Some of the stuff was just plain weird, like the white lacy, sequinned tutu skirt I found amongst the corsets. I imagined Jane cavorting around the room in it like a baby elephant, which cheered me up no end.
My amusement was cut short, however, when I opened the third drawer down of the second chest, expecting more of the same.
Not so. The contents were very different indeed. Once again Daniel had managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat, even in his absence.
I stared in stunned silence, trying to make sense of the neatly arranged pairs of silicone breasts I saw in front of me, all different sizes and assorted colours.
Nothing could have prepared me for that.
Slowly I poked one with my finger and watched the indent disappear from the soft tissue. I picked one up, bouncing it in my hand, and was surprised at the weight of it. I squeezed it and it felt almost real. I dropped it like a hot potato, suddenly repulsed, but my eyes remained fixed on the contents of that drawer.
I was confused at the thoughts racing around in my head.
Why the hell would Jane need silicone breasts? From the pictures I had seen, she was not exactly behind the door when tits were handed out.
More to the point, why would any woman need such a large and varied assortment of false boobs? I had counted ten pairs.
Slowly the penny began to drop.
What if it wasn’t a woman who was wearing them or, in fact, any of the other gear in there?
What if it were a man?
What if it were Daniel?
I banged the drawer shut abruptly and sank onto the floor, leaning against the wall with my hands over my face. I was starting to feel like I really couldn’t cope with any more. I took out my phone, suddenly remembering I had forgotten to take photos, and decided to call Sylvie. I had not told anyone I was visiting Stainsford, so she had no idea where I was when she answered.
‘Hi darling, are you okay?’
‘Hi, yes I’m fine, but listen…I’m in Stainsford. I’m in Daniel’s office.’
‘On your own? Why didn’t you tell me? It’s too dangerous! You know I would have come with you,’ she cried, clearly horrified.
‘I know, I know. Don’t panic, I’m fine, really I am. I just needed to do this by myself.’
She was reassured for the moment and continued in an excited voice:
‘So come on then, don’t keep me in suspense. What have you found?’
‘Well, I’ve found quite a lot actually, a lot more than I bargained for in fact. Listen, Sylvie. You’re just not going to believe it….’
I paused briefly, deciding to leave out the earlier details and skip straight to the juicy bit.
‘There’s a bedroom upstairs and I swear there’s enough women’s outsize underwear in it to sink a battleship. Really gross, tacky stuff.’
‘Oh my God. Do you think he’s got more women living there?’
‘No, I do not. I think he’s wearing the stuff himself.’
‘What? Are you serious? Why do you think that?’
I paused, trying to process things and make some sense of the confusion in my own head, desperately trying to come to terms with the enormity of what I was saying.
‘In one of the drawers, I found about ten pairs of false boobs. Christ, Sylvie, I honestly don’t know what to think anymore. Daniel has always acted so macho, a real man’s man….’
Sylvie gasped in surprise, but her words when she eventually spoke made me thank God yet again for my amazing friends.
‘Right, stay there, I’m coming over. You shouldn’t be on your own there. I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I’m coming down there now,’ she informed me decisively.
‘I’m okay, I promise. It’s just a massive shock. Daniel’s in America, so I’m not in any danger from him. You really don’t need to drive all the way over here.’
‘I don’t care. I’m coming down. Keep the door locked and stay where you are. I’ll be there in about an hour.’
Despite my protestations, I was relieved she was coming to meet me. I desperately needed someone to confirm what I had seen and what I thought was the latest twist in the plot.
My husband, the cross-dresser. Who knew? I no longer had any idea where the hell I had ever fitted into his complex story.
I stayed where I was on the floor and closed my eyes.
My mind drifted back to an evening many years ago, when Daniel and I were first married. We had been out celebrating something or other and we were both a bit the worse for wear. As I undressed in the bedroom he lay on the bed watching me. He whistled appreciatively at the leopard print satin bra and knickers he had bought me, together with matching suspender belt and fishnet stockings of course. Suspenders and stockings were always his thing.
‘Very sexy,’ he slurred.
I did an exaggerated model’s pose and pouted my lips at him. He was looking at me strangely and I giggled.
‘What does it feel like to wear all that stuff?’ he asked. ‘I bet the satin feels good against your skin.’
He licked his lips and paused before continuing.
‘Maybe I should try it, just to see?’
I laughed, putting it down to the drink.
‘I don’t think my stuff would fit you, do you? We’re not exactly the same size!’
I discarded the underwear on the floor, thinking to myself as I disappeared into the en suite that I had only worn it to humour him and it would not be seeing the light of day again. He had even got my bra size wrong, for God’s sake. When I came out, I was greeted by the somewhat surreal and bizarre vision of Daniel, who had squeezed himself into my knickers and suspender belt, testing the lycra to its limit. He had even managed to fasten the bra himself, which on reflection suggested a worrying degree of familiarity with a notoriously tricky garment. He was imitating my pose from before. At six foot two, weighing just under a hundred kilos and nurturing a beer belly, he was not the most convincing glamour model.
I exploded with laughter at the spectacle before me, assuming that was the point.
‘Oh my God, hilarious. Not your best look to be honest,’ I mocked.
Not to be deterred, he insisted on wearing his new get up to make love to me that night. It had all seemed hilariously funny at the time.
I shuddered at the memory of how aroused he had been. It had never happened again and had all been forgotten in the cold light of day when we were sober again, but maybe I should have seen the writing on the wall. The clues were there but, once again, I had seen only what I wanted to see.
True to her word, Sylvie arrived at the flat after about an hour and a half. To my amazement, I had fallen asleep on the floor, mentally exhausted. I was shocked back into reality by the shrill ring of my mobile and Sylvie’s voice when I picked up.
‘Hi, it’s me. I’m parked up on the street outside the hardware shop like you said. Where do I go now?’
‘Okay, leave the car there and walk along the street until you come to a little alleyway leading round the back of the flats. Turn left and you’ll see me.’
A couple of minutes later I was showing her around the flat like an over-enthusiastic estate agent, saving the best until last of course. She wanted to see everything. We looked in the boxes in the lounge, marvelling at the huge variety of dildos and butt plugs that seemed to be available on the market and trying to work out what some of the more obscure stuff would actually be used for. We looked at some of the papers and took more photos, but I was exhausted and decided I would need to come back the following day with someone a bit more tech-savvy to really get to grips with all that. We agreed that Adam’s friend Liam, who did all the IT stuff for the hotel, was probably the man for the job. Once again, Adam seemed to know a man for everything. Memory sticks were lying around that needed investigating and copying, together with a go-pro camera on a shelf and an SLR camera in a cupboard. I was more than slightly nervous about what I would find stored on those, but I had to be ‘professional’. Liam would also be a
ble to scan all the documents I wanted, rather than just take photos.
I could contain myself no longer as I turned to Sylvie and said in a conspiratorial tone:
‘Come on, shall we go up to the bedroom now?’
I led the way to the stairs, feeling much braver now that I had an ally.
Back in the bedroom, I showed Sylvie everything I had found already, but two pairs of eyes were always better than one and together we were able to conduct a more in-depth search of the room. It was already starting to go dark and the dingy light from the overhead lamp made the room look even worse. I went through the laundry basket, looked under and behind the chests of drawers, under the bed, in the bed, literally everywhere. I had no idea what I was looking for anymore, but I felt sure I would know when I found it.
‘Did you look inside the base of the bed?’ Sylvie asked.
‘What?’
I followed where she was pointing and, at the end of the bed, I could clearly see tabs sticking out.
‘Oh my God, this bed lifts up. How the hell did I miss that? Let’s see what’s in there.’
Together we yanked the mattress up on its gas struts and peered inside. Sylvie immediately let out a high pitched scream and jumped back, turning her head away. Startled by her reaction as well as what I saw in there, I screamed even louder and stumbled backwards, falling over her foot and clutching at her arm in fear.
‘Fuck! It’s a body!’ I shrieked, as my hand flew instinctively to my mouth.
The grotesque, headless body of a woman was lying there in state, dressed in a long red satin nightie and surrounded by untidy piles of more cheap and tacky underwear, just like all the other stuff in the drawers.
Sylvie suddenly began to giggle uncontrollably, as she always did when she was nervous. I remembered the Land Rover incident when we first went to see Lorraine. I forced myself to look again and slumped against Sylvie in relief.
‘Jesus, I really thought that was a dead body!’
My heart was still thumping hard against my ribs, but I could now see for sure that the ‘body’ was actually a life-size mannequin and not a decapitated murder victim, as we had initially thought.
I edged forward, knelt by the bed and gently lifted her nightie to see what she had on underneath. It felt like a violation of her privacy, but it had to be done. I wanted to know everything. She was wearing white bloomers, similar to the pink ones lurking in the washing machine, a suspender belt and black fishnet stockings. I refrained from pulling down her bloomers, feeling pretty sure she would have orifices in all the right places. A black, lacy peephole bra held her buxom silicone breasts in place. I pulled down the nightie to preserve what little dignity she had left.
‘That’s gross! Why is there no head, for God’s sake? Christ, Sylvie, this is just horrendous. I can’t believe I was actually married to Daniel for all that time and yet I had no idea who he really was. How the hell could this all have been going on behind my back? How could I not know? How is that possible?’
Suddenly it was too much to handle and I began to sob uncontrollably at the enormity of it all. Tears of anger at all the lies and deceit. Tears of frustration at all the wasted years. Tears of mourning for my babies that would never be. Tears of bitterness at the way I had unknowingly provided a respectable ‘front’ for Daniel to hide behind, only to be tossed aside like rubbish as soon as I was no longer of use.
I thought then that I had reached rock bottom. I thought that was as bad as it could get.
I was wrong.
The worst of times
If you seek to destroy someone’s life with a lie, remember that yours could so easily be destroyed with the truth.
Grace
After the discovery of the ‘body in the bed’ and my subsequent meltdown, we decided to call it a day and get the hell out of 12b Channing Street. That address would haunt me for the rest of my life. Sylvie insisted I went back to the hotel with her for something to eat and, of course, to dissect all of this new information with Adam, Andrew and Melissa.
Adam listened, enthralled, then thumped his fist down hard on the table and laughed out loud.
‘Ha! What did I tell you? I always knew there was something not right about him. What do you reckon Dad?’
Andrew nodded sagely.
‘I’ve always said there are only two things in this world that make you any serious money: drugs and sex. With what you’ve just told me, I think Daniel’s money is coming from the sex industry. My betting is he’s got himself into quite a niche market down there and is doing very nicely thank you. It would certainly explain the wad of cash he always has on him.’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was busy struggling to come to terms with the fact that most of my adult life had been built around an elaborate lie, never mind the fact that my husband was quite possibly making dirty money out of some pervy sex scene he had going on.
‘I don’t know what to think anymore. I still keep thinking about that guy in the key shop near his flat. You know the one who said he thought Daniel was gay? Do you think he’s seen him with other men? There’s that seedy-looking hotel on the corner opposite the shop that looks like it rents rooms by the hour. Maybe Daniel’s been going in there with men. What do you think?’
Adam laughed again.
‘Anything’s possible. Daniel the rent boy in his spare time. Fucking hilarious.’
I was not quite ready to see the funny side of it all.
Sylvie looked at me sympathetically as she spoke.
‘Look, darling, this must be so difficult for you. We’re joking about it, but it’s your actual life.’
She flashed a warning look at her husband and son.
‘I don’t think we need to analyse it all too much tonight. At the end of the day, it takes all sorts in this world. To be honest, I don’t have a problem with him cross-dressing. I actually feel sorry for him if he really is trapped in the wrong body. What I do have a problem with is him lying to you all these years. Using you. Stopping you having children and then having them himself with other women. All that stuff is unforgivable and just plain cruel in my opinion,’ she said gently.
Andrew saw that I was close to tears again and took hold of my hand.
‘She’s right. He’s treated you abysmally and you have to remember you didn’t deserve any of it. None of this is your fault. At the end of the day, he should have just let you go a long time ago so you could get on with your life. Or, at the very least, he should have been honest with you. I have no respect for him at all for the way he has conducted himself. The fact that he is now trying to leave you with nothing financially makes me despise him even more but, at the end of the day, like we keep telling you, it’s time for you to toughen up and stop the tears. It’s time to accept what’s happened and hit back hard. Crying will get you nowhere. He sure as hell doesn’t care about you so you need to box clever now.’
Adam nodded his head in agreement, but he was no longer laughing.
‘I agree with Dad, no more tears. But all joking apart, I think this whole cross-dressing business changes the goalposts. I’m not happy about you being at the house alone with Daniel anymore. Are you absolutely sure he won’t know you’ve been in the flat?’
I thought for a moment before replying.
‘As sure as I can be. I covered my tracks carefully and made sure I replaced everything exactly as I found it. The only slight worry is the alarm. I used the fob from the letting agent to turn it off when I first went in, but I don’t know whether it links somehow to his phone, or if there was a camera on it…I couldn’t see one, but I can’t be certain.’
Adam continued, his face deadly serious, ‘Liam will check that tomorrow. The point I’m making is that Daniel has gone to great lengths to keep this part of his life a secret from you. If he finds out you’ve busted him, there’s no telling what he might do. I’ve told you before, I think the man’s a psychopath. He’s dangerous and he’s unpredictable.’
‘Oh come
on, Adam, ‘psychopath’ is a bit strong isn’t it?’ I said, pulling a face.
‘No, I don’t think it is. Melissa and I were watching this programme on TV the other night called Meet the Psychopaths and it was scary, I’m telling you. There’s apparently no real clinical difference between a sociopath and a psychopath. They both have what you call an Antisocial Personality Disorder. They don’t care who they hurt. They show no empathy towards other people. They constantly lie and deceive others. They feel no guilt; show no remorse…recognise anyone?’
Adam paused to let that sink in before continuing, clearly fascinated by the topic.
‘Apparently, not all psychopaths are violent, but that doesn’t mean they won’t become violent if pushed too far. Seriously, it was a hell of an eye-opener. If you ask me, you need to be very careful from now on. Go home tonight and do your own research. You’ll be shocked.’
‘Christ Adam, you’re really freaking me out. I’m going to be terrified in that house on my own now, never mind when Daniel is there.’
‘Look, sweetheart, I’m not trying to scare you. I just want to be sure you understand what you’re dealing with here. Daniel’s psyche is clearly very complex indeed and I just don’t think you should underestimate how he might react. I mean it. The two main rules are: don’t believe a word he says and watch your back. He has built up this ‘respectable’ version of himself and that’s what he wants people to see. All the other stuff happens behind closed doors and in secret. I’m betting he will do literally anything to protect that secret.’
Later that night I lay in bed in the spare room that I had made my own since the split. I stared at the ceiling, wide awake, mulling over the events of the day that had rocked my world all over again.
Lola lay in her basket on the floor by the bed, snoring loudly. I smiled to myself, thinking that she was almost worse than Daniel. I wondered briefly why, when it was the dog snoring somehow it didn’t matter, but when Daniel started, I immediately had an urge to put a pillow over his face and press down hard until he stopped breathing altogether.
Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1) Page 22