MAEVE

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

" We will never be safe from him, darling. We cannot stop moving for even one moment, if we do, he will find us. And once he does, then it is over."

     What is your definition of an average teenage girl? I know what you are thinking. When you think teenager, you think fashion, rebellion, bikinis on summer days, boyfriends, maybe even the occasional girlfriend, camp_outs, and maybe even cute cheerleading outfits. Or is it just me?

    Well if I am indeed correct, then I am very different from your typical teenage girl. Why? You might ask. Well for one I have been a cross dresser since birth. Not voluntarily of course, but since I knew enough to realize that my body was not as it Should be.

    When I confronted my mother about it, and explained how wronged I felt when boys who were supposed to be my gender, laughed at me and excluded me from their games after seeing my body when we went to swimming class for the first time.

    I explained how wronged i felt when I was banished to the other side of the pool to play with girls, and how the feeling I got from braiding hair with girls and drawing boys in our notepads felt so right. That was the first time I demanded an explanation from my mother.

    Well, I was left very disappointed and confused by her vague explanation. She just told me it was for my safety, and that we were never going to change that aspect of my life. Suffice to say, we moved from my childhood home the next week, as my identity was now compromised.       
   
    Well that was years ago. And I am very sad to say my mother's effort to make me a boy worked quite well, despite my valiant protests. But what failed to work however, was her attempt to get me to stay under the radar. Now that was an epic fail.

    We moved to Japan when I was 14, and that was the start of another revolution on my part. For she the did not just uproot me from my home to another state. No, she moved us to a whole different world.
   
    I really tried to see things from her perspective, for my mother's nemesis finally caught up with her on my fourteenth birthday.

At first it was a series Of small, yet ominous visits or messages. Just when we were starting to feel at home in a particular neighbourhood, we would get the soul crushing news of a young man asking around about us from well meaning neighbors, so we stopped trying, "he will always find us", mom would cry.

My birthdays were never extravagant, but it was always special. My mother and I usually ordered more junk foods than we could consume, and this cute and elegant little meals on the side and ate our satisfaction, with candles flickering and a lovely cake my mother would bake just for me.

    However my fourteenth birthday was different, I had come home from school in high spirits, expecting to see ribbons, balloons, and flowers decorating our penthouse, and my mother waiting on the other side of the door to scream surprise! While I feigned surprise, ignoring the fact that I knew it was going to happen, and I'd been anticipating it all day.
   
    I opened the door and our apartment was in disarray. I was shocked, then I heard my mother's muffled scream. I would have called the cops, but my mother's number rule was: we do not tell. So I didn't tell.

    Instead, I crept behind the huge figure hovering above her, and swung at him with a fire extinguisher.

He did not drop unconscious like he was supposed to. But instead turned to me in rage. He flung me so hard I broke the door on impact. He then proceeded to stomp on me with his boots, cussing my mother, and ranting about how my existence was a mistake. The cops barging in and my mother's teary and horror stricken expression was the last thing I saw before it all went black.

The incident earned me three fractured ribs that never seemed to heal, it never did. The memory of that visit was haunting, at the thought of it my hands would shake, and my ribs would start burning all over again. Even when my mom worried for us, I never really cared, he was just a shadow to me, a wraith on the walls, a nightmare man, but then he became real and so did the word "paranoia".  As a result, I did not utter a word of protest when we moved again.

That was the incident that brought me to Japan, the man's visit shook my mother so much she decided to leave the state all together, and moved us all the way to Asia.

         And that was where my activist movement began.
Japan was a country with a high case of racial discrimination. And I Paris Maeve Bakari was more than a simple Caucasian girl cross dressing in Japan. I was instead a black girl, a cross dresser with an intense case of paranoia, and a proud gay.

         Are you surprised? If you are, then I am sorry for misleading you. I am not gay. Although I know a lot of people are, and I honestly have nothing against them since I have been labeled gay all my life. But I am now swearing on my head, and saying at the risk of a thousand lightening, I am not gay.

         Are you confused?. Well allow me to explain. I am a girl, dressing and posing as a boy, in love with boys, and labeled gay. I mean what was I supposed to do? Go on date with girls simply because I was a cross dresser? Hell no. I would rather be called gay, go on dates with gay men and also kiss gay men. Was it a bad decision? Yes. But it was the better decision. Rendezvous with girls was a huge "No".

        So in Japan I was very much avoided. Even in my masculine clothing, I still looked feminine. I was quite a sight honestly. A 5 ft 2 chocolate boy, slender, afro haired, huge slanted Green eyes, (which could also be blue, perks of contacts) well carved eyebrows, a cute nose, perfectly full lips, and killer fashion sense.

Ever since I had the brilliant idea to identify myself as gay, my fashion finally took a huge turn. Now I was allowed to extravagantly dress to my heart's content. And man did I. I had them all, Chanel, Versace, Givenchy, you name it.

       From my clothes down to my shoes, and the chic Sunglasses always perched on my head, were either from one brand or the other. My hair was a different story, I did them all. Blonde wigs, red wigs, purple, lilac, even down to a pink afro wig. My mother had always said it was my form of rebellion, and in a way she was correct.
If I had to stay a boy, then I was going to be remarkable and noticed, thus defeating her wish for me to stay under the radar. Honestly seeing me dressed in colors that could rival the sun, it was no wonder I was made a pariah.

        When I turned fifteen, I had had enough of racial discrimination, I lived with it for an entire year. But no more. I started my own version of Black Lives Matter. I campaigned online, and soon acquired followers who pressured me to campaign for real.

          My followers were not just black. Different races experiencing discrimination joined in, and i changed my slogan to All Lives matter. Now That went viral. I even led a peaceful protest, encouraging any one of a different race to step forward. It got so big, too big for my fifteen year old self, that i appointed people to hold various positions.

           When my mom got wind of my movement I was uprooted again, this time to Korea. And my first thought was "oh boy gotta learn a new language". And i did for one whole year.

           My life was not so bad. I mean they were so fashion forward nothing i did was shocking. Well except for my orange afro wig. But that was to be expected. Even my own mother avoided looking at me when i had that particular wig on. But it was her fault for naming me after a place as extravagant as Paris. I was quite popular even, and became known as the Caramel Beauty in my high school. They acknowledged my supposedly gay status, and accepted me for it.

          I must have been a ruler, preferably Cleopatra in my previous life, for people naturally gravitated towards me. Girls would come to me for boy advice. And boys would come for the best way to entice a female. In a matter of a year, I had followers who followed me every where. And despite being a BOY.....I was crowned the Queen of Lake high.

        But it all came crashing down when the son of the Mayor, a closeted gay, decided to experiment with me, and kissed me on a Friday party. In his defense, he was drunk out of his mind. But the damage was already done, the video went viral. And my mom had had enough. Perhaps Asia was not good for me after all, and once again she uprooted me from my life at seventeen.