“We’ll get to the bottom of this, Mrs. Bentley. Try not to worry. I honestly do believe that you’re innocent.”
“Patty,” she said desolately. “Please, just call me Patty.”
Bail was granted shortly thereafter, to Patty’s immense relief. Despite Ms. Greenwald’s recommendation to the contrary, Amber was returned to her mother’s care and custody pending disposition of the charges.
Jake was still alive, but barely. He remained in an induced coma. Patty had learned the horrifying details of his condition. His entire penis and scrotum had been severely burned and crushed. During one of his few conscious moments, it was clear that he felt no pain in his genitals, even during needle punctures. Attempts to communicate with him were futile, as he babbled unintelligibly and became increasingly agitated. His pressure would drastically drop and he would go into shock.
A sonogram confirmed that there was no longer blood flow within Jake’s penis. This lack of blood supply and oxygen resulted in penile gangrene—basically the death of his genitals. Drainage and antibiotics were ineffectual as a result of the advanced progression of the gangrene. The extensive necrosis necessitated amputation of his penis and testicles. Reconstructive surgery, at least with what remained of his genitals, was not possible due to the breadth of his injuries. Rather, Dr. Bentley underwent a different form of reconstructive surgery: a colovaginoplasty, whereby he was essentially transformed into a woman, at least with respect to his lower physical sexual attributes.
One day shy of a full week since his admission to the hospital, Jake was awakened from him comatose state. Patty was by his side as his eyes slowly fluttered open. The nurse was beside him in an instant, taking his vitals and trying to get him to communicate. The doctor entered moments afterward and began his own series of evaluations.
It took Jake several minutes to get oriented and several more to recall what had happened to him. His blood pressure spiked significantly as he grew frantic, rapidly muttering—nearly incoherently—about Hillary.
“Calm down, Dr. Bentley,” his physician urged. “Don’t get so worked up. Whatever happened, you’re fine now, you’re safe.”
“Where is she? Where’s Hillary?” He asked hysterically.
“Jake...do you mind if I call you Jake? I’m Dr. Kharoram. You know you won’t do any good if you keep elevating your pressure. Please, just relax.”
Jake found the physician’s thick Indian accent oddly soothing. He exhaled heavily then stared up at Patty who looked as though she had aged five years since he had last seen her. Still, he was thrilled to see her and to know that she was safe and alive.
“How’s Amber?” He asked, hoping that hearing about his little girl would help to calm his nerves.
Patty’s thin smile concerned him. Something was wrong, he knew her well enough to see through that facetious smile. Was something wrong with Amber? He grew anxious again.
“Amber’s fine, Jake, just fine,” Patty replied, her eyes filling with tears.
“What’s the matter, honey? What is it?”
Patty couldn’t bring herself to tell him the real reason for her tears. The reason for her stretch of sleepless nights. The reason for her absolute disgust.
“No one believes me, they all think I’m nuts. I was arrested, Jake, arrested!”
“What? Arrested for what?”
Dr. Kharoram interrupted their conversation.
“Perhaps now is not the best time to discuss that, Mrs. Bentley.”
Patty nodded as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek.
“No,” Jake shook his head furiously, “I want to know what happened...everything that happened. How did I get here? How long have I been here?”
“Jake, as your physician, I—”
“I appreciate your concern, doctor, but I have a right to know. I’ll be fine.”
Just then, it all came back to him. Graphic details of the horrors he had witnessed and endured flooded his mind as if a protective dam had burst within his head. He let out a gasp followed by a low moan as he thought about his crotch. Wondering how much damage had been done, he peeked under the sheet that covered his body.
“No Jake—” Patty yelled, attempting to stop him from discovering the truth so soon.
“What? What is it?” He asked nervously, throwing back the sheet so that he could get a better look at himself.
Even with the sheets tossed aside, Jake could not see the full nature of his transformation under the bandages that covered the majority of his crotch.
“Are you in pain?” The physician asked as the nurse left the room to tend to other patients.
Jake shook his head slowly as he apprehensively eyed the catheter tubing leaving his body.
“But am I...still functional?”
“Jake, it’ll be all right,” Patty quickly stated before Dr. Kharoram could answer. He shot her a look of clear disapproval and she stopped talking.
“Jake, maybe it would be best if you—”
“Tell me, doctor,” Jake demanded. “What did you do to me?”
Dr. Kharoram sighed before continuing. He knew how Jake would react—how any man would react under the circumstances.
“We had to call in a specialist, Jake...well, actually, a team of specialists....”
Dr. Kharoram was stalling and he knew it. He had never in all of his eighteen years of practice had to tell a man that he’d been physically emasculated. It was an incredibly awkward and uncomfortable position to occupy.
“What specialists? What did they do?”
“Urrghhhh,” Dr. Kharoram murmured uncomfortably to himself knowing that he had to just spit it out, just lay out the awful facts, like pulling an adhesive bandage off a cut.
“You’ve had a colovaginoplasty, a—”
“You mean, I have a vagina? Jake looked mortified as the words passed through his lips.
“Well, you don’t have to call it that, it’s—”
“Oh,” Jake interjected loudly, “maybe I’ll call it my cootchie, or how ‘bout my vertical smile? Whadya call yours when you were little, Hun?”
He was clearly irate and using sarcastic humor to deal with the situation. Patty stared at him with unbridled pity.
“Jake,” Dr. Kharoram said calmly, “there are options down the line. You could—”
“Start wearing a dress? Get in touch with my feminine side?”
“Dr. Bentley, you know very well what I’m talking about. Right now you have just a slit in the skin surrounding your urethra. But down the road you may consider some form of phalloplasty, skin can be grafted—”
“Are you asking me if I want to keep my vagina?”
Jake just had to laugh to relieve all the tension he was feeling. He let out a loud, bellowing laugh that startled both Patty and Dr. Kharoram. He laughed on, long tears rolling down his face until he began coughing, which caused him a great deal of discomfort. When his laughing fit subsided, Dr. Kharoram continued his attempt to have a serious conversation.
“It’s not a vagina, Jake,” he said solemnly.
Jake didn’t argue. He was all out of jokes and drollery. Tears continued to streak down his face. Patty’s heart ached for him. He was the picture of a broken man.
“All that matters is that you’re alive, sweetie,” Patty said softly as she leaned forward to hug him.
Jake turned his head and shoved her away. He didn’t want to be consoled. He didn’t want her sympathy. He wanted his penis, his manhood back. And if he couldn’t have that, he’d have to settle for something else.
“Where’s Hillary?” He asked angrily.
“Hillary?” Dr. Kharoram asked.
“She got away,” Patty answered. Her eyes full of terror. “Was it really Hillary Greyson, Jake?”
“Yes, yes it was absolutely Hillary Greyson. She did this to me. And she...she killed....”
Jake recalled how she had savagely murdered Dr. Morrison and his wife Monica, torturing them before his very eyes. He shuddered at the thought.
“They’ve been buried,” Patty said sadly. “Two days ago.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Six days.”
“I’ll be back to check on you, Jake,” Dr. Kharoram said before exiting the room.
Jake watched him leave as a feeling of envy engulfed him. He was a physician, but more than that, he was a whole man. Glumly, he turned back to Patty.
“Six days? That long?”
“You were in a coma. They didn’t think you’d make it.”
Jake couldn’t bear to think of his condition. He felt as if he was neck-deep in quicksand, ready to be pulled under at any given moment.
“What happened after I called you? God, Patty, I was so worried.”
Patty reached out to take his hand in hers. He didn’t pull away. This time he welcomed her touch.
“I didn’t believe you at first. I thought maybe you were cheating on me. But you sounded so scared, I kept hearing your terrified voice in my head, I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. I was in the car when Hillary arrived. She was wearing Monica’s dress. She looked crazy, Jake, her eyes...they were hateful. She would’ve killed us.”
“Yes, there’s no doubt of that. Didn’t you call the cops?”
“I drove off in a panic. I drove straight to Pat’s house and...I found them...then you. Then I called for help. I was arrested about an hour later. They thought I did this to you...to them.”
“So they didn’t go after Hillary?”
“They think Hillary’s dead. They think it was some elaborate story I concocted to get away with murder. The case is still pending, you know, but thank God you’re alive to tell them what really happened.”
“Yeah,” he said superficially. “Thank God I’m alive....”
He hated his life. He knew he could never be happy living his life as half a man. Less than that, even. What was he now, exactly? A hairy woman with a flat chest? His blood boiled in fury. He would never be happy again until he made Hillary Greyson pay for destroying his life. He was glad that the cops didn’t believe Patty’s story. He wouldn’t corroborate it. He knew exactly what he had to do. His sole purpose in life now was to find her and hurt her the way she had hurt him.
When the cops questioned him later that night, Patty was not present. Jake told them that a man had broken in to the Morrison home. He described a man with long blonde hair who dressed up to resemble Hillary Greyson. Jake used his psychiatrist jargon to explain the man’s twisted fixation with Hillary. The man had terrorized him and his friends because he idolized the dead psychotic teenager and wanted to please her.
“He was a sick, sick man,” Jake explained. “I tried my best to get through to him but he was delusional. He thought that if he tortured and killed us, Hillary would fall in love with him. He wouldn’t accept the fact that Hillary was dead.”
The police believed Jake’s story. After all, why would a reputable doctor lie about who had hurt him so? They set off in search of this crazed, fictional copycat killer. Even with the FBI involved, they got nowhere, except when they decided to visit Hillary’s mother, Kathy Greyson, the sole survivor of Hillary’s family slaughter. They found her mutilated body in her kitchen. She had been dead for over a week. They were no closer to solving the murders than they had been. The one thing they knew for certain was that the Hillary impersonator was just as bloodthirsty and depraved as the young girl who had committed such atrocities in her small town of Maple Trails. It was just a matter of time before he slipped up and they caught him...so they thought.
Consumed by hatred and rage, Jake spent his days recovering, getting physically stronger while he mentally deteriorated. Patty could not understand why he had lied to the police officials.
“It was Hillary,” she obstinately maintained. “You know it was Hillary Greyson, Jake, why would you lie?”
“I wasn’t in my right state of mind, Patty, I thought it was Hillary when I said those things but it was really just a man dressed up to look like Hillary.”
“Liar!” Patty challenged furiously. “I saw her Jake...I saw her with my own eyes. I spoke to her on the phone. That was no man.”
But Jake kept insisting that she saw “what she wanted to see,” that her mind had tricked her into believing that it was Hillary based on the misinformation he had given her during his time of delirium. After it was apparent that his position wasn’t going to budge, Patty relented and stayed clear of the topic. She had been staying at a furnished rental apartment on her friend’s property, having been too afraid to return home with Hillary still on the loose and knowing where to find them.
Now, after nearly three weeks in the hospital, Jake was ready to be discharged. He had insisted that returning to their house would be safe, that the “Hillary Copycat” wouldn’t dare to return there. Patty wasn’t convinced. Without even consulting with him, she placed their home on the market and searched for a new house to buy. Jake wasn’t angry. It didn’t matter where he resided. All that mattered now was his mission to find Hillary Greyson and make her pay.
~3~
Hillary had grown tired of scavenging for food and sleeping in back alleys. After brutally murdering her mother nearly three weeks ago, she had stolen the car belonging to the cab driver who had driven her from the Morrison house to her home in Maple Trails. Once he had dropped her off, she had quickly cut his throat then later dumped his body in the wooded area surrounding her home. She had driven nonstop to Raleigh, North Carolina. She had ditched the car at a crowded mall and had walked several miles to a more congested urban area. She had hoped to blend in within the city and go unnoticed. The first two nights were most difficult, with Hillary unsure as to whether the cab driver she murdered would be reported missing. It was unlikely that anyone would just happen upon his body in the wooded area near the home where she grew up. Likewise, she didn’t believe that her mother’s body would be found for several days. Nevertheless, there was always a degree of paranoia that accompanied criminal activity, particularly murder. Her biggest advantage was the fact that the world believed she was dead.
There was only one person who could possibly connect her to the murders: Lieutenant Alan Langford, the man who had delivered her to Dr. Morrison on a silver platter. She had spent months confined to a bed within the doctor’s house. Dr. Morrison’s blood—along with his wife’s and Dr. Bentley’s—was on the lieutenant’s hands. Once their bodies were discovered, it wouldn’t be long before Lt. Langford went searching for her. She would be ready for him. With any luck, she would find him before he found her.
Hillary had long stopped hoping for guidance from the voice of reason, the voice that had helped her to cope with her father’s abuse and had given her the strength and courage to finally put an end to it. She used to hear it often when she lived at home. She had only heard it a couple of times during her imprisonment at Dr. Morrison’s house. Now she was utterly alone.
Hillary carried her shopping bag close to her side as she walked along a strip mall searching for a place that might have a bathroom where she could wash up. She knew she smelled even worse than she looked. Her clothes were damp with sweat. She had spent all of the money that she had—the money she had had taken from Dr. Bentley and the cab driver. She had used her last couple of dollars three days ago to buy a bagel. She knew she had to find a way to make some money but adamantly refused to resort to prostitution. The days of men ravaging her body for their own personal amusement were over.
Hillary entered a small pizzeria and looked about for the restroom. On her way there, a man behind the counter called to her.
“Hey, kid,” he yelled in a surly tone. “Whatcha think yer doing?”
Hillary turned to face him. Her face was oily and grimy.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” she replied candidly.
“Not in here you’re not, now get out.”
“But I—”
“Get out!” He hissed. “Or I’ll call the cops.”
Hillary turn
ed back and made a hasty retreat from the pizzeria. The last thing she needed was to be questioned by the cops.
“Wait up,” she heard a husky woman’s voice call out to her.
Hillary turned to see who was speaking to her. There was an elderly black woman with a cane walking toward her.
What does she want? Hillary wondered.
“I don’t have any money,” she declared curtly.
The woman let out a hearty laugh.
“Child, I sees that. Lemme help ya.”
“No thanks,” Hillary said, leery of this stranger following her.
“I don’t blame ya fo’ bein’ distrustful,” she said with a smile, “But I means you no harm…really child.”
“I have to go,” Hillary said, though she decelerated her pace.
“Where’s you gonna go? Looks ta me like you’s been on the streets for a while.”
Hillary didn’t reply though she stopped and stared at the woman, trying to determine why she was wasting her time.
“Miss Billie knows,” she said with a mostly toothless grin. “I was a runaway once too, long, long ago.”
She thinks I’m a runaway, Hillary thought.
“C’mon child, I lives but three blocks from here. The streets ain’t no place fo’ a pretty little girl like you.”
Hillary smiled, amused by this self-proclaimed Good Samaritan. If only she knew who she was talking to. This pretty little girl was the threat, not the victim. She nodded. She had nothing to lose. Maybe she could get a decent meal, wash up and be on her way.
“Good, ya smart enough ta know a good thing when ya sees it. I gonna fix ya some of my famous rice an’ chicken. It’s so good you gonna be lickin’ yo’ plate. What’s yo’ name, anyways?”
Hillary had to think about what to say. After a slight pause she answered, “Caleigh,” using her dead sister’s name.
“That’s a pretty name. Don’t think it’s yo’ real name, but that all right, Miss Billie’s not offended. Me, my real name’s Wilhemina Gaither, but everyone call me Miss Billie.”
Hillary_Retribution Page 4
