Grandmother, Who, Me?

Grandmother, Who, Me?

Chapter 22: The Confession on the Bed

Lakshmi’s POV (Satish)

I trembled.

The question hung in the warm air between us like a blade. *You are a man, right?* My mouth opened, but no sound came out. The mature voice that Jessica had given me simply refused to work. Panic and a strange, exhausted relief crashed together inside my chest.

How does he know?

How?

Rajan did not look angry. He did not look disgusted. He simply watched me with calm, tired eyes, still holding my soft hand in his larger one. After a long moment he spoke again, his voice low and even.

“I know,” he said. “You are the epitome of femininity. You look younger than your age. You are the kindest, quietest woman I have lived with in twenty years. But I have an intuition. Something does not fully match. Whatever it is… tell me. See if I can help.”

The gentleness in his tone undid the last of my resistance.

I had been carrying the truth alone for so long that the chance to set it down, even in front of this man, felt like oxygen. I drew a shaky breath and began to speak. Once the first words left my mouth, the rest poured out in a low, continuous stream, the pregnancy, the silly first night in a saree, Jessica’s experiment, the slow transformation, the temple, the thali, the locked cage, the remote Shreya now held like a weapon. I told him everything. How I had only wanted to make my wife happy. How every “few more days” had stretched into this.

When I finished, the room was silent except for the ceiling fan.

Rajan stared at me for several seconds. Then he let out a short, disbelieving laugh.

“You are so loving,” he said, shaking his head, “but also so stupid.”

He laughed again, quieter this time, and the sound was not unkind.

“Unbelievable… but I believe you.” His rough thumb brushed across the back of my hand, then moved to rest lightly against the soft skin of my forearm. “To tell the truth… you are more feminine than your wife. The way you move, the way you smell, the way you wear that thali without ever taking it off. If I had not spent these weeks watching you, I would never have questioned it.”

An awkward, helpless laugh escaped me. The sound was pure Lakshmi, warm, slightly husky, nothing like the man I used to be.

Rajan’s expression grew serious again.

“I do not understand the scientific side of what they did to you,” he said. “I cannot reverse any of that. But anything else… anything that does not require Jessica’s machines… I can help. In secret. If you want.”

Before I could answer, another sharp jolt of forced stimulation ripped through my body. My back arched. A broken sound left my throat. My free hand flew to the mattress to steady myself as the relentless heat bloomed low in my belly and between my legs, wet and useless and endless.

Rajan’s eyes narrowed. He had seen the sudden change.

I gasped out the only clear thought I still had.

“If only I can stop this constant stimulation… I can think of something. I can plan. Right now I can’t even breathe properly.”

He was silent for a moment, studying the way my thighs pressed together, the fine tremor in my hands, the sheen of fresh sweat on my collarbones.

Then he gave a small, thoughtful nod.

“Umm… maybe I can help regarding that,” he said quietly. “Let us look for clues. The remote. The way she uses it. There must be something we can find.”

He still held my hand. For the first time in weeks, the weight of the thali against my chest felt a fraction lighter.

Someone else in this house finally knew the truth.

And he had not turned away.