A Helping Hand

By: DL
(Copyright 2007 by the Author)
 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...
dl@tickiestories.us

Chapter 4
 

It took a while for me to drop off to sleep on the bed/settee: I was awash with mixed emotions, about a range of things, both about Juan and also about what had happened at work before I met him. I guess sleeping on the bed/settee didn't help either (I now knew it wasn't very comfortable and certainly not conducive to a good night's rest).

I was woken by something, but didn't know what it was. I screwed my eyes up and as I did so I could hear a strange noise, but I couldn't make out what it was. I sat up, leaning on one elbow, listening, and still couldn't make it out. I leaned over and picked up my watch from the floor and saw the time was 04:47, and it was about then that where I was – not in MY bed – and why, suddenly came rushing back to my still sleep-sodden mind.

Getting up, I staggered to the hall doorway and opened it, thinking as I did so, even as the noise became louder and clearer, 'Shit, I shouldn't have closed the door!' The noise was clearly Juan sobbing.

I flicked the hall light switch and walked down to the source of the sobbing: unsurprisingly now, it was coming from my bedroom. I knocked gently and got no response: the sobbing continued unabated. I stood there, my usual indecisive self, wondering whether I had knocked hard enough: should I knock again; should I go in; should I go back to bed? Eventually I decided to go in. I opened the door [thinking again: 'Why did I close it?'], and unable to see in the darkened room, flicked the light switch, turning toward the source of the sobbing.

Juan was lying in a crumpled heap behind the door. Looking at him while my brain started functioning, I deduced what I thought had happened. He was lying crunched up against the wall, still in the pyjama bottoms, but in a pool of liquid; his feet were entangled in the robe I'd put round him in the bathroom. I guessed he'd woken, needing to pee, and getting out of bed in the dark had got caught in the robe and fallen, and his full bladder had done the damage to his clothing, my carpet and his equanimity before he'd recovered himself properly – hence, I guessed, the crying: shame and embarrassment.

Thinking all that took less time than it did to type it! As I finished the thoughts I moved round the door and stepped over to him. I leant down and grabbing him under his right arm, pulled him up – not hard: he didn't weigh a lot – and drew him to me, hugging him. "Ssshhh!" I said softly, "Let's get you in the bath again." And I led him out and right, into the bathroom, without waiting for a reply. I sat him down on the toilet and made sure he was OK, resting his hands on his knees, while I mentally thanked myself for remembering to clean up the bathroom after I'd left him in my bedroom. I ran a bath, making sure it wasn't too hot or cold, but a normal one this time, without as much water – though I added another couple of Radox cubes [well, they were supposed to be soothing – besides, it was getting rid of them!].

I turned towards him and reached out and helped him up and forward, saying "I guess you'll feel happier after a quick wash. Do you want to ditch the bottoms?" He didn't hesitate too long before nodding his head – wincing visibly as he did so – and reached down with his left hand and pulled them down. I looked away, feeling his embarrassment as he did so, and then as they dropped around his ankles, I felt him step out of them.

Realising I was the wrong side of him for him to get in the bath easily, I switched sides and waited as he gingerly grabbed the side of the bath and stepped in with his right leg. I looked up and away as he raised his left leg, stepped in and then I felt him lowering himself, so I gently let go. "Relax, just clean yourself up again, and I'll go and put these" – picking up the soiled pyjama bottoms – "and your clothes in the washer and sort the bedroom out, OK?" He looked up, flushed brightly as I picked up the bottoms, and looked away, nodding his head – wincing again.

I left him to it, went into the bedroom and picked up the T-shirt I'd bought him, his jeans – I checked the pockets: nothing in them – his briefs, socks (they whiffed quite a bit) as well as the towel he'd dropped by the robe and took the lot through to the kitchen. As I put them in the washer I remembered his blood-stained shirt in the car and paused; eventually I sighed, put on my slippers and my robe over my pyjama bottoms, grabbed the car keys and unlocked the front door.

As I opened it, I thought 'You stupid shit!' just as the near-freezing air hit me! I quickly keyed the remote, opened the driver's door and knelt in, grabbing his coat and shirt from the passenger footwell and exiting with a speed I would never have previously guessed I was capable of! Back inside the house, I keyed the car's remote and closed and locked the front door again.

I took his coat and shirt into the kitchen and added his shirt to the washing, closing the door and setting the wash/dry cycle – the only one I knew how to use! As the machine started to fill with water I looked at his coat, then stopped and thought, and decided that unlike the jeans that I was going to wash, searching his coat pockets would be an invasion of his privacy. I hung it on the coat rack behind the front door, noticing as I did so that it also had blood on it – nowhere near as much as his shirt, but then it had been undone.

I opened the airing cupboard, extracted my third – and last – pair of pyjamas as well as my last two clean bath towels and headed back to the bedroom, picking up some old newspapers from the dining table as I passed it. I put the pyjamas and towels on the bed with the newspapers and started unfolding a paper and laying it on the pool of urine; it didn't take long for it to become sodden, and I gingerly picked it up and dropped it in the wastebasket by my bedside. I laid another one down to replace the first and waited; I sat there for 3-4 minutes, and then picked that one up, deposited it with the first and laid another. The second one hadn't been soaked right through; the third was just to cover the damp patch until I could get it cleaned.

I picked up the pyjamas, towels and wastebasket, and took the basket to the hall, putting it down by the front door, and then I returned to the bathroom. I knocked gently to let him know I was there, paused to give him time to adjust and slowly entered. He was once again lying submerged against the far end of the bath; there wasn't enough water to cover him above midway up his chest this time though. "How're you feeling now?" I asked, smiling at him. "OK, thanks," he replied, continuing with "Will you help me out again?" I nodded and stepped up to the far end and reached down, grabbing him under his right arm and straightening up as he grasped the bath sides and stood.

I guided him over to the towel rail again, and he didn't hesitate this time, simply reaching up and grasping the top rail with both hands. I repeated the drying exercise as before; there were less moans and groans this time. I reached his butt and bypassed it, continuing on to dry his legs and feet as I had the first time. Having done so, I returned and dried his butt and round his thighs but left his genitals alone. Finished, I reached round him with the towel and wrapped it around his waist, doubling it over at the front.

"OK, time to get you back to bed," I said, having wrapped his waist with the towel. I picked up the second towel and the pyjama bottoms and reached up and detached his right hand from the towel rail and swung his arm over my shoulders; once there, he leant into me and let go of the rail with his left hand, quickly grabbing the folds of the towel round his waist. I smiled as I saw him do it, but said nothing. Instead I stepped toward the door and swung him left again into my bedroom; he didn't hesitate this time, but we stopped just inside the door and I saw him look at the newspaper – still dry, topside – and blush. I helped him over it and lowered him to the bed, putting the towel and pyjama bottoms beside him.

"I'll leave you to finish off and get the pyjamas on if that's OK? I've put all your clothes except your coat in the washer; they'll be dry for when you wake later. I'll wait outside, call when you're ready." He blushed, started to nod his head and winced; instead he said "OK" quietly. I waited outside until he called "Dave?" again, and I pushed the door open to see him once more bare-chested by the bed. "You OK to get in bed?" I asked, and he grinned as he turned and dropped onto it and pulled the blankets back around himself.

I stepped forward and picked up the towels and the robe, still on the floor from earlier, putting it on the bedside cabinet this time. "I'll leave the hall light on this time, and with the door open, so you'll be able to see. If you need to get up before I'm up, you'd better yell." He nodded, winced, and lay down on the pillow. I switched the light off and left, remembering NOT to close the door. Back in the lounge, I left that door open as well and climbed back into the bed/settee.

* * *

The next time I woke, I was in desperate need of a pitstop! I headed to the bathroom and relieved my protesting bladder [cursing my consumption of Diet Cokes and coffee the day before]. It was only as I flushed the toilet that I remembered my guest. I peered round the bedroom door as I left the bathroom to see Juan still fast asleep, on his side, clutching a pillow and the tops of the blankets. Returning to the lounge I saw it was now 9:32; I debated what to do, and decided to start by making a coffee.

I took the coffee over to the dining table and placed it on another old newspaper as I sat down. Then I sat and drank and thought. I made myself another cup of coffee, retrieved my phone book from my briefcase and collected the phone, dragging the cord across to the dining table. I quickly found the number I wanted and dialled it. The doctor's receptionist answered with the usual greeting. I asked if I could speak with Dr Derek and said it was personal; she said he was with a patient, but would be finished at 10:00, could I call back then. I agreed and hung up.

I waited until the clock finally marched over to 10:05 and redialled the number: we repeated the usual exchange, but this time she said the doctor was free and asked my name; I gave it. At this point I should explain that back then, unlike now, local doctors [General Practitioners, or GPs] quite often actually knew their patients; in my case, I'd been a patient of his for over 20 years and he had actually delivered two of my three younger brothers: he literally knew me man and boy.

He came on and, haltingly at first, I started to explain the nature of my predicament: I told him that I'd given a lift to a teenage runaway who was foreign, had been badly beaten and refused to see the police or go to a hospital. I asked him if he would, as a favour to me, give Juan a private physical examination, for which I would pay. I said that I'd tell the boy that it was that or I would call the police; I also said that I'd tell him that if the doctor had any reservations about him needing hospitalisation Juan would have to agree to this. He wasn't happy about it but I was closer to him than any of the other members of my family, and he had a good idea of something about me that none of my family knew or even suspected: I knew he was aware that I was gay. It was agreed that he would see us both outside office hours at one o'clock.

As I hung up and turned back to the table, I could see an ashen-faced Juan, in just my pyjama bottoms, clutching the door frame; I had no idea how long he'd been there. Sighing, I said "Go back to the bedroom and I'll get your clothes, then we can talk once we're both dressed." Wordlessly, he turned away and retreated down the hall; I went and retrieved everything from the washer/dryer and took it all down to him in the bedroom. I gave him the bundle, saying "Get dressed and come down to the lounge; you obviously heard me on the phone, you should hear both sides of the conversation." His face darkened at the inference that he'd been eavesdropping and looked away.

I left him and retreated through the lounge and raided the airing cupboard: I had a wardrobe of multiple sets of identical items: seven blue shirts [with pockets]; seven pairs of blue boxers, seven pairs of blue socks – you get the picture? Choosing what to wear was never hard for me! I grabbed a clean set of everything and went back to the lounge and dressed. It wasn't surprising that I was dressed before Juan; I got myself another coffee and a carton of orange juice for Juan and went and sat at the dining table, facing the hall door.

It was nearly ten minutes before the door slowly opened and he came in. He was wearing his clothes but with the T-shirt I'd bought him, rather than his own shirt. I motioned to him to sit down across the table from me and pushed the orange juice over. He pulled the chair out and sat; to say that he looked in a bad way would be an understatement. The bruises on his face had, as you would expect, become more colourful; the black eye and swollen lip didn't help. Neither did the fact that he was sullen and obviously upset, presumably about the conversation he'd overheard.

I waited until he'd opened the carton of juice and taken a drink before I said anything. "I don't know what you heard," I said then, "but I would have told you when you woke anyway." Getting no response whatsoever, I continued, "I was talking to the doctor who has treated me for over twenty years – since before you were born. He's reluctantly agreed to give you a private physical examination to make sure, as best he can, that you're not physically hurt, beyond the bruising and other injuries we can see."

Still there was no response. "You may have heard me say that if you didn't agree to that I would call the police. I'm sorry if you did and that's upset you, but you must understand that I have to see you get some medical attention after what's happened to you; if for no other reason than to protect myself should anything else happen to you. This way, if you're OK, that's the end of it; we can talk about where we go from there afterwards. The other part you may have heard and not liked was my saying that if he felt you needed hospitalisation I would ensure that you went. Again you have to understand that if he examines a child – which legally you are – that required hospitalisation and he did nothing he could lose his job and possibly even go to jail. I would have told you when we talked about it that if he felt you had to be hospitalised, I would pay to get that done privately to keep the authorities out of it for your sake. Obviously, as you overheard me talking to the doctor, you would have no way of knowing that."

He coloured a bright red despite his natural skin colour and the bruising as I referred to him listening to my phone conversation. "Well, Juan, its decision time: are you coming with me for a private medical or do I call the police?" I felt a 100% dyed-in-the-wool shit as I uttered this last sentence.

He looked at me, scowling, as he replied; "I don't have much choice do I?" His face softened slightly as he added, "You promise I won't have to go to the authorities?"

I sighed and said "Not if it's at all possible to avoid it legally. But you have to trust me. Can we get the medical over and then see where we go?"

He nodded slightly, and I said "Well, you can't have anything to eat before he sees you, and I probably shouldn't have given you the orange juice … but if we take your coat and drop it off at a drycleaner's, as it’s a good 45 minutes to his that'll help take up the time. If you're OK, we can stop and get something to eat on the way back. That just leaves me needing to call work and tell them I won't be in today."

Saying that I picked up the phone and called my boss's private direct line and apologised, saying that the 'personal problem' I had mentioned late last night was going to take longer to sort than I had thought and I would be back tomorrow. It didn't go well, but it was OK once I had finally managed to convince him it really was a personal problem and not me avoiding facing yesterday's problem from work.