Descriptions of horrible (horrific) scenes - you have been warned.

When Vince came around, he was lying on the sofa with Kath knelt next to him fanning his face gently with a magazine.

"Oh thank god." she cried, flinging her arms around his neck as his eyes fluttered open.

"Wha- what happened?" he croaked. He felt weak and exhausted.

"You fainted." she said. "You came in here, staggering and tripping all over the place, then you threw up and fainted."

Vince nodded. He remembered. For the first time in so many years, he remembered everything.

"Are you okay?" she asked. He nodded again and asked for a glass of water.

Vince sat up and sipped his drink carefully. Then, and only then, he spotted the glint of anger in his girlfriend's eyes.

"Well?" Kath said a little accusatorily "What happened? Are you drunk? On drugs? Ill? What?"

"I…" Vince stopped. He didn't know where to begin but now that he remembered, this whole situation was unfair on both of them. He had to tell her the truth. He had to try and explain but if he was honest, it still didn't make sense to him.

"What Vince?" begged Kath, cupping his cheek gently, "Please, tell me!"

"I'm… I'm… I mean I think I'm…" Vince knew there were tears streaming down his face.

"What? Vince. What is it? Sweetheart, you're scaring me. It can't be that bad. Are you… You're not… Are you dying?"

"No. I'm… I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I think I'm gay!" Vince blurted out. He clasped a hand over his mouth. Even as the words escaped his lips, he was willing them back inside. He closed his eyes and the tears flooded down his cheeks. He was waiting for a slap. He'd deserve it for leading Kath on all this time, for messing with her emotions. He certainly wouldn't blame her.

But she didn't slap him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him close.

"It's okay." she whispered soothingly, over and over. "It's okay."

Vince sobbed hysterically into her shoulder, shaking furiously between every shuddering breath.

"What's wrong?" Kath asked gently pushing him back so she could see his face, "Why are you crying like this?"

"It's not right. I shouldn't feel like this. I was cured of this!" Anger evident in his voice as it waverd tearfully.

"Cured of what?"

"This disease."

"Being gay's not a disease. It's just the way some people are." she reassured him, stroking his arm gently.

"But I was cured!" Vince shouted, pushing Kath away roughly so she fell awkwardly to the floor. He looked down at her, as if seeing her for the first time. "Sorry." he muttered in a barely audible whisper.

"What d'you mean 'cured'?" she asked, confused and hurt by the way Vince was acting. He'd stopped crying now, though unshed tears still shone in his unblinking eyes as he stared blankly at a spot on the floor. His voice, when he spoke, was distant and unemotional; his face expressionless.

"I went to a place. A special 'school' to cure me of my mental disease." Kath opened her mouth to object that being gay wasn't a mental disease but she suspected Vince wouldn't really hear her so she closed it again. "They took us in, boys like me. They fixed us."

"Fix you… how?" Kath asked.

"They'd sit us in these steal baths and force us to listen, to watch… men fellating men. Men practising sodomy. They'd make us watch. Everywhere you looked. It's all you saw and heard. They'd give us drugs to make us lose control over our bodily functions. Defecating, urinating, vomiting. We couldn't stop. I couldn't stop." Vince's voice was a steady monotone and that's what upset Kath the most. She squeezed his arm affectionately but he neither acknowledged, nor felt the gesture.

"I couldn't escape." he continued. "I was too weak and they didn't help, wouldn't help. They just left me in a bath of my own faeces, my own vomit. Uncontrollable bowel spasms. The pain. The smell. They left me there. I was helpless, unable to move for three days at a time. They wouldn't let me eat; just sips of water when I was on the brink of dehydration. It was just vomiting and defecating and watching, for every second of every minute of every hour for seventy-two hours. Over and over. I couldn't sleep, the pain stopped me. So weak, barely alive, wishing I was dead." he paused. He didn't move, just waited. If he could see Kath's tears streaming down her face, he ignored them.

"We'd have a few days off." he said, "Just enough so that we didn't die. They'd fill us up with food, so we'd have something to throw up during our next 'treatment session'. They'd let me paint during that time off. Suggested that I paint the people who meant the most to me. I painted Howard."

Kath nodded. She understood.

"It was the best painting I've ever done. His face was exactly right. The shine of his eyes, the curve of his nose the contours of his lips. He looked… perfect." He paused again. There were tears shining in his eyes now, threatening to spill down his cheeks. The first sign of emotion since he began to recall his ordeal. "They burnt that picture." he said, in the same eerily calm voice. "Sat me in the bath. Gave me the drugs, let me vomit and shit myself halfway to hell as I watched my best painting of my best friend, of the boy I loved, going up in smoke. I tried to stop it. I tired to reach out. I even managed to get to my feet. So this tall, ugly man punched me. I think you asked once how I got my nose broken, that's how. I was so pathetic by that stage, he knocked me unconscious." Vince continued, without pause. "I nearly drowned in my own vomit and shit. Reckon they'd have let me die too, if my dad hadn't been a vicar. Just one less mentally ill faggot for the world to put up with."

"Oh Vince." Kath cried, throwing her arms around him and holding him tight. "How could anyone do that to you? How could they do that to anyone? You were just a boy." she sobbed into his shoulder. "You were just a boy." He sat; stiff and unmoving, like ice. "I'm so sorry you had to go through that Vince." she wept. "I'm so, so sorry."

Sorry it's short... I litterally couldn't write/ check/ proof read anymore than this without putting myself in a really crap/ furious mood! Next chap will be longer, I promise!
Thanks for reading!
xx

p.s: I based Kath's reaction on a programme i accidently found myself watching the other day about the reactions of the wives who find out their husbands are gay. The majority of them were supportive - good on 'em, I say!