They say I have mood swings because I’m seventeen – well, which seventeen year old doesn’t? They also say I am a delusional girl. That sentence has two lies – first is I’m not delusional and second is I’m not a girl.
Maybe I do have slightly above average mood swings than a normal seventeen year old guy but nothing is out of hand I assure you. Many studies have shown that teenagers have mood swings – irrespective of genders. So I guess that’s common.
What’s NOT common is that my parents make me sleep with another forty year old man. They complain when I protest a lot but should I not protest when I’m being forced to live with a man twice my age? Should I not get upset when instead of letting me go to college, they make me do all the household chores? Are my complaints and tears not justified when they treat me like a woman when I am a man?
I don’t understand how and why the forty year old man in our house treats me as if I’m a woman. I mean how could he? Could he not SEE me? Worst of all, why do my parents support him? They make me dress up like a woman, behave like a woman and then I have to sleep with that man every night.
It is insanity and disgusting that they would do something like this to their own son. They even call me “Rajeshwari” when clearly my name is Rajesh and they know it! Whenever I wore my trousers and shirt – like a man should – I used to get yelled at. They took away all my clothes and substituted them with girly clothes. If there was a hell, then it wasn’t as bad as my home.
I think the man in our house – I call him Mr. Psycho – likes the idea of me dressed up as a girl and then uses me to fulfill his needs. Maybe it was a part of his fantasy to dress up young boys in feminine clothes and have his way with them. He used to touch me in a weird way and then slowly invaded my body. I stopped resisting that sick psycho long ago knowing that it wouldn’t be of any use and would simply wait for him to eventually fall asleep.
I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts in the darkness of night, all naked and cold. I couldn’t believe how any parent could do this to their child. I should have reported all of them to the police a long time ago but somehow I could not muster up the courage to do that.
I don’t have a beard yet but I’m sure that it will grow in a few years. After all, some teenage boys do take time to grow a beard. However, it is awkward for a teenage boy when he doesn’t seem to have any facial hair when he sees that other people of similar age do not have this problem. I’ve read somewhere that if one shaves frequently, then the growth of a beard increases substantially and so every morning while taking a bath – the only time in the entire day I’m left alone – I purposefully shave my face hoping that I will grow a beard soon enough. I have a razor for that which I keep hidden because they don’t let me touch any sharp objects. They are afraid that I might harm myself or worse – harm them.
A couple of years ago, out of nowhere, my parents decided to convert me into a woman and make me sleep with this forty year old Mr Psycho. They force feed me with some pills which are supposed to menstruate me but – unfortunately for them – it doesn’t work on men.
They wouldn’t let me cut my hair even after it grew into thick wavy locks. One day I somehow managed to get my hands on a scissor and started chopping off my hair. I was half way through when the guy and my mother caught me and forcefully made me stop. However, they had to cut the remaining part of my hair to make it look even so now I now almost have men-like short hair. Almost.
My 18th birthday was just around the corner and I’d been thinking I should stand up for myself. I decided that on my eighteenth birthday, I’m going to set myself free. But they are my parents and I thought maybe I should talk to them once before I do anything.
I went to talk to my parents a couple of days before my birthday. After they heard me out they simply hit me and abused me. Then they started crying and begged me to be who I actually am. They failed to understand that being a girl is not who I am. They were the ones who were being delusional and unreasonable.
Since I realized that my parents were in no way going to let me be the way I am, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I remember suicidal thoughts often crossed my mind but suicide is for cowards and I’m no coward. I need to fight my own battle and I came up with a master plan.
It was my birthday eve and as usual, Mr. Psycho was making me do all of the household chores. After I finished obeying him, he asked for a cup of tea in his room. We had an old thermometer with a mercury bulb at home. I had seen that thermometer here and there lying around and I knew what I had to do.
The water for tea was starting to boil in the kettle. I heard his voice calling my name. I went in and he was standing near the bed. Mr. Psycho had brought me a bunch of flowers and was standing there smiling, looking at me. He kissed me on my cheek and wished me a happy birthday in advance and said we will go somewhere nice tomorrow. I nodded.
I went back to the kitchen. The water was boiling. I added the tea leaves and quietly went inside my parents’ room to get that old thermometer. I had to be swift without being seen by anyone. I peeled the thermometer from its packet and dashed towards the kitchen.
Just as I was returning to the kitchen, I saw my mother standing in the doorway. I quickly hid the thermometer in my pocket and tried to act normal and hoped that she would leave soon but she didn’t. She stood there doing nothing and was simply staring at me while I went on to prepare tea. The tea was boiling now and I could see my chance going away with it. She told me to go out and rest and she would serve the tea to the psycho man.
“There goes my chance”, I thought. I went into the hall and sat there quietly. My mother poured the tea into a cup and brought it into the room. She kept the tea on the table, talked something to the man and left.
Just as I was deciding to throw away the thermometer in despair, the man shouted from the room that there is no sugar in the tea. The voice was loud enough for me to hear. I went to him and apologized, picked the cup and went back to the kitchen.
There was no one there now. I double checked for someone’s presence and after confirming that the coast was clear I slowly squeezed the thermometer’s little gray bulb tightly with my two fingers and it broke with a sound barely audible to me.
The shiny liquid metal was oozing out into the tea cup. There was no way anyone would be able to make it out. My fingers were bleeding but that could wait. I crushed the few glass pieces of the thermometer into a fine powder and added it as well and finally stirred it with two spoons of sugar.
The liquid settled in a moment making it look like a regular tea. I threw the thermometer out of the window, washed my bloody fingers, took the cup to the room and served it to him. He drank the tea without saying a word. At one point he made a face which scared me but it turned out to be nothing. The man had a habit of swirling the cup after every sip. Mixed uniformly, the mercury never actually settled down and was consumed by him with each sip.
After finishing his tea, he went off to take a shower. The effect of the toxics could take over any minute. I glanced at my watch. It was already around five minutes since he had had his tea. I forced myself to be patient. I began fantasizing about him being dead. But I also had to keep in mind that I had to flee as soon as he showed any signs of discomfort or was actually dying. And so I had to be alert.
After about fifteen minutes, he came out of the shower and went to shut the door of our room. Maybe he wanted sex. I observed him as he walked to the door. As soon as he closed the door, he began to cough and soon enough looked like he was choking on something. This was my chance. I grabbed the lamp from the nearby table and struck him on his head with it. He collapsed, still coughing and gagging uncontrollably.
His choking voice was loud enough to invite my parents into the room. I knew this was my cue and I dashed towards the door pushing my parents aside and ran out. My father tried to stop me but he was unsuccessful. I ran out of the main door and escaped my house and that prison.
I kept running. I could feel my throbbing heartbeat. I was on the move until I noticed that it was dusk and I had reached a dead end. There was a river in front of me and I was surrounded by trees and tall grass and there was not a soul around. I settled myself on the ground and tried to relax but the constant fear of being discovered did not let me relax. I tried to calm down and took deep breaths.
I was sitting there for a long time. The dusk turned into a dark night. It was a quiet river bank and very few people came over so I knew I was safe. It must have been around midnight when my breathing got back to normal. I smiled and said to myself, “Happy Birthday Rajesh’.
I slept on that bank like I never slept before. It was the most amazing and peaceful sleep I’ve ever had. I slept the rest of the night and the entire next day. The whole day passed and night came and I decided to go ahead. Early in the morning, I swam across the river and reached the other side of the bank. The swim was rigorous and tired me off. I dozed off again for a while just before the sunrise.
I washed my face to make myself look more presentable. I tidied my hair, tucked out my shirt and kept the top buttons open feeling a little manlier. I again got back on the move and kept walking for about an hour.
This was the moment I craved for such a long time and now I was away from all those dreadful people that I had to forcefully live with. I feel free as a bird and can live my life the way I want. I decided to treat myself to a good breakfast to celebrate my new found freedom.
I discovered a small restaurant on the way and went in. It wasn’t much of a place but it was good enough for me knowing that I hadn’t eaten anything for a long time. Also, the place seemed perfect for someone who was on the run and didn’t want to be exposed.
Besides, I was quite sure that by now there must be a lot of people on the lookout for me. I asked for a sandwich, coffee and a large omelet of four eggs. I was famished. The newspaper was lying on the table next to me. It must have just been delivered. I picked it up to browse through the daily news and I noticed a news item in the bottom corner. It said:
Thirty Eight Year Old Woman Murders Her Husband a renowned Psychologist And Runs Away
In a shocking turn of events, a mentally challenged woman named Rajeshwari Sharma, killed her husband by poisoning him. The incident took place two days ago. The accused is said to have been suffering from Dissociative Personality Disorder, whereby the person is likely to acquire a different identity and continues to live his/her life in terms of that new identity.
Rajeshwari’s parents say that she has been suffering from this illness since the last couple of years. ‘She used to believe that she was a seventeen year old boy and used to behave like one.’ They claim that this was a sudden change that they had seen in her. ‘It was like one morning she woke up and turned into this adolescent boy. We couldn’t comprehend what was going on with her and why all of a sudden she started believing that she was a boy. She actually started acting like one.’ says her father.
Her husband, the victim, was a renowned psychologist himself, who diagnosed her with this condition and was treating h…”
I was halfway through reading the story when my breakfast arrived. I kept the paper aside and ate in silence, smiling to myself.