Lex (Unconventional Hearts) (18 page)

Once he was finished, all that was left was
her torso. Even her dress was gone, since he’d torched it over the
trashcan with his butane lighter that he pulled from his pants
pocket. It was the one he normally used to light his
cigarettes.

Afterward, because I was still hysterically
crying, my father told me like so many parents are guilty of. “If
you’re going to cry, I’ll give you something to cry about.” And he
did, with his black leather belt and my trembling body bent over
his knee. I lost count after ten lashes on my bottom. I was only
four so I couldn’t count much higher, even if I wanted to.

From that day forward, I vowed to myself,
that I’d hide who I am from the world, never letting anyone see me
smelling my mom’s perfume or trying on her heels. I was sneaky. I
had no other choice. I was different. I knew it. I also knew no one
was going to accept who I am.

After years of verbal abuse and some
physical, mainly spankings and the occasional cigarette put out on
my back was all I endured. If I had to calculate it, between the
ages of four and seven, I was verbally abused daily. “Bitch boy,”
was my father’s favorite nickname for me during those years.

I’m sure by now you are wondering where and
the hell was my mother during all of this? She was getting slightly
less abused right next to me. Because it was the early nineties, we
lived in a small town, and my dad was a respected police officer,
no one and I mean no one took my mother’s police reports seriously.
He never did anything that would last long enough or warrant me
having to go to the hospital. When she once tried to leave, he
punched her in the eye, she went to the police and they did
nothing. My father said she tripped and hit her eye on a doorknob.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Of course, I didn’t know about any
of these police reports until I was a lot older and my mother
showed them to me.

By the time I was seven, my mother had sort
of accepted that I wasn’t quite right for a boy. Not once did she
try to change me, or ask me to be something I’m not. So when I
asked permission to grow my hair long she didn’t question it. Once
again, I was thrilled, but as soon as it grew past my ears, my
father took scissors to my head when I was sleeping, forcing me to
have short hair all over again. A buzz cut to be exact, because
that next morning with a bed full of black hair my father forced my
mother to clean up the mess he’d made. He took me into the bathroom
and shaved my head with his clippers on the second to lowest
setting.

That same year, my father came home early to
find me playing with my mom’s colorful heels inside her closet.
That time I peed myself as he sat on top of me, on the floor right
inside the closet, my face forcefully smashed into the brown carpet
and beat me with the heels of a pair of bright blue stilettos until
I passed out. I still have the three circle scars where he had hit
me so hard it had punctured my skin. I didn’t realize how bad I had
been beaten until I woke up on the cheap rose linoleum bathroom
floor in my mother’s sobbing arms. As she cradled me and cried,
applying antiseptic to my bruised and bloodied body.

After years of this abuse, both physical and
emotional, it was normal for me. I was used to getting whipped by
the belt from my father when my mom didn’t cook dinner properly.
Once I was thrown into a cold shower because my father was horny
and my mom refused to have sex with him. I was the outlet for him,
the
bad
son, all because I was different. I wanted to wear
frilly dresses like all the other girls, have boobs, and go through
female puberty. I couldn’t help it. I felt shame and disgust with
myself for years for feeling the way I do. I tried so hard to
convince myself I was a boy and that I liked having a penis, even
though I never really have.

By fifth grade I was eleven, I was thicker
and curvier in body size and to be honest I looked a lot like a
girl. Even wearing boy’s clothes and having shorter hair. I have
bigger lips, bright blue eyes, feminine features and soft skin. I
liked when people would ask if I was a girl or a boy or made the
mistake of calling me a female. It made me feel like I wanted to
feel—pretty.

For some odd reason by that age, I had also
started to grow small breasts and my mom took me to the doctors
because she was concerned. I loved it but I was born a boy and boys
aren’t supposed to have breast tissue, or that’s what my mother
said. My doctor after running some tests, confirmed I had a lower
amount of testosterone than most males my age and that I might grow
out of it. I prayed I never would. At the same appointment, my
mother spoke with my doctor about my feelings regarding being born
the wrong sex. Nothing was mentioned to my father of course, we
made sure of that.

The doctor started me in counseling right
away and my first counselor confirmed I was basically crazy. The
woman had dated my dad in high school. I’m fairly certain that had
something to do with her diagnosis. Then I was transferred to a
different physiologist. Who by the age of thirteen had diagnosed me
with Gender Identity Disorder or GID, for short. Dr. Banks was a
nice middle-aged woman, and by the time I was twelve, she had
teamed up with my mom to keep close tabs on the abuse I was
enduring. We kept thorough records and pictures of all my newest
scars and marks. For years I went to Dr. Banks’s once a week and
for that hour we’d talk, document the abuse, and she’d help me find
a way to try and conceal my female insides until I was able to get
away from my father. I had even met children like me, through a
group Dr. Banks brought me to. It felt wonderful to know I wasn’t
alone. During that time, I had also started to accept having what I
call
Lady
, between my legs. From the age of fourteen, I
decided I never wanted to undergo gender reassignment surgery or
GRS. I realize a lot of people might want that. I, on the other
hand, have grown to accept my extra appendage. An extra appendage
that occasionally gives me pleasure. It works for me. Why would I
fix something that’s not broken?

Once I turned fifteen, after knowing Dr.
Banks for four years she and my mom finally decided to turn my
father into the authorities for child and spousal abuse. Not the
local cops because that route had always turned out to be a
dead-end. With all of our testimonials, the scars that I will live
with for the rest of my life, plus other various shreds of
evidence, my father was arrested and charged.

During this time, my mother and Dr. Banks
without my knowledge had devised a brilliant plan. My mom was
already in the process of purchasing the floral store here in
Heartfair, the house she owns two houses down from mine and
securing a small nest egg from money my mom had hid from my father
over the years.

The days leading up to my father’s
arraignment, he was let out on bail, thanks to my previous
counselor who was tending to my fathers every need during the
trial. The subject of my sexuality was my father’s bargaining chip
as to why he chose the punishments he had. Evidence was too strong
against him, that he couldn’t plead
not guilty
. Instead, he
gave pitiful excuses on the stand as to why he abused me. “He’s a
sissy fucker, who needed toughened up,” was the headlining
statement plastered all over the newspapers and other local media.
It’s not often that you see a
‘stand up’
police officer on
trial for abusing his child for ten years. The media ate it up by
the boatload.

It was nearly midnight, three days prior to
my father’s arraignment. My mother and I were living at our old
house. I was asleep in my twin bed, in the same blue walled bedroom
with ugly dark brown shag carpeting. When a hand clamped over my
mouth and a giant man suspended himself over my body, stinking of
BO, cigarettes and whiskey. I didn’t have to guess who it was. I
knew it was my father.

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t you scream, or I’ll
kill you little bitch boy.” He harshly whispered his hunting knife
out of his hip holster, the cold tang pressed to my jugular.

I didn’t move.

“Do you understand?” his voice hissed in a
near whisper.

I nodded.

I couldn’t make out all of his features; I
also didn’t have a clue why he was there, other than him wanting to
kill me.

“I’m going to put the knife down.” He pulled
it away from my neck and sat back on my bed. Allowing me to move
and sit up, as his dark form took up the end of my bed.

I still didn’t say a word.

“Why did you turn me in? I was trying to man
you up.” His voice had dropped down to a slow sadness. I almost
felt sorry for him.
Almost.

“I’m sorry I’ve never been the son you
wanted.” I spoke, my hands wrapped around my knees, pulled to my
chest. My back pressed firmly against my headboard.

“You were Lex; you just wanted to be a girl.
I never wanted a girl and surely not a son who wanted to have a
pussy.” He was getting angry. I could feel the edge of his voice
cutting me like the knife he was playing with in his hands.

I wanted to yell at him and tell him,
I
don’t want to be a boy. I wasn’t meant to be a boy
. That I
couldn’t help feeling the way I did. I tried to change it. I tried
for years to act and walk the earth like a male. Think how fucked
up that would make you feel if you had to walk around the wrong sex
your entire life. Having to pretend to be something you’re not, and
knowing if you let the world see you for who you really are, they’d
spit at you and call you degrading and hurtful words like she-male
or tranny.

Instead of responding to my father, I sat in
the fetal position and stared at him. The moonlight lit up my room
just enough I could make out his figure and see his shoulders
slumping, as his legs hung off the edge of my twin bed. I wanted to
scream, I wanted the cops to come. He wasn’t allowed to be there.
But, I knew if I did, he’d win and I’d be punished again.

He continued. “The day your mother and I
brought you home from the hospital I was so proud. You were a great
baby. So cute and loved to sit in my lap and I’d read to you. Then
you turned three and it all changed for me. You liked too much girl
shit. You pulled on your penis in the shower like you hated it
being attached. Once you even told me to take it off. I didn’t know
how to deal with that shit. I figured you’d grow out of it. You
didn’t, did you?” I couldn’t tell if he was baiting me into another
punishment or trying to come clean. I was scared, that’s all I
knew. So I chewed furiously on my bottom lip until it bled.

“Lex? You haven’t changed, have you? You’re
not a boy.”

I didn’t respond.

“Answer me dammit!” he nearly yelled full
force that my mother could have heard him.

“Yes, I’m not.” I meekly muttered, sucking
the blood from my bottom lip.

A callous laugh broke through the air and
that’s when he pounced on me. I shrieked as the blade of his
hunting knife sunk into the side of my small breast. Tearing and
slicing while warm blood pouring down my side and coating my bed.
My father sadistically smiling above me, he knew he’d won. I
couldn’t cover my wound, his body pinned me down and all I could do
was scream. As his knife continued to saw away at my flesh and then
he went for my other breast. That’s when I heard my mother worried,
yelling, trying to break into my locked bedroom and I passed out
from the immense pain and substantial blood loss.

Two days later I woke up in the hospital,
bandaged wrapped around my chest and sixty-eight stitches total to
right my wrecked body. I couldn’t leave the hospital for a week. My
father had been sent to prison with a fresh attempted murder charge
and he’s now serving life in prison without chance of parole.

We moved to Heartfair shortly thereafter. I
turned into a girl during that time and my mother bought me an
entirely new wardrobe. Even my school documents my mother forged to
say I was a girl. Nobody knew any different. I wore padded bras,
grew my hair out, started wearing makeup, and started HRT (hormone
replacement therapy). All my dreams were finally coming true. My
mother taught me everything else I needed to know about becoming a
woman. I started tucking
lady
away. And the only person who
ever found out about her was Roni.

I met Roni in high school. I became the hot
chick and she was the tomboy. Somehow, we hit it off one day when
we were both playing volleyball in gym class and this stupid girl
knocked into me on purpose. Roni helped me up from the gym floor
and in the locker room she beat the girl up. It was as easy as
that. We became BFF’s.

Roni was raised by severely screwed up
parents. Her mom is a bar whore and her dad is a drunk who fucks
everything that walks. And yes, her parents are still married. Like
I said, it’s a really messed up situation. So she came to my house
a lot for sleepovers. A place she felt safe and nearly moved into
by the time we hit our senior year. I had willingly showed her
lady
a few months after our budding friendship took shape
and she is never cared a damn bit.

Now I own a business with Roni, my mom still
runs the flower shop and I am a woman inside and mostly outside. I
got breast implants to feel more like a woman when I was eighteen,
then again when I was twenty-four I went to something more
realistic. I had laser hair removal on my entire body, including my
privates. Being on hormones helps with any manly type hair. Which
to be honest I’ve never grown, but I don’t like hair at all. On men
is fine, on me, not so much. It grosses me out. So everything in my
life is basically perfect. For the first time in my entire life, I
feel whole, except for the not having a companion part. Which is
another topic, I’m sure you’re dying to know about.

I don’t date. Period. Mainly because of
Brian, who I met when I was taking some college courses. I was
stupid back then. And that’s enough talking about him…. Dating for
me is where it becomes a bit tricky. I like men; I am a woman after
all. But, I don’t want a gay or bi man. I want a straight one.
Trust me there is a huge difference. The main problem with that is
having to come clean with my extra appendage. And I’m not so sure
how many of them will react. Brian never cared, but he never
touched it either. Lincoln, Roni, Brian, my mom, and my old lawyer
are the only people who know about lady
.
They’re all
accepting of my appendage. I just don’t know how any other men
would be. I can’t risk everyone finding out and me falling victim
to hate crimes and treated different in a town I love
wholeheartedly. It’s not worth what I’ll gain, because I can lose
so much more in the process. No matter how tempting, it’s not worth
the gamble. Flirting is one thing and I can do that quite well.
Beyond that is a no, no, in my book. Corey almost came into contact
with it tonight. It would have freaked him out, as it should, in a
sense. I don’t know what to think to be honest. All I know is I am
tired. I had a long night. I just pray that you don’t write me off
because I’m not like everybody else.