Chapter 8

I had to dress in some of Gem's clothes and clearly, the bra was never going to work. That didn't bother me too much, I am more used to not wearing one than the reverse. We weren't even close to the same sizes, so I looked ridiculous, but at least I was getting out of the hospital. The next stop was going to be the police station. That was when Gem dropped her next bombshell. The case was closed. Dillan/Richard had committed suicide after being told what he had done. He didn't recall any of it, he said, but the evidence was overwhelming. I would have thought they would take precautions to prevent that, but then no one knew that he had actually killed his own parents, rather than strangers.

Originally, my clothes were part of the crime scene, now that the case was closed, my testimony was not going to be necessary and I could pick up my effects. I was in a bit of a state of shock. My old body was gone, so there was now no chance of going back. Amy and Peter were the only ones who would have been able to confirm that Dillan was, in fact, Richard. Even if I tried to tell the truth, there was a good chance that no one would believe me. Only my intimate knowledge of Dillan's life was evidence and that would be considered circumstantial. Now that I had spent time in Dillan's company, it was conceivable that any details that I provided, had been first given to me by him.

Gem further apologised but explained that I was going to have to say goodbye to my parents here as I wouldn't be present for the funeral. She was a member of an event organising team that mainly deals with weddings. She lives in LA and was the bridal liaison for the wedding of the year and so needed to get back immediately. My parents were going to be shipped back to the UK and Peter's family were going to look after all the details. To some extent that was a bit of a relief since if I was at the funeral I would be meeting a lot of family members who Richard would know but I didn't.

I did wonder why Amy and Peter had chosen Gem as my legal guardian and since she was being so open I decided to ask her.

“Gem.”

“Yes, honey.”

“Umm...you seem really nice, so I am not complaining or anything, but I was wondering why my parents would chose someone I didn't know over my relatives in England.”

“Thanks, honey. I like you too. The simplest reason is because they asked me a long time ago and I agreed. I think part of it is that I never managed to have children of my own, although I wanted them and the other part is that I was the most open regarding your gender issues. Some of your family members are not so accepting. Now that you have changed your mind, that is less of an issue, but I know that Amy wouldn't have changed the will anyway. She wanted you to be loved unconditionally, and felt I would be the best candidate for the role.”

So I was ready to leave the hospital. Except when Gem opened the door to my room and a man visibly walked past, I felt my anxiety freaking out again.

“Wait!” I called out to her. She turned back to me puzzled. “Shut the door, there is something else we need to discuss.” I informed her.

“What is wrong?”

“You know I was attacked first, right?”

“To be honest I know very little. I was told your parents defended you and paid for it with their lives.” She moved back to the bed and sat down. She gestured for me to sit beside her and when I did, she put her arm around me. “What happened?”

“I woke up when the door to my bedroom opened. There was a man silhouetted in the doorway and when he moved towards me I screamed. He punched me and then was suffocating me with a pillow when I heard dad interrupt him. I lost consciousness, so I don't know anything after that.” I tried to say it matter of fact, but just talking about it was bringing back memories and my body started shaking. When Gem felt that she gripped me tighter and shifted me more into her lap so that she could wrap me better in her arms.

I took some deep breaths and calmed myself down. “The thing is, since then, I seem to have an irrational fear of men. Any man that comes near me causes me to edge towards a panic attack.”

“I don't think it is that irrational. From your mind's point of view, it makes perfect sense. We will set you up with a therapist when we get back, in the meantime I may be able to help. I know an alternative treatment for emotions that seems to work pretty well. Let me explain. As I said, my main job is as a liaison to brides. A woman approaching her wedding day is on an emotional roller coaster. Everything that goes right will bring smiles and even tears of joy and everything that is less than perfect can result in less pleasant emotions. My job is to solve a lot of the little bumps that tend to turn up while helping the bride to stay in a good place. To help me to help them, I learnt an emotional technique that does wonders.”

“I am willing to try anything. I hate reacting like this.” I said honestly.

“You have to understand that it is based on completely different thinking to modern medicine. From the alternative world, emotional problems are really energy issues. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever had heartache?”

“Yes.” I responded. When I thought of Jen and the likelihood of one of us not desiring the other, I felt this ache in my heart. In order for us to work out as a couple, she would have to become a lesbian and I would have to stay a lesbian. Despite what Jen had said, my research suggested your orientation was pretty much fixed. I also realised that I had been pretty selfish. I needed to allow Jen to find happiness, even if that was without me. Clinging on to Jen and her support was not going to be good for her.

“Where did you feel the heartache?”

I pointed to my chest.

“If it was a mental thing, why would you feel it there? According to the Chinese tradition, the energy of different emotions is generated in the different organs of the body and heartache is supposedly generated from the heart. The system that I use believes that there is nothing wrong with having the emotion, you just need to not hold onto it and unfortunately, most of us are not very good at letting them go. We call them trapped emotions. What I am going to do with you is to release the trapped emotions that you probably have relating to your attack.”

“And that will stop me feeling anxious in front of men?”

“In my experience, it will take the energy out of it. You will be able to handle it a lot better and then, over time, you will solve the rest of it. I think the brain will still need to be convinced that men are not going to randomly harm you.”

“OK. So how do we do this.”

“Imagine these trapped emotions being within you. We need to bring them to the surface and then I will put energy into the surface using the acupuncture meridian system and that will wipe it away, like running a magnet across a credit card. In order to bring it to the surface we need to identify which emotion it was.” She released me from the cuddle and went to her bag. After a few minutes she managed to pull out a sheet of paper that she showed to me. It had a list of emotions in two columns and six rows, with the different organ systems relating to each row next to them.

“We need to quiz your subconscious and I use this sheet to help me get the answers.”

“I don't understand.”

“I am going to show you something freaky. Hold you arm out and make a fist.” We both stood up facing each other and I did what she said. “Now keep that hand there when I push down.” She pushed down firmly and I resisted her. “What colour eyes would you say you have?”

“Blue.”

“Now say I have blue eyes.”

“I have blue eyes.” She then pushed down and I resisted her.

“Now say I have brown eyes.”

“I have brown eyes.” This time when she pushed down, the strength seemed to go out of my arm and she pushed me down easily.“What the hell?” I muttered.

“Language please. You have decided to be a lady, you need to behave like one. Pretty weird, huh. Well that was because your body does not like to lie. It is the whole basis for the lie detector.”

She then proceeded to use this lie detector to work out what emotions I had trapped from my assault. Fear, Helplessness, Panic, Anger, Defensiveness and Despair all turned up and after working out each one, she ran her hands down my back several times. Then we were done.

The result was pretty much what she said. When we left the hospital I still felt very nervous around men, but I could control it much better and holding her hand and squeezing occasionally was enough to keep me under control. I don't know if it was the treatment or some weird, mind over matter, but whatever it was, it really helped.