Always Turns Up Ch. 02

She handed over the leash, and turned and walked away. My new Master just gave a little tug on it and I followed him and got into the back of the car. I even closed the door.

"Christ, Penny! What a bitch! And what? You went with that man?"

"I was beginning to rebel, to come back from the pit, but all that was very tentative. I was taken by surprise, and I was scared. And I thought I had no where else to go. I had no money, not even a bank card, nothing but the chains I was bound in. I didn't even know exactly where I was in england. And I thought I had destroyed all my friendships, and broken my parents love as well. I was alone, with nothing to support me. Alone in my head, and that was thoroughly messed up. But the good thing was that I didn't believe her. I heard what she said, and I was hurt by it, but I thought she was wrong. I was worth more than that. I was a better person than her. But not able to resist. She had done a good job on me."

Penny shrugged, and made a little series of expressions - deep frown, rueful grin, thoughtful purse of the lips. Then said "That wasn't the last time I saw Tilly, sadly, but it was the last time I was her slave, I am glad to say. And so my adventures with her came to an end. And new adventures began."

Penny sat back, taking her glass and sipping it, and smiled at me. "Do you think you might make a story out of any of that?"

I breathed out, and blinked exaggeratedly. "I could probably write a dozen. Although there is a dark tinge to almost all of that, which I am not sure I like to indulge. And, to be honest, these days I like to write what turns me on. While I admit to a little frisson at some of the things up you mentioned, I have to say most of that appalled me."

Penny nodded. "Same old Sean. I am glad. It traumatised me. Almost all of it. I can talk about it now after years of therapy and recovery, and I do gloss over it and make light of it, I know. I skipped some of the less pleasant bits. The daily humiliation, the daily abuse. The punishments, and the constant campaign of self esteem destruction and inducing dependency. 'Gaslighting' is hardly adequate as a term. But, I survived. And lots of nicer things happened to me later, which I will be happier to tell you, if you have the time to listen. But first tell me more about you. Most of the stuff I found about you on the net is business and public events. I really don't know anything personal. How have you been?"

I shrugged. After hearing all that my troubles seemed small. But it did prompt me to open honesty. "Mostly unwell. Although I didn't always know that. You remember how I used to go through blue patches, be down for a few weeks sometimes, not care about work and be a grumpy sod? But then again I was often in good form for a month or two, and worked like hell, and partied? By my mid thirties the dips had become deeper, and turned into real depression. The higher periods... well those were fun, and productive, so I didn't complain about them. I wrote my Masters and my Doctorate while I was in upswing periods. I founded my business, got backers, got clients for Ruth's business, got involved in politics, ran a campaign for cleaning up the river, learned to drive Formula Ford racing cars, even did a parachute jump. So as far as the doctors were concerned the repeated depression episodes were just recurrent depression. Until I was in my early forties. Then I went mad. I had an episode where I got to be more than just in good form. It had been building in previous high periods. A bit of anxiety, a bit of feeling out of control. Eventually I spiked. Full blown mania. Men in white coats taking me away. Bipolar Affective Disorder. Two weeks in the mad house, and enough drugs to knock out a horse."

"Good Lord. I had no idea!"

I smiled, and said "It isn't something I wanted to make known. Since then it has been a constant round of trying out drugs, putting on weight, being a zombie half the time, and freaked out for the other half. Things sort of fell apart for a while. But I finally got the right medication, and made a few lifestyle changes, so I am pretty good now. Stable. The underlying mood swings still show a little on the surface, but the dips are not deep, the highs are not too crazy. But the meds do knock me out and leave me groggy in the mornings, so I am really only good for the afternoons and evenings. It is restricting, but better than not taking them. And these ones don't make me put on weight. I was up to seventeen stone at one point."

Penny looked shocked. "But you were always so skinny!"

"Yeah, I burn the calories when I am high. The drugs are notorious for weight gain. I put on three stone a year. Loosing it was not so easy, hence the slightly chubby version you see now."

She smiled. "You look well actually. You were too skinny. You look prosperous."

"Ah, well, that is not the word really. I have an income, it keeps me nicely, and I cannot complain. It is enough for my needs. But ... being ill makes it hard to keep a business going." I looked down and hesitated for a moment, but decided that I might as well tell all. "I wasn't easy to live with. A month or two of not wanting to get out of bed followed by a month of me spending madly, having wild plans, doing stupid things, then boom, back under the duvet. I lost a lot of money. Spent a lot. Eventually I had to have a manager for the business, because I couldn't deal with it sometimes for weeks on end, and then Ruth forced me to make him a partner, splitting the thing three ways between us. So they had control and stopped me from doing stupid stuff when I was high. Which made it easier when the divorce was organised."

Her eyebrow raised, and she said "Divorce?"

"I wasn't easy to live with. Nor was she to be honest, but it was more my fault than hers. I let her down, and wasn't the husband she needed, so she resented me, and my stupid decisions, and the useless depressive months, which is all understandable. Also, mania can make you overbearing, and even violent. Not often, just, well , once or twice when I was well on the way to a breakdown, before I got the drugs sorted out. But that isn't easy to forget or forgive. Even though I was really sick, and it wasn't like me, it was me. Which is scary. I lost it one night. Flipped out into somewhere else. I trashed the house. Ruth got caught in the crossfire, trying to calm me down, before the emergency intervention team arrived. That was the last straw. When I got back out of the hospital she wouldn't let me back on the house. I can't blame her."

"Good Lord." She said, again. "Where did you go?"

"My parent's of course. Back in the old bedroom, the same bed, the same curtains. It was weird. Like waking up and being eighteen again. That was when I started writing. I had nothing else to do. As part of the breakdown I had the terrible dream about you. When I am manic I can have very vivid dreams, and sometimes I stop sleeping for a few days then go into a sleep that is just pure dream sleep for a while because your body just has to do that. Those dreams are more like hallucinations. You don't know if you are dreaming or not. Reality gets a bit mixed up. They call it a 'psychotic break'. So that triggered me to write "Life Sentence" and also to write "Bad Penny" and the weirdness of being back in my old bedroom brought me to write "If I knew then".

Of course our separation was another reason why I didn't tell Ruth. I wasn't entirely honest with my readers when I wrote the closing paragraphs of "Bad Penny". By that time divorce was well on the cards. There was also a bit of a break in the writing after a couple of months as I had another breakdown, which freaked my parents out. So when I got out, I bought a camper van, and lived in it for a while."

"Wow. Where did you go in it?"

I laughed. "Oh I spent some months just parked outside my parents. But then the new medication I was on began to settle me, and there was no point in staying around doing nothing. So I travelled. I even wrote a story about it. Not entirely true, but based on some factual events. I have been to Morocco and Norway, Croatia and Germany, Italy and Portugal, and all points between. But mostly France. My French is better than any other language. But still pretty bad." I shrugged again. "The nomadic life suits me. No stress, no responsibility, no plans. I write, mostly not erotica, and I play a lot more music than I used to. I am much more at peace. Better than I have been for years."

Penny gave me a long look, and said "Well, I see we have a lot more to talk about. Apart from my stories. Shall we have more tea? Or is it late enough for an aperitif?"