Are you under 18? I don't give a shit but some people do.
This is fiction. 100%. Not very good fiction, but fiction nonetheless. Thanks for reading.
Sholto's Surprise
I was sulking. I was also cross. I was also ill. An unhappy triumvirate that made me even more unpleasant to be around than usual. Not that many people had stuck around, especially at the bitter, oh-so-dramatic end. And now here I was being driven to the place that was meant to save me. Return me to the straight and narrow. Restore the golden boy to his pedestal.
And the people driving? My parents. At the ripe old age of 27, despite thinking I already knew it all by 14, I was back in parental care. It was humiliating and worse necessary. I could no longer take care of myself. How the mighty have fallen. I snorted. Louder than I meant to. The sound echoed around the car and reverberated in my head. My mother turned, looked at me, then looked at my father, said nothing, and continued to stare out of the window. I had long ago drained them of words. We had used them all up and my behaviour had proved they meant nothing. So there really was nothing to say. Instead, I began to think. Always a bad idea. And a worse one when your life is in tatters around you. When you have totally, utterly, completely fucked up. But on the long, silent and angry drive I could not help it. And, even though I was clucking, I was not actually stoned. For the first time in a very, very long time. I was tired but not addled. I was not high so I could not pretend. And in that doomy and unhappy quiet I began to see myself as others saw me. Not then, but now. The cold harsh reality of now. With no warm glow of heroin to make it better and no maniac grind of crack to make me forget. And worse, nothing to stop me from caring. Because I did know that I cared. I really did care and that probably deep down I always had.
I knew I looked terrible. A wreck. It was a cliche but I was a shadow of my former self. For such a long time I had kept my looks. Longer than I deserved. And heroin keeps the skin clear and unlined. But, it turns out, not in a good way. It embalms you, it freezes your skin just like it freezes your spirit. And in the last six months BAM I had the face of a junkie. I was one, but this was worse. I looked like one. I was skin and bones. I hardly ate, when I did it was shit and I more often or not threw it up. My hair was like straw. My arms and some of my legs and near my groin were covered in track marks. I had sores next to my nose and mouth. That'll be the crack. My skin was grey and wane. And my eyes? My eyes were dead. Blurred, blood shot and dead. The green of the iris had dulled to a mud brown. I was not clean. I smelt musty. And my clothes sagged and hung off me. And I shuffled rather than walked. I was a disgrace.
I had passed an old friend from university in the street two weeks ago. It was one of my rare forays out. He did not recognise me. I did not want him to. It would have been a dismal reunion. But it was the way he looked at me as a stranger that shook me. He was scared but he also sneered. He would not have believed me if I had introduced myself, tapped him on the shoulder. But it was still me. Still Sholto. Just not beautiful, the world on a plate Sholto. Because I did have it all. Tall, dark-haired, green eyed. Slim with long legs. Messy hair but it suited me. A good, generous mouth. And fine cheekbones. And I was seductive. Casually, easily. What ever that elusive gene is that makes others desire you. I had it. And I played fast and loose with it. I had been a cock tease from a very early age. It made me hard. And it had always been cocks. Right from the start. And that had never been a problem. Where I came from you took what you wanted. You could mix and match. Nobody would bat an eyelid. Not that my parents were hippies. Rather the opposite. No, they were posh. If they had any issue with it, it was the sort of men I liked, not the fact that they were men. I used to flirt and tease their friends. At the long country weekends I would make promises with my eyes, I would stretch and preen, and rub my chest and trace my lips. I would brush up against them. And I would feel them following with my eyes, devouring me, full of longing. I never did anything though. I was too much of a narcisist at that age. In the night I would stroke myself but not thinking about them, only about my affect on them. I knew they could not make me come. I found out what could when I was fourteen.
The car stops and I am jolted back into reality, into the present day. The hazy, sunkissed memories fragment. I am lead into a great grey house. Victorian, ugly, pleased with itself. I have a small rucksack. That's it. My parents turn to leave. No kisses, no tenderness. They are sick of me, and I don't blame them. I want to but I can't. After all I am sick of me.
The next few hours pass in a blur. My luggage is checked for sharp objects and drugs. I am sharing a room but do not meet my bedmate. I am used to sharing rooms. I went to boys boarding schools from an early age. And no, they were not the sexual nirvana of folklore. I went to Eton from 11 and it was too urbane and sophisticated for any amateur groping. There were a few of us that were gay; some out, some just plain obvious. But nobody cared. And I, like the straight boys, went elsewhere to get my kicks. Because while I was still discovering what I liked I always knew for sure what did not do it for me. And that was young, upper class boys. Boys like me. Oh no. I craved difference. And I found it. My thoughts were interrupted.
`Come on. You have to come down now. Meet everyone'
This was Stuart, my mentor. He had been assigned to show me the ropes when I arrived. He was an old hand, having done three weeks. A sober three weeks. He had been a school teacher, whose alcoholism had cost him everything. I knew all the details. You could not shut him up. I wanted to say `I don't give a shit. You're boring, you're grey, you're middleaged, you're provincial and you're straight. You and me. We don't even speak the same language' Except of course we did. We were both addicts. This is what I had reduced myself to. Having to listen to someone like Stuart. I said nothing. I just nodded. I was tired and wanted to curl up. I had been given more detox medication and it made me feel sick. But it was better than coldturkey.
But I went down and was introduced to the other inmates. About 40 people in a large but scruffy sitting room. Each one came up and introduced themselves, often hugging me and whispering what I thought then were platitudes. What gave me the right to be so patronising I don't know. It was habit. And fear.
They were a tough bunch. Which was no surprise as this rehab centre -- my third- was no frills and no fucking about. Most of its places were assigned through the NHS. Only a few were fee paying. Like mine. Poor little rich boy. I heard sniggering in the back of the room when they heard my name was Sholto. And the sniggerers did not come and envelope me in a loving embrace. Thank God. Instead they muttered a hello. The bare minimum to keep to the rules. All the faces merged. I just wanted to sleep. I was too tired to even want to leave.
And looking back I find it strange that I did not notice Paul. That I have no memory of him that first day. That he did not stand out for me. I did not feel the excitement, the terror, the bliss that overcame me when I knew he was near. Not then. I didn't notice Paul.