Happily Ever After, Ltd. - 5. Doctors

Ryan had been doing deep breathing exercises for the best part of an hour – in, two, three, four ... out, two, three, four – and gradually, his panic had subsided into numb shock. Even so, he was relieved when the King’s doctors arrived. Ryan wanted medical attention, even if it was fictional. There were three doctors, all identical: short, bald, with large round glasses that kept sliding off their flat noses.

“The King has told us that you’re ailing,” said the first doctor, opening his case. “What appears to be the problem?”

“Nothing much,” Ryan said. “I’m just going completely insane.”

The first doctor sat Ryan down on the edge of the bed, where he unlaced and removed Ryan’s shoes. Ryan was a little self-conscious that they might smell bad but, if they did, the doctor pretended not to notice. The second doctor planted Ryan’s bare feet in a tub of hot fragrant water and the third doctor pushed a handful of thermometers into his mouth. Each doctor had a stethoscope around his neck and Ryan winced as they pressed the cold metal circles all over his body – one against his forehead, one against his chest, and one against his stomach.

“It sounds like you have very healthy digestion, Your Highness,” said the first doctor, down at his stomach. “I imagine you pass an exemplary bowel movement.”

“Er, yeah,” Ryan mumbled through the mouthful of thermometers. “Terrific.”

He looked up at the second doctor, who was listening to Ryan’s forehead. “How is His Highness’s brain?”

“It sounds heavy,” the forehead doctor said. “I think he’s having thoughts.”

The stomach doctor sighed. “Your Highness needn’t be worrying yourself with thoughts. You’ll have plenty of time to think when you’re King!”

“The brain seems to be getting heavier,” the forehead doctor noted.

The stomach doctor nodded wisely. “Yes, that’s a classic symptom of stress! And what, you may ask, is stress a classic symptom of?”

“It’s a symptom of waking up to find yourself inside a children’s book,” Ryan said.

“No, it’s not,” said the stomach doctor. “It’s a symptom of choosing.”

“Of choosing?”

“Yes! Tonight, you must choose one bride from of all the ladies in the land. That lady will be our future queen! If you choose poorly, your reign as King will be a very dark one. That’s a tremendous responsibility to rest on such a young pair of shoulders as yours.”

The third doctor, who had been listening to the heartbeat, stood up and removed the thermometers from Ryan’s mouth. His eyes went wide and he thrust the thermometers into the hands of the stomach doctor.

“Well I never!” the stomach doctor cried. “You’re burning up like the sun! You are clearly going to fall in love tonight.”

“What kind of medical schools do you have in here?” Ryan said. “What about valium? Can’t you at least give a few valium? Mum takes it for flying. Do you have any?”

They didn’t.

*

Ryan had last been to see a doctor six months before. A few weeks after his parents’ least proud moment, Ryan’s mother called and nervously told him that she had made an appointment for him to see Gavin.

“Who’s Gavin?” Ryan asked.

“He’s an acquaintance,” Mrs Hooper said vaguely, “and he’s a paediatrician. You know, a child’s doctor. Your father and I thought that you might like to have a visit with him.”

“A visit? For what? Why would I see a child’s doctor? I’m eighteen years old. And I’ve already got a doctor.”

“Yes,” Mrs Hooper said, “but Gavin’s got experience with this sort of thing. Adolescent issues and ... things. After our little talk the other week, your father and I would feel much better if we knew that you’d talked to someone who knows about these ... issues.” She added, “You must know that we’re a little out of our depth with all these modern things you kids are doing these days.”

Ryan knew that if he stayed on the phone to her, he was going to raise his voice again, so he took down the details of the appointment with Gavin and told her that he had to go because he was late for class.

Gavin, more formally known as Dr Hunter, had a waiting room that was more like a child’s playpen. Large paintings of clowns and ducks hung over the walls, and the floor was strewn with toys and colouring books. Ryan sat awkwardly on a tiny plastic chair, among suspicious mothers and their sniffling toddlers. After five long minutes, Gavin called Ryan into his room. He was a friendly grey-haired man who didn’t speak louder than a whisper. They had several minutes of quiet chitchat – “How are your parents?” “Where’s your new flat?” “How are you finding university?” – before Gavin got to the point.

“So,” he said, “why do you think you’re here today?”

“Because my parents sent me. Because of, you know. What I told them last month.”

“And why do you think they sent you here about that?”

“I don’t know.” Ryan sighed. “Maybe they think I’m confused about it.”

“Do you think that’s true?” Gavin asked.

“That they think I’m confused?” Ryan thought about it. “I honestly don’t know what they think. Since that night, we haven’t talked about anything.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I’ve only seen them twice since then and it hasn’t come up. It’s like nothing even happened – until Mum called me two days ago and told me she’d made an appointment for me to see you.”

“I see.”

“I know what’s going on,” Ryan blurted out. “You’re going to fix me, right? Conversion therapy. I’ve read about it online, where you put me back on the straight and narrow, so to speak, so I can go forth and breed with a girl and Mum can get the grandchildren that she wants so badly. But it’s her fault for stopping at one kid! Don’t you think that’s putting all of her eggs into one basket?”

“Would you want to have children?” Gavin asked.

Ryan stared. His mind was blank. “I’m eighteen. I practically am a child.”

Gavin laughed. “Fair enough.”

There was an odd pause. Gavin stared, like he was waiting for Ryan to talk.

“Look, I don’t think this is going to work,” Ryan said. “Therapy, or whatever my parents have asked you to do. I’ve tried being interested in girls. I really have. I pretended for ages. So,” Ryan stood up, “thanks but no thanks.”

“I’m gay,” Gavin said.

Ryan paused. “You are?”

“Please, sit down.” Ryan did. “Your parents sent you here because they’re the confused ones,” Gavin said. “For the first time in their lives, their son has presented them with something that they have had almost no experience of.”

“Now I’m confused too,” Ryan said.

“I’ve known your father for some years. My partner and I are in the same doubles league at the tennis club. He approached me last week, in complete confidence of course, and asked me to speak to you.”

Ryan looked around the office. “So this isn’t a real appointment?”

“No,” Gavin laughed. “It isn’t. Your parents want to make sure that you’re doing alright.”

“But ... I am. I’m fine.”

“That’s certainly my impression,” he said.

Gavin then told Ryan about how his own parents had cried when he’d come out to them – but then, the following week, they put an announcement in their local newspaper. He told Ryan that when you come out, the real surprise is how people react. He told Ryan he was actually very lucky to have parents who cared about him so much. He told Ryan that he needed to keep communicating with them. He said that he’d done the right thing by coming out, but said that a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that was the end of it. The communication had to keep on going, Gavin said, and it was up to Ryan to make sure that it did.

Before Ryan left, Gavin gave him brochures about Coming Out, Homophobia, Depression, and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Ryan wondered if those were the only things he had to look forward to.

*

As the King’s doctors were packing up, there was another knock on the busted doorframe. This time, a long line of characters entered, all with their noses in the air. Each man was cradling a different costume in his arms, and each outfit had neck ruffles, puffy sleeves, and shoes that curled up at the toe.

“Who are all these guys?” Ryan asked the stomach doctor.

“These are the royal tailors, of course, to dress you for this evening. Look at those colours! Has Your Highness ever seen such a sight?”

The tailor at the front of the line bowed so deeply that his forehead touched the floor. “May I present to you, all the finest tailors in the land, presenting their finest finery, for this fine occasion!” More tailors were still coming in. “Feast your eyes on these garments!”

Ryan’s head was starting to hurt.

“His Highness is not of sound mind,” the stomach doctor explained to the tailor, “on account of being in love with a lady he has not even laid eyes on yet. Your Highness, cast your eye over these garments. Are they not fine?”

Ryan stood up in the bowl of hot water. “Look, I know I’m not really the most fashionable person in the world – even my friend Doug thinks he’s got better fashion sense than me and he wears white socks with black shoes – but these outfits look like something that elves would wear for Christmas.”

The tailor clapped his hands, delighted. “So Your Highness approves! Excellent!”

“What? No!” Ryan shouted. “That’s not what I said! Hey, get off me!”

One of them closed his hand around Ryan’s arm, in a vicelike grip. Then another wrapped his hands tightly around Ryan’s neck. He tried to pull away from them but it was no use. They had him surrounded and wrestled him down to the floor. One of them used a small knife to cut Ryan’s jeans and shirt off him. He screamed but they ignored him, their faces expressionless and frightening. They began sewing a costume onto Ryan, driving needles in and out of the fabric. Each time they drove it downwards, Ryan was certain it would plunge into his flesh.

“That one was so close! Please be careful!” Ryan begged, over and over.

Eventually his costume was fully stitched onto his body. The tailors stood back and looked down at him, nodding approvingly.

“You are now perfectly-attired, Your Highness,” said the head tailor.

“Go away!” Ryan shouted, still lying on the floor.

“You’re most welcome,” he said. “We look forward to coming back for your wedding-suit.”

They gathered their things and walked out. Ryan slowly got back up on his feet, and went to look at himself in a mirror hanging on the back wall.

The tailors had put him in a puffy white shirt and pointy-toed shoes, but the worst part of it was the trousers. They were bright, almost fluorescent green, and tighter than Lycra bicycle shorts. It was possibly the worst of the horrors so far. Ryan couldn’t be seen wearing this. There was a chest of drawers in the corner, which he ransacked, but only found pillowcases and chainmail. Ryan was stuck in the green skin-tight trousers. He tried stretching them out, especially around the waist, but that only seemed to make them cling even more tightly.

In the end, the only thing Ryan could do was untuck the shirt and let it hang over the pants. He looked like he was wearing a nightie with green stockings, but at least his modesty was covered.

*

“You needed me?”

Burnham stood in the doorway of Dorothy’s office, almost filling it with his large frame. On the outside, Dorothy’s face remained tight and impassive. Burnham’s broad face was also unreadable, with nothing more than polite, mild interest. This is how it had been throughout their separation. At home, everything between them had become so bitter and scathing, but at work, they had always remained civil, even cooperative. But then again, Dorothy had always been able to hide behind her job. Towards the end of their relationship, she buried herself in mountains of work, taking on endless solvable problems, to avoid the one unsolvable problem waiting for her at home. Whenever Dorothy knew Burnham was annoyed about something she had done, she would make sure she didn’t go home until after midnight. Her job was more than a distraction for her. During their marriage, her job had become a hiding place.

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” Dorothy said. “I know you’ve been extremely busy with Snow White this week.”

“Yeah, the Queen’s mirror needed emergency maintenance. It was getting a bit too honest.”

“Well, we have a big problem here too,” Dorothy said.

Burnham frowned. “I thought we’d agreed on everything. I mean, we went over it with the lawyers.”

“This isn’t about the papers. This is work-related.”

“Oh.” Burnham visibly relaxed. “So you got the papers?”

“Burnham, can we not talk about the papers for one minute?”

“Sure,” Burnham said. “It’s just that they need to be signed. It’s everything we talked about, everything we agreed.”

“Burnham!” Dorothy lost her temper, but only for a brief second. She took a deep breath. “There’s been a glitch in Cinderella.”

“A glitch?” Burnham said sceptically.

“A rather large glitch, actually. Prince Charming has vanished. Liam’s reinstalling him right this minute, but to fill in the gap, we needed to use a human replacement.”

“Christ, Dorothy, that’s not a glitch! That’s a disaster! What if,” Burnham pointed upwards, “the Dragon hears about this on the nineteenth floor? You’ll be boiled alive.”

“We can handle this,” said Dorothy. “By the time Prince Charming is back, the replacement will only have been in there for thirty minutes. If everything goes smoothly, the Dragon won’t need to know.”

“But is everything going smoothly?”

“Well, not exactly. He wasn’t alone when he vanished.”

“There’s a witness?”

“A witness who has been to the police,” Dorothy said. “Fortunately, Hobbs was there and handled it himself. But the witness might go to another police station. Or even worse, Grimm might hear. Their sales are dropping even faster than ours are rising. They might try to turn this into a scandal.”

“I’ll take care of it,” said Burnham.

Dorothy felt a small weight lift off her shoulders. Yes, Burnham would take care of it. Burnham always took care of things that needed taking care of. That was one of the things she missed.

“And I’m guessing,” Burnham said, “you’ll need talk to Legal about compensation for the replacement.”

“I suppose so.”

“Well, that’ll be hard to get past the Dragon,” Burnham said, “especially after she caught you bribing that little girl not to say she’d seen those talking pigs at the bus stop.”

“That wasn’t a little girl! She was a seventeen-year-old vixen who was actively trying to blackmail us!” Dorothy heard her voice becoming shrill, so she took another deep breath. “Please, Burnham. We need the witness taken care of.”

She slid a folder across the desk. It contained all the information that Maria had been able to compile about David Renton, including his address and a recent picture from Facebook. Burnham checked the contents of the envelope then nodded.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He hesitated at the door and turned back. “Look ... about the papers.”

“I’ll get onto it right away,” Dorothy said.

“No. Forget what I said. This is obviously bad timing. Leave it for today. Don’t think about it. There’s no real rush.”

“Alright. Thank you.”

Burnham left and Dorothy put her face in her hands. She allowed herself to feel emotionally shattered for three indulgent seconds. Then she drew a sharp intake of breath, squared her shoulders, and forced her attention back to work.

*

Dave had no idea what to do. After leaving the police station, he’d gone back to the waterfront where Ryan had disappeared. He’d retraced his steps to the coffee cart and the scarf vendor, but nobody had seen him. At a loss, Dave eventually began making his way back home. As he turned into his street, he called his sister for the fourth time and left another voicemail.

“Allie, call me. Now. I know I sound crazy, and I know what you might think, so I wanted to say that we did not buy drugs with the money you gave us. You know I don’t do drugs. Well, except that once. But that doesn’t count, that was different. I would’ve been stupid not to do drugs when they were free. Please, call me as soon as you get this.”

Dave then went back to the screen of his phone and entered a Google search for spontaneous human combustion. He didn’t notice a white van with tinted rear windows, as it drove slowly past him. He didn’t notice the large driver in the black suit. He didn’t notice the van pull over and park under the low-hanging oak tree, directly in front of his flat.

Inside the van, Burnham took the gun from its holster. He clicked back the safety catch and climbed into the backseat. He had one hand on the door handle, watching Dave approaching through the window. Dave’s attention was entirely concentrated on the screen of his phone.

Burnham waited until Dave was only a few steps away from the van. Burnham gave one last glance up and down the street – the last thing they needed was more witnesses – and threw the door open and stepped into Dave’s path.

The first thing that Dave saw was the black barrel of a gun. It was being held steady, right in front of his face, by two large hands. Dave looked up, into a pair of cold unsmiling eyes. Dave opened his mouth – to scream, to protest, to beg – but before he could make a sound, Burnham pulled the trigger. Dave felt something sharp pierce his throat. From the point of impact, a warm prickling spread through his neck and chest. Then he was falling, but the sidewalk never came. He felt himself falling through clouds that tasted like icing sugar. It was such a strange sensation that he heard himself giggle, and then everything turned to darkness.