Book of Revenge: Patient (Part 1)

Book of Revenge: Patient (Part 1)

• by BoundInRibbons, Mar 25, 2016, 5:52:46 PM
• Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Introductions & Chapters

Kendal and Karen - Childhood Sweethearts?
(Picture courtesy HinaYui)

I was a normal boy, with a slightly abnormal but still pretty cool, childhood who just had some bad luck with my health.  I always felt loved and cared for.  I had no idea how bizarre my life would become...

Karen was my first 'girlfriend'.  Not that anyone asked me.  But I have pictures in my family album of the two of us together when we were both infants titled 'Childhood Sweethearts?'  Kendal and Karen.  We were a pair from infancy and essentially raised together.  People always assumed we were twins and it wasn't hard to see why.  It wasn't just the coincidental similar first names, it wasn't that we completed each others sentences.  In some respects, we both really looked identical.  We had similar faces with similar cheekbones and a similar smile.  We both had the same petite, upturned noses.  We both had the same big blue eyes.  We were almost the same height, although I was very proud being just slightly taller.  And we were always dressed in a complimentary manner since Karen's mom made all our clothes.  If Karen was wearing a shiny purple gown, I'd be wearing a white dress shirt with a sewn on purple bow-tie and shiny purple shorts.  I know what you're thinking.  'Are you going to tell a story about switching places, about being mistaken for each other?'.  Not at all.  We were identical in many respects, but you'd have no trouble telling us apart.  We might both had the same long blonde hair, but mine was only shoulder length, still long for a boy, and hers was much longer, well down her back. Karen's mother used to say I had prince hair and Karen had princess hair.  But the real obvious difference... Where I was always very slim and graceful, Karen was quite stocky and awkward, with a chubby face that carried a bit of baby fat.  I was good at sports.  Karen tripped over her own feet.  I had thin, delicate fingers.  Karen's were short and stubby.  Karen's mom would point at Karen in pictures of the two of us together and say "My daughter is the fat one".  Even as a kid, I knew that's not what a parent should say. 

As I tell you my story, I realize I might need to provide a bit more detail about my early years.  It's important to know this so you can help me try to understand what happened later.  I hope it makes sense to you, because it doesn't make sense to me at all!  So I think I need to go even further back than my childhood.  I need to go back right to the beginning.

Our mothers were both pregnant at the same time and had met in child care classes.  My mother told me how when she'd signed up for the class, the instructor had said "Your sister is already inside."  My mom was an only child.  When she went in, she said it was like looking in a mirror.  Both were blonde haired, blue eyed women with strikingly similar features and considerable assets.  (That's a polite way to say they both had knockout bodies with big breasts, tiny waists and womanly hips.)  Immediately they were drawn together by more than just their similar appearance.  Both women were used to dealing with people who reacted just to their looks without knowing them.  Jealous women and over-amorous men, sexists who dismissed their will because of their curvy bodies and substantial bosoms or bigots who dismissed their intellect because of the stereotypes of the simple genetics of their shared big blue eyes and golden blonde hair.  That common bond meant they were instantly friends.  That they later both wound up in the same hospital and gave birth a few days apart cemented that friendship.  So, for the first years of our life, our mothers were in constant contact sharing their common experiences.  When my father passed away, Karen's mom was there to comfort my mom.  When Karen's father ran away in the middle of the night, abandoning his family, my mother was there for her.  Karen and I grew up like siblings.  Since my mom worked long hours in town with her finance job and Karen's mom worked out of her home as a craftswoman, primarily a seamstress, I spent a lot of time at Karen's house.  When my mom started needing to travel for her job, often spending weeks away, I would naturally stay at Karen's house.  Soon our mothers realized that, unconventional as it might be, they had formed a family with my mother in the traditional bread-winner role and Karen's mom as the traditional caretaker.  So they sold their houses and we together bought a bigger house and all moved in.  I might've had two moms, but in every respect we were a family. 

Now that I was living with Karen's mom all the time, I got to see a lot more of how she lived.  Here's where I should mention Karen's mom was a bit... Unconventional.  By that I mean she was obsessed with femininity.  'Sugar and spice and everything nice' was her motto for life.  She was a seamstress but she was crafty in so many other ways.  Things like pottery, gardening and even making furniture.  Of course everything she made was feminine in the extreme.  She didn't just make a lamp, she made a pink, frilly lamp.  She didn't just grow flowers, they were laid out so the scents complimented and the colours made pleasing designs.  She didn't just make a chair, she made a rocking chair with cushioned armrests and heart designs carved into the sides.  She was always dressed like a lady.  I don't ever remember her in pants, just dresses or skirts.  She wore heels, doing her make-up and even when no one was coming over.  The house was what a young girl would imagine a fairy-tale castle would be like.  We always had housekeeping magazines around.  Everything in pink and lace, everything scented and frou-frou, it was far over the top.  With mom away a lot and Karen's mom handling the home decoration, the house became a bastion of femininity with Karen on the pedestal at the center.  There are princesses that would envy the room that Karen and I slept in.  The house was the ultimate dream of any girly-girl.  It didn't matter to me one bit... As a kid, it was just my 'normal'.  My mom would sometimes confide to me that it was a bit over-the-top but she'd warn me to never to say anything to Karen's mom.  I was a good kid, so I never did.

So while I was able to sit in the eye of the constant hurricane of femininity as it whirled around me while never really affecting me, Karen was not so lucky.  She was helpless against a storm of frill and lace.  Karen was constantly the subject of her mother's attention.  But it wasn't for good reasons, like celebrating her creativity or her skills.  Instead, it was all focused on Karen's looks.  What she wore, how she moved, how she behaved...  She was treated like a doll.  Whereas, as a boy, Karen's mom pretty much left me free to do whatever I wanted.  I want to be clear that Karen's mom took good care of us both.  We were both fed and sheltered in a clean and safe environment.  We were both loved and hugged and played with.  Karen's mom was an amazing caretaker.  But Karen was under an intense spotlight that didn't shine on me. 

  "Sit up straight, that's not very feminine."  "Get up off the floor, you'll get your skirt dirty"  "Don't eat that last piece of cake.  You're too fat already.  Here Ken, you finish the cake.  You need to grow up a big strong man!"  All things I heard again and again from Karen's mom.  Even as a small child, her mother chided her for her lack of feminine grace, put her on endless 'diets' and demanded she do things again and again until they were 'perfect'.  If anything went wrong and it wasn't clear who was at fault, usually Karen's mom would blame Karen and Karen would be punished.  When it was clearly me that did something wrong, Karen's mom was always "Oh, it's OK.  He's just being a boy."  It was something my mother didn't agree with in principle, and one of the few things they'd argue about.  I remember my mother yelling at Karen's mom, saying that she was going to give Karen a complex.  Karen's mom started to say it wasn't her fault she was lucky enough to have a daughter and the look from my mom ended the conversation immediately.  Then they both started crying and apologized to each other.  But since my mom was often away and Karen's mom made the decisions on our day to day activity, things just continued as they were.

As a kid you're oblivious to most of the world.  But as I said, even as a kid I could see how unfair it was for Karen.  I couldn't do much, but I started to realize there were things I could do to help... I started to try to take the blame when things went wrong specifically to protect Karen.  If food disappeared from the fridge, before Karen's mom could become angry, I'd immediately say "Oh, I ate it!".  I knew if I didn't, Karen would be punished.  If a toy was broken or went missing, even one I'd never played with, I'd say "Oh, I broke it!" and Karen's mom would just shake her head and say "Boys!".  It made me feel good because I knew it hadn't been me and I'd saved Karen from spending an hour with her nose in the corner or even a spanking.  Soon it was just assumed if anything was broke, missing or messed up, it was my fault.  Strangely though, Karen never seemed appreciative.  If anything, it just made her angry that I could admit to these things and nothing happened, yet if she was caught, punishment was immediate.  In retrospect, I can absolutely understand why she'd be jealous of me, but at the time, I'd was annoyed that I was doing this for her and she wouldn't even say thank you.  I'd wink at her when I took credit for messing something up and my only response would be a scowl.  But because I was a good kid, I kept doing it anyway to protect Karen.

I've mentioned how much time Karen's mom spent on making the house look like it was straight out of a fairy tale.  But that was nothing compared to the time she spend labouring over clothes.  Karen's mom would always have the most amazing gowns for Karen to wear, all full of ribbons and bows.  They really did look like something from a fairy tale.  But there was something about those dresses that wasn't immediately obvious.  They weren't dresses for active young girls.  They weren't even dresses designed to be worn by a living, breathing human.  They were dresses created from patterns for dolls that Karen's mom would find and scale up to Karen's size.  The result was that they were often heavy or awkward.  Sometimes Karen couldn't even sit down or go to the bathroom herself.  As we got older, Karen's mom would learn how to adapt those patterns so they would be comfortable for people to move in, but back then, some of those dresses were literal hobble dresses.  Karen would beg and plead with her mother just to be able to wear a shirt and shorts like I wore, but Karen's mom would have nothing of it.  So Karen fumed about having to wear awkward skirts and bulky dresses while I just ran around in shirt and shorts, never having to worry about being a proper lady or being careful not to get dirty like she always had to.  And while my hair was long, all we'd ever do with it was wash and comb.  Karen's hair was not treated so lightly.  Karen's hair would constantly be conditioned, treated, straightened and/or curled.  Every morning, Karen's mom would arrange her hair in pigtails, ponytails, braids, or something more fanciful if she was in the mood.  She treated Karen like her personal dress-up doll and, not surprisingly, Karen hated it.  She hated having to sit still while her hair was done.  She hated how I got to go play while she had to sit still and be dressed up, and she hated that her mom would be upset and yell at her if she messed up her hair, where my mop of hair was ignored.  I wish I had said something, had stood up to the double standard we were living under for Karen's sake.  But I was a kid!  Mostly I was completely oblivious.  It's only looking back that I can think how painfully unfair it was.  And looking back it affected Karen.  It was probably the reason for her horrible temper tantrums.

Like any kid under pressure, sometimes it got to be too much for Karen.  It might be when Karen was being punished for the exact same thing I'd done earlier and not been punished for.  Or it might be when Karen's mother had just yelled at her because she was starving and had snuck a bite of candy between meals.  Poor Karen was always ravenous.  Sometimes Karen would just become furious, striking out at walls or destroying toys or venting on her only playmate, me.  One of the things that could often set her off... Karen hated being called a 'doll'.  Maybe it was because her mother treated her like a doll, but it was a particularly sensitive point for her.  With my name being Kendal, one time she had tried to tease me and called me her 'Ken doll'.  I had immediately responded.
  "If I'm a Ken doll, that means you must be a Barbie doll!"  It upset her so much, she never called me that again and we had an unspoken truce.  But it was inevitable with most people shortening my name to Ken, and her being a girl with long blonde hair who was always impeccably dressed as a girly-girl, people would turn to her and say "You must be Barbie!"  Oh, how that infuriated her.  And that would start a simmering anger that would just build until it was set off by just about anything later.

When Karen was set off, she'd explode in terrifying rage, a whirling bundle of fury and pain.  But after a bit, I figured out how to handle her when she was like that.  When Karen couldn't take it anymore and came at me, fists flying, I'd just calmly take every advantage of the frou-frou her mom dressed her in.  Most of the time it went like this...  Karen would eventually get mad at how, according to her mother, she could do no right and I could do no wrong, and attack me.  We'd wrestle a bit, but only until I could get some weight on her gown.  I'd get up kneeling or standing on her dress, then slowly walk 'up' towards her waist.  She might buck and swing, but because she was fighting my weight and the dress, eventually she would tire and be pushed down to her knees with all my weight on the dress.  And then she was trapped there, kneeling in front of me.  Since all the dresses Karen's mom made had either a sash, tied in a bow at her waist, or bows on the sleeves or shoulders or even ribbons in Karen's hair, I would use whatever material was there.  I'd untie it, then retie it to bind Karen.  If the bow was around her waist, now her hands were tied behind her back.  If the bows were on the shoulders or sleeves, I'd tie her arms straight jacket style behind her.  And if she had lace or bows in her hair, then Karen would find her arms tied up over her head, into her hair.  Sometimes I got creative.  Once I tied her to her rocking horse, arms to the horses front legs and her waist to the saddle.  Then I kept rocking the horse with my foot while she raged until she finally calmed down.  It was often the case I'd just get bored waiting for her to calm down and leave her all tied up so she could calm down on her own.  In my defense, she could sometimes rage for a very long time before she calmed down.  Oh, she'd be so furious!  Rolling around on the ground, struggling.  But tied up as she was, all she could do was thrash around until the knots finally worked loose or her mother found her.  Either way, she usually got punished for messing up her clothes. 

Looking back on it, it was kind of bizarre.  Even though it was weird, I was jealous of how much attention, even if it was bad attention, Karen got from her mom.  My mom was so rarely around.  Yet Karen completely envied me and my 'freedom'.  Even when we started school, she'd have to get up an hour or more earlier than I did so her mom could do her hair and outfits just right, being so careful not to get dirty or messy.  Meanwhile I'd sleep in, then I was free to get as messy as I wanted and never get in trouble for it.  We never hung out together at school.  I made friends pretty easily.  Karen was a loner... Although maybe that wasn't from choice.  The kids knew she was weird, how prissy and overdressed she always was.  So I think that made it hard for her.  But I barely remember the details.  It was so long ago.

There was one incident that happened once we'd started school that I did feel horrible about.  We were in the schoolyard and Karen had thrown another temper tantrum, coming at me like a bull in a china shop.  I had handled it the way I always did at home, tied her up in her dress and walked away to let her cool down.  I honestly had planned to come back later and untie her, but I got distracted by the sandbox.  I was happily playing away and it wasn't until I could hear kids in the distance chanting "Marionette!  Marionette!" from over where I'd left Karen that I was reminded.  I rushed over to the monkey-bars to see a terrible scene.  Obviously some other kids had seen what I did to Karen, how I'd tied her up and left her helpless.  Well, they must've dragged poor tied up Karen over to the monkey-bars.  There, they had tied her pigtails to the poles and tied the ribbons around her wrists to the monkey-bars above.  Then the kids at the top of the monkey-bars were reaching down, pulling on her ribbons and pigtails to make her move and dance around for their entertainment!  I rushed in to help Karen and untie her.  All the kids made unhappy noises but I just stared them down and went back to setting Karen free.  I apologized profusely, but she wouldn't even look at me.  It didn't matter that I'd rescued her, it mattered that I'd left her like that in the first place.  Internally, I thought that I wouldn't have tied her if she hadn't attacked me, but I could see she was very upset, so I left that unsaid.  Of course she was punished when we got home because her dress was torn and ripped.  I tried to tell Karen's mom that it wasn't her fault, but she wouldn't listen.  I think Karen got a spanking and had to put her nose in the corner for hours.  After she was allowed out, Karen looked at me with narrow eyes.  "This is going in my book!"  Book?  What book?  Her diary?  I tried to ask her about it, but she never said a word about it ever again.  If I tried to talk to her about it, she'd just look away angrily. 

And that's how it was until, one day, my mom got an amazing job offer that forced us to transfer to a new city all the way on the other side of the country.  My mom sold her share of the house to Karen's mom and we moved.  Our mothers said goodbye in a huge, emotional sob-fest.  My farewell to Karen was quite different.  All that time we'd grown up together, all that time being each others 'twin', all those punishments I'd saved her from and now she was surprisingly cold and distant.  Whatever.  Soon I was on my way to a new school with new friends and forgot about Karen.  I did hear once from my mom that Karen had done something disturbing and now she was having to see a head doctor.  But I was a kid.  No big deal.  I didn't really care.  That chapter of my life was over.

---

As the years went by, my life was pretty much normal.  I made tons of amazing friends at my new school including a few really close ones.  Jake, Matt, Nick... They were my crew.  We did everything together.  However, it soon became apparent that I wasn't growing like my classmates.  By age ten, I was the smallest in my class.  My family doctor just assured my mother I was a late bloomer, but it didn't seem like I was growing at all.  By my teenage years, I was still very frail, tired all the time, couldn't gain weight, and hadn't grown in height.  Schoolyards can sometimes be cruel to smaller kids, but luckily I had no problems.  Jake, Matt and Nick had my back and made it clear anyone picking on me had to go through them.  They were the best.  My mom also had my back.  When I started to have soreness and swelling in my chest, she finally decided to ignore my family doctor and get a second opinion, and then a third.  Good thing she did because finally, after seeing several specialists, we found a doctor who was able to identify the issue.  I had a rare endocrine system disease, very difficult to detect.  The endocrine system is what handles the secretion of hormones into the bloodstream, and mine was messed up.  I wasn't growing because my pituitary gland wasn't delivering growth hormones properly.  My pineal gland wasn't giving me melatonin, so I couldn't sleep properly.  Plus it was messing up my kidneys, my pancreas and my (gulp) testes.  Remember my sore chest?  Those were breasts that were starting to develop!  At one point, with my mother out of the room, the doctor joked that it was lucky they caught them before they started developing.

  "If you inherited your mom's genetics, you'd have been stuck with..." At this point, he made a motion as if he was clutching two basketballs to his chest.  My face must've reflected the horror I felt at this comments, because he stopped laughing and quickly began comforting me, telling me it wouldn't happen, I was getting proper hormones now.  Once it was detected, there was medicine and hormone supplements I could take that would counter and supplement my messed up system.  My doctor told me it would take a few years, but that I would catch up to my friends heights eventually and, as long as I took the drugs, that my chest would stop developing and I'd eventually be like every other boy.  Thank goodness!  I was so relieved.  I mean, anyone would be happy to hear they were normal, but after so many years of being the runt, I was extra happy to hear I would eventually be average size.

See, I'd met this amazing girl, Skyla, at school.  She was originally from some small country in Eastern Europe and she still struggled a bit with her English.  We'd been drawn to each other because we were the two smallest kids in our class, she only a little taller than I was.  She had the most amazing long straight black hair and enormous brown eyes that you could get lost in.  I really liked her and she was happy to be my friend, but I was worried.  Skyla told me she liked things that were 'cute', and said I was the cutest boy she'd ever met.  But 'cute' boys are friends, not boyfriends.  I wanted her to be my girlfriend, and everyone knows girls like guys who are taller than they are.   Knowing now that I would grow meant I didn't have to worry.  Someday, I'd be bigger.  Someday, I'd sweep her off her feet, lift her in my arms like a proper boy should and ask her to be my girlfriend.  Life was good.  I couldn't wait.  Soon I was happily taking a regular regimen of growth hormones, testosterone, melatonin and other things to provide all the things my body couldn't.  I was getting treatments for my kidneys while they were weak but the doctors told me they would regain their full function.  I could look forward to being 'normal' someday.  And as quickly as all this optimism had come, it came crashing down within a day.

---

I fell seriously sick.  Like 'nearly-died-and-in-a-coma' sick.  They told me later that at first there was panic.  I mean, I was really, really sick and no one had any idea what it was.  They thought it might be a reaction to my treatments or something.  I was in the hospital for a long time.  Eventually we found out it was a rare and horrible disease, 'Tropical Mentior Profligatus', or TMP for short.  It turns out the hospital had made a huge mistake during my original kidney treatment.  I had been exposed to TMP by contaminated equipment that had been used incorrectly and hadn't been properly sterilized!  My mom contacted a team of lawyers to sue those responsible, but none of that helped me deal with the disease right that moment.  And let me tell you, it was horrible!  My endocrine system issues made it even worse.  The doctors would tell you all these technical terms.  They'd tell you how TMP attacked my nervous system, affecting everything from muscle strength to breathing to motor control.  But for me it boiled down to four things.  One, I was always tired and sleepy.  Two, I was always so weak!  I mean, I was so tiny I'd never been the strongest, but now it took all my effort to lift a glass of water, and when I did, I was kind of shaky.  Walking around was exhausting, I could only go short distances and I'd have to rest.  Three, my nerves were messed up.  Sometimes I'd feel phantom pains.  Sometimes my arms or legs would feel like they were falling asleep, feel prickly or they'd just go numb.  Even more disconcerting, I'd sometimes get spasms or twitches.  And finally, four, and kind of the worst, certainly the most embarrassing, I had bladder control problems.  My mom got me special adult absorbent underwear to handle any leaks.  It was supposed to look like normal underwear but it made me feel so self-conscious.  They might be skinny but they made me feel like I was wearing a diaper.  I was so paranoid someone might be able to see or notice them!

During that time, I was so lucky to have Jake, Matt, Nick, and Skyla.  They all came to visit me in the hospital regularly, took care of me and helped me feel better, Skyla particularly.  The guys and I raged at the unfairness of it all.  Skyla and I cried, we held hands, she even helped wash me and make me look presentable.  She helped me brush my teeth and comb my, by now, very long hair.  Skyla swore she'd stay by me no matter what.  It brought us all together.  And one day, with just Skyla and I in the hospital room, we had our first kiss.  It was magical.  With my head cradled in her arms, Skyla said she was officially my girlfriend and she'd wait for me to get better.  It was a shining moment of happiness in all this misery and gave me hope where before had been despair.  Now I couldn't wait to start my therapy and get back to normal!

Soon I was ready to be discharged from the hospital.  I could mostly look after myself, but the doctors told me I would need a year of constant care given my condition.  Sadly, my mom had to travel as part of her job and, particularly with everything we were paying for lawyers, she couldn't afford to take time off, be without work or get a full time nurse for me.  Lucky for us, Karen's mom heard what happened.  She volunteered to look after me.  We hadn't really seen Karen and her mom since we'd moved away so many years ago, just exchanged Christmas cards and the occasional phone call.  So it was amazingly generous they made the offer to look after me for a full year until I recovered.  Since we really had no other options, my mom packed my things.  I was bundled into the car and my mom drove me to the airport.

While we were waiting for the plane, my mom shared the good news.  Knowing that I'd be taken care of for a year, she'd been able to volunteer for a long-term job that her company needed done.  It was something to do with going over to China to reorganize a company.  No one had wanted to do it because it would force them to live in the remotest parts of China for a full year.  Because of that, the company had offered a great deal of money if someone would go, almost double my mom's usual salary, so she was sure she'd be able to pay for my health costs, the lawyers and everything.  She handed me a bank book.  It was for an account in my name.  She told me that she'd have her company have money regularly placed in the account so I'd never have to worry.  She gave me all my medical information, all my pills, plus some notes my mom had written and some legal documents I didn't recognize, so I could hand them to Karen's mom and she could use them to take proper care of me.  She mentioned that she'd actually sent copies of everything ahead so they could have my medications ready and so they could pick up some supplies to have ready for my arrival.  How could I be anything but thankful that my mom was so thorough in taking care of me?  Then, to my surprise, Jake, Matt, Nick and Skyla showed up at the airport to say goodbye.  Many laughs were had, and tears were shed, knowing I wouldn't see my mom, Skyla or my friends for a year.  I'd be so far away from them all!  As I waved goodbye, entering the gate for my flight, I realized it was just starting and I already couldn't wait for this year to be over!  Of course, if I'd had any clue what the coming year was going to bring, I would've turned right back around and never got on that plane!