What Happened To John?

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHN?

A new story by DougUK

 

Through his teenage years, John suffered from a kind of low-level depression. There was nothing wrong with his life, but there was nothing right about it either. There was never any “wow” factor in anything he did. He was constantly bored. He survived at school, being neither outstanding at anything, nor useless – always “average”. He lived in an average house with average parents, and life was passing him by. He needed to change but had no idea what he wanted nor how to make any kind of change. He had to break out of his constant lethargy.

That was until the strange dreams started. It was a year before he was due to leave school and go to a middle-of-the-road university, to study for a middle-of-the-road degree.

At first, he would wake up with an unaccustomed feeling of elation. He knew it was because of the dream he’d had, but in the morning he couldn’t remember it. He’d lie in bed and wrack his brains trying to recall what had made him feel so much better. At last the day dawned when he had an image from his recurrent dream – he could see a wheelchair in his mind’s eye, and he had a feeling he had been wheeling in his dream – but it was still a dream.

His father was a warehouse man, using low-level mathematical skills, and obviously very bored by his job. His mother was a librarian – was there ever a more boring job? Neither of them seemed to be engaged with life or care much for their dull son.

He had always been boringly diligent with getting his homework in on time, and twice a week when his mother was on the evening shift at the library, he cycled there after school to do his homework in the library, and later go home with her to their uninteresting supper.

One day he was plodding through a rather dull French translation when there was a commotion at the door of the library. He looked up and saw a young woman pushing a wheelchair into the library, and in the wheelchair was a young man of roughly his own age. The young man was speaking in a loud guttural voice with a strange slurring. He had little control over his arms which he waved about, and his legs were strapped to the wheelchair. His mother jumped up and welcomed the newcomers to the library. Everyone’s focus was on the disabled young man.

John felt an odd nervousness and started to shake a little. This was the wheelchair of his dreams, but in the dreams it had been him in the chair. He looked around. Everyone continued to stare at the stricken young man. It was as if John and everyone else was in a grey mist, whilst a brilliant spotlight shone on the young man and his wheelchair. John had one overwhelming thought – pure jealousy – if only his life were not so dull, he could have such a spotlight shining upon him.

His mother helped the young man and his assistant find some books, and filled in the forms for them to join the library and take the books home. Homework forgotten, John just watched, and became aware of a growing erection on his trousers.

Later, John tried to sound casual as he asked his mother about the young man. “That man in the wheelchair - is that what’s called being a spastic?” said John.

“Yes, but that’s not the right thing to say,” replied his mother. “He suffers from cerebral palsy. It’s terrible to think he’ll spend his whole life in that plight.”

John considered this for a moment, and thought, ‘whole life! his whole life, being the centre of attention – a spotlight shining on him – different – unique – the very opposite from boring and dull.’

After a while, and still trying to sound casual, he said “What was his name?”

“Julian,” replied his mother. “What a nice name!”

‘Nice!’ thought John, ‘It’s a brilliant name. Why am I called John, dull boring John, and he’s Julian – lucky man.’

That night he had to deal with a very persistent erection, fantasising that he was called Julian, that he was a spastic, that he could wave his arms around, be strapped to a wheelchair and be the centre of attention. He tried to confront his feelings - was he just jealous, or was there more going on his head? He realised that he desperately wanted to be Julian.

The next morning he could remember a little of the graphic dream he’d had – and of course it was of him strapped in the wheelchair, exchanging his dull, dull life for that of the glamorous spastic.

He smiled when he woke up, recognising that the mist of depression had lifted a little. What was the politically correct expression? Cerebral Palsy? Not as good as being called spastic. He didn’t want cerebral palsy – he wanted to be a fully paid-up spastic. Using the word ‘spastic’ might not be politically correct, but then wanting to be a spastic was hardly politically correct either.

A couple of weeks later, John was back in the library trying to concentrate on his homework, and constantly watching the door to see if Julian came again. Sure enough, the handsome youth was pushed into the library, and taken to John’s mother at the desk. Julian handed back the books he’d borrowed, and slowly told John’s mother wanted he wanted next. John watched as his mother focussed on the disabled young man. She paid an intense attention to him that John had rarely received himself, and his growing erection was mixed with feelings of jealousy not only towards Julian, but to the attention his mother was giving the spastic.

Knowing that it was only a few months to the time when he’d be leaving home, John resolved there and then, that he’d be in a wheelchair by the time he departed for university. He’d be the one under the spotlight – the one who was different from anyone else – no longer a dull anonymous John, but a glamorous and interesting Julian.

That night he embarked upon a search for some drug that would transform his body. If he could find something that would slowly turn him into a spastic, his parents would have to put him into a wheelchair, and the university would have to make provision for a disabled student.

It was a long search - night after night trying different ways of hunting. The most promising results seemed to be various recreational drugs which were available from the Dark Web, an area of the internet he had never explored before. There were various pills available, some at very high prices, which claimed to have various short-term exciting effects upon the body. But what if he started to take one of these drugs on a regular basis – perhaps swallowing one or two several times a day?

He found an advertisement for a pill which claimed to give an ecstatic feeling of freedom by inducing a great shaking of the limbs. Perhaps this was the one to experiment with. He sent away for a bottle of 50 pills, and waited anxiously for it to arrive.

When the pills came, he looked nervously at the bottle. Would he go ahead with his extraordinary plan? There was a warning not to drive or work machinery after taking one of the pills, and he waited until he went to bed, and took just one pill. Almost immediately he began a mild shaking, almost as if he was very nervous. Perhaps this was the drug that would turn him into a spastic, but clearly he’d have to take a great deal more.

He waited until the following weekend, when his mother was used to him staying in bed most of Saturday morning.  On Friday night he took one pill, and the predicted tremors started. After a while he swallowed another pill. The shaking changed, and his limbs started to wave about in a slightly uncontrolled way. In the early hours of Saturday morning, whilst still under the effects of the first two pills, he took a third. Lying on his bed, his movements were very like Julian’s. He tried to stand and discovered that he could not. He lay on the bed and waited to see how long the effect of the pills would last.  He was able to think clearly, the drug affecting his physical movements, but not his brain. He lay and realised how much he liked the lack of control of his limbs, and his inability to stand.

He was desperately tempted to take another pill, but he knew his mother would come to find him at some stage of the morning, and he wasn’t ready yet for her to be confronted by her son turning into a spastic.

On Saturday morning, when his mother went to wake him, he was sound asleep. “John!” she called, “It’s almost noon. Are you ever going to get up?”

Sleepily, he replied, “Sorry mum, I didn’t sleep very well last night. Let me have a couple more hours in bed.”

Assuming that this was no more than average teenage behaviour, she left him sleeping. When he finally woke up, he found he was left with a residual tremor in arms and legs, and some odd twitching in his hands and feet. He smiled to himself. Was this evidence of the long-term effect of the drug, and would it lead to him long-term or permanently becoming a spastic?

Opening his laptop, he found some strange messages from the suppliers of various of the drugs he’d investigated. Obviously he was now known to drug gangs who operated on the Dark Web, but instead of being alarmed, he saw the opportunity to buy much larger quantities of the drug, and he set to work transferring some of his savings to the supplier of his chosen pills.

With the promise of being able to seriously mutilate himself, John’s whole demeanour changed. He worked diligently and hard at the revision for his exams. Looking forward to causing a radical change in his body gave him the impetus to work at everything at school, ensuring he’d be in the best possible position to get into university after he’d destroyed his body.

Eventually a big package arrived for him arousing great suspicions in his parents, but he simply told them it was stuff for a school project, and they accepted his explanation. He waited until all his examinations were finished, and the time was rapidly approaching for him to leave school. His parents told him that they would be away for a weekend for a family christening, and this gave him the ideal opportunity to put his bizarre and outrageous plan into action.

It was a Friday evening when he started the process of transforming his body. His parents would be gone until Monday, by which time he intended to have swallowed a great number of the pills. He emptied the pills onto his nightstand and took the packaging to a waste bin in the next street. With everything prepared, he stripped naked, and sat on his bed. He planned to take two of the pills every hour for as long as possible. He assumed he would sleep at some stage but resolved to continue pumping the drug into his system as soon as he was awake again.

Within a couple of hours, he started to lose control of his arms and hands and continuing to swallow the pills and drink water become increasingly difficult, just as it would be for someone suffering with cerebral palsy. He was really enjoying the weird effects of the drugs, still lucid, but with rapidly decreasing physical control.

In the small hours of Saturday morning, he fell asleep, waking within a few hours, and needing desperately to piss. He tried to climb out of bed and found he couldn’t stand. He crawled with considerable difficulty to the bathroom. He dragged himself upon the toilet and let go a stream of piss. Falling almost without control from the toilet, he crawled back to his bed. He became aware that he had a huge erection, but he’d lost the ability to control his hands to wank himself off. It seemed his audacious scheme was working. Regaining his bed, he resumed swallowing the pills. His palsy was now kicking in with a terrific vengeance and he lay back with a twitching smile on his face. If he continued to drug his body like thus for many hours more, he was convinced the damage would be permanent, and he’d become the spastic he wanted to be. What was it his mother had said about Julian? “His whole life!” yes, that’s what he wanted and he was on his way to achieving. With each pill he was wreaking more and more havoc.

He continued the reckless regime of swallowing pills and sleeping for the rest of Saturday, into the night and onwards into Sunday. It seemed to him that the intense twitching of his limbs was not getting worse, but when he came to crawl to the bathroom, he found he was unable to lift himself from the bed. In the early hours of Sunday morning, he lost control of his bladder and pissed in his own bed. Feeling the wetness, an indication of his increased mutilation, brought anther smile to his face. He’d hope to become incontinent in the process, and it seemed to be happening. In his mind, achieving incontinence was another milestone on the journey to severe disability.

By Sunday night, he’d finished all the pills. The enormous stack of drugs now gone from the nightstand and inside his body. Every time he attempted to move, his limbs thrashed about in uncontrolled frenzy. He fell asleep on Monday morning, knowing that his parents were due home during the day and would discover him.

He was awoken mid-afternoon by the sound of his parents running up the stairs. They’d called to him when they’d arrived, but he’d not replied. His mother opened the door to his bedroom to find her son in the bed, lying in his own piss.

“Whatever’s happened?” screamed his mother.

John turned his head towards her, unable to lift it from the pillow. He tried to reply, but what came from his mouth was unintelligible. He was thinking that he wanted to say that he’d become ill in the night, but when he tried to speak he found that the muscles of his voice were as badly affected as those of the rest of his body. He was delighted to discover that he sounded exactly like the spastic Julian who he’d heard trying to speak at the library.

The hospital was mystified. He was examined by several different doctors, who could find nothing wrong – his temperature, heartbeat and blood pressure were all normal. The verdict was that some kind of strange virus had attacked him. Although his speech was severely affected, his hearing was still perfect, and he heard the doctor tell his parents the grim news.

“We have no idea what’s happened to your boy, but he seems to have turned into a victim of severe cerebral palsy. It’s very severe and looks permanent. We think it might be for the rest of his life. We don’t think there’s much we can do for him.”

John’s parents were horrified and did not see the rapidly twitching smile on John’s face.

“We’ll do some brain scans next week, but we don’t expect to find anything abnormal. All his functions are normal, although he’s obvious now incontinent. We’ll have him in the hospital for a while, but then you’ll have to take him home and see what happens. We’ve inserted an in-dwelling catheter, and we’ll keep him here for a few day’s observation. You can borrow a hospital wheelchair, and we’ll send a social worker to assess what other equipment and aids you need before you take him home.

John’s transformation into a severe spastic seemed to be complete and he had only one worry - as the condition had been drug induced, would the effect slowly wear off, or had he truly destroyed his body, and would spend the rest of his life as a spastic? Inside his chaotic body was a lively and alert mind, enjoying his new-found physical form. He could not stop smiling, and even managed a few distorted laughs. Doctors assumed the uncontrolled laughing was part of the severity of his condition, but he knew he was just celebrating how deeply spastic he’d become.

The next few weeks were frantic and overwhelmingly busy. As the centre of attention John was in heaven – everyone running around for him, everyone focussed upon him, no longer a dull average boring schoolboy, but a celebrity spastic (Although if anyone said that emotive word, they were quickly told it wasn’t politically correct.)

John’s mother re-organised the house, creating a bedroom for John on the ground floor. This meant that she was faced with the muddle of her teenage son’s bedroom. John had been careful to throw away any evidence of the drug he’d been taking, but otherwise his room was the usual chaos of anyone of his age. It wasn’t long before his mother found the stash of magazines under his bed. Flicking through the photographs of beautiful young men, she realised that her son was gay. She said nothing to her husband, nor to John.

Everyone had forgotten that John had taken his exams shortly before this mystery virus struck him, and thus it was somewhat of a surprise when a letter arrived telling him that he’d passed all subjects with flying colours, and had been offered a place at university.

“Not possible,” said his mother immediately. “Why he can’t do anything for himself now. How could he go to university?”

Surprisingly quickly the local social services took control of the situation and searched for a personal assistant who could go to the university with John. It fulfilled an even deeper desire to have someone completely dedicated to looking after him, and out of the chaos, emerged a young and handsome assistant.

Kieran was employed to be John’s principal carer and realised that he had only a few weeks not only to get to know John, attending to his personal needs, but also mastering the understanding of his speech. John’s mother had started to comprehend a little of her son’s guttural noises but did not have the patience to really master an understanding. Kieran on the other hand, was completely dedicated to his young charge, and gradually an ability to have a conversation emerged.

His mother agonised over whether she should tell Kieran that John was gay. She liked the promising carer, and didn’t want to put him off. Equally she felt he should know, bearing in mind the intense physical nature of the care John  needed. She did not need to worry. “So am I,” declared Kieran, “and I love handling John in a physical way. I can tell we both like it.”

Preparation for the move to university filled their days and at last John and Kieran were ready. They were given adjacent rooms at the hall of residence and set out to explore their new home. The “freshers fair” was in full swing when they got to the graduation hall, and Kieran pushed John around the various stalls. Once more, John bathed in the extra attention he attracted. He realised that he’d not be joining the debating club, since his speech was unintelligible to most people, but he joked that they should join the ballroom dancing society. Kieran pulled a face behind John’s back, but the secretary of the club smiled, said, “why not?” and signed them up. “After all, he said, “you won’t be the only gay couple dancing with the club.”

Later that evening, after Kieran had fed John his supper, they both remembered the casual assumption that the dancing club secretary had made.

“Will we be seen as a gay couple?” said John.

“I think we already are,” said Kieran.

“And are we?” said John.

“I think we are,” said Kieran, leaning down to John and kissing him.

“You can do that again,” said John.

“I will,” said Kieran, and he did. John adored it when Kieran lifted him up so that they could kiss. Kieran would hold John’s limp, twitchy body in his strong arms, and John put all his challenged effort into giving his lover kisses in return.

A little later, doubts crept into John’s mind.

“Are you sure about this? I’m a very severe spastic, and I’ll always be in this body. I’ll always need everything, from being fed to wiping my arse. I’m sure you could have an able-bodied boyfriend.”

“I suppose I could,” said Kieran, “but I always wanted to love a cripple, and live with one. I’ve always been ‘turned-on’ by severely disabled guys, which is why I wanted to become your carer. I knew from the start that I might fall in love with you, and I have. I’m sorry if you think that makes me very kinky, preferring cripples to AB’s. I suppose I’m your very perverted lover.”

“No,” said John, “I love having a very kinky lover. I bet I’m just as kinky as you. I’m so pleased to have you,” and in his mind he thought to himself, ‘but you’ll never be as kinky as me. I wanted to destroy my body and become a spastic. I found a way to do it, and I did it. This is me, a spastic for my whole life, and no-one in the world could have a more bizarre kinkiness.’

He pulled Kieran into a clumsy embrace and kissed him. “I’m so pleased I’m what you want,” John said, “because you’re stuck with me. Lift me onto the bed and undress me.”

“It’s not bedtime,” said Kieran, teasing.

“I wasn’t thinking of sleeping,” said John.

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHN?