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(aka Bike) Part 1980 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad
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I woke up after sleeping fitfully. It took me a few moments to work out why Danny’s clothes were hanging on the back of my bedroom door–then I remembered–this was his room. I looked at my mobile, bugger it was only six o’clock, normally I didn’t rise for another hour, but for some reason I no longer felt sleepy. I was tired but unable to sleep any longer. I hoped I’d last the day–perhaps if things got a bit quieter, I could slip away for a quick nap.
I sat on the edge of the bed putting on my slippers and reflecting on what might happen next based upon what had already occurred. It wasn’t much help, in my experience things did what they wanted and it was up to us to survive them and if possible learn from the experience.
I slipped into the bedroom and grabbed some clothing and changed in the bathroom after a quick wash. I was downstairs with the kettle on before anyone found me. The first was Tom. I was busy filling his coffee maker with a scoop of what looked like dried cow pats.
“Mornin’, hen.”
“Oh, morning, Daddy–there, your Mississippi mud dispenser is on,” I said flicking the switch.
“Aye, thanks.” He paused for a moment as if trying to decide how to say something. “Yon laddie, he’s goin’ tae be alricht?”
“Danny, you mean?”
“Aye an’ his wee pal.”
“At the moment Danny seems to be doing quite well, his friend is looking much more of a problem.”
“Can ye no help?”
“I can only do so much, Daddy, I don’t perform miracles, you know.” He gave me a funny look and realised I was being ironic. I shrugged, “I’ve tried to help him but he seems to be shutting me out. I think I know why, but I’m not sure.”
He nodded, the coffee started to drip through into the jug and it looked every bit as bad as the ground beans. It’s Columbian, I think, though I prefer Kenyan myself, much more mellow. I sipped at the tea I’d made, and yawned.
“Ye still tired?”
“Yeah, didn’t sleep very well.”
“Tae much on yer mind?”
“Yeah, that and the fact that Danny was sleeping with Simon when I got to bed. I slept in his bed.”
“Ye’re tae saft.”
“No if he needs to be with someone at night for a bit, we’ll help him.”
“Whit exactly happened?”
“He and his friend were jumped by two men in a public toilet and raped.”
“Whit they---actually–up his–?”
I nodded and he looked quite sick for a moment. “It’s bad enough f’ a lassie, f’ a laddie, it must be hell.”
“I don’t know, I don’t think you can generalise about such things, it would depend upon the individual and the circumstances. Young Peter seems to have taken it harder than Danny.”
“Puir wee souls, I canna even think hoo they feel.”
“Yeah well, can we talk about something else, I’m rather tired of this one.”
“Whit aboot thae perpetrators, hae they foond them?”
“They were both killed by police when they started a firefight.”
“Serve them richt.”
“Now–no more about it.” I poured him a cup of slurry and he took it, still musing on Danny’s attack judging by the pained expression. He sipped his coffee and after a couple more minutes sloped off to his den. I suspect my refusal to talk about it any longer meant any further questions or comments he might have had went unaired. It was also possible that he was avoiding talking to me about the woodland centre and my insistence it was in the wrong place.
I wondered if he’d visited the site yet because he wasn’t an ecologist so it might not make much difference to him where it was built–but it did to me, and I was hanging on in there for a resurvey, with some opportunity for input, or I wanted no more to do with it. I know, I give mules a bad name–Jenny–hee haw.
I tried to concentrate on Peter, to send him healing, but somehow all I was getting was this greyness. Suddenly the penny dropped. I dashed into my study and grabbed the phone directory, I ran my finger down the Gs and found it. I dialled and waited for ages until it was answered.
“Yes?” said a tired Mr Grimshaw.
“It’s Cathy Cameron, Danny’s mum–look, I might be mistaken but could you check Peter, I have a horrible feeling something’s not right with him.”
“I’m sure he’s all right, you know.”
“Please, would you check on him?”
“Okay, wait there.” He put the phone down and a minute or so later, I heard raised voices. “Look, something’s happened, got to go, sorry.” The phone went dead. I hoped I was in time.
I felt quite sick when I went back to the kitchen, Tom had come back for a refill. “Whit’s thae matter, lassie?”
“I think Peter Grimshaw has tried to kill himself,” I said my voice croaking with emotion.
“What’s Peter done?” said a voice loudly behind me. I spun round and Danny was standing there in his pyjamas. “What’s happened, Mummy?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart, I don’t know,” I held open my arms and he dived into them nearly knocking me over in the process. I held on to him, trying to nurture and love him through this very dark time.
“He’s gonna be all right, though, in ’e?” He sobbed from my embrace.
“I don’t know, sweetheart, I don’t know.”
While I was trying to calm Danny, the phone rang. “Lady C, it’s Ken Nicholls, look can you come straight down, some kid’s tried to do a Trish to himself and he’s really sick?”
“Right away, Ken, I’m on my way.”
I passed Danny over to his granddad and grabbed my coat, bag and keys before realising I didn’t have any shoes on. I ran upstairs slipped on some flatties and was gone before Simon could finishing asking his question.
I ran for the car and drove like a demon to the hospital abandoning the Jaguar at the entrance to A&E. I was huffing and puffing by the time I got there. A nurse was waiting and called me through.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. Usually kids who amputate their own genitals are transgendered boys, so I suppose I was expecting to see an older version of Trish.
“Hi, Cathy, they’re just sticking up another transfusion, he’s lost a lot of blood.”
I nodded and waited, hoping the blue energy would work with me. It can be a bit hit and miss, but this time I recognised that I was beginning to buzz with it. “What happened?”
“It’s a thirteen year old who chopped off his meat and two veg and flushed them down the loo before he collapsed.”
“A transgender kid?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t think so from the way his parents were talking, they’re in the office, they were making so much row. Apparently he was sexually assaulted the other day in France...”
“Oh no,” I gasped and felt my breakfast such as it was, expel itself orally.
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Comments
Just another day....
... Never a dull moment with Cathy. Hopefully now she'll be able to get through to Peter.
PB
Out of the frying pan...
The Cathy / Shekinah double-act are going to have their work cut out with Peter. Since Ken's one of the few non-family members who's witnessed BLH but has kept shtum, perhaps even a triple act: Cathy and Shekinah using BLH to stem blood loss while Ken uses conventional surgery to deal with the remainder of the task.
If (and that's a very big if considering both the mental and physical trauma) Peter survives, there's going to be a long road ahead to recovery and rehabilitation; which will require the dedication and experience of Peter himself, his parents, Cathy, Ken, Sam and possibly even Mike O'Rourke (obviously not for his usual modus operandi, but to neaten up the remmnants as much as possible and ensure the urethra's got an exit point)
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
I was afraid
Peter might do something silly .... But this i was not expecting , Sadly i can see why he might have done it given what Cathy suggested might have been his reaction to the rape, If its not there then in his mind its solved the problem ... Lets hope Cathy can help, if there was ever need for the blue light its right now, Not only does Peters life depend on it, But who knows what effect this could have on Danny ..
Kirri
I'm kind of waiting for Danny to say
"Well mum, it's like this... Everyone around me is trying to go girl, so I figure I may as well too."
Sephrena
Self destructive remedy.
This scenario is extremely upsetting to me, because now I am wondering if I had the operation because of the same set of circumstances. I'm feeling really shaky right now. I'd go put myself in the Hospital but I have too many people depending on me in the morning, don't have time to fall apart. It's late. I am going to try to sleep and hope that I can hold it together tomorrow.
Cathy and the Shekinah Glory
have a very big problem in Peter. Why did he do what he did? Will he now be open to healing? What wil be his reaction to Danny and other lads? What about Danny's healing? What about the survey and Tom's argument with Cathy?
May Your Light Forever Shine
OMG what a mess
So now we have a mystery on our hands as to what is motivating Peter to do such an extreme thing.
So in his mind he justifies being raped because he is a girl? Yes this would be very twisted but people can have very weird rationales in extreme circumstances.
At best if he survives and is trans, he will be little better than members of a sect in India who basically just cuts off the genitalia without having SRS surgery. No sexual sensation at all. I like having sexual sensation thank you very much.
Kim
Peter and who elso?
Peter's parents are NOT the ones in the hospital lobby. Remember that Peter was in bed at Cathy's house, when she received the call from Dr. Nichols so there is still at least a third young'un involved, This event of a Trish duplication happened after all returned home, so I suspect this individual is a third person involved in the rape episode. But who is it? And is there anything Cathy can do? Did Peter see what happened and this is what is causing his withdrawal? Regardless, Cathy has her work cut out for her and I suspect the Shekinah is involved in all this. But why? This is extreme even for the Shekinah even though they have already recruited Cathy who is refusing to acknowledge it.
The Egyptians worshiped Cats as Gods, so c'mon Bonzi and Izzy - admit it publicly in here for all to see. It has to be the two of you, as I cannot conceive a human having such a diabolical mind. It is obvious the two of you are influencing what Ang is writing in the long, always to be remembered as a favorite story line.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
Peter & his parents
were dropped off at their home on the way back from the airport.
'After touchdown and customs, a car met us at Southampton and drove us all home, we dropped off Peter and his parents on the way through to our place.' (Bike 1979)
Angharad
Peter and the parents
Thanks Ang. I remember that part now that it is mentioned. I stand corrected.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
Pathological Psychology
Poor boys. I do hope that they are surrounded by positive, healthy people that can pull them through.
Gwendolyn
Reactions can vary tremendously.
Peter's reaction sickens me but does not surprise me because the trauma of rape can follow a myriad different paths to many different conclusions.
I'm interested in Tom's observations about how rape affects male victims possibly more than female victims. I have even spoken with my better half about this on several occasions when one of us find's some article addressing these issues.
On one side I've heard the argument that rape damages boys more because they are not anatomically designed to endure penetration and therefore the assault seriously damages or even destroys their sense of worth, their self esteem, their feeling of maleness. I've heard it put a dozen different ways and to most male minds, these arguments and observations carry considerable weight, possibly because they are heterosexual males and the act of forced, involuntary submission is a painfully cruel one.
On the other hand women (including my wife,) have explained to me that most women hold their wombs and their reproductive organs, or more correctly their reproductive abilities to be more important to them than almost any other component of their feminine beings. They see their womb and vagina to be a sacrosanct holy of holies. The trauma of rape is not just physical but also supremely psychological because it abuses their very sense of being; in addition to their self worth or self esteem. It also makes them feel grotesquely devalued within their society because they see themselves as 'damaged goods'.
I think any conclusions as the degree of hurt vis-Ã -vis the victim's gender, is largely subjective. It possibly takes an extra sense of empathy to cross the gender spectrum and understand the other person's point of view.
I suspect that trans people are uniquely placed to make these empathetic cross-overs but it still doesn't detract from the wholesale destruction that rape causes to a victim's psyche.
I just don't know what Cathy and the blue light can do for Peter; did they recover the genitalia?
Horrible Chapter Ang, but then not everything in the garden can come up roses.
Thanks.
Bevs.
XX
P.S. I apologise to anybody who might consider the expression 'Trans people' to be offensive but it's best expression I can come up with that offers sufficient universality to cover the whole ambit of the many transgender/intergender conditions.
Bevs.
I would have to include post op t-girls then
.... as we have a vagina and it would just as traumatic with the caveat we know we cannot get pregnant. Nonetheless it is far closer to a genetic woman's perspective of course. For me, though people don't consider it rape per se, forcing somebody to perform fellatio is a form of rape as it does involve an orifice and you are forced to taste the bastard. Bite down hard girls!
The rapists still got off too easily in my opinion, they merely died at their own choice really.
Kim
A nasty business...
Although I do not follow this series normally, this particular comment's title caught my eye and caused me to read first all the comments here, then to back up and read this particular episode. A detail I mention as an explanation in case I say something that doesn't quite match this story universe -- which, while well written and entertaining, is very obviously not the "Real World" that this story's tags indicate. [The last time I worked a shift in the E.R., the local equivalent of an "A & E", there most emphatically were not any faith healers with glowing blue lights involved in any of our work...]
Whatever. I just mostly wanted to say that you are correct, Kimmie, in that rape can be every bit as traumatic for a "T-girl"... and would add that this is true whether they are pre-op or post.
Shrug. I was repeatedly raped as a child. Back then, I had sort of figured out I was a girl -- insisting on that was what brought on the rapes -- but at the same time, I also was still aware that I was a boy. Sigh. What can I say? I was a child at the time... and very confused. Anyway, the point is... I know what it is like to be raped as a "boy"... and that is indeed rather traumatic.
Flash forward many years, to when I was post op. I made the mistake of going out with a couple female friends to a local night club (a "straight" one, not GLBT, if that matters to anyone), intending on just a fun Friday night. Dancing, music, and a chance to unwind. I rarely drink alcohol, and when I do it is never more than one or two drinks (I have never been drunk in my life... probably due to the smell of alcohol on the breath of the person raping me in my childhood...). Long story short, the water bottle I was drinking from was spiked with a date rape drug, and the result was about six hours of sexual assault. [If anyone wants the details, my only published story here at BCTS drew heavily on this real life event for the opening scenes of the story...]
Sad smile. Or in other words, I do understand what it is to be raped as a post op. Knowledge that was only reinforced about six months later, when I was raped again -- this time with no drugs involved, just pure physical force.
Interestingly, as portrayed in that story of mine, while I was still attempting to deal with the trauma of the drugged rape, someone I barely knew phoned me. A pre-op that I had met months previously, and for whatever reason had given my cellphone number to. Physically, I am not that remarkable... not that far from the female norms for a woman my age. But this woman was built like a linebacker. Big, muscular, able to casually pick up and carry around a refrigerator all by herself -- she sometimes did charity work delivering used appliances to people in need, so that is a literal statement, not an exaggeration. Her description is important... as one evening on her way home she was ambushed by three guys in a parking lot between her bus stop and where she lived. She phoned me in the aftermath, knowing of my medical training and too terrified to trust anyone else. While still trying to cope with my own assault, I had to go help her with hers... which is why I state so strongly that it is not that different for a pre-op or a post op.
Either way, it can be devastating. Eventually I ended up seeking counselling in a program for abused women, where most of the other women present had also been raped or whatever. Although I usually live stealth, I made an exception then... disclosing to the group in confidence, since being able to talk freely with them was the only way I was going to get much out of that program. During group therapy sessions with those women, I bonded with them, and they with me. Talked about exactly what we were all feeling, in very great depth. Explored every tiny detail of our assaults.
Sigh. Rape is rape. Male, female, pre-op or post... it is a nasty business, and one that destroys just about anyone equally. Bev's comment about the "wholesale destruction that rape causes to a victim's psyche" is pretty much dead on... and it does not matter where in the gender spectrum you are, that destruction still happens.
Sigh, again. They say that you can get used to just about anything if it goes on long enough. I wish I could argue about that, but I can't. I don't know if it is relevant to this thread... but when I was raped again six months later, I got over it a whole lot faster. I already knew the techniques for dealing with this sort of thing. Already had "been there, done that". Already had faced my inner demons, and come to terms with my own self worth. I am not saying the recovery this time was fun, or did not cause me nightmares... just that I was able to function while coming to terms with it yet again. Well, mostly. I did spend something like 26 hours unconscious in the immediate aftermath, crashed at a friend's house. Partly that was physical (this rape had also included a serious attempt at murdering me, and I was considerably bruised and battered), but I suspect at least part of that was mental -- my mind wanting to go on strike for a while, as life had just gotten a bit too much to bear just then...
By the way, Kimmie... while intellectually I can agree with your "bite down hard" sentiment, do keep in mind that not everyone can do that. Shrug. I was a survivalist in my youth, trained in multiple martial arts. My assailant was also trained in fighting, and both bigger and far stronger than me... but if I had really wanted to, I know I had a couple openings when I could have killed her. [Smile. Surprise! Yes, I said "her", and no that is not a typo. After the first, heterosexual rape, I became a lesbian for a while... only to discover that it is possible for a woman to rape another woman, and that abusive relationships are actually quite common in the lesbian community -- I knew my assailant, as is all too often the case with rape]. Anyway, my point is... although physically I could have done serious harm to her... possibly even killed her... and legally, it would have been an acceptable option under those circumstances... psychologically? No way. I am not a killer, despite knowing how to kill. Even with my life on the line (I repeat, she decided to kill me and made a serious attempt to do so), I discovered that night that I am not psychologically capable of deliberately harming another human being.
Sigh. Just a limitation I have to accept... and one I mention as it is a factor in rape. Fighting back may not always be physically possible... or wise to do (in that pre-op's case, she tried... but was outnumbered three to one, and beaten into submission -- then threatened with immediate death if she continued to fight), and even if you can physically fight, the act of harming someone can play more psychological havoc with the victim than the actual rape does. It is a no win situation, for all too many victims. Not all. There are women (and guys) out there that are okay with harming their assailants. But not everyone can do that... and rapists tend to pick their victims carefully.
Shrug. Probably way more than anyone wants to know about this topic, so I will end this here...