Page 23

Where am I?

JUSTIN

4.45am. Brightly illuminated numbers.

We don’t have clocks in here.

Where am I?

For a moment I’m confused, unable to figure out where I am. The mattress is soft and pillowy, and the covers are warm and cozy, and they aren’t familiar. They aren’t the scratchy and uncomfortable bed covers and the hard mattress that I’ve been sleeping on for the last eight weeks or more. I think it’s eight weeks. It’s hard to know what day it is when you’re deprived of all outside information. I had a system to keep track of time, but some days I didn’t even see daylight, so it was hard to be sure if a day had passed, or two. There were no phones, no clocks, no calendars, no computers – nothing to tether us to the outside world.

Intellectually, I knew they were messing with my mind, but I didn’t know how to fight it.

My sleep patterns were disrupted.

I went to 'education' sessions. They wanted me to confess stuff,kept telling me I was a sinner, that I was dirty, and that I should be ashamed. They told me a lot of things, and at the beginning, I knew them not to be true, but as time went on, it became harder to see the truth, harder to struggle against them and I began to struggle against myself instead.

Of course, it couldn’t work.

Whenever I had a moment to myself, my thoughts would turn to Axel. He was the one sure point of my existence and I clung to it. With him, there was clarity. I could keep myself from drifting away, as long as I had him as a reference point.

Communicating outside the Centre was not permitted. Well, they pretended it was, but as the residents had no internet and no phone, it had to be snail mail, and the rumour was that they opened all outgoing mail. No-one was sure if mail even got through. We all had writing paper, and if we asked for them, envelopes, but it was a charade. And possibly a trap too… we sometimes went along with what they wanted us to say in therapy just to get them off our case, but if they read our private mail, then they’d know what we really thought, right?

We also had paper and pens in our rooms, so we could jot down our ‘reformed’ thoughts. Instead, I used them to write letters to Axel, telling him all the terrible things that were happening to me here and pleading with him to help me. I made secret envelopes from spare sheets of paper. And when someone graduated from the Centre, they carried my secret letters out of the Centre with them. I lied about who they were for, and I begged them to post them. I don’t know if they did, but I didn’t hear from Axel.

Maybe someone eventually betrayed me, because one day the sessions became more intense. They told me they knew about Axel. They said Axel didn’t want anything to do with me, that he was as disgusted with me as they were, and as I should be. That he didn’t want to be with a deviant.

Axel hadn’t written back and I began to believe the lies they told me. Maybe I was disgusting, maybe I should be ashamed. Axel didn’t want me. They were relentless. Every day I had to face my failings and try and change. I was ashamed and the worst of it was that I knew I couldn’t change, not really. I could only pretend and that made me twice as ashamed.

But as disgusted as I was with myself, I was also confused. How could something that felt so right, so natural, be wrong? I wasn’t religious, not really, but could Satan truly have infected my soul? Nothing made any sense. I was going to go mad if I stayed in here, so I decided, unworthy sinner though I apparently was, that I needed to get out of here. I would get out and find some place peaceful to live. I would live alone, where there was no temptation but also no more voices telling me how terrible I was. But despite how I now believed he must feel about me, I longed to see Axel one last time. That was the one thing I wanted to do before I made myself disappear.

Somehow, I escaped.

And now I’m here, waking in an unfamiliar bed, very confused. Memory of last night returns to me as the clouds of sleep dissolve. I know where I am, and my heart pounds with some unrecognized emotion, as I look beside me and see the dark head on the pillow next to me.

Gratitude. It’s gratitude, that unnamed emotion. No matter what else happens, my wish has been granted. I’ve seen him again.

Then a much darker and unwelcome emotion sweeps over me as I realize I’m in bed with him. I can’t help the terrible shame that instantly overwhelms me. I’m so disgusting. He’s taken me in, and I’ve shamed him by sleeping with him.

I draw my legs up to my chest and clasp my arms around them. I feel the most abject despair.

Maybe I make a noise or maybe it’s the sudden movement, but Axel’s eyes open. At first he smiles at me, but then his face falls.

“Justin. What’s wrong?” His voice is so gentle, so tender that it breaks my heart more. I feel dirty. And I feel guilty. But I love him. I feel so conflicted, so confused. I don’t even understand why I’m feeling this way.

Strangely, Axel doesn’t seem all that surprised that I’m freaking out this morning, and his calmness helps ground me a little, and I manage to choke out the words.

“I’m sorry. I’m ashamed of myself. I’m dirty and…” I can’t bear to bring out all the other words they’ve used to describe me. “I shouldn’t feel the things I do, want the things I do. And I can’t stop myself. I've tried.” I dissolve into tears.

Axel doesn't say anything, just strokes my hand while he lets me cry it out. When I'm done, I look up, tears still wet on my face. Axel looks at me carefully. He doesn’t look disgusted, just thoughtful. He reaches out and wipes a tear away with his finger. It takes everything I have not to lean into his touch.

“Do you think I’m dirty?” he asks, quietly.

“No! Of course not!” I’m quick to answer, and I glare at him. How can he even think that?

“Do you think I’m shameful?”

“No, no! What are you saying? Of course, I don’t think that. You’re... amazing.”

“But I’m gay too, Justin. If you’re all these terrible things, then I must be too.”

“But you aren’t those things.”

“And neither are you.”

I think about that for a while, which is good, because it gives time for the adrenaline spike to drop, and I become more rational. What he says makes sense. If I’m bad because I’m gay, then he must be too. But he’s not. I know he’s not. He’s never been anything but amazing. He’s a wonderful human being. None of this makes sense!

Then I think, is Satan trying to trick me into sinning? And for a brief irrational minute I wonder if that could be true? But no, I don’t believe that. And I don’t really believe in Satan, either. Do I?

No. Axel is sheltering me from the people who’ve been lying to me. Axel is safe. Everything else is not.

I let out a big breath and relax my grip on my legs. The chaos in my head starts to calm.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “I freaked out.”

“It’s okay,” Axel opens his arms to me. “You’ve probably got some kind of PTSD from what’s happened to you. Come here?”

He lets me move towards him, rather than taking me into his arms himself, and I appreciate his sensitivity. I unravel myself and scoot across the short distance between us. He wraps an arm around me and I rest my head on his shoulder with a sigh. I even relax enough to allow myself to sink into him. For a short while I can let it all go, safe in the comfort of Axel’s embrace. I don't have to think, I just feel.

“It will all be fine,” he tells me as he kisses me gently on the head.

If he tells me often enough I may believe it.