mr_drew

Andrew
2004-08-10 23:36:45 (UTC)

Ian's Hands.

"Oh, please don't start that again, Ian!" pleaded Laura.
She was working at the PC, and kept turning around to the
sight of her husband rubbing his hand vigourously across
the carpet in a furious motion. The extent to which he did
this caused his hands to redden deply and the skin on his
palms was beginning to peel in places. Later on, Laura had
to watch television whilst listening to Ian yelp in pain as
he pulled the loosened skin off the underside of his hands.

The whole act of rubbing his hands against the carpet was
one that, initially, Laura predicted to be short-lived
stage of strangeness on Ian's part. It was the only long
term partner she'd ever had, and she assumed that this
strange daily ritual was all a part of being living with
someone else, and learning to adjust to oddities she didn't
necessarily come in contact to when she lived at home. It
was when the frequency of the carpet rubbing increased to
more than three times a day, and for longer bouts, that she
really began to worry. Ian would very often show Sarah
what he'd done. It was like a cat purring at its owner
after dropping a dead bird on the doorstep; she didn't like
it, but she didn't think there was very much that she could
do about it.

Laura came to the conclusion that when her cream-coloured
carpets and rugs were being stained with streaks of bright
red blood from Ian's sore and sorry palms, that action was
needed. She sat Ian down in an attempt to confront the
problem head on. "Ian...", she began, pausing momentarily
to muse over the queer nature of the question she was about
to ask. "Why do you rub your hands on the carpet until
they bleed? It's worrying. You're not going to carry on,
are you?"

Ian smiled. "I like it. It feels nice." he replied.
Laura tried to reason with him, explaining that holding his
hand whilst out was like grasping a bag of drawing pins for
the evening. And she said that she was sure that people
would wonder where the damage to his hands had come from.

"No ones ever asked me about it, really. I don't know
why." said Ian.
"And what would you say if they did ask what you had done?"
"I'd tell them that I did it myself. I'd say that I sit on
my knees in the house and rub my hands into the carpet
until they start to hurt. And then I'd say that sometimes
I carry on until they bleed, and although it hurts, I don't
really mind. That's what I'd say." explained Ian.

Laura was taken aback. How was she to respond to such a
blunt and unexpected reasoning behind it all. He did it
because he liked it, and he wasn't ashamed to tell people
about it. Time for plan B.


"Go on! Open it!" said Laura, excitedly. It was Ian's
birthday and she'd bought him a present which she'd hidden
in a box that she'd decorated with shiny paper and a little
blue bow.

Ian tore the paper away with no regard for it's prettiness
and the obvious care that had been taken in wrapping the
present so neatly.

"Boxing gloves? What do I want these for? I don't even
box!"
"I thought maybe you could start. I thought maybe it would
help you get fit, maybe get you to use your hands for
something else; stop you ruining our carpets. Ian
reluctantly agreed to give it a go.

For the first few weeks, everything was fine. Ian went
twice a week to the spa in town and came back bursting with
energy after a punch-filled workout. The carpet rubbing
stopped almost completely. In fact, the only blood coming
from Ian was seeping from his nostrils one evening.
Apparently, he'd tripped over a bucket of spit and knocked
it as he fell. Not the most heroic of tales, he admitted,
but it was all part of the road to recovery.

Some weeks later, there was a phone call at the house.

"Hello?"
"Mrs Cathaway?"
"Speaking." said Laura.
"Hiya. My name is Roy Silver. I'm a personal trainer at
the spa that your partner, Ian, attends. There's been a
spot of bother, unfortunately. Ian's been injured and he's
been taken to A&E. He's okay, but I just thought you
should know. One of the boys has driven him there. Don't
worry, he'll be home later." Roy hung up, and Laura
immediately rang the hospital to see if she could find out
any news.

After being 'put through' about six times to different
receptionists, she finally ended up talking to a gentlemen
named Paul. He explained to her that in the middle of a
sparring session, Ian had ripped off his boxing gloves,
fallen to the ground and started to rub his palms furiously
into the spa's concrete floor. Quite a scene was caused by
his actions, and it took more than a few of the spa's
members to drag him away from the floor to which he had
become transfixed.

Ian arrived home late into the night, and greeted Laura
with a familiar smile. He showed his hands which were
bandaged up tightly in white cotton that had been wrapped
around his hands and wrists countless times.

"What am I going to do with you, Ian? What am I going to
do?" asked Laura sympathetically, rhetorically.
"Dunno. Buy me a soft floor?" answered Ian.

So that's what Laura did. She convered the downstairs
toilet into a room with pale cream walls and a floor to
match. The floor was made from a material of which Laura
had forgotten the name. She had conjured up a story in the
carpet shop. Something like she had kids with a terrible
tendancy to bruising and she needed a floor that was both
slip-resistant but very soft at the same time. She ordered
the amount that she needed and took it home. Since the
downstairs toilet was such a small room, she was able to
lay the carpet herself without much hassle. Yes, she had
to make sure she was doing it right with a quick search on
Google, but after the job was complete, she was satisfied
everything was okay.

Ian arrived home from work to find his newly layed
floor. "Wow! That's brilliant!" he exclaimed. Laura
nodded with a grin and walked off into the kitchen for Ian
to have a play with his new room.

The floor was perfect. Because Ian's habit had been
quarentined to one corner of the house, she was able to
arrange for shampooing of the carpets in the rest of the
house to be carried out. The cleaner's looked particularly
wary whilst carrying out the job, and left remarkably
briskly after being payed. It can't have been normal for
them to be cleaning carpets stained with blood that was
months old - especially as they had no idea where it had
come from. Laura tried to put herself in their shoes, and
then she understood.

Ian's carpet burning habit didn't ever really disappear.
In fact, it seemed to get worse over the next few weeks and
months. He would end up spending bigger portions of his
time in the downstairs toilet, rubbing away to his heart's
content and not causing himself injury. The downstairs
toilet was a quiet haven all in itself, containing
everything that he needed. All he had to do was take
himself in a few snacks to satisfy his hunger in an
evening; there was no need to worry where relieving himself
from bodily waste was concerned.

Laura was more overly happy for Ian, she was glad to see
Ian's hands heeling up steadily and glad to be able to walk
into a house without her partner's stale blood smeared into
the furnishings. Things were all pretty good, actually,
and they stayed that way; all of course, except hotel bills
after breaks away. They didn't take too kindly to their
guest leaving their rooms like a discarded murder scene;
but Ian often just couldn't resist.




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