The Alter Ego
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters
If I was to tell you my name then you might have heard of me, so I will just tell you that my first name is John, or at least it was. It is a common name and will give nothing away – not that you could ever consider me and him to be the same person. Not anymore.
I spent years as a police officer and did some good things that earned me a reputation as a bit of a hero. But stress takes its toll, and I was retired out of the police force with all kinds of awards and commendations and all kinds of prescriptions as well. They called it post-traumatic stress disorder.
I never liked the drugs and I tried to find a way of thinking my way out of the funk I was in. That had always been my way – Resourceful John. No matter how bad it looks, think and then act and don’t bother about the consequences.
The problem was who I was. I needed to imagine a life where I was the very opposite of who John was. I developed an alter ego, I guess. Somebody who was everything John was not. John was aggressive, in control, disrespectful of authority and a man’s man. The other me needed to be passive, craving direction and unquestioningly obedient, and the opposite of a man. I called her Jill, and she was female.
By this point you may wish to stop reading my story if you think that this is too weird. But try to consider what I have been through and what I had to do to cope with my mental state. The creation of Jill was just supposed to be somebody in my head that could balance me. I could simply ask myself – ‘Jill, how would you deal with this?’ John would step aside, and all the crisis of the moment would evaporate. Jill had no concerns at all. As long as she did what she was told everything would be fine.
My counsellor was supposed to keep all of this secret, but after a while she suggested to me that maybe Jill should be “given physical form”. It was because she was starting to worry that internalizing things might be teetering on the edge of split personality disorder – what she called “Dissociative Identity Disorder”. She said that if Jill was able to exist within her own household it would be externalizing, and that would be better for me.
“The thing is that you actually need somebody to take charge of you,” she said. “It can’t be me, but I think I know who might be able to help. I have a very nice couple where the wife is an invalid – multiple sclerosis – they need an occasional maid. It might just suit Jill?”
It sounded like such a deranged idea that I just decided to get out of there. It was a Jill thing to do. John would have called her a “crazy shrink”, but he was pushed out of the way that day. He exploded when I got back to the precinct, but that was the problem. It did get me thinking, and a couple of days later I went back to the counsellor and asked to meet this couple.
The husband was a really nice guy – old but fit and strong. His name was Gerry. His wife looked young but she was clearly very sick and weak. But they could cope. They didn’t need a maid, but they wanted to help me.
“I have always valued police officers,” said Gerry. “You keep us safe, and few people think about what the stress of the job is doing to you. If instead of going home as John you just want to come around here and be Jill for a while, we would love to give you that release. There is a spare room for Jill to make her own, by the laundry.”
I was still not convinced, but all it took was one shift that was close to the worst I have ever had in my career, to persuade me to call Gerry and ask whether Jill could come around and clean the floors.
The uniform was Gerry’s idea. He said that it might help me understand that I was not John when I was with them. He must have got it from some fancy-dress shop, or maybe even a fantasy boutique, but he was right – when I put it on I John was no more. I simply settled into chores about the house, humming a tune with barely a thought in my head.
But another part of the role that I did for them was spending time caring for Gerry’s wife. She really was a lovely lady and sometimes she said that all she needed was to just sit with me (Jill) and talk about girly things. I hardly even knew what such things were, but over the months I learned a whole lot.
She said that she liked to have stylish hair and makeup, but it was now too difficult – could I help? I said I would, and I learned about that as well.
“You have so much hair Jill, but you wear it way too short,” she said. “Let me give you some tablets that will help it to grow.”
“It is for work,” I explained. “My other job. But I could grow it out a bit, I guess.”
Becoming Jill as often as possible had become really important to me. So I found myself pushing things at work to allow me to be a better Jill than I was, and in the process maybe compromise my John. I might get up in my apartment and go straight to work and then go to their house and be Jill, or I might wake up there as Jill and hurry across to my apartment to change for work, depending on shifts.
Anyway, I grew my hair “in preparation for a potential undercover job”. Everybody seemed happy to accept that, but I have to say that it grew out soft and fine, but quite thick. It was down to the tablets that Jill had been taking. It got to the point that I had to use product to keep it from not looking like women’s hair, which I could then wash out before I dressed as Jill.
Of course, the tablets were female hormones – something prescribed for Gerry’s wife that she had given up taking. But it was not her changing her medication that killed her. Multiple sclerosis is a terrible disease – incurable and the victims just waste away until death is a welcome release.
Gerry was very upset. He adored his wife. He said that he needed her. He needed somebody in his life. I held him in my arms while he sobbed for hours – I mean Jill held him. It was something that she would do. John would have run a mile from even a friend’s grief, or just demand that they “man up”. But Jill was a caring person – the kind of person who finds herself weeping with him.
“Please don’t leave,” Gerry said. “I don’t think that I can be alone tonight.”
I called in sick. I said it was the Covid and I would be isolating for at least a week. That meant that I could stay with Gerry. It also meant that for a week – in fact a little more – John ceased to exist.
It left me wondering why I even bothered with him. He was an asshole, although that is not the kind of thing I would say. You have to feel sorry for him. His work had turned him into a wreck. He had nobody and he couldn’t cope with loneliness to the extent that he was developing signs of mental illness.
Jill, on the other hand, had everything to live for. It was soon apparent to us both of us, that Gerry was falling in love with me, and me with him – I mean Jill was. She was loved and needed, and she knew nothing about policework and all the stresses that job brought with it. All that concerned her was a clean house and a happy man, and with all that she had learned since coming to work for Gerry, that was easy.
My alter ego, John, has simply faded into oblivion.
The End
1409
Authors’s note. This story was sparked by somebody who had commented on a story of mine to the effect - “love to have a couple own me, make me the girl”. This is a bit more involved than that, but that is how it started. Comments would be appreciated. I haven't been having much feedback lately. :(
