My Big Fat Gay Life (50 page)

“Thanks for the tea,” I told Arthur, placing my cup on the saucer.

“It’s a pleasure,” he responded. “Thank you for coming. As I mentioned before, the job is just light cleaning and some cooking. If it’s alright with you, I’m thinking Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for three hours each day.”

“Sounds good.” I smiled agreeably. For my first appointment, I’d made a real effort to tidy myself up. As Drag Queen Lizzie, I’d spend hours making myself beautiful. However, as Mark, I tended to be a little scruffy. Today I looked good, or at least as good as it gets.

“So I don’t look familiar to you at all?” I asked Arthur, smiling sweetly.

“Yes, a little,” he replied, finishing off his own cup of tea. “But I’m sure I just recognise you from Ruby Slippers.”

“Actually, we have met before,” I told him. As I talked, I stood and started removing my clothing. As I stripped off my underwear, I turned my arse toward Arthur and pointed at the tattoo I’d gotten as a rebellious teenager. On one butt cheek there was a trail of tiny rabbit prints leading to my arsehole. On the other cheek was a depiction of Elmer Fudd, pointing a shotgun at my arsehole and saying ‘Come out you wascally wabbit!’ in a cartoon bubble. “Maybe this will help you remember.” I told Arthur.

I stared at him intently, noting the colour drain from his face. He glanced down at the coffee table and the empty teacup in front of him. His eyes widened in fright.

“I may be a complete and utter loose slut,” I told him, anger lowering my pitch dramatically, “but nobody takes it without my permission. Nobody!”

“I must ask you to leave now!” Arthur said in voice that was slightly slurred, but stern. As he attempted to rise to his feet, he staggered and fell back onto the sofa.

“But we were just getting to know each other again,” I said, with an exaggerated pout. “I wasn’t certain it was you until the taxi pulled up outside your house. I suspected it was you after you approached me in the club, but when the taxi stopped and I saw your house, I knew you were the bastard that raped me all those years ago.”

Arthur broke out in a sweat, and he put his hand to his neck to try and loosen his collar.

“I don’t know what to do now,” I told him honestly. “I never thought you’d let me inside, and I haven’t planned this far ahead. I was sure that you’d recognise me when I wasn’t dressed as Lizzie and you’d turn me away, saying it was a mistake.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, haltingly. His eyes rolled about in his head as he fought the effects of the drug he’d placed in the tea.

“Naturally, I switched cups the second you weren’t paying attention. Fool me once, etc. But what am I going to do with you now?”

Arthur lost his fight with consciousness and sank into the sofa. I dressed slowly, considering my options. The first thing I needed to do was restrain him in case he woke up.

As soon as I’d finished dressing, I started rummaging through any cupboard or drawer I could find for some rope or cable: something to bind his hands and feet with. That way, I’d have time to consider my options. I couldn’t let him get away with drugging and raping me all those years ago, but so much time had passed and there was no evidence: there was no point calling the police.

When I reached his buffet and hutch, I pulled open the first drawer and gasped. Perfectly ordered, there was a collection of VHS videotapes. Each had a name and a date. They were arranged in chronological order. Opening the next drawer revealed more videotapes, along with some smaller format camcorder tapes. More drawers exposed their secrets, including DVDs and USB memory sticks. All were labelled with names and dates.

Searching through my memory, I remembered the approximate date of my last visit to Arthur’s house. In the second drawer I found a camcorder tape labelled ‘Mark 21 Sept 2004’.

Turning back to face Arthur, a red mist descended. I’d never felt so angry. All the emotions from the rape flooded back: despair, hurt, embarrassment, and humiliation. I strode over to the sofa and picked up the lamp from one of the end tables. As I raised the lamp above my head, the red mist cleared and I started to think a little more clearly.

Working quickly, I bound Arthur’s wrists together with the cord from the lamp. I then bound his ankles with the cord from the lamp on the other end table. Satisfied, I dialled 999 and waited, anxious and nervous.

Today was a bad day. The depression had a tight grip; the tightest it’d had since Kyra was born.

I’d struggled all day to remember the sessions with Patricia: how to spot triggers, and how to respond to them. It wasn’t working.

To make matters worse, my brain chemicals and hormones were all over the place as the Doctor tried one medication after the other.

I knew I should tell someone - Patricia, Justin, Sebastian, or even Donovan – just how bad things were, but right now all I wanted was a long hot soak. Who knows, maybe the party will perk me up, and tomorrow I’ll be able to go and see Patricia and Donovan.

The apartment was so quiet. It was the first time I’d had it to myself in weeks: ever since Kyra had been born. I relished the silence.

As I walked down the hallway and into the bathroom, I pondered the reason why I was so reluctant to tell anyone just how much I was struggling. Maybe I didn’t want to be a drama queen, after all loads of women suffer postnatal depression. Maybe I didn’t want to be the crazy one again: I felt I’d used up all the goodwill, patience, and tolerance accorded to someone with a mental illness, just with my history of agoraphobia.

In the bathroom, I tested the temperature of the water. It was perfect. I slipped off my robe and stepped into the tub, then slowly eased myself down into the water. Tears were flowing down my face freely, and I made no effort to wipe them away.

Sitting up, I reached up to grab a facecloth next to the sink. However, when my hand came back down, I found that I was holding Justin’s straightedge razor. Slightly panicked, I struggled to put it back where it belonged, but, totally against my will, my other hand folded open the razor and exposed the blade.

Almost in a daze, I watched as the razor in my right hand made a few hesitant slashes at my left wrist. I wanted it to stop. My brain screamed out to my hand, ordering it to stop. It obeyed and I watched, eyes wide with shock, as the small slashes on my wrist expunged a few drops of blood. The blood dropped into the bathwater, disappearing as the water diluted it. The cuts were small and the blood stopped flowing almost as soon as it started, however the betrayal of my right hand had stunned me.

Resolved, I reached across with my left hand to close the razor. My right hand, however, still had a mind of its own and tore at the wrist of my left hand again. This time the gash was deep and long. Satisfied its job was done, my right hand dropped the razor. It hit the tiled floor with a clang: a clang that echoed loudly throughout the quiet apartment.

Lying back in the tub, I placed my arms along either side of the tub and watched intently as the blood from my left wrist flowed down the tub, pulsating with each heartbeat, and into the water. As the bathwater gradually turned pink, I felt as though all my concerns, fears, and troubles were flowing out of me. With each beat of my heart I felt lighter, less burdened.

As the blood flowed and the bathwater turned a darker pink, I started to feel lightheaded. I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the tub. I felt good, and for the first time in months I smiled a genuine smile: the lazy smile of a person at peace.

It was mid morning and I was dozing lightly. I could hear the TV playing softly, and the noises from the ward were muffled through the door to my room.

I wasn’t sure how long I’d be dozing when I heard my door open. Assuming it was a nurse coming to check on my monitors, I kept my eyes closed and continued to doze. Suddenly the TV was silent, only to be replaced by a rhythmic tapping sound. I slowly opened my eyes. An indistinguishable figure was silhouetted in outline against the brightness of the window.

“Who is that?” I asked.

I received no response, so I squinted against the glare to try and make out the figure. I couldn’t see their features, but I could see their folded arms, their defiant stance.

“What’s that noise?” I asked the silhouette.

“I’m tapping my foot,” a woman’s voice responded.

“Why?” I asked her.

“Because I’m impatient,” she replied.

Not knowing what else to say, I fell silent.

After a few moments, she spoke again. Her voice was cold. “My son tells me you want to go back to Ireland and be with your family.”

“Patricia? Is that you?” I queried the silhouette.

The figure took a few steps forward, finally allowing me to see her face in the light cast from the fluorescent tube mounted on the wall above my bed. As a trained mental health nurse, I’m quite experienced in detecting emotions in facial expressions and voices. Patricia’s voice and face contained no emotions at all; both were just cold, sinister.

With a quick movement, Patricia reached out and pulled the tray away from the side of my face. The tray contained tubes for drinking, the remote control for the TV, but most importantly it also held the call button for the nurses’ station.

Patricia smiled, and it sent ice-water coursing through my bloodstream. Her smile contained no warmth at all, and I actually started to fear her. If I hadn’t been catheterised, I would have pissed myself.

“What do you want?” I asked her, struggling to keep my voice level and calm.

“The same thing I’ve wanted since the moment I realised you’d hurt my son and my husband,” she replied. The chill in her voice made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Sebastian and I are good now,” I said defensively. “We get along well. He knows how sorry I am for hurting him and Donovan.”

“My son is a sucker for a sob story,” she responded. “However, he made you a promise, and I intend to keep it on his behalf.”

With a quick movement, Patricia unfolded her arms and held out a syringe. I could see it was filled with a clear solution. My bowels felt like they’d turned to liquid.

“There was no point doing this any earlier,” she said softly, leaning toward me. Her gaze was so intent, so cold and cruel, that I felt it was burrowing into my soul. I’d never felt so ashamed and scared.

“After your accident you wanted to die, but that’s a coward’s way out. Sebastian has worked hard to help you accept your situation, and he tells me that now you’re looking forward to moving home to your family and having a future. He also tells me there’s even a chance you may recover, in time. Is that true?”

I was torn by indecision. Her eyes watched every muscle of my face, looking for signs of deception and fear. Do I tell her the truth? Do I tell her that I did indeed want to move home to Ireland and try to make something good of my life? Or should I lie to her and tell her that I still want to die, in the hope it would dissuade her from using that syringe on me. Those cold, calculating eyes watched mine intently as I struggled with the decision.

“It’s true,” I stammered. “I want to go home, hopefully recover, and do something good with my life.”

“Good,” she said simply, standing up. “Then now is the perfect time to put you out of your misery.”

“This is potassium chloride,” she told me, holding up the syringe as went around the foot of my bed. “It will induce a heart attack, and nobody will suspect anything.”

When she reached the other side of my bed, her hand stretched out to take hold of the intravenous line through which I received my medications.

“Please Patricia,” I pleaded. “Don’t do this. I promise I will never harm another human being. Ever!”

She hesitated, slightly. I saw a flicker of doubt cross her face, but it was swiftly replaced with a look of certainty. She turned her full attention onto me and smiled: the same chilling, calculating smile that had turned my blood to ice. Her eyes were cold and intense. I searched them for signs of insanity or instability, but found none. She knew exactly what she was doing, and she was of sound mind.

Directing her focus from me to the IV line, she uncapped the syringe and held it near the membrane of the line.