: Robyn Click here to reveal.
You see Robyn is a cliché, almost an avatar of her type, almost unreal in her loveliness and simplicity; a corn-fed blonde from the Mid-west, very pretty but not too pretty, just 18; cute, but not too cute, curvy but not too curvy, tall, but not too tall, her breasts filled out remarkably, but not quite too large for her slim frame, happy and confident, but not too happy or too confident.
Her life, or so it seems to her, has been great, but not too great, her school record is solid but not exceptional, her popularity high but not spectacular, her cheerleading attractive in the extreme but not stellar.
But in the last three months, something has happened to her, something that she was totally unprepared for; something that has powerfully undermined everything she thought she knew about herself. At the same time, bizarrely, nothing has changed. You see, nobody knows of this new thing, this thing in her mind and body which has possessed her, and at the same time, there is nothing, nothing at all she can actually do that is different, as a result of this possession. Almost nothing at least.
She is still leading her great but actually very normal life, still living with her Mom and Dad and kid brother in their perfectly good midwestern home (not quite picket fence, but not far off), still planning to go to the local college to study English, still planning to become a teacher like her Mom, still meeting her friends, still working in the hardware store for old Mr Chelling, still doing her chores, still volunteering, still attending her Heritage Girl Scouts group.
High School graduation had been— you guessed it— great, but not really anything more than great, and that was it. She had had a couple of boyfriends, who had been … nice, but nothing more.
Life was … great.
Only, also, not so great.
Because this new thing is … difficult. Deeply difficult; incompatible with her life, with everything about her, about her family, about her friends, about her plans for the future; incompatible with everything.
The reason nothing can change is that no-one can know about it, and that there is no way it can ever become real for her. No way at all that she can see. It’s driving her a little crazy (as crazy as she can let it get), but she has to act as if everything is … great … because if she didn’t then people would start asking questions about what was up with her and … and she’s the world’s worst liar.
Eight months ago, her little brother and she had been asked by her Mom to clear out the old garage. It had filled up from the back with their old stuff, and behind that there was old stuff from the family that had lived there before they bought the house, that had never been cleared out;
“I know! Not like us at all, and we were on it, but then Robyn came along, and I had two little ones and John got a promotion and had to travel and I was still studying and starting to teach, too and the new garage got finished and … well, we just let it slide. And Robyn, I want you and Chuck to get it started around New Years, and get it done by Easter, before you graduate.”
It had been fun, mostly. She and Chuck liked being a team, and it was good to spend time with him before going away to college, and they unearthed old toys and pictures and funny old clothes of Mom’s from the ’90s and their own toddler clothes, sorting it for yard sale, goodwill, trash, burn. Their Mom had said they could keep the yard-sale money.
At last they had got to the old stuff, that had been there before they were born. It had been boring, old and dusty, no memories, mostly old magazines and papers, and they had gone at it, feeling pleased that it was going to be over with, Chuck talking about how he and Dad would set the place up for a home gym— another near-cliché— Chuck was fixated on becoming the best footballer in the County.
But he was a good kid brother, and she loved him, and everything about their family was right and proper and wholesome and so, when Robyn opened a box and saw a weird porn magazine on the top, she stifled her gasp of shock, and kept her habitual soft smile in place and said, while taping it back up;
“Another one for the bonfire.”
And she chucked it onto the ‘burn it’ pile and went to the next box. She didn’t want Chuck to even know it was there; he was a young boy, and she did not want to pollute his mind.
Already, though, something had happened to her. Her heart was thumping, even though she didn’t want it to; her mind was reeling, even though she told herself it was nothing.
She had seen porn before— of course she had; it was on everyone’s ‘phone, and despite being uninterested, and put-off by it, even her best girlfriends would occasionally show her something— usually laughing, or faking shock, occasionally with something real on their mind, like; how, actually, can a girl get something that big in her throat? I mean, is this even real?.
But she had never seen anything like the image on the cover of the magazine in the box.
Had it even been porn? It wasn’t sex, but it was definitely smutty. Real smutty. Even though no-one was even naked. The man was wearing leather pants and a black leather helmet which also covered his eyes; only his muscled torso was bare. He had long greasy hair coming out from under the helmet, and tattoos like a biker. The girls— there were two of them— were not actually naked either, but in their underwear; not even sexy lingerie, just regular cotton ones.
They were on their hands and knees, though, their mouths gagged with cloth tied round their heads, their hands tied behind their backs. Their knees were spread wide, real wide, and the man…
The man had one jack-booted foot on the neck of one girl, and was bringing a brutal looking whip down toward the backside of the other girl, whose back and upper thighs were marked with weals.
All of these details, Robyn discovered that night, in bed, had burned themselves into her memory, even though she had looked for such a short, short time— Oh, but even then, it was longer than it needed to be, and I knew it; I had to make myself stop; if Chuck hadn’t been there … What the hell is going on with me?
The title, too, and the headlines on the cover; ENSLAVED!, Abducted teens abused beyond all limits!, Collared Co-eds Coerced into sex!, Innocent Schoolgirls captured and defiled by Biker Gang!, True life story: I was sold to the Russian Mafia as a sex-slave!— all of those were sharp in her mind, and fascinating.
Pictures of people having sex had never had much effect on her, so what was this?
Is it … hormones … I mean … I don’t think so; I got my period a few years ago, and… and my boobs got big last year, so…
It was too confusing and… and, if she didn’t do, right now, what she had been stopping herself doing for the past hour or more, she might never find out, because the box and its disturbing contents would be burned tomorrow.
It felt really strange— wrong— to be creeping about in her own house at four in the morning, unlocking the yard door, and using her ‘phone torch as carefully as she could to find the box. She was terrified the whole time, that Dad would wake up and think she was an intruder, come out with the shotgun.
Only later did she realise that she had found that terror itself fascinating. That terror of Dad… of Dad, finding her doing something… something dirty. Of what he would do to her, how he would look at her … That feeling all part of this… thing.
Back in her room, almost paralysed with nerves, trembling, shivering with cold, too, she had not even dared open the box, just stared at it for what seemed like forever, before pushing it under her bed, telling herself she mustn’t, that tomorrow she would burn the box, that she must simply bury all that disturbing squirmy thinking, never let it into her mind again.
She hadn’t for years, but she knelt down by the bed and did her best to pray to God that He would help her be strong.
She slept at last, but had strange dreams.
When she woke, much later than usual, she didn’t at first remember anything special; rather, she was overwhelmed by a soft, very gentle, but deep, deep sadness.
Something had gone. Something was lost, never to be regained. It didn’t feel like a tragedy, but the loss was nevertheless to be mourned, acknowledged, remembered.
Once, she had had something, been something, which she no longer had, no longer was.
And then it came to her; the box, the images, the words, the strong squirmy sensations, deep in her belly, the way her heart had bumped, her pulse throbbed, her breath caught, her mind… her mind struggling to figure out what was going on; the crazy trip to the garden in the middle of the night.
The box— under her bed. Waiting. Calling.
That was what she had lost; ordinariness; ordinary happiness.
That image had uncovered something in her— she felt it— it wasn’t that she had been changed, more that some part of her had been awakened— a part which did not fit, could not fit. A part of her nonetheless, an important part, which had never, never before yesterday, been fed. And now, now that it had tasted life, now that it had awoken, it wanted more.
And that meant that Robyn wanted more. Because, troubling as it was, strange as it made her feel, she knew that in some way it was important; she felt more alive, just knowing it was there— more real, more interested in living; the new aspect making her more interesting to herself, even.
She was no longer simply ‘great, but ordinary’; she no longer had the assumption of innocence which she had always felt.
Now, she was some sort of ‘strange’, some sort of ‘complicated’. She considered the word that had come into her head when she was thinking about Dad finding her— ‘dirty’. If she wanted to hate the new part of her, she would call it dirty, call it wrong, call it perverted. But she didn’t hate it, even though it made her feel weird.
The magazines were ‘dirty’— sure they were— sleazy, too, but Robyn didn’t feel ‘dirty’. She knew it was a sex thing, knew it was a weird thing, but it was how she was; she knew it— even without knowing quite what it even was, yet. But she hadn’t got that odd, squirmy feeling, right down low in her belly, just behind her pussy, because she was dirty; it had just happened— and the need in her to know more didn’t feel dirty, but— well— excited; eager, new.
But other people would call it dirty. And she was frightened of being called dirty. So fear was all mixed up with it. Fear and sex and dirty and she wanted more and… oh I don’t even know what I am really thinking!
It was frightening, yes, and it was sad, too— because being normal was no longer enough. But she could not deny it. Did not want to.
It’s the most interesting thing about me. The only interesting thing about me. And its the most important thing about me. I know it.
She had to look in the box.
The fear came on— what if Dad came in while she was looking? He had got better since the terrible rows with her older sister Nancy, before she had left home, but he still did not always knock.
She could lock her door, but then… well, she had never locked her door, and if he tried and found it so then how would she explain?
