You know that horrible feeling of humiliation you get when someone you make fun of turns out to be disabled and you didn't know? You know, like, someone wearing shades or something, walks into you and you turn round and snap "are you BLIND!" to which they reply "Yes" and pull down the shades, revealing the sightless eyes.

That was how I felt when I saw his face.

I didn't pity him nor did I feel sorry for him; I was more annoyed with myself for being so harsh. Sure, it is unlike me to regret being mean to someone (the world I know had never been kind to me).

It just felt like something clicked within me, like a sort of 'Aha' moment when everything becomes clearer.

His face was road-kill, there was no two ways about it.

Which, for me, was why he must be so absolutely bonkers. He'd lived with a face like that hadn't he? He'd no doubt made himself a recluse, fallen in with some fellow weirdo's and there you have it. The ingredients for a nutter. No wonder he was trying to make me believe I was his dead girlfriend.

I had the opposite problem, in a manner of speaking.

I had a very pretty face (apparently) and attracted hatred from everyone for it, hence why I wanted to live no longer.

Could it be that I had found someone who would understand?

No. I couldn't have cared less – so what if he had a sob-story that could no doubt rival my own? So what if he perhaps had an inkling of what I had gone through? It didn't make me drop a beat in my campaign to run away from life and towards death.

I'm rambling on now aren't I and you're getting bored already because I haven't stayed with the story and given you the full description of his terrible face.

Far be it for me to disappoint, I'll continue.

From the opposite end of the table I saw... I'm not even sure to this day how to describe it. It looked more terrible that first time, more than it has since. I just gawped, slack jawed and staring at him. I think he sensed he'd gotten through to me, because this repulsive smile stretched across his rotten flesh.

He stood slowly and reverently and within seconds had slipped to my side and was down on his knee's before me, his horrible face inches away from my own.

You must have guessed from what I've revealed so far that I am cynical, but it never occurred to me then to think that what I was looking at was stage craft or make up. I mean, well, how do you fake not having a nose?

He eyed me curiously for a few moments, his mouth still twisted in a terrible smile.

I should attempt a physical description shouldn't I? I am taking stock at the end of the day and detailing my foe is no doubt a very good move.

He had thick black hair, swept back beautifully, but where his hair line joined his forehead, there was a yellowy parchment type skin stretched down thinly over his face. The face itself was twisted here and there in what looked to be a painful mêlée of scrunched and taught flesh.

The long black holes that served as a nose were pulled back at the bridge in yellow rumples, making it appear like he had a snout. The lower lid of his left eye was pulled down showing pale pink veins below the eyeball.

His skin was impossible, as I think I might have already said. It was too tight and thin on his cheeks, making them gaunt and hollow. Then the flesh on his 'nose', as I've already said, was too ample and pulled back. The flesh over his right eye was white like a scar and dug in so deep it was as though the whiteness of it was the bone beneath instead.

His skin was cracked and ragged round the edges, especially around his mouth and the holes where his nose should have been. The colour of the ripped looking skin around his nasal cavity was a sort of blue-brown colour as though it was dying.

Then there were his eyes.

Those great gold orbs that looked like he'd had them transplanted from a wild animal. They looked too big for his head, but, in an odd way, fitted into his face.

His lips were long and black, with wrinkled, jagged skin all around them.

To be honest, he looked like he'd been decomposing for years.

This close up, without his mask, I could smell him.

He smelled like he'd been using large quantities of Formaldehyde and other mortician favoured preservatives. He looked like death and smelled like it too.

Then he spoke, curling back those lips and showing milky white teeth and a tongue of the same colour to match.

"So I see you are lost for words? What? No witty retort? No sarcastic remark? Since bringing you back here, I was forgetting what silence was without your diatribe slicing through me".

He glared at me with those huge, terrible eyes.

What reaction had he been expecting from me, other than me laughing at him? As I've said before, I'm a damaged person, not a bad one.

"Couldn't the Doctor's help you?" I said quietly, eyeing him sadly for a moment.

I heard his breath catch in his throat and his glare weaken.

"No" he said finally, but not evening blinking at me.

"Oh right. So, I guess you've been sent round the twist by having a face like that then, huh?"

He stayed quiet, observing me.

"Well, listen fella, I am very sad for you. They always say that there is always someone worse off than yourself and I think that you are probably it when it comes to me. But, listen, I'll level with you, I am not afraid or repelled by you. I am at the point in my short, pointless life, where I don't care to live much longer. So there is nothing you can throw at me that is going to scare me, hurt me or change me. I have had all the fear and horror most people experience in a life time thrown at me in under twenty years."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, closing my eyes.

Perhaps I had gone about things the wrong way. Maybe if I had just told him where I was with things, then he would have just stopped messing about and gotten on with it. I think I had spent so much of my time on the farm being cutting and sarcastic as a defence mechanism, that I had forgotten that there were times when you could calmly reason with people.

I waited for him to respond, my head lying uncomfortably against the hard wooden back of my chair. It reminded me of what I was to face if I was put into a coffin and how comfortable that felt.

He wound his long, cold, bony fingers around my forearm, prompting me to open my eyes and turn my head towards him.

"I understand" he said in a low voice "Do you expect me to harm you or kill you? I must therefore disappoint. It is one thing I cannot grant you. I realise all of this is so much for you to take in and I know that I cannot expect you to believe any of it. Nor can I expect that the damage done to you by the world you have come to know as home will make this easy".

His voice wrapped around me like a velvet cloak and I leaned a little further forwards.

"I will help you remember who you are, or rather, who you were" he continued, raising a hand to my face and cupping my cheek.

Something in my hardened, shell of a heart tugged as he said that and I clenched my teeth with disgust at myself. I must have been tired, yeah, that had to be what it was. Tiredness.

"I will become less repellent in time" he said, raising his tall, willowy frame to a standing position.

"First, we must dine" he said, striding back to his own seat and sitting down gently.

My mind was sifting through stacks of possible comebacks or remarks, but I couldn't think of anything. I had to regain the upper hand. Was it my pity (and don't forget tiredness) that he'd seen and seized on? I have never cared about another human being in my life, they had never given me cause to. Yet why this unfamiliar tug?

I hated how some nutter I knew nothing about had somehow meddled with my mind.

I think that was another of his tricks though.

Before I had more time to carry on thinking, I was interrupted.

The door at the far corner, near where he was sat, softly swung open, admitting a funeral party.

That is how I always think of them now, the 'Funeral Party'.

They are his servants, but they are dressed in deep mourning and always have every single inch of flesh covered by fabric to the point that you cannot see their hands or faces.

The first one to enter was short, wearing a long black dress that skimmed the floor. She wore thick black gloves and a wide brimmed black hat with a thick black veil hanging over the top of it, like a bee-keeper.

She was carrying a little silver plate with a silver lid on top, the type you saw at a classy restaurant.

A slightly taller and skinnier woman followed her, wearing almost the exact same outfit. This time, she wore a bonnet, like those you would find in a Jane Austin adaptation. The same thick black veil covered her features.

The shorter woman who had bustled in first, headed for me and placed the plate gently in front of me, then stood at the side of the table, as the taller woman placed her plate in front of Weirdo. She then joined the other woman and they stood side by side, heads down and hands clasped in front of them, as though they were at a grave side watching a coffin of a loved one being lowered. I stared at them, half expecting one of them to produce a white tissue so they could dab at the eyes.

Weirdo raised a hand without looking at them and they then turned and left the room.

"Who the hell are they?" I said, still watching the door.

He shrugged, "my staff".

"Where they involved in my kidnap?" I asked, leaning forwards and looking at him over the top of the silver dome in front of me.

"Why is that important Christine?" he snapped "Just eat your food".

He pulled off the lid and set it beside him, revealing what looked like bits of chicken (what I presumed to be chicken) and some other ominous looking substance that I took to be risotto.

I lifted mine, a scowl already firmly placed on my face as I had already stated that I was happy to starve if he didn't kill me.

Underneath I saw a bowl of pasta, covered in a sweet smelling tomato sauce. It was my favourite meal. I usually ate little and ate badly at the farm, but on the very, very rare occasions when the house was empty and I could sneak into the kitchen, I would always make this for myself.

There were lines drawn on all of the tubs and jars in the huge, modern kitchen there, so I would try and boost the contents back to the line again with water or paper. They usually found out about it though and I would be beaten so badly that I couldn't walk for a few days, but honestly, it was always worth it.

Things at home had been getting worse and worse, I can't deny that, even now.

I wanted to leave home and start up by myself, but it might have caused my father problems if the way I was treated got out to the public. So the best way of keeping me under his control had been to tell people I was disabled and I was being 'cared for'.

I was locked away when I was not working and I when I was made to sleep rough, he had a camera on me so I didn't run away.

That's not taking stock now is it? There's probably camera's on me right now isn't there? He's probably watching me.

But this is all on my terms now and I am not going to give in. Never.

I looked at the food and put the lid back over. The pain of living was outweighing the pain of hunger, so I defiantly slid the plate forwards and folded my arms.

"I will not say that the food is not to your liking, my dear, as I know it is. I think you are reverting to stubbornness. Very well. But you will be disappointed with your starvation campaign. Very disappointed".

I could tell he was mocking me, sat there with his terrible head, pushing bits of food round his plate with that crooked smile still lingering there.

"We'll see" I muttered, picking up the blunt knife from my place setting and tracing the white lines on the back of my left arm.

I think he was watching me, I can't tell. I've come to the conclusion that he is always watching me and I can't say I'm bothered by it.

A few minutes later and we had both come to the conclusion that no-one was eating. He cleared his throat, making me look at him.

"What?" I said with annoyance.

"Christine, you should sleep, in a proper bed this time I think"

"Oh, how very thoughtful of you"

"Please do not be like this my love, it pains me to hear you so angry all of the time"

"Do I look bothered about what you like and dislike mate?"

He paused, blinking his crepe yellow eye lids.

"Some things I can see I am going to have to do without your cooperation. No matter. You will thank me in the end, darling. We have a very, very long time for things to –" he paused again, searching for the right words "work themselves out between us".

He stood and walked over to me again, plucking the knife out of my hand and setting it down on the table.

Did he punch me in the face? There was a swift sort of blast to it, to my forehead I think, making me blink.

The next time I opened them, which from my perspective, was the other side of the blink, I was in bed in the 'Gothic Bedroom' and he was in it with me.