For once I was not depressed coming home from work. Unfortunately not being depressed meant that I finally had to do what I had put off for weeks: search my son’s room.

Being a police detective is not a cheerful occupation but today we finally had got a lead on the Vigilante Virgin! Well, that’s what the media call her anyway. Voluptuous, wearing a tight super-hero style bodysuit leaving nothing to the imagination she’s definitely a babe. Me, I don’t approve of criminals whatever reason they claim for their deeds. Beating up people is a crime even if she leaves them with sufficient evidence to get them convicted. However, actions like that always lead to someone getting seriously hurt. Even if I’m not sorry for the real criminals, innocent people the vigilantes think are bad guys or the vigilantes sooner or later will get hurt. In fact this is why I’m in a good mood. Last time she got stabbed and left some blood on the scene of her crime. I’m waiting for the DNA analysis now.

But back to my family problems. For some time now I had suspected that my son was on drugs. Over the last year he had changed in very suspect ways. First he dropped out of his martial arts classes. He claimed that he kept up practising in the basement that we had made into a practise area. For a while I believed him but then I realised that he only let two of his old friends in there and always kept the door locked whenever he was down there. And then the smell. The cloying flowery smell I could smell whenever I got down there or passed his bedroom door could very well be to hide something else. He used to be a dapper dresser but now he always walked around in a heavy sweater and a little bit hunched over but what really had made me worried was how tired he had become and his schoolwork was definitely slipping. Given that I know that drugs are dealt at his school I’m worried. For God’s sake the Virgin Vigilante struck first at a dealer in our neighbourhood.

My son didn’t know that I’ve always known about his secret hiding place behind a loose panel in his bedroom. As I had expected I found pills hidden there. Not the usual drugs though; oestrogens! What the fuck! I started to dig into his closet. I found girl's clothes hidden away. Skirts, dresses, tights… and in the back a knock-off of the Vigilante Virgin’s costume. A good copy. Hey, he must have gone through the papers I sometimes bring home from work since it incorporated some details not made public!

As I was going through his closet my son walked in. He looked at the clothes on the floor and resignedly said:

“Well, I guess I don’t need this any longer and can let the puppies out”

He took of his sweater and shirt and started to unwind a bandage around his chest. Well, he had a pair of really spectacular breasts! Combined with the lean, muscular curvaceous body I got a reaction that a father definitely shouldn’t get when looking at his son.

My phone beeped. I looked at the message. The result of the DNA analysis was in. WTF: XY!

I looked up at my son and the last bandage lower down on his chest with a bit of blood seeping through. Belatedly I realised. He saw that I had finally understood.

“Dad, you have no idea what a great feeling it is to put on the tight costume, to show off my great teenage girl figure and really kick some bad-guy ass. The adrenaline kick is incredible. Being so feminine and so powerful at the same time and all the adoration I get. You have no idea the high I get.”

And then he finally broke down and started to cry. I took a step forward and took him in my arms.

“Dad, please help me. I’m a heroine addict!”