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The Sisters of Dorley — Chapter 26 — The One That Got Away (28,676 words) (Patreon)

Published:
2022-10-26 22:33:51
Imported:
2026-06
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Missing 5 full-res photos, 8 files.

Content

It's finally done!

This is the closing chapter of book two of The Sisters of Dorley. I apologise for any typos and mistakes: I wrote most of it while having a huge chronic pain flare-up, and then basically rewrote the whole bloody thing over a few days while feeling only kinda sorta better.

Content warning: references to sexual violence and things done without consent

The art for this chapter is Beatrice through the ages, and is courtesy of my wonderful friend Emory, whose incredible comics are right here on Patreon (and which were a huge part of the inspiration for Dorley in the first place).

Edit: Fixed two mistakes :)

Edit October 30th: I just spotted a pretty big continuity error! Which I have now fixed.

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Comments

Zoe Storm

It's now 34 minutes past midnight, I have work tomorrow, but I've been waiting for this. I'm a smart person that makes good decisions. Time to read.

Erin Murphy-Jay

Just a heads up when I open the epub with Calibre it opens on the very last paragraph

Bri

Oh god lmao, of course I refresh Twitter the second this goes live. I was *just* about to watch a movie, but spending the night reading Dorley is sounds way better

Julie

Aah yes, the plan for the rest of my day.

Lily Hulme

alyson i have work in the morning why would you test my impulse control like this

Carrie

mam i want you to know I just finished my first readthrough and my heart is in my throat now thanks for that

alysongreaves
>>94373041

I'm so happy finally to have finished this chapter but I'm so tired now my brain has turned into soup. Unhelpful comments are all I have in me.

Carrie
>>94373041

Nah that was more a post script to my orignal comment than a response. Please have some soup and a nap tho 🙏🏼

Katie Fuchs

Gets entirely distracted by an unnamed character in one scene.

Helena Grace

I suspected that was Valerie when the chapter started with an unknown flashback. Glad she's alive but terrible she's still dealing with Grandmother all these years later. The fact they managed to acquire Declan is going to cause a lot of shake up. I did not have that on my Dorley bingo card. Shahida is so cute pining for Melissa, I am hoping the second year polycule will make them and Abby open to it.

Andi

That was amazing! Oh my god! Powerful close to book 2. I can't wait for more.

Jennifer May

Well that was a night long saga, and well worth it too. I’ll be honest I did not realize it was Valérie until Bea was finally offered the name Beatrice to, we’ll Bea—but god those flashbacks are masterful and brutal. What a tale. And that ending to Val’s story….god. Now the lighter stuff! God I love Shahida and Melissa and I hope to hope they end up happy. Steph and Aaron are also sickeningly cute. Another great chapter and an excellent bookend to Dorley 2. Can’t wait for what’s next!!!

Andi
>>94384752

Also: > “And Shahida! Welcome to England’s premier women’s college.” > “I thought Saints was co-ed?” Shahida says, frowning and borrowing a habitual Americanism. > “Give us time." I believe in Dorley's complete domination!

DitzTits

Glad the insomnia hit so I could hiss "No /way/," at the ending at 4 AM. I'm shook tyvm On a brighter note Melissa/Shy & Aaron/Stef are disgustingly cute.

Audrey Trent

I am no longer able to function. This will be brought up in therapy tomorrow.

E

Valérie's story made me sob like a broken faucet. The thought of having your entire life stolen, getting abused for almost 40 years, being made to bury your fellow victims... it makes me want to scream so bad. How Béa ever decided to come back to a system that did these things to them, even to reform it, is beyond me. Still, what a chapter. Loved the mugs, loved the hugs, loved the kiss(!!!) and even laughed at the thought of Val using two fingers to flip Grandmother off. Kid was more British than she thought.

Ken

I cannot overstate how good a storyteller you are! I am so glad the parts of this chapter that occurred at Dorely in 2019 were so sweet and nice because I'm not sure I could have stomached the parts of the chapter about Val's life otherwise, just absolutely brutal. Also, never thought I'd feel sorry for a certain someone who shows up at the very end, but here we are. What a fantastic end to the second book, I am really looking forward to seeing where you take it from here!

Jennifer May
>>94388782

Okay next day thoughts, because I can’t get the almost 35 year long tragedy of Beatrice and Valerie out of my head. I skimmed the flashbacks in “Simply irresistible” and I very clearly screwed it up at the beginning of this chapter not realizing who Val was, but that’s beside the point. Because oh my god, the reverberations of Bea’s attempt to find Val and how her takeover of Dorley both saved and damned Val is just…god. These poor women. Val and Bea…just like Steph and Aaron and Shahida and Melissa—I want them all to end happy. Or in Val and Bea’s case as happy as one can be after the hell they have both been through.

prisca_theologia

So when do we get the Indira redemption chapter because at this point she just keeps seeming more and more gleefully evil?

Aester W.
>>94412867

idk I find her to be extremely pragmatic, and while she definitely has some unspoken tendencies with how much pleasure she derives from others bending to her word, it's hard to call her evil when there's people like Dorothy still stumbling around.

Aester W.

Yet another tempest of events and flashbacks. If this is as far as the TLM references go, I still won't be mad to be proven wrong about which part of that movie would be most relevant here.

prisca_theologia
>>94412867

I mean it's not as if evil is a finite resource and as long as someone else is more evil you're off the hook. She clearly enjoys her job of enforcing the will of an organization that kidnaps and tortures people. That's evil, I don't care what kind of girlboss sisterhood empowerment line you slap on top of it. There are so many constructive alternatives to keeping the program going and they all choose to stick with it. The silence from most graduates is one (super dubious) thing, but the sponsors are unambiguously culpable for evil.

Lucy Severine

Huh, yknow when you first introduced the concept of "washing out" and characters *assumed* it was dying, I was like "I bet they go to grandmother" But as the plot continued and the relationship between the old and new regime became more clearly antagonist I was like "Hmm, that possibility is making less and less sense" Looks like I wasn't *entirely* wrong!

Valyusha

God, I really do hope Bea finds Val before grandmother dies. I wonder though whether death was a better alternative to this hellish existence for Declan. Although it was going to happen to him regardless, just with more support and less torture.

Grymmette

Oh man that ending. I could never have guessed any of that. And Val was right under Bea's nose the whole time! After all she's been through, something tells me that Val isn't going to approve of the path that Bea took. And that Declan will likely be the first person she hears about all this from... whew. I'll be waiting with bated breath to see where this goes.

Nina

I had to pause my read through to quote “Jill of all trades” I see the connection here and I’m sure Emory is more than thrilled lol!!

Nina

I’m sorry but holy shit, this opens up a whole new myriad of possibilities. What does this mean? How do the two interact?? I don’t trust Elle and I hope Bea finds Val eventually. I need that closure! I’m glad to see Melissa and Shy get their reunion too. Melissa needed it. Fabulous end to the second book! It leaves enough room for questions and closure! I love it! Here’s to hoping the next chapter is all about Stephanie and Aaron. I need Aaron to figure out her name!!!

Carrie

The Dorley/Smyth-Farrow rivalry is gonna be the new Oxford/Cambridge

Carrie
>>94763096

Also the Deans (or w/e they call the head of a university in the UK?) are fucking each other

Allie c

I've wondered for a while why Dorley girls seems to move from EV injections to oral??? (not sublingual?) EV pills comparing 1st years to Christine. Oral EV is so terrible with low bioavailability and the liver burden, which makes the normal path for transitioning being moving from pills to injections to time release implants. I understand why 1st years get injections for obvious reasons, but why don't Dorley girls move to self-administered EV shots/EV time-release implants? Kinda nitpicking here but it's just something i've wondered since I'm an advocate for injections as the preferred form of E; having successfully convinced my transfem friends to move to injections with me and get much better results. (Also I couldn't resist subbing to your patreon after binging Dorley in a day. Such incredible and brilliant writing deserves financial support!)

alysongreaves
>>94769485

It's because they are cursed to live in Britain, and in Britain the NHS prescribes pills. The first years get injections because, yeah, but everyone else gets pills because importing enough injectable E to keep the entire Dorley extended family in estradiol might be a little noticeable. I think I say somewhere that Christine and Paige, at least, dissolve theirs under their tongues? (edit: they also have pills because I wrote the early stuff thinking this was going to be a much more shitposty story than it turned out to be, and without thinking too hard about it just gave Christine the same crappy HRT I'm stuck with lmao)

Allie c
>>94769485

God as a Canadian trans girl every time i hear about anything trans-related on terf island it just gets worse. =( Huh sounds like Dorley could use a chemist/pharmacist to synthecize E2 and compound it with oil to make injectable E! Edit: Must've missed that part about dissolving under tongue lol. And I'm glad Dorley turned out the way it has because it's wonderful!

alysongreaves
>>94769485

Practically speaking, if you're not already in the NHS system there's no path to HRT any more that doesn't involve paying, either for private doctors or getting it online. Terrible island, 0/10

Aester W.
>>94412867

More like it's a relative value? As you point out, we're still talking about a forced fem dungeon that's one truck-load of kink gear away from being migrated to the Explicit section of ao3. I think if we start complaining that everyone involved in this particular fictional system is in need of a redemption arc, we'll never actually see a resolution the plot and story at hand. Yeah, abusing bad people isn't actually justifiable, but that's why it's *fiction*. The assumption of the narrative is that the audience is at least siding with Steph, who is unambiguously defending the same program she and everyone around her is describing as a not-all-that-necessary evil, but one they would rather perpetuate to protect themselves and those like them than risk upending and potentially damaging the lives of hundreds of people (not to mention the field day transphobic talking heads would have over exactly this sort of thing, regardless of origin.) For the sake of the story, let your moral compass drift a little deeper into the gray area of "what an utterly unrighteous mess this is, but also how much worse it would be for everyone if it got out." That's the "suspension of disbelief" part of reading. If it's not working for you, that's not the fault of the narrative, that's just an incompatibility with regards to what you are looking for in this story.

prisca_theologia
>>94412867

You're right, I don't actually want a redemption arc for Indira, I want comeuppance. Idk where this "fault of the narrative" line you cooked up came from, but I've never been criticizing the story, only the characters and their actions which is perfectly valid criticism even within your so wonderfully condescendingly described "suspension of disbelief." No, there is not pragmatism in continuing to kidnap and torture people to protect everyone already involved in it. They can stop at any point and still achieve that goal. I still understand Steph, but no, we're absolutely not forced by the narrative to still "side" with her when she's clearly buying further and further into something morally reprehensible. *Fiction* doesn't mean morals don't exist, especially not fiction explicitly designed to explore the moral squickiness of a genre.

Aester W.
>>94412867

I didn't say "forced by the narrative" I said it's the narrative's assumption. Steph is the core protagonist as far as the central plot goes, and she isn't being outright vilified by the story, therefore the assumption is audience sympathy. I'm not trying to be condescending, I'm pointing out that the story from which you're demanding resolutions that match your preference has already been in conversation with its own absurdity. From the beginning, it's been about people trapped between multiple systems of neglect and/or abuse trying to find a way forward that *doesn't* involve burning everything down, because the unknown on the far side of that is petrifying. Yes, the ultimate good would be to stop the program, but nobody in this story is that good. If they were, there wouldn't be a story. It wouldn't be compelling to read if everything got cleaned up nicely in the third chapter with Steph deciding she wants out and then goes to reveal everything to the public. It would just end.

Aester W.
>>94412867

This is why I'm calling it an incompatibility with what you seem to be looking for, because you're justifiably adamant that these are not good people and *even the story* agrees with you.

prisca_theologia
>>94412867

We have different ideas of what is compelling and what reading a story means. I'll keep enjoying the story the way I do, take care of yourself.

Emory Ahlberg

I'm late to the party as always, but I'm so excited to read this chapter! YIKES! The absolute brutality of the beginning of this chapter! Poor Vincent! And yet, you write it so beautifully and with such emotion that it's impossible not to go on reading. The balance between the technical mastery of the story and your ability to describe the emotions, feelings, and ideas is just breathtaking. Vincent's subtle transformation from scared boy to strong, confident woman is explored with such deftness and grace that you can't help but be captivated. It's a brilliant, complex exploration of gender and femininity and your writing is just stunning. Shahida is so clever, and I love her. I'm an official Shahida / Melissa shipper. Their past history is so tragic and beautiful and damn romantic. Aaron's soliloquy with Steph in his lap is utterly beautiful and empowering. He's going to be a girl! I so want him--HER--to be happy! And yet I'm terrified for the difficulty still ahead for him. Such a powerful and moving scene, really highlighting how much Aaron has already changed, and how he will continue to grow as a person and as a woman. And WOW! The contrast in the scenes between Vincent and Aaron was brilliant. Vincent being tortured, his maleness constantly being thrown back in his face. It was a very profound moment and really shows us how horrible Grandmother's regime was. Oh my GOD. The 2005 flashback with Val is just so, so, sad. Decaying bodies!? I hope something truly horrible happens to these people. Val was a COMMISSION. Ugh. We go from despair to elation! A kiss between Stephanie and Aaron! 🥰 Holy crap! Grandmother has Declan!? Was this the compromise Elle was talking about with security? I'm screaming. What an amazing twist to end Book 2 on! Aaaah! (I still hope we learn what "normally" happens to the washouts) This chapter was absolutely stunning. Not only has Book 2 ended on a hugely climatic note, but the characters are more developed than ever, and the world building is (as always) top notch. Brilliantly done, Alyson! 💖

alysongreaves
>>96602737

We will definitely be finding out what normally happens to the washouts! Finally! :3 I had loads of fun writing Valérie’s early years. Getting the chance to dig into Grandmother’s Dorley was amazing. Always look forward to your comments 🥰

Emory Ahlberg
>>96602737

I just had a thought. I wonder if Aaron is going to lean into the whole "girl" thing a bit too hard and come off a bit kitschy/offensively to Steph at first as he tries to find his own version of femininity. Can't wait to see Aaron's journey even more in Book 3! 😊

Emory Ahlberg
>>94412867

I'm late to the party, but personally I see the lampshading of the moral ambiguity to be the characters dealing with the trauma inflicting on them. The infamous mugs can both be seen as a winking aside from Alyson, but also a desperate attempt by the victims to reclaim normalcy through humor. Personally, I go with that interpretation because Dorley's verisimilitude is part of what makes it so powerful for me. 😊