Learning how to be Jayden Conner
The isolation room at Greenford House became my classroom. Each morning, as the chemical cosh from my initial restraint began to wane, Marcus or Arien would enter with a syringe tray, their gloved hands steady. 'Time for your meds, Jayden,' Marcus would say, ignoring any mumbled protest about real names. The cocktail started with an intramuscular injection of haloperidol—5mg to dull the edges of reality, suppress any defiant thoughts bubbling up, and lorazepam, 2mg, to drag me into that hazy semiconscious drift where resistance melted into fog. By day three, they layered in olanzapine, 10mg orally crushed into a pudding I barely registered swallowing, ensuring the sedation lingered through the afternoon, my body limp against the restraints while my mind floated in disjointed fragments of memory and delusion.
Marcus told me later that Dr Zim monitored it all from his office feed, adjusting doses via notes to the nurses: 'Increase lorazepam to 3mg if he fixates on 'Jacob' again. We want compliance.' In that state, staff interactions were relentless drills. Marcus would un-cuff one hand for a sip of water, but only after: 'What’s your name, Jayden? Say it.' Silence or a wrong answer meant denial, the cup hovered inches away from me, untouched. 'Try again. Who are you?' My lips would part, the word 'Jayden' slipping out hoarse and reluctant at first. Toileting was the cruelest test: restrained to the bed, a catheter in place during deep sedation, but for brief lucid windows, I'd have to beg as Jayden.
'Please, I need the loo,', and Marcus would loom over me, shaking his head. 'Nah, mate. Jayden needs the loo. Say it proper.' The pressure built until humiliation won, the name coming out as they led me to the en-suite, hands bound behind. Water, food, even a blanket, nothing came without that affirmation, Marcus’s face a blank mask of enforcement, no acknowledgment of the man I once was.
By day four, the nicotine patches had begun to work on me, the unnamed cravings rising during the semiconscious lulls, a phantom itch deeper than the self-harm scars now fading into authenticity on my arms. My body, once taut from gym sessions, gently sagging under the high-carb feeds, abs blurring into a soft belly. The tattoos itched under fresh wrappings, the 'Jayden 2001' script on my shoulder pulling with every shallow breath, my enlarged nipples with their rings, pressing against the gown. My buzzed hair, ash blond tips matted from sweat, and the flesh tunnels in my lobes tugged with each turn of my head, a constant low throb. My tongue feeling the chipped tooth. And my nose, something heavy there, different somehow? My cheek, it felt like there was something on it, something I couldn’t brush off. But, most of all, my anus felt particularly strange, much bigger and fuller, a significant new presence between my buttocks.
Marcus entered one afternoon of week two. I stirred on the bed, restraints loose for 'good behaviour' therapy, my mind slow from the morning's medication. 'Alright, Jayden,' Marcus rumbled, his arms flexing as he pulled a chair close. 'You've been proper today, no nonsense about names. Reckon you deserve a treat.' He took a cigarette packet from his pocket, the pack, fresh and inviting. He held it up, took out a cigarette, pristine and unlit. I remember my gaze locking on it. ’Come on, Jayden fella, have a smoke. It’ll calm you down, mate.' The words landed soft, coaxing, as Marcus lit it, the flame dancing. He leaned in, placing it tenderly between my lips. I inhaled. The smoke filling lungs that I didn’t know craved it, my chest rising in a shuddering pull. Then the exhale, coughing at first, then deeper drags, the nicotine blooming warm through the sedation, sharpening the haze just enough to make me want to chase it.
All the while Dr. Zim observed from the CCTV, a faint smile creasing his face as he sipped sparkling water. ‘Perfect,’ he thought, noting the way I drew on the cigarette with focus whilst ash dropped onto the gown. The habit took root fast, patches priming me for twenty a day if unleashed, but control was the game. Marcus told me the rule was simple: ‘two today,' Zim had explained, repeating the protocol. 'One for answering right, one for silence on the old lies.' Marcus logged it all later: ‘Jayden compliant, smoked under supervision, no mention of Jacob.’ By evening, as the olanzapine pulled me under again, I dreamed in smoke curls, the name 'Jayden' echoing like a chain around my throat. Days blurred, medicated fog, denial, crave, reward, staff voices a chorus enforcing the fracture. Jacob the banker dissolving, Jayden Conner solidifying in scars, ink, and submission.
Then it came. ‘Marcus, something’s not right.’
‘What’s that Jaydie fella, you want another smoke? It’s not time yet, you’ve had one today.’
‘No, not smokes, it’s my anus, my hole, it feels weird. Like there’s something big trapped there.’
‘What do you mean Jaydie lad?’
‘It feels very full, and when I touch it there’s like a ring right round its edge, a big fat one. I can’t clench my buttocks around it properly, it’s so big, like a big rubber ring is stuck inside there. And even when I relax my cheeks, I can feel it. It’s bigger. I tried putting my finger in it, but it’s got this tight grip.’
‘Oh, ok Jayden, that, that’s nothing to worry about. It’s not bigger, my guess is it’s been like that for years. It’s just the way it is for guys like you who’ve done a lot of sex work. Getting fucked a lot. It’s just your body adapting to it. It’s what’s known as a man cunt. That’s what you’ve got Jayden, a proper man cunt, you should be proud of it.’
‘What do you mean Marcus? Sex work? A man cunt? I don’t understand.’
‘Come off it Jaydie lad, I’ve seen your hole. We all have. Let’s face it, there’s been a lot of cocks up there. Didn’t grow lips by itself did it?’ And Marcus laughed and patted my head. ‘I only hope they paid you properly Jaydie! It’s like your piercings, and your ink, it’s part of who you are, it’s your identity, like your broken nose and that scar on your face, was it a fight Jaydie? And like those old scars from the self harm, you know, it’s you. It’s good old Jaydie. Seriously though, Jaydie, I’ve seen some man cunts in my time, but yours, it’s special. Be proud of it fella!’
Smoking: Jayden has a twenty a day habit
Marcus and Arien wove the cigarette ritual into the daily routine, a Pavlovian tether to condition me deeper into Jayden's truth.
'Alright, Jayden, you've been sound today,' Marcus would say, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, voice laced with that faux-matey tone. He'd pluck a single fag from his vest pocket, Marlboro Red, and tuck it behind my left ear, the paper cool against the stubble of my buzzcut. 'There you go, lad. Carry it like a proper one. Shows you're good, yeah? Be a good lad for us Jayden.' Arien would nod from the corner, arms crossed over his nurse scrubs, watching as my fingers hesitated, then rose to touch the stick, the weight foreign yet anchoring in the fog. No lighting it then, just the promise, the prop to dangle compliance.
Refusal meant nothing. The first time I batted it away, mumbling 'Don't call me that, my name’s Jacob,’ Marcus's face hardened. 'Nah, Jayden. You want your water? Your piss break? Earn it.' Then the cigarette stayed tucked, or worse, crushed under Marcus's boot, the denial stretching hours until the craving clawed through the lorazepam haze. By day ten, my mouth dry and twitchy even in a semiconscious drift, I would wake to the nicotine itch, hand drifting to my ear instinctively, fingers brushing the cig like a talisman. Staff enforced it during rounds: 'Where's your smoke, Jayden? Show us you're our good lad.' Compliance got a nod, a brief un-cuff to adjust it myself, the act imprinting ownership. Non-compliance? The evening cig withheld entirely, leaving me pacing the room in that track suit, two sizes too small, fabric chafing my chest where the new piercings in my giant nipples rubbed raw.
Desperation hit like a freight train around day fourteen, the nicotine void amplifying every denial. Then I begged.
‘I’m Jayden, my name is Jayden Conner! Please... need one. Behind the ear ain't enough.'
Marcus leaning in close enough for me to smell the tobacco on his breath, on his lips. 'Beg proper, Jayden. Say you're a good lad who deserves it.' The words stuck in my throat at first, but the ache won, my lungs burning phantom smoke, hands trembling against the restraints.
'I'm... I'm a good lad. I’m Jayden. Gimme one, yeah? Please, Marcus.' He'd oblige then, tucking a fresh one, sometimes lighting it right there if he felt I'd earned double: me inhaling deep, coughing out the burn, the rush hitting harder than the medication.
By week three, begging became reflex. During a rare lucid lorazepam light day, I knelt by the bed as Arien entered with meds, my tracksuit bottoms riding up my arse cheeks, exposing the top of the crack.
'Marcus said... if I'm good... another smoke?' I pleaded, the single cig behind my ear half-crushed from nervous fiddling.
'You are good, Jayden. But beg like you mean it.’
'Please, mate, I need it bad. Be your good lad, yeah? Let me carry two, I’m Jayden, my name’s Jayden, I..?’
They allowed it sometimes, one behind each ear, the symmetry a joke among staff, but it locked the habit. I'd finger them during isolation, the paper crinkling a countdown to reward, compliance chaining me tighter. It felt like it was all I had.
'Look at you, Jayden, proper bloke now,’ Marcus would say, ‘smokes on show.’ He’d sit there on the bed with me, his arm around my shoulder, just like he still does. Then I’d feel the warmth from his body, smell him and feel safe. I still do.
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