SHAN/A

SHAN/A

This is our story. The story of Shana and Shan residing in the same body. This is also the story of why, after marriage, we refused to have kids, like we told our fiancé, Raj, long before our marriage. 

Let's begin at the beginning then.We, Shana and Shan, were dual personalities residing in the same body, we were inseparable. The truth though, got revealed to us accidentally.

We, Shana and Shan (that's how Baba, who desperately wanted his second issue to be a son, addressed us), were sixteen at that time. Sharp-featured, our eyes were the best thing about our appearance other than our sweet persona. Our deep, black eyes made us stand out in a crowd. 

We realised that we were filling out fast as a woman by the day we turned sixteen. We were all curvy and pretty to the point of being irresistibly attractive.

The guests had all gone by that time except Ronit, who our family members felt, was the right guy to be our boyfriend. Our Mom and sister, Sneha, had left us with Ron artfully in our room.

We were standing by the window. It was a full-moon night. Outside, the world looked serene and at absolute peace with itself.

Ron, turning us towards him, put his hands around our shoulders. Though I felt shivers run down our spine, Shana remained still and withdrawn.

"I hope you have had a great day, Shana. It's almost 12. I've to get back home. Before I leave, I want to hand over your gift. And for that I want you to close your eyes for a minute."

It was very romantic like in the movies. Ron took our hand in his. Though I craved for his touch, Shana cringed at it! I could feel it within our body.

Shana, the more uncomplicated of the two of us, closed her eyes almost immediately while I forced ours to be partially open and look through the lashes. Ron was too busy to notice it. I saw him taking out with his right hand a small gift box out of his back pocket while he held our hand in his left.

I saw Ron clicking the box open with his thumb and taking out one of the most exquisite rings I had seen in my life. He took the ring in his hand while the box fell quietly face up on the carpet.

"You may open your eyes now, Shana," he told us in that husky voice of his.

We saw both of us looking at the ring that I had already seen before Ron whispered into our ear:

"I want to put this ring on your finger tonight, Shana, shall I?"

Though I blushed, I was surprised at Shana's reaction. She looked confused as if she didn't know how to react to the situation!

Ron put it on our left index finger, looked deep into our eyes, and then did, what I had been wanting him to, since the evening. He kissed us full on the lips. Now, it wasn't the first time we were being kissed by a boy. But as I pressed ourselves forward against Ron, I found a reluctant partner in Shana.

As soon as Ron had left, Shana rubbed our lips with the back of our hand like she had felt defiled by the contact. That's when I realised that Shana didn't want Ron to kiss us at all. In fact, she detested the kiss.

A few minutes later, sister Sneha stepped inside.

"We'll look at and unpack all the presents tomorrow, OK? It is nearly 12.45 and time for you to go to bed."

Saying so, she hugged us. God! This time Shana's reaction turned out to be a shocker for me! She clung to sister Sneha and kept planting smooches all over her cheeks and head passionately!

That night, I realised something else as well. As we got into the nightie, we found ourselves standing near the dressing mirror. Shana kept looking at our reflection for hours like she had been doing frequently lately, touching us at places with that pleasurable look in the eyes, sighing, moaning! That's when I got frightened thinking that something was terribly wrong with her.

My hunches proved right when one afternoon, after school, after we had been sitting on the edge of our bed for long, I found us heading towards Mom's room. She was cleaning the dressing glass at that time. We found ourselves walking into and across the room to where Mom was standing.

"Mom, I've something to tell you."

Her quivery voice even scared me. Mom, still working on the glass, smiled at us from it, pointing with the free hand backward to the bed for us to sit on.

She joined us a couple of minutes later, wiping her face and forehead with the fold of her sari.

"Yes, dear? What's up?"

"Mom," I heard Shana uttering calmly. "I don't know what's wrong with me but I have no doubts in my mind about my dislike for the boys."

The way she said it, made us nearly jump out of the bed.

"No, I mean, I like them all right but not in the way like most other girls do it. I don't know if I'm gay or…" Her voice choked as she stopped here while Mom kept looking at her in a queer way.

"I became sure about it last night when Ronit kissed me, Mom. It was like I didn't want my best friend or any other boy to touch me or kiss me, then or here after. What's wrong with me, Mom? Am I a lesbian or what?" Shana broke down.

I could see tears coursing down our cheeks. The pain, frustration and anger in her voice took me back to the night when there was a marriage party at home. The marriage of sister Sneha to her longtime fiance. That night a cousin staying over, had to share our room with us. It was awefully hot and he didn't mind sleeping on a mattress on the floor. He was older than us by four years.

In the middle of the night, we were awakened by him creeping up to our bed and lowering himself into the empty place beside us.

As he or his hands rather, became quite bold after a while, touching us inappropriately, though, to be honest, I was enjoying these touches and sensations. He had in the meanwhile, become quite desperate and gotten on top. I heard Shana, hysterical, hitting and hissing out at him with the clenched teeth,"Get out this very moment, if you don't want me to make a scene, you b*****d. You call yourself a brother…..?"

She kept quaking long after the coursing had left the room. Long after the cousin had left, we found ourselves lying in bed, shivering and weeping. Our world turned topsy turvy in a span of some ten-fifteen minutes. Something must have shut down for good on that fatal night.

Though, we got married subsequently after our visits to the psychiatrist, you know by now, why we decided on not having a kid.

The end