Jacob’s first full day, in care, at Greenford House, and Marcus enters into his life.
My body ached, the rawness between my legs from the douching, the sting of shaved skin, the bruises blooming purple across ribs and jaw from the police. Lying naked under a thin hospital gown, wrists cuffed loosely to the bed rails, the plastic band on my arm a constant reminder: JAYDEN CONNER. GH-4729. My mind auditing events for clarity, piecing together the nightmare: the bar, Dr. Zim's flat, the chav clothes, what must have been a drugged drink, the cops' fists and cocks, the van's humiliation, the invasive probes at reception. ‘But I'm Jacob not Jayden. This ends today. I'll tell them everything.’
An orderly came in. He let me drink a beaker of water, with a special tube so it wouldn’t spill. Then he spoon fed me what might have been baby food. After a rub with a damp flannel he loosened the cuffs, and with his careful grip firm on my arm, he slowly walked me down a corridor. 'Morning consult with your doc Jayden,' and directed me into a small office. There he was, Dr. Zim, impeccable in a suit. He looked up with a practiced smile, warm but clinical, as if greeting an old patient.
'Ah, Jayden. Good to see you settled in. Take a seat.' Dr. Zim's voice was smooth, paternal, laced with that upper-class polish that always made me feel not quite good enough. No acknowledgment of the real Jacob, just the seamless slide into the fictional Jayden. The orderly positioned me gently into the empty chair and stepped out, the door clicking shut.
'Dr. Zim, please, this is insane. I'm Jacob Ellis. You know that. The banker from the bar. You must have drugged me, set this up.’
'Jayden, let's not start with delusions. We've been over this. You're safe here at Greenford House, and I'm going to help you see things clearly.' He tapped a key on his laptop where a screen was displaying a digital file header: PATIENT: JAYDEN CONNER. CASE NOTES - CONFIDENTIAL. He turned it so we could both see the screen. Pages of scans and reports scrolled into view: birth records, social services logs, medical histories, all forged with meticulous detail, timestamps backdated years.
'Take a look, Jayden. This is your life, all fully documented. Born in a council flat in Dagenham to a mother who couldn't cope, drug and alcohol addiction related, her in and out of prison. You bounced through care homes until age four, when the Whitakers took you in. Nice middle-class family in Buckhurst Hill. That's where your manners come from I assume, that polished accent. They gave you stability, a good school, until things unraveled at fifteen, reasons unknown.’ Dr. Zim leaned back, folding his hands, his gaze never wavering. ‘Running away, a relationship with an older male escort who went by the trade name ’Darius’. That escalated into male prostitution and associated substance abuse by sixteen: largely marijuana and mephedrone. That landed you in A&E on at least two occasions. I could go on, but you know all this Jayden, it’s surely more than familiar to you.’
I remember staring at the screen. Photos appeared—blurry mugshots of a younger man who could pass for me, tattoos on his arms, cautions, arrest records for theft.
‘No. This isn't me.'
'Prostitution came along side, Jayden, working for Darius to earn your keep, from what the reports say. We also read of self-harm episodes too: self-cuts on your arms, most likely for attention. By your late teens your mental health deteriorated significantly. Diagnoses pile up: borderline personality, substance-induced psychosis. You've been in and out of Havering House since the age of 19. And now this latest delusion: insisting you're a junior banker in the City, Jacob Ellis. Someone you met on a job, perhaps? Or a client who paid extra for role-play? It's common enough in your profile, latching onto fantasies to escape the harsh reality of who you are.'
The screen showed therapy notes, 'Jayden's repeated fixation on a professional, middle-class identity as a coping mechanism,' signed by Dr. Zim himself. My vision blurred with rage at this point. This was the file from before, the one Dr. Zim had shown me in the apartment, but amplified, every detail weaponised to bury me.
'You bastard! This is all fake! You created this to..to break me, like that declassing shit we talked about. But it's gone too far! I'm calling the police, my flatmate..’
Dr. Zim's expression didn't flicker. He pressed the discreet red button under his desk, the one I now know is hidden in the wood grain of every consulting room desk in Greenford House. An alarm will have chimed softly in the corridor, inaudible in the room.
'Jayden, sit down. You're agitating yourself into another episode.'
'Fuck you! I'm not your patient.’
The door burst open, four men, nurses and orderlies piling in, big men in white uniforms. The lead one, a big guy with a buzzcut, caught my arm mid-swing, twisting it behind my back. 'Easy, mate. Doc's orders.' That was Marcus. The first time we saw each other. He has told me this story, many times. He always tells me first he noticed how short I was. Well, that’s not changed.
I remember another orderly grabbed my other wrist, pinning me face-down on the desk. I thrashed and struggled, kicking out, but the third orderly hooked my legs, lifting them off the floor while the fourth held my head steady, a knee in my spine. All very professional, nobody getting hurt, not even me.
'Chemical restraint protocol,' Dr. Zim said evenly. 'He's escalating, delusional outburst.'
Marcus nodded, pulling a pre-loaded syringe from his belt pouch, 10mg of haloperidol mixed with 5mg lorazepam, the standard 'chemical cosh' cocktail for violent psychotics. Thick liquid, fast-acting to sedate muscles and shatter aggression. He jabbed it into my thigh through the gown, the needle biting deep.
‘No, get off me!'
They held me immobile as it hit: lorazepam first, a wave crashing over my brain, turning anger to nothing. My limbs went heavy, struggles weakening to twitches. Haloperidol followed, locking my muscles in a numb vice, jaw slackening, eyes glazing. I eventually became familiar with this ritual.
'All done,' Marcus said, easing off as I slumped back into his arms. Dr. Zim nodded approval. 'Back to the ward, gentlemen. We'll try again tomorrow, Jayden. Rest now.’
Jacob Ellis is physically transformed into Jayden Conner
Marcus told me all about this later, many years later. What happened to my body. He explained that Dr Zim had said it had to be done, or else I’d have never been cured, come to my right mind. They all believed in Dr Zim, most people still do. At Greenford House they believed his version of my history, his diagnosis of my problem and that his radical methods would cure me. Marcus admired Dr Zim back then, saw the proof of his genius, time after time. In my case Marcus believed he was witness to a complete cure, a man brought back to himself, to sanity, to Jayden. For years there was no point in me trying to argue with that deeply held conviction. Besides it would only have upset him. He would have felt like I was becoming delusional again. The truth of the matter, well that was too challenging for anyone, including me. All except Dr Zim of course, so for years I let it be.
Dr. Zim is in conference with the two men seated before him: Marcus and Arien. Marcus a big man, slightly dark features, late thirties. Arien slimmer and younger, mid-twenties, with sharp features and a perpetual smirk that hinted at his eagerness to please. Both had worked under Zim for years, loyal to his unorthodox methods, their pay fattened by discretion bonuses.
‘Gentlemen, I've secured the official close supervision order, 28 days of uninterrupted access. No visitors, no external reviews until then. Our volunteer for medical research, Jayden Conner, is mine to cure, our task is to dissolve his fantasy City banker persona and bring him back to being just plain ordinary Jayden. You’ve both read the files, and the process we've built is airtight enough, but to assist we need to bring the authentic Jayden into the physical world in a more robust and permanent way, one the mind will find it hard to argue with. When he wakes, every mirror, every touch, must scream Jayden back at him. The physical reality must reinforce the authentic persona. It is extreme I know, but evidence from research in other countries shows this will work. It’s an opportunity for the mind to align fully with the truth of the body it finds itself in.’
Marcus nodded, cracking his knuckles. 'The scars, the ink, the nipples, the piercings are straightforward, Doc. We can do the first of those under sedation today. The tattooist is on his way now, the cosmetic specialist for the anus, and the dentist for the mouth work, on Monday.’
'Precisely,' Zim replied, pulling up a digital mock-up on his screen, a side-by-side of the current and the ‘enhanced’ Jayden profile photos, altered to match. 'Start with the arms: bilateral self-harm scars. These must be fresh enough to look like relapses from his last Havering stint. Use the scarring tool, superficial cuts healed with silicone injections for texture, irregular lines on the inner forearms and wrists, like desperate nights with a razor.'
Arien leaned in, 'and the tattoos?'
Zim zoomed the image. ‘Exactly as per the files, upper left shoulder: 'Jayden 2001' in bold script, Pisces symbol woven in, his 'birth sign' from the file. Professional work, but not too clean; add some shading bleed for age. Then the crude ones: a poorly done skull on the right bicep, 'No Regrets' scrawled across the left forearm.
'The earrings next?' Marcus asked, jotting notes.
'Flesh tunnels, 12-gauge in both lobes, black acrylic to start. Keep them stretched daily with tapers. By day 28, he'll be at 8-gauge, healed enough to tug without bleeding but tender if he fights it. Jayden's a street kid; those holes reinforce the reality of his social status.
His haircut, the head is all shaved now, but as it grows back, buzz it short on the sides, fade up to a messy top, dyed ash blond with dark roots showing neglect.'
Arien asked,'body-wise? He's ripped from the gym; the files say Jayden's no athlete.'
'Exactly. high-carb diet to soften the edges, add a layer of belly fat over those abs. No weights, no movement; muscle atrophy will hit fast in 28 days he'll feel softer, his own belly will bind him to the authentic Jayden.'
Marcus raised an eyebrow. 'Scars beyond the arms?'
'Yes. Faint burn marks on his knuckles—from roll-ups smoked while under the influence, again, as per the file. Use a heated tool, controlled, on the back of his hands and one thigh. And a small scar across his right cheekbone,’ the files say this was a fall, a glass cut. Shallow slice, stitched crookedly. It'll pull when he moves his face, a constant reminder.'
‘His nipples?' Arien asked.
‘This is all business for the cosmetic surgeon. Dermal fillers here first, to give them that plumped used look, so he will know they’ve been worked on time and again for years. Then we seal two nipple rings through each. He’ll also get a septum ring, we can cauterise all these, to prevent any infections. He won’t be able to remove them. His lips should be much fuller, slightly feminizing, and some dermal fillers around the jawline to masculinise, for balance. All to match the files.
After that, we finish the body modifications with his anus. This is very important; the files say he’s been escorting since he was sixteen, almost exclusively the receptive partner. So we’ll use dermal fillers to give the appearance of a very thick outer ‘labia’ as it were. This will also give him a tight grip around the active partner’s penis. We use additional filler for inner folds to give an overall perfect rosebud. It gives him a rather unnatural, hyper-used look, albeit very masculine in a professional sex worker way, with a very tight grip. The surgeon’s advice is we can safely inject filler to produce a lip around the anus, protruding up to two centimetres. When any penis withdraws, it should leave a perfect large rosebud.
Arien laughed, ‘You’re not joking, two centimetres is huge! So it will be a sort of giant man cunt?’
‘Precisely,’ said Dr Zim, frowning at the term. ‘That’s exactly how it will look and, more importantly, feel. At two centimetres it will be a constant reminder of the facts: he has been a sex worker for many years, mainly passive/submissive, hence he has a very well used anus, albeit one that retains its grip through years of practice. It’s been his only source of income after all. Admittedly it will be very uncomfortable at first but he will get used to it in time. It’s an irreversible procedure.
Some dental work too, controlled permanent staining agents, assisting tartar buildup with yellow-brown streaks, enamel etched for authenticity, then a chip to the lower incisor with a diamond burr, the crack smoothed off, all evidence of a heavy smoking habit and years of neglect.
Last, and before the septum ring goes in, the nasal cartilage, the specialist will create a nasal bone fracture.’
‘What doc, a broken nose? Asked Marcus.’
‘Exactly! Perhaps Jayden was in a fight, or had a fall, who knows, but it alters the appearance and, cosmetically, provides a suitable platform for the septum ring. It’s another unarguable identity reinforcement.’
Dr Zim went on ’finally, and perhaps most important of all, his nicotine habit: this is essential. I’ve prescribed strong patches, 21mg, layered if he sweats them off. Rotate sites—arms, back, thighs, to build tolerance fast. When he surfaces semi-conscious, present a cigarette; convince him it will scratch an itch so to speak. As soon as he smokes it, the craving will subside at first. Then it will return. Cravings make men pliable.'
Marcus stood, ready. 'Timeline?'
‘We start today. By next week, Jayden Conner stares back from the mirror; scarred, inked, pierced, anus filled, nipples prominent, adapted face and his body softening. Then we use these facts to layer the mind. If he asks questions, you know the script.’
As Dr Zim later explained to an international conference,‘Twenty-eight days. That’s enough to bury the false man, re-birth the authentic man.’
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