Chapter 2

Warning: contains a scene of attempted sexual assault and one of attempted suicide.

This one is quite long at 18092 words, so fair warning! And, believe me, it’s best to read or reread the earlier story, Conversations 18, before you read this; otherwise, it’s going to sound a little like gibberish.

I was packing up for the night, closing down the myriad flashing windows stretched over three monitors that showed constantly changing green and red graphs, when a knock came at the door.

Knocks on my apartment door were relatively rare – mostly because I had a doorbell, but also because I was only ever visited by deliverymen or women, who never turned up this late. And by women, I mean couriers who were women. I point that out simply because they were pretty much the only females I’d come in contact with for almost a year. I’d been married, but that was so yesterday ... so last week ... so last year, that it was out of fashion in my life. That played better in my mind than that I’d had to divorce a lying, cheating monster.

Eschewing the company of women altogether, I’d spent those months playing my game – my MMO game. It was indeed massive, and it was indeed multiplayer and, thank god, it was online. I hadn’t needed to leave my flat at all. The stock market was a global game, a zero-sum game, in which any gains made were perfectly balanced out by someone else’s loss – usually from amongst the hordes of little guys who were desperately trying to take a reasonable gamble and generally losing.

For most of that year, I’d been on the winning side, feeling a little guilty at taking money off those small-time dabblers. Recently though, I’d been off my game, my thoughts a little cloudy, and my eyes often stinging and leaking from staring at monitors for eighteen to twenty hours a day. Profits were down.

The knock came again, and I reluctantly decided to get up and answer it. Wiping tears from my strained eyes, I trailed across the lounge, pulled the curtain aside, and peeped through the side window.

I think sucker-punch would describe it most aptly; that feeling of being slammed on and just below the sternum, hard enough that it paralyses the belly muscles and throws you into the panicked sensation that you can’t breathe and won’t ever do so again. It was accompanied by a prickling of the skin from my neck up to my ears and the almost overwhelming desire to go and hide in a cupboard.

Shana.

That one word, just five letters. So simple, so ordinary. Yet how do I explain all the emotions – confusion, longing, apprehension, anger, fear and even awkward embarrassment that came with it? Just the name launched a tsunami within me, a shockwave similar to that caused by someone casually turning up at a party accompanied by a five-hundred-pound gorilla. That had never happened – not to me, anyway – but I could imagine how it would feel: casually chatting with a cocktail in one hand, vol-au-vent in the other and phone in a non-existent third – and then turning to see this monster right next to me. It doesn’t matter how much the idiot who brought it assured everyone that she was very friendly – shock would sweep through the crowd the way it crested over me.

I hadn’t seen her in almost ten months, not since that last moment when she swept out of our flat after an exceedingly nasty, vituperative conversation about her affair – the venom splashing from my mouth like that of a spitting cobra. My pain and grief had turned me into someone neither of us knew and both didn’t like. The lawyers and courts had dealt with the divorce with impartial indifference after we both signed the assets agreement.

I’d been generous, as promised. So I was surprised when the court readjusted the balance in my favour to take into account that my wife was a doctor with a confirmed career and income track, while I – an office manager without a steady job due to the national lockdown – had less financial security, despite my doing well so far in the global addiction to gambling on commodities. Of course, most traders would prefer not to call it that and refer to it instead as investing in the stock exchange. But I call it as I see it, and all I see when I go online is a venal casino full of gambling addicts who get others to stake the throw of the dice for them.

Frankly, I’d expected the opposite from the courts and was ready to be raped by the legal beagles, and that little change had altered my mood towards my fellow man slightly. Except for Reg, of course. I still hated that badger-baiting, weasel-raping, scum-fucking bastard with every atom in my body. Seeing him onscreen using my wife so casually and familiarly had permanently broken something inside me.

And now she was at my door.

“Open the door, Mac!”

Her voice – a contralto that I’d so loved – shocked me almost as much as the sight of her, and I ducked below the level of the window. Then, after a moment, feeling completely stupid at acting like a guilty child, I stood up again.

“Go away.”

“No. I have something for you. Let me in.”

“No!”

I heard her sad sigh.

“I’m not going away until I give you this, so you might as well get it over with.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it or need it. Not from you.”

There was a long silence before she spoke again, and when she did, her voice was thick and muffled, as if she’d been crying.

“Please, David. I need to do this for you.”

When she called me by my first name rather than my nickname, I knew she was serious.

“Call around tomorrow!” I found myself standing at the front door; my hands pressed flat against the wood. I snatched them back as if they’d been burned, realising I was trying to get closer to her.

Dammit! No, fuck it! Fuck, fuck, fuck! She was supposed to be out of my life. I was supposed to be over her and the agony she brought.

“Okay,” Shana called back. “I have nowhere to go, and it’s pretty cold out here. But I’ll wait just here until the sun comes up and then try again.”

That made me angry, and I was shouting as I wrenched the security chain away and snatched open the door to confront her. “That’s emotional blackmail, you bitch! I’m not going to...”

I broke off as she stabbed me in the arm.

I stared into her eyes – those so familiar, so beautiful eyes and then looked down, expecting blood to be spurting.

Instead, I watched helplessly, too astonished to object as she pressed the plunger on the syringe and then drew the tiny needle out. She even had an alcohol swab ready to clean up any blood droplets. I don’t know why. I was wearing a long-sleeved hoodie, and she had stabbed me through the material. She pushed the loose sleeve up and dabbed at it anyway.

“What did you do to me?” I felt faint and slumped to my knees, wondering if I’d been poisoned or just drugged. I was sure my legs were growing weaker, and my heart was pounding, trying to eject the poison from my system.

Shana took my arm and drew me back up onto my feet again.

“You always were a baby when it came to needles. Come on; you’re not dying,” she remarked calmly, entering the apartment and hanging up her coat and hat before closing the door.

I was too overwhelmed to object anymore. Nothing seemed to make any sense. It’s not as if I was assaulted and injected every day by an ex-wife I most certainly never wanted to see again.

As she closed the door, she stopped and opened it again, with a look of horror on her face.

“What’s that smell?” she croaked.

“What smell?”

“That ... that ... it smells like the local dump.”

I looked around. I couldn’t smell anything wrong. There was the faint scent of the sausage and beans I’d had for lunch and tea. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have left leftovers in the pots and on the plates as usual, but I had other things to do that were more important. Things weren’t tidy, but to call it a dump...?

“I wasn’t planning on hosting a drugs party,” I stated bitterly. “So I’m sorry I didn’t clean up. It’s a bit untidy.”

“Untidy would be a huge improvement.”

She looked around; her eyes narrowed as if to protect them from this phantom smell.

Shana stepped forward and looked into the lounge.

“It’s a nice place,” I offered. “Nice and quiet, apart from that bitch next door clanking her milk bottles when she takes them in in the morning. I’m sure she does it on purpose just to piss me off.”

She didn’t comment, looking into the kitchen and stepping back sharply, a hand blocking her nose. Then, with a glance at me, she looked around some more. I was getting tired of the critical looks.

“Shana, what the fuck did you inject into me, and what the fuck do you want here? You don’t belong here. This is my place. So go away.”

She ignored me, moving in front of me. “I need a hug.”

“No!”

“Oh, come on. We were friends once.” She stepped forward and held me tight for a moment, running her hands over my back and even round to my chest.

For one glorious moment, I let myself fall for it; I didn’t let the memories crash in to explode the moment and simply enjoyed the feel of her pressed against me once more. I couldn’t smell her perfume, which was sad, but at least that indicated she wasn’t starting a full-court press on me. Unfortunately, my brain was still cloudy, with some kind of fuzzy interference at the edges, and I couldn’t work out what she really wanted.

I tried to concentrate on one thing at a time and pushed her away. “Stop it. First thing – what did you inject into me?”

Her eyes ran over my face and then down my body. I turned away slightly, feeling self-conscious. What with lockdown and the virus, I hadn’t been out much and had grown soft. I probably looked like some slob.

She sighed. “Vaccine. A one-shot Covid vaccine.”

I frowned. “I’m not in the age range to qualify.”

“There was one going spare at the hospital. I couldn’t think of anyone better than you.”

“What, not even Doctor Ron ... Reg ... Rod, whatever his name was?”

Her eyes closed tight in pain for a moment.

“I haven’t seen him since...”

“Since you last fucked him?” I demanded nastily. “Not that that’s any of my business, so don’t tell me.”

She looked down and then up at me again. “I haven’t seen Reg since the last time I saw you.”

“And I should believe you ... why?”

She shrugged hopelessly and shook her head. “I didn’t think you’d still be so angry. When I last saw you, when I left the flat, I thought you’d worked through it.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s what happens when you watch your wife, who promised to love you forever and always be true and faithful, casually fuck some guy in front of you. It doesn’t just disappear like it never happened.”

She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. Then she nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Okay, second thing. Why would you assume I want a vaccine and that you could force me to take it?”

“I’ve been trying to get my hands on a spare one for ages. I always told you I didn’t want you getting the virus, and it’s been driving me crazy, knowing you could go down with it at any time. Now I can relax. So who’s your doctor now? I’ll tell him or her what I did and take whatever punishment the medical board hands down.”

“I dunno. Stewart? Fairfax? I can’t remember.”

“Mac, Dr Fairfax died three years ago.”

“Well, someone at the practice. I don’t recall.”

“I was your GP after that. Remember? Who did you change to after we divorced?”

I stared at her, mouth open. “Fuck, I never thought of that. Dammit! What the fuck is wrong with me that I forget stuff like that?” For some reason, that enraged me, and I smacked my forehead – probably a little too hard, as it stung like a bastard.

Shana sat me down, disappeared to the kitchen and then straight back out, shaking her head. She rummaged in her oversized handbag and came out with a bottle of water. The seal cracked, and she pushed it into my hand.

I went to push it away, not wanting anything from her. Then I realised I was pretty warm and thirsty and took it, draining the bottle with bad grace.

“Won’t you show me around,” she asked as if she was visiting royalty.

“We can skip the kitchen, though,” she finished, rather pointedly.

“If it will help to get you out of here, sure.”

The flat was pleasant, or at least I thought so. Three bedrooms; mine, the one I used as my office and what I laughingly called a guest room. It had never been occupied or even mildly threatened by a visitor. The en-suite bathroom off my bedroom was large, with a tub and separate walk-in shower. The one between the other two bedrooms just had a shower. I didn’t know whether the taps actually worked there, and the towels probably had a layer of dust on them. Finally, we spent a while out on the spacious balcony, enjoying the cool breeze.

Shana was making small talk continually while we walked around, remarking on the pot plants and pictures on the wall with equal approval. She seemed to prolong looking at each room and found at least something to compliment. Weirdly, she even professed to admire my bedroom, which I had to admit looked more like Glastonbury after the music stopped than a place of rest. I did notice that she seemed to be keeping an eye on me, however.

“Okay, that’s your lot,” I said firmly as we finally got back to the lounge. I was sweating but put it down to being so nervous and tense at her presence. “Now will you push off?”

Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. I wondered whether she was considering doing something nasty, knowing she could probably get away with it as ‘my doctor’. I couldn’t decide. My fuzzy brain – the new normal – seemed to be even more confused than ever.

And shit! It didn’t help that it was so hot in the flat! I checked the thermostat on the central heating, but it didn’t seem to have been changed at all. I dropped it a few more degrees, anyway.

After ten more minutes of her seemingly infinite resource of mindless chit-chat, I was so warm that I just dragged off my hoodie top, which left me in a somewhat stained sleeveless vest. It was embarrassing to be seen by anyone wearing it, but it was better than nothing. Besides, I hadn’t asked for this meeting, so what she got is what she deserved – whatever the hell that might be. I had a strong suspicion that the vaccine was just an excuse. Perhaps she’d left something behind when we parted, and she now wanted to sneak it out. Or maybe it was just something as simple as money. Tired of it all, I sank into an armchair.

“You want money?” I muttered.

“I’m not leaving.”

That’s not what I asked, I thought, not sure whether I’d said it out loud or not. I couldn’t think logically, couldn’t get my thoughts together at all. I wiped the sweat off my forehead, and my hand dropped into my lap, almost beyond my control. I stared at it, almost unable to look away or even blink – although my eyes were burning once more. The sweat was running down my cheeks, almost like tears. In fact...

Shana’s hand was cool on my forehead.

“Feverish. This is why I’m still here,” she whispered. “It seems to affect everyone differently, but it’s a good sign. Your body is vigorously fighting off the virus, raising your temperature to try and kill the invader with heat. Come on, let’s get you into bed.”

She squeezed under my arm, her nose curling at the scent of old sweat on me, and managed to hoist me unsteadily onto my feet. It wasn’t that far from the lounge to my bedroom, but it seemed to take forever for us to reach it. Finally, we were headed for the bed until Shana got a reminder of the state it was in. Then she sat me in a chair and told me to concentrate on not falling to the floor.

I tried to focus as she stripped the bed and, after a struggle, determinedly flipped the mattress over. I suppose she must have found clean bedding somewhere – perhaps the guest room – because the next thing I knew, she was plumping up pillows in what seemed to be the most heavenly bed I’d ever seen. Or smelled. However, by that stage, I was curled up in the chair, my knees to my chest, shivering and shaking.

“Mac?” she called and crossed to me, dropping to her knees and feeling my forehead again. Then, for some reason, she held my hand for a while until I realised she was taking my pulse.

“How are you feeling,” she asked quietly.

“S-so cold-d-d,” I answered, after managing to stop my teeth from chattering just for a moment. It was true. I don’t think I’d ever been so cold in my life. And yet, I was sweating. Nothing made sense anymore.

Shana got me upright long enough to drag off my tracksuit pants and the old vest and then helped me onto the bed, where I curled up again naked to continue shivering and shaking. Finally, she covered me in a fresh, sweet-smelling sheet and a blanket.

“You should be fine again within a day,” she whispered. “I’ll watch over you.”

Then my eyes closed, and the lights went out, both literally and figuratively.

I must have woken up at times. I remember moaning and complaining about how cold I was as she carefully gave me a bed bath, shaved me, and brushed my teeth. I felt better for about three minutes, and then I was asleep again. Another time, it was the vacuum cleaner that woke me up. Or maybe it was the washing machine; I couldn’t tell. I turned over and drifted off again.

When I awoke fully, Shana was sitting on the bed next to me and gently shaking my shoulder.

“You need to eat,” she said.

“Okay.” I yawned and stretched, realising I was ravenously hungry. I threw the blankets back and started to get up, cursing the weakness that seemed supreme within me. But, there was probably something edible in the kitchen, although it had been quite a while since my last grocery delivery. What the hell – it wouldn’t be the first or last time I simply scraped the mould off a piece of bread. Toasting it would probably kill all the spores, anyway. Probably. Possibly.

“No, no! Oh, no! You stay right there.”

To my chagrin, she made me lie down again and insisted on feeding me some soup – thick with beef and vegetables – as I lay there like a child or an invalid.

“Why are you doing this, Shana? Why are you still here?”

“You reacted to the vaccine similarly to many other people who’ve had it. I was expecting a reaction and had an epi-pen on hand if it was atypical, but you reacted normally, and I stuck around to help you through it. Even as busy as we are, I can spare a couple of days to nurse my ... to nurse an old friend.”

“So we’re friends now?”

“God, I hope we can be at least that. I know what I did was really, really awful, but I still love you.”

There was a long pause. Then, her voice sounding forced and false, Shana continued. “Well ... at least like you enough to stay despite the awful smell in this place. I’m surprised the neighbours didn’t complain. What did they say whenever they visited?”

I frowned at the thought. “I discourage visitors. I like the flat, but the people on both sides piss me off.”

She looked sad for a moment. “So ... Mac, am I the first person to be in this flat since you moved here?”

“No, of course not. That would be silly. The moving men who brought my furniture from the old place were here. And, oh yes, the grocery delivery people, they’ve been inside – although they tend to leave the bags outside the door now. Because of the lockdown.”

“The lockdown, yes. That was probably the reason they stayed outside.” A couple of tiny vertical lines appeared on her forehead, just above her nose, as she pondered that. I recognised them. It’s how she looked when she was in doctor mode.

“Speaking of them, I’ve ordered another delivery,” she continued. “I emptied your fridge and binned everything in your pantry, and...”

“Woah! Hang on. You threw out all my stocks of food?”

“Your stocks were so out of date that they were more likely to kill you than feed you. Although they would have had to battle it out with all the bacteria and fungus on the piles of dirty cutlery and crockery for the honour of landing the fatal blow.”

“Yeah, well, I wash up when I run out of clean stuff.” I was starting to sound churlish. “What do you care?”

She placed a hand along my jaw, her thumb gently rubbing my cheek. It was such a familiar, loving gesture that tears sprang to my eyes. Damn, I was so tired of my eyeballs leaking all the time.

“Mac,” she said very quietly. “How long have you been like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean like this!” She gestured at me and the flat in one sweep of her arm. “You’re so skinny I can count every rib; that’s why I hugged you. Normally I wouldn’t have dared. As far as I could tell from that overflowing dustbin, you’ve existed mainly on unsweetened black tea, biscuits and crisps, with the odd tin of stuff heated up now and again. I was always proud of how well-groomed you were. You always showered or bathed once a day, and I used to love your smell – until now.

“You always hated stubble on your chin, and when you opened the door ... Well, frankly, it looked as if you started to shave a month ago, gave up halfway through and hadn’t bothered since. And your eyes would look like pissholes in the snow, except for the fact that they are so red and bloodshot. You often cry without even realising it. And you could go on holiday for a week using the bags under your eyes for your luggage. In fact, a family of four could...”

She broke off as she saw the look on my face. I could tell she was trying to keep things light, but there was something approaching despair in her voice.

“I’m so sorry!” she whispered.

Shana had been feeding me while she spoke, but suddenly dumped the spoon in the bowl and hustled to the door.

“Excuse me for a sec; I just need to...” She didn’t finish the sentence and didn’t need to. The sob in her voice was all too apparent. It annoyed the fuck out of me. I reached for the spoon but accidentally knocked the bowl and its contents to the floor instead.

So I turned over and went back to sleep.

When I awoke the next time, I was alone. Perhaps Shana had gone home – wherever her home was now; I’d never bothered to find out. Lying on my back and staring at the ceiling, I examined my feelings about that. On the one hand, her presence had literally brought a breath of fresh air back into my life, and I could smell the stack of laundered and neatly folded clothes she had left on top of the chest of drawers – a good, clean scent. Of course, the downside to that was the all too apparent contrast to how it had smelt before.

On the other hand, the monster within, born of the anger and despair that I had tried so hard to control since discovering her cheating and the subsequent divorce, was again trying to overwhelm me. I had fought so hard to push it down and subdue it over the months, and now it was close to breaking free once again.

I sat up, waited until a slight wave of dizziness passed, and then got to my feet, realising with surprise that I felt pretty good. Shana must have cleaned up the spilt soup at some stage, so at least I wouldn’t be tracking it through the apartment. It was a slight positive, but I had learned to take those whenever they appeared.

I dragged on a clean pair of boxers, used the bathroom and marvelled at my clean-shaven appearance. However, the face that stared back at me reminded me of pictures I had seen of survivors from the WWII death camps. Shana had been right in her description of me. I stood on the bathroom scales. Where had thirty pounds or so gone, just like that?

The kitchen seemed bare without the stacks of dirty plates and bowls everywhere. Even the dishwasher was empty. The fridge and pantry were full, however. Fruit and vegetables seemed to be the topic of the day.

Sitting on the lounge settee, I decided to get a cleaner in once a week from now on. The difference from what I vaguely remembered before to how it looked now was vast. Then something clicked in my mind, and I went to the office instead, wondering how my trading had fared without me at the controls.

Of course, I had been fucked by the markets. I’d planned to make a careful trade, but while asleep, I’d lost any profit from the deal when it hadn’t gone through. I would have to hang onto the shares until they hit the stop-loss line or drifted upwards again. That meant I wouldn’t have all the funds available to make other trades and...

I lost my temper. The keyboard was the nearest thing, and I found myself repeatedly slamming it against the edge of the desk while swearing up a blue storm. The desk was metal, the keyboard plastic, and ... the keyboard lost the fight. Fractured plastic flew everywhere. I opened a cupboard, threw the remnants into a big cardboard box and dragged out a new boxed one. I’d bought a dozen, and there were six left. After connecting the new one, I ordered another dozen.

I turned to fetch a can of Red Bull, planning to sit and try to limit the damage to my portfolio, and found Shana in the doorway, staring at me wide-eyed.

“What?” I asked defensively.

She peered into the remnants box. I’ve no idea how many keyboards I’d buried there, but the look on her face when she turned back seemed to indicate she thought it was a lot.

Shana took my hand and led me through to the lounge. I thought about resisting, but realised it would be a pointless demonstration of my anger at her. If she hadn’t picked up on it by that time, she never would.

She hung on to my hand, sitting next to me and turning to look at me solemnly.

“Mac, you have a problem.”

“I know. She’s sitting next to me.”

“It’s worse than that. You’re suffering from clinical depression.”

“Bollocks!”

“It’s true. You have bursts of rage. You’ve isolated yourself completely, and you obviously haven’t been eating properly. Your sleep is broken and fitful, and...”

“I wonder why?” I said, the sarcasm heavy in my voice.

“I know why. Of course I do. I screwed up so badly. You think I don’t beat myself up every day over that?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t include the word ‘fuck’ a whole lot, so I kept quiet.

“I know the reason why,” she continued. “But knowing it doesn’t fix the problem. Look at you! You get so angry at your neighbours for tiny irritations. And you get really mad at yourself as well – over little things that don’t matter. These are all symptoms of depression.”

She paused and squeezed my hand. “When was the last time you felt pleasure in anything?”

It took me a moment to realise the question wasn’t rhetorical. I felt so damned slow all the time. Those fucking clouds at the edge of my brain wouldn’t clear! Despite them, I tried to think about her question.

“I don’t know,” I admitted eventually.

“I need to ask you about sex, not as your ex-wife, but as your doctor. When was the last time you had sex?”

I stared at her, feeling the rage climbing my throat once more. She winced, and I realised I’d squeezed her hand too hard.

“You dare ask...”

“I need to know your symptoms. So please don’t fight me on this, Mac. I need to see you healthy and well. And you’re not.”

“Fine! I haven’t had sex. Not since you decided you needed more than me, left me alone and went off to screw around and lie and cheat on me. I haven’t had any orgies or even plain old vanilla threesomes; how about you?” The pain in her eyes made me feel a little better.

“I haven’t touched anyone but patients since that day,” she said. “You’re not the only one to go through depression. I’m sure I did, too. It started soon after I moved to Jill’s house when patients were dying in droves. I found that it creeps up on you unnoticed. And it changes the way you think in ways you can only see when you look back on it.”

“Then I’m so happy that you found a unique way through it. I wasn’t so lucky. I not only didn’t get lots of time fucking up a storm outside my marriage, but I also didn’t get any time with the woman I loved and married either. How fortunate for you to have that on tap and not to have to go through having sex with me when you had Dr Fuck and his sidekick Dr Cunt on call. You won the medical jackpot.”