CHAPTER 3
At dusk the street seemed empty and deserted. A lone passerby crossed to the other side and looked around several times. He was wearing jeans, sneakers and a jacket with a hood, like thousands of young residents of this city, who outwardly differed little from each other. Having approached the gate with a low fence in front of the lawn, he looked around again and only after that opened it. The door sign read: 'Dr. Woodruff. Psychiatrist'. Adjusting the backpack on his shoulders, the young man pressed the bell button and pushed his hood back from his head. Footsteps were heard in the house.
'No more patients?' instead of greeting, he asked when the door opened and the owner of the house appeared on the threshold.
'What happened? We didn't arrange a meeting...' Doctor Woodruff was clearly puzzled and could not hide his embarrassment. He did not understand what could have brought this man to him at such a late hour.
'I wanted to see you. You, as always, don't drink? Even with pretty girls?'
'Stop it! You'd hardly come for this. I told you a hundred times – no alcohol. I have heart problems. Come in!' standing on the porch was not very good, it was better to question him about everything inside the house.
'Yes, you told me but you don't look bad at all, though, and in particular, you are so great in bed.'
'It's too late. What happened? Are you feeling paranoid and hallucinating again? Do you need some medication?' he sat on the sofa and, clasping his hands in front of him, prepared to listen.
'Yes. This frigging ghost showed up again, and he screamed again. It was the same, but today he got to me. Yes, yes, I know what you told me about this: you need to get rid of him, steer clear of him, relax, do something else... It doesn't work. Only our meetings help me, when you tell me about the others. Today it got me down, I felt very bad, got sick at work. I had to beg to be let off work but he followed me everywhere, can you imagine what that's like? Yes, yes, I took your pills, sat down, counted to a hundred. It didn't help. I don't know... It hurts.'
'Do you definitely take all the medication that I presc...'
'Sure! You see, I stopped talking to myself and my memory is okay now but all this is rubbish! The best medicine is you and your stories - you are a good doctor. I'm probably crazy, right? Well, I'm so sorry to say this, but you are the best medicine for me and your antidepressants are shit.
'Listen, I was thinking, why wouldn't you adopt a child? This is the most powerful incentive in life. It can change everything. Now you can even have...'
The sound of a mobile phone ringing interrupted him.
'Who is it?' his visitor asked in surprise.
'I don't know... Damn it, this is... one of very important patients. It's quite unusual for her, we did not make an appointment, not least at this time of night. Quiet, please,' he put a finger to his lips and went out into the kitchen. 'Yes, Mrs. Lindstone? Good evening! Yes, yes, of course…'
When the psychiatrist returned to the living room with a pensive expression on his face, a question was already waiting for him:
'Well, what is it?'
'She wants to stop by for half an hour just to talk. She even begged me as she is divorcing her husband.'
'Wow! Didn't you refuse?'
'No.'
'Great! Is she the same Carol, the wife of the policeman, right? I have not heard about them for a long time. There'll be a new interesting story. It turns me on. What about you, Mickey?'
'Don't call me that. At least for now. I need to get my thoughts together,' it was unpleasant to hear hints of past relationships, especially because he was going to break up with this once and for all.
'As you wish. I'll wait in the bedroom. I promise to sit quietly. Don't worry! I'll be waiting for her news. Just be sure to find as much as possible about her divorce and bring Bill's glass here. I like looking at it. It turns me on too.'
'You're crazy' noticing dissatisfaction in his visitor's look, Woodruff waved his hands: 'Okay, go, go now. She's pulling up.'
There was a rustling sound of tires on the street. The doctor looked around the living room and headed for the door.
'Michael, hello!' Carol was incredibly attractive in the dim light of the entrance light.
'Come in, hello! What happened?'
'I'm going to my friend's and I decided to call on you to say thanks for your help. Things went to plan, he was quiet, as you said. But I want to help me with another thing if you don't mind.'
'No, I don't. Come in, come in, of course,' he stepped aside, letting her in. The pleasant scent of perfume, cream, and something else distant, alluring and inherent in real women, touched his nostrils and carried him into the living room.
Carol confusedly told him everything that they had already discussed with him more than once before, when she was just getting ready to make this difficult decision, but then the conversation took on a different tone, and when Michael understood it, it was too late.
'To be honest,' she leaned forward, as if she wanted him to hear better, 'I cannot forget what was between us.'
'But this... we both agreed it was an accident,' he muttered in panic, watching the door in the corridor out of the corner of his eye. Carol spoke quietly, but her voice could be heard in the bedroom.
'Yes, we did. You're right, but you felt sorry for me and understood. You were so imbued with my grief that I didn't even know how to explain it, and your attention... it did something unimaginable to me. I think about you constantly. I agree that I shouldn't have done so. Perhaps, I was too weak and wanted this, but now I don't care. I miss you. I know that sounds silly but you're divorced too. Why don't we think about... well, you might understand me. At least we could try to live together. We can move to Frisco, I have a house there and it's not far from here. My mother…'
'Carol,' he interrupted her, feeling that his throat was dry. 'It's impossible. I have a clientele, my job, connections here... You see I agree that I was wrong and made a mistake, but I can't do that again...'
'You aren't Weinstein and you don't need to make excuses!' a sharp answer sounded. 'I knew it!' she cried and leaned back in the sofa. Tears flowed from her eyes in thin streams, as when they first crossed the line of formal communication. 'Don't worry, I will not throw a tantrum. It's just a pity, it's a pity... Give me something soothing and I'll go,' she could not restrain herself and burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands.
'OK, wait,' he wanted to make sure that nothing was heard in the bedroom, so he hurried there first.
'Give her sleeping pills!' was the first thing he heard when he carefully opened the door. There was no point in asking if his visitor heard everything – he clearly did. It was terrible. 'Faster!' the whisper was hot, burning hot.
'You're crazy! It's...' Michael Woodruff was desperate to pull himself together.
'What? I'm gonna tell her everything and then I'll tear the two of you apart. Did you sleep with her? Did you sleep?' the last words turned into the hiss of a cobra, ready to take a lethal leap. Michael realised it was necessary to reassure him.
'Wait, wait. I'll be right back! Just don't go out, I beg you!' he spoke in a whisper, but it seemed to him that he was screaming. Having slipped out of the bedroom, in one breath he swept along the corridor into his study and opened the safe. Then he took out the strongest sleeping pills and shook the capsule on the table with trembling hands.
'Thanks! You look so excited. Sorry,' Carol said in a low voice, seeing him with a glass of water. 'How many?' she asked with a guilty smile, taking a glass from the doctor's trembling hands.
'Usually three are enough, but you can take four now, I think,' he said in an uneven voice, wondering in his mind what dose she would receive and whether it would be harmful.
'I'll take five!' the capsules disappeared into Carol's hands. She washed them with water and again threw her head back on the sofa. 'Now, let me have just a minute... I'll calm down a bit and go. My friend Tina is waiting for me.'
Five minutes later, her body relaxed. A hand slowly slipped into a handbag at the back of the sofa. Michael stood up and headed towards the corridor. He was shaking from excitement.
'Where have you been for so long? I'm about to burst! Come here! If possible, I would put her on this table instead of this glass. Look what I have! This is a wig. Do I look like her?' listening to this, Woodruff felt that he was beginning to give in to internal instincts.
'You are definitely out of your mind today! Stop it! Otherwise, I...' he did not have time to finish, having received a push in the chest and finding himself on the bed. The only thing he managed to say sounded pathetic and humiliating, 'Just don't tie me! She may come to her senses out there.'
Half an hour later, both sat back in bed, and Michael said quietly:
'You are strong and do you also keep taking hormones?'
'Yes.'
'This is odd. Okay, I'm gonna get some water, I feel thirsty. I can't believe that all this is true. Horrible! Imagine, the patient is behind the wall! What if she regains consciousness? That's dangerous…'
'Bring me a drink,' he heard his visitor's answer. 'Come back and tell me about her divorce. I'm just bursting with curiosity! Don't argue! Didn't you enjoy it? It was as tough as you like.'
It took Woodruff some time to find whiskey, because he completely forgot where he'd put the bottle the previous Christmas. Holding two glasses in one hand, Michael left the kitchen and, taking two steps, was dumbfounded. Carol looked at him with wide eyes and smiled, but this could not be true! Five capsules would have knocked down an elephant.
'You still decided to treat me to whiskey?' she asked tearfully. The intonation was sluggish, as if she were tired and wanted to sleep. In fact, she did, but, facing her in a bathrobe and slippers, Michael felt terrible. However, she acted, as if she had not noticed it. 'Pour me some. Quite a bit, a third. Do you have any ice? Sorry, I don't drink it, you know.'
Without thinking, Woodruff poured the whiskey. He was completely at a loss, and his brain refused to think. In complete silence, she drank a third of the glass and asked for more. To his words about the car, Carol waved her hand and said that she would take a taxi and pick up her car tomorrow. Instead of drinking the second glass, she leaned back again and immediately fell asleep. All this was very weird, and Michael had a thought that such a reaction could have been caused by antidepressants, which she took on his prescription. If so, then everything was clear, but now he had to urgently solve another problem - his visitor. For five years he had kept an eye on this strange patient and his hallucinations. Obvious personality disorder based on the complete denial of one's gender was not uncommon. However, his inability to pay for surgery and the constant use of hormonal drugs only aggravated the situation and he already had a complex type of nervous disorder that led him to the stage of transition to pathology: tantrums, a sharp change of mood, hallucinations, memory loss, paranoia, feeling ashamed of his appearance and much more.
Patience and Woodruff's sincere interest yielded very positive results. Moreover, after so many years of communication and a positive trend, all those results could be combined into scientific work, although, on the other hand, this has led to unexpected closeness and informal relations between them, which have recently become a burden on Woodruff. The desire to become famous in the scientific community haunted his vanity, and the treatment method, based on a combination of drugs and telling stories about other patients seemed to be unique. Stories about difficult cases of curing psychiatric pathologies, especially in couples, such as, for example, Carol Lindstone and her husband, put his young patient, who had suffered a serious psychic trauma in his youth and decided to change his gender and become a man due to this, completely at ease. Suggestion, infusion and persuasion gave a good result, while the pharmacological effect of antidepressants and other drugs was weak. Discussing the treatment of other patients was best of all. As a psychiatrist, Michael Woodruff sincerely believed that in the head of his ward, his past emotional experience and suffering was overlapped and superimposed on the scripts of other patients, which in a certain way corrected the fears and phobias that periodically haunted him in current life. However, now the materials have accumulated more than enough. It only remained to process them and make a speech at the annual conference, which Professor Sardston from the local university advised to do. The proposal was made for a reason. The professor also shared Woodruff's views on the free relationship between the sexes, and this could become the basis for something more than just the private practice of a psychotherapist Woodruff was running. In this regard, intimacy with a mentally recovering transgender began to constrain Woodruff and interfere with the implementation of his plans.
He slowly entered the room and wearily put the whiskey on the dresser. His visitor was already waiting for him. A female wig made of real hair was probably worth a fortune. Half an hour ago, it caused him an extreme degree of excitement, and now seemed like an absurd masquerade. Strange, but only now it occurred to him that for all this time their intimate relationship has been one-sided and after psychotherapeutic sessions with discussion of critical patients, his partner always acted as the main one and always used an imitator, without bringing the matter to direct contact. Woodruff always was driven as a slave. Maybe his partner had HIV? Weird... No, the tests said otherwise. In addition to increased hormonal levels, there was nothing to worry about – just perverse imagination.
He caught himself comparing his visitor to the strikers from Lookouts nightclub. Clearly Michael had to break with this past once and for all. Yes, everything has changed and it was time to end this. In the semi-darkness he could see only a shadow on the bed with no face.
'You are simply the best!' I adore you! Thanks for the whiskey, but I changed my mind. Give me some water. What's up with her? Is she sleeping?' a familiar voice wondered.
Michael told him sparingly about Carol's strange behavior after taking the sleeping pills. Then he looked down and sighed. Now he had to overpower himself and say the most important thing.
'Listen, we need to talk. I'm going to start another practice and collaborate with a university. So I'll have to devote more time to work. I would like to stop our relationship for a while. Do you mind?'
His words, oddly enough, did not cause his partner to react violently. The young man took off his wig, put it in his backpack, and nodded his head.
'Okay. If that's what you want.'
'Will you call a taxi? Michael asked hopefully. The answer was quite predictable:
'Balls! If you're doing this to me, then at least take me home! This will be your last gift. Maybe you can tell me something else and then you can return to this 'sleeping beauty' of yours!' In another situation, Woodruff would have found a way out and would never have left Carol alone, but now everything was different. Perhaps the young patient was jealous of him and Carol, maybe something else, but he clearly needed to be reassured. Woodruff had to make sure that his visitor would not do anything wrong on the way home, so Michael agreed. This was the last favor before starting a new life and the next day he could be free to start preparing for the scientific conference of state psychiatrists.
'Well, get dressed. I'm going to the garage,' he nodded.
'Okay, I'll be right there.'
When the door closed, the young man got out of bed and poured whiskey into a lonely standing glass goblet. Then he took out a napkin and quickly wiped the bottle. After thinking a little, he quickly did the same with all the places on the bed, the doorknob and the nightstand. He pulled off a sheet and a bedspread, a pillowcase from a pillow and a small towel, putting it all in his voluminous backpack. The next place was Woodruff's office and the laptop on the table with the lid open. After a moment, it, too, was in the backpack along with the battery charger. Next was the living room. It was necessary to act quickly as he wouldn't get a second chance. He was definitely lucky that day. Going to the sofa, he wanted to get a box with a medical kit from his backpack, but suddenly stopped. Something in the still pose of the woman sleeping on the couch was unusual. His fingers carefully touched her neck over her collarbone - there was no pulse. Nor was there on her hand. There was a cosmetic mirror in his backpack. Bringing it to Carol's nose, he counted to ten. However, the surface remained smooth and not foggy. The guess was confirmed - there was no breath and her heart did not beat. There was the last way - his phone. Finding "Rantastic" cardiograph icon on the screen, he took her pale, thin finger with a napkin and put it on the back camera. The first and second attempts showed zero result. After the third time, there was no doubt she had no pulse. Wiping Carol's wrist and neck with a napkin, he pulled her smartphone out of her bag. Gently holding her index finger with a napkin, he pressed it to the scanner. The screen did not want to unlock. His hands were trembling, but then it worked out for the sixth time. Now the last thing he had to do was to type 911 on the numeric keypad, and he could go.
Michael Woodruff was about to return to the house, when the back door opened and his secret visitor fell with a sigh of relief into the back seat.
'Sorry,' the face of a strained apology reflected in the rearview mirror. 'I did not touch your creams and manicure sets, don't worry. Here, my hands don't smell. Go! I'll be looking at you from behind like in a taxi.
'Where are we going?'
'Go to the port, and from there to Green Street.'
The conversation along the way did not go well. Michael tried to tell some details from his recent practice but was nervous and kept opening and closing the window all the time. At one of the traffic lights, he still overpowered himself and decided to thank his visitor for his patience and everything that was between them. The answer struck him. He was apparently right having decided to give him a lift to his home. He had a panic attack.
'That bitch should have thanked you for licking her behind her husband's back!' he cried. 'Now she will not say anything - she must have had a heart attack. She deserved it! Yes, don't look at me like that! She was no longer breathing. I tried a mirror – it was clean. She got what she deserved! It's fair, right? Yes, justice hurts!' The man in the back seat of the car was clearly gloating. In the rearview mirror, his face blurred with a contemptuous smile, and anger flashed in his eyes.
'What?' muttered Woodruff, hardly understanding the meaning of what he just heard. His blood pressure jumped instantly, and his ear drums pounded. Thoughts in his head started circling around the drugs he had prescribed Carol, around sleeping pills and alcohol - could their combination really cause a heart attack? 'We must urgently return!' he croaked, feeling that he was starting to suffocate. At some point, he felt so bad that he dropped his head on the steering wheel and stopped.
'I cannot breathe. It's burning in my chest,' he breathed out with difficulty. 'There's St. Mark's Hospital... around the corner. We'll stop by. I will ask "Nitrolingual".'
'I have "Cardiotex",' the voice said behind him.
'Not enough. It's weak. Also, I have to ask them...' then a spasm caught his throat, and Michael fell silent, trying to concentrate on the road.
When they stopped in the parking lot behind the hospital fence, he felt even worse. Tearing off his shirt, he began to gasp for air, holding out his hands to the glove compartment. His face showed that he needed urgent help. Michael was breathing heavily and holding onto his chest. His passenger took a small plastic jar from his backpack and handed a pill over his shoulder along with a bottle of water. Michael was about to faint. Having hardly swallowed the first pill, he could not take a second sip and dropped the bottle from his hands. The young man picked it up, closed it with a cork and took out napkins. The pain lasted several minutes. When Woodruff stopped wheezing and froze in an unnatural position, his patient lowered the back of his seat as far as possible. Now, from outside, no one would be able to notice the person lying on it. Then he disconnected the DVR and took Woodruff's phone.
'Sorry, I wanted to do that a bit later. You've spoilt it. You betrayed me. Well, somewhere by the sea, of course, would be more pleasant, but it's not bad here either,' with these words he began to wipe the psychiatrist's dark hands, neck and ears, then he did the same with the inner surface of the door. Michael's smartphone was the latest model, but the psychiatrist didn't set up a face recognition input on it. Unlike Carol's, his screen was unlocked immediately, so he disabled all passwords at once. When everything was finished, glasses wrapped in a handkerchief appeared from the backpack, while napkins returned to their place along with a bottle of water. This was difficult to do, as the backpack was packed tightly. Having wiped the dark glasses with a cloth, he put the handkerchief back on, and before putting them on he carefully looked out the window. There was no one around, so he could go out. Holding the door with the last napkin, he sharply pushed it back, trying not to touch it. In the darkness it was not visible how a small handkerchief fell out of his full backpack, slipping from a seat onto a rubber mat. The road to a McDonald's with free Wi-Fi was ahead. Yes, his life really was getting interesting, and the coincidences in it did not seem to be accidental.