Even despite feeling like this group were now his close friends, something was holding him back from speaking up at the meetings. He'd closed up again. And he hated it.
"I... I want to talk..." he murmured. "I don't know how to make myself do it. I know it helps me. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"There's nothing wrong with you," Mark said at once. "I think a sense of urgency is what helped you open up to us the first time. You were in direct dire danger from Dracula..."
"Great alliteration!" said Trevante, impressed. Mark thanked him.
"Even in dire straits you have a strong sense of privacy," said Mark. "You said it was only a boss and employee relationship at first. It took you a long time to let us know it was a romantic relationship too."
Robert nodded, fingers creeping up to his mouth.
"But I want to talk," he said, frustrated. "It's this bloody sense of privacy that's holding me back. I can't just put myself in dire straits to make myself open up again."
He sighed, chewing at his nails.
"Even my inner monologue is coy," he admitted. "I like to pretend I'm in a movie narrating to an audience sometimes..."
"Oh like "you're probably wondering how I got here?"' said Caitlyn with a smile. "I do that too!"
Robert tried to smile at her, but just ended up looking nauseated.
"I don't even admit my full relationship with Dracula to my imaginary audience," said Robert. "It's all subtext. I bet if they really existed they'd be super frustrated with me. Wanting me to just be upfront with it instead of dropping little hints and innuendos."
"I wouldn't be frustrated with you," said Caitlyn.
"Me neither," piped up Carol.
"I bet the audience would love you to bits," said Bob.
Mark pondered Robert's conundrum before suggesting;
"Perhaps it would help to write things down? Then read it out to us?"
Robert thought about it. Then he nodded with a tiny smile. He'd been so annoyed with himself for clamming up at therapy again. This was a great solution.
"I see that smile again!" Mark said encouragingly. Robert grinned wider. It'd been a great session.
Back home he finds he can't write at a desk. It's only when he curls up in bed under the blankets with his notepad that he finds the words. He's not sure the meaning behind that. Perhaps writing at a desk felt too formal like being at the office working as a lawyer again.
"As a child I was called delicate. Not all there. Easily upset. Very pious, praying to god to protect my mummy and brother and sister and Bobo (my childhood nickname) and the cat, keep them safe, promising I'll be good and not disobey so that god would be happy with me. Around the village, my older siblings had a reputation of being boisterous and full of vim and vigor. But little Bobo was shy, prone to hiding behind his mother's skirt and crying easily.
As an adult in the asylum, I was merely called a madman.
Nowadays I wonder what my untreated mental illness or illnesses may be. I'm fairly certain I have a panic disorder. The browsing on the internet about it was eerily accurate. Even down to trying to avoid situations that caused panic. My bout of agoraphobia in the 70s came to mind. Doing everything I could to avoid hunting properly, despite Dracula's anger. But what causes my excessive panic is what confuses me.
Dr. Seward had thought me deluded, was fascinated by my thoughts of insects giving me strength. Yet, it hadn't been a mere fancy. Dracula had given me power through consumption of insects. I wouldn't have been able to fight so many burly orderlies, breaking limbs tearing through bars, bashing down doors without the bugs. Seward had merely noted my having an unusual strength but didn't ever seem to find it supernatural.
During my peaks of panic though I did I was having I had delusions..."
"No darling," his voice in his mind, exasperation mixed with fondness. "Give it to me."
Robert stops. A memory has attacked him. Something he doesn't want to share with the group. Too private. He tries to push on, ignore it.
"I can't remember a lot of the 1930s and 1940s, when I was recovering from the asylum. I thought back then that Master was patient, Master was kind, Master nursed me back to stability. Anyone else would get sick of me. Sick of my ridiculous behaviour. Have me committed immediately. Only Master cares.
Even today I'm scared. Scared that no one else will care for me if I ever got bad again. Care for me like he did. When I was the way I was."
He has to pause. The memory was taking over his mind. Demanding his attention.
Master had been taking him on hunts. If he's left alone in the lair he becomes inconsolable. Holding onto his cape, in fits of fearful screaming.
"Don't leamme 'gain massstaa pleasepleaseplease don't leamme 'gain!"
"Alright sweet boy," he said half smiling. "You can come along with Daddy. Don't fret."
Robert's handwriting has gotten shakier, chicken scratch across the page. He feels his heart in his throat and a tightness in his chest and a wetness begin to prickle at his eyes.
"I was convinced whenever he left that he wouldn't come back. Leave me to rot like he did in the asylum. Those early days I asked over and over; why did you leave me in that hell? I thought you loved me? If you loved me why did you leave me there?
He brainwashed me to believe that I was the one in the wrong. He had always been planning to come fetch me. But my lack of faith was a betrayal. Just me worrying that I'd been abandoned had broken his heart. So he had to leave me there longer as a punishment.
Master had been at his most soft, his own version of gentle during the years of recovery. It wasn't exactly kindness. Very infantilizing and condescending. It was completely f*cked when I look back at it. He treated me like I was his child. But it was still still a BDS it was a kink it was a extremely sexual it was a very physically intimate relationship even at the peak of my instability. God I can see all your cringing faces now! That's just our relationship in a nutshell though, isn't it? Completely sleazy and f*cked.
Still I did love him being so gentle with me. When I became more stable, that side of him waned."
Robert was almost shocked when he saw the teardrops spatter over the paper. Frustrated with himself, he brushed them away. But they came down strong, hitchy painful breaths escaping him, from deep down in his chest.
Dracula loved him a crying mess so much. Robert thinks of the leather folder of drawings he now has stored in his bedside table. A collection of drawings he'd never known Dracula had created of him. There's only one of him not crying. Most of them looking like drawings from a p*rno mag. In various stages of undress, in bed, collared and muzzled and leashed and cuffed and bound and bleeding and bruised.
The ink of his pen runs down the damp paper as he presses on with his writing.
"I remember he used to beckon me into his arms and use his fingers to catch my tears, wiping them away."
The first house they find with a welcome mat on that hunt from his memory, Dracula cleans through. Mother, father, ten-year old son, seven year old daughter slaughtered. But he finds Renfield curled up in the nursery, cradling an infant in his arms. The child looks like they've recently been crying, damp eyed, wet nappy, sucking their thumb. Has been soothed though by Renfield's rocking and cooing.
"...keep her..." he murmured. "... Lillian..."
"No darling," said Dracula in a soft patronizing tone. "Give it to me."
Fresh tears roll down his cheeks. He clutched the child closer.
"Please don't hurt my Lilly..." he begged.
"I'm going to leave her on the neighbour's doorstep," Dracula said, reaching with his sharp talon like claws. "Ring the doorbell and let them find her."
Renfield clenched his eyes shut and sobbed. Baby began to fuss too, distressed by his mood. He stroked her hair, trying to keep the tears back so not to upset her. Dracula pried the baby away. The baby stared with wide-eyed wonder at his master, looking as though she didn't know whether to be afraid or fascinated. Little hands curled around one of master's ringed fingers holding on tightly. Dracula rocked the baby, making shushing noises. A swell of something hot and primal blossomed in Renfield's belly at the sight of it.
"Our Lilly?" Renfield had said in a tiny hopeful voice. "Our baby?"
"No darling," he said again. "It doesn't belong to us."
He exited the nursery still rocking the awestruck child in his arms.
He never knew if Dracula really did give her away. Or if he ate her the second he was out of Renfield's sight.
Robert continues to the next page. Needs to get this out despite how f*cking hard it was. The writing is hurried, rushed. Word vomit.
"'You were coddled, Dracula would tell me. "'I can see your mind, darling. Never received any real discipline. It made you feeble-minded. Discipline helps you behave.'"
"I'd been the youngest child of a widow, hadn't known my father. Dracula also psychoanalyzed that aspect of me, a missing father. Said it explained a lot about me, with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows.
My memories of my mother were all cosy blankets and cooing lullabies and comfort. Had that really made me the way I was? Seems...unlikely. Seemed...ridiculous. That a mother who was a bit of a soft touch, created me, prone to fits of extreme panic and delusions and agoraphobia. I never remembered her being any different with my older siblings. My mother was overly doting with all three of her children, yet created two bold, brassy kids and one frail, fragile one.
My father then. I knew what Dracula loved to jeeringly hint at. No father growing up, so I went looking for a daddy to take care of me. Alright so that was most likely true. Ugh. Can just see the grossed out looks. Yet it didn't explain everything else about me. Again, my older siblings were fine, didn't show signs during childhood of mental distress like I did despite us all missing a father. You might say well I was the youngest and never knew my father while my siblings did. But we were very close in age. I was a newborn, and they were two and three years old when my Dad died. Only my sister had the vaguest memories of him. Barely remembered him though.
Was there some horrid repressed trauma?
God. Who knows. Yet my mother always said I'd been a baby that was hard to settle, a toddler easily afraid and nervous. I got the impression that I'd just always been like this. Since I was a baby.
Just...made different. For no reason.
The world was large, frightening, noisy, unpredictable. I crave a sense of safety. Of everything being calm and nice and easy. Why Dracula then, who was larger than life, frightening, unpredictable, unsafe, wild, cruel and hard? Well Dracula was protective. Dracula took care of me. Dracula gave me a life where only an easy set of chores andgreat sex other pleasantries was expected from me. I could stay in a safe soft cosy bubble. Didn't have to go out into the world except on the rare occasion master couldn't hunt. My life with him was a reliable unchanging nice structured ritual.
It was also a life of being demeaned and beaten and of death and decay and evil. But I convinced myself that well the fact he took care of me and gave me the life I wanted outweighed everything else. It made the abuse something to grin and bear. That being with a dangerous wolf that used me as a personal punching bag was better than facing the real world where everything was so overwhelming and difficult and lonely.
I've seen the light now. That I had a third option all along. That I can be in the terrifying world with friends, and we can help each other navigate it together. I do often want to run and hide in the bubble again. But being in the bubble came with a price that I don't want to pay anymore."
He puts the pen down, shuts the notebook. Suddenly exhausted. Needs to sleep for a hundred years. Rip Van Winkle. He gets dressed with shaky tired hands into his cosiest pajamas that Rebecca bought him for Christmas, red with black spots that he loves because he thinks it makes him look like a ladybug. Goes to sleep the second his head hits the pillow.
The next few therapy sessions Mark asks if he'd like to read from his notebook. His throat closes up. He shakes his head. Ashamed of himself. Caitlyn gently offers to read it aloud for him. It feels easier then doing it himself. So on the third therapy session after writing out his feelings, Caitlyn reads it to the group. It's embarrassing when Caitlyn gets to the slightly x rated moments. He feels himself begin to cry. Bob offers him a hanky and Trevante asks if he'd like a hug. His arm around his shoulder is immensely comforting.
At the end Mark smiles at him. Robert can't look at anyone, fingers ripping holes in his pant knee, dried tear tracks down his face.
"That was so brave of you Robert," he said and there were murmurs of agreement and then clapping from the group. It makes s fresh wave of emotion crash over him. Wipes at his eyes with the hanky. Trevante squeezes his shoulders.
"Would you be open to a discussion with the group about what you've written?" Mark asks. "It's very okay if you're not. This has been a lot for you."
Robert quietly affirms he's okay with talking about it.
"Do you think you could maybe have autism?" suggests Carol.
Autism?
"I thought...you had to be like... I don't want to be...offensive or anything...but like...very intelligent in one field like..."
He trails off awkwardly.
"No you're not being offensive Robert, Mark reassured him. "For a lot of us our only representation of autism we've seen is in media like Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper. It gives you the impression that autism is exclusively antisocial boys who like trains and math. It's a much broader spectrum then that."
"I don't think I have...any special interests or stims," he said, still picking at a thread at the knee of his pants with one hand and chewing on the nails of his other.
"What's your favourite bug, Robbie," asked Caitlyn. He brightened up immediately.
"Oh that's tough, I go between a rosy maple moth they're got the most pretty colours you've ever seen they look just cute and fluffy and adorable I actually learned to crochet because I couldn't find plush toy moths and wanted one of my own. They're all the rage now just not back in my day. But then like I haven't met a dragonfly I haven't loved...butterflies are so overrated they get all the attention...but if I were a bug I'd definitely be a bee, I mean... I was basically a worker bee for the Queen Bee for a hundred years... God, one time he heard me think that and threw me down a flight of stairs... I don't know why he was insulted? Being the Queen Bee is magical? I just don't understand him sometimes..."
Mark smiled at Robert suddenly paused in mid-rant. Dawning realization going through him.
"You might have thought for it to be a special interest, you have to be an expert on the subject," he said. "The definition I most often see is that's it's more of an intense and passionate focus and fixation on a subject..."
"Isn't everyone like that with their interests though?" Robert asked then flushed. "Sorry for interrupting."
"That's alright," said Mark. "This isn't an area I've studied so my knowledge is limited. I don't want to give you the wrong information...
"I'm a teacher of autistic children," Sharon pipes up. "But I wouldn't want to apply how I've seen autistic children behave to an adult. Special interests for neurodivergent children tend to be much more absorbing and intense in my experience. A little girl in my class only ever wants to talk about movies from the 1930s. She wants to learn everything she can about it. She'd be fascinated with you, Robert since you were alive in the 30s and a film from the 30s had a fictionalized version of you in it."
"Not that fictionalized," Robert admitted. The 1930s Dracula film was eerily accurate. So accurate he couldn't bear to watch it.
"Well these are just our impressions of course, Mark said. "I'm not personally qualified to make a diagnosis. It might be something you'd like to look into though."
"But don't feel like you need to get diagnosed," said Carol. "Self diagnose is like...totally valid."
"I don't think.... I trust my own judgement. I'd only believe I had something if a professional told me."
"That's very fair as well," said Mark.
"But I think it might explain a lot," weighed in Sharon. "At the school I teach at we work on helping the kids with coping mechanisms and recognizing their triggers that can lead to meltdowns. If you are on the spectrum you've never been taught that."
"Those moments of extreme panic could perhaps be autistic meltdowns from over stimulation," Mark suggested. "Food for thought."
Robert thought of the massive freak out that led to him being committed to the asylum. He and Dracula went on the Demeter fine and stable. Yet the days and nights trapped on a constantly moving stinking noisy ship with no reprieve no way out...it did sound a lot like he'd been overstimulated.
At home, he pulls his kitten patterned blanket over his head, plunging into warm, comforting darkness, squeezing his homemade plush moth under his chin. He didn't want to research it all right now. It had been a big day and his brain was tired. Needed desperately to rest and recover. Tomorrow perhaps.
Times like this he missed his favourite comforter. A long nailed hand in his hair scratching slightly too hard at the scalp the sensation intensely pleasurable. Low accented drawl in his ear. Smell of expensive cologne and the underlying stench ofcopper blood. Firm muscular body against his back and snakelike arms wrapped around him tight. How the thick black hair on his arms and torso and his cold skin felt against him.
He still couldn't admit to the group how badly he yearned for his monster. They'd be disgusted with him if they knew.
Just like how he was disgusted with himself.
