RELUCTANT PRESS

gantly I'm going to get you up too. Come on, what's my favorite phrase again?"

I put my cup down and stood up. "Haute couture', my dear."

With that, I swung into action. One hand behind my head, the other on my hip, I sang, "Let's be a ladeeee tonight, la la la lala, lala lalaaa!" I did this to a few steps around the room, swaying girlishly. I didn't remember the words but it didn't matter.

"Oh darling, I do adore it when you are so utterly and completely uninhibited! You're a nephew in a million but tonight you will be my one and only adorable niece. After dinner we play poker till midnight, a half-crown to play and the limit is two pounds. I'm sure you can afford that and no one has ever been down by more than about 30 quid or so and I know you don't play like a damn fool."

I knew about Helen's Poker school of course. She had a proper seven sided poker table, heptagonal if you're mathematically minded, and played with a new pack every third or fourth game. She started the school but the game would move from house to house once a month so you only had your turn for laying out a full blown dinner party once every 6 months or so. It was played according to a strict set of rules, drinks before dinner, dinner at 7:00 P.M., generally three courses and the game started before 8:00 P.M..

"Come on, girls, let's go, time's money!" was an oft repeated cliché. There was always a coffee break at 9:45 and an alarm clock set to ring at 11:55 when the last hand was played. It was de rigeur to set a time limit when playing poker and to stick to it, no matter what. Chit-chat would frequently go on until 1:00 A.M. in the morning, but that was optional.

I don't think Helen was a lesbian but I do know she preferred women's company. Just as some men prefer men's company without being at all queer. Of the five women, two were single, two were divorcees and one was a widow. They were all smart and pretty successful in what they did. Three ran businesses, two were lecturers and one so bloody afflu-

JOYCE'S GIRLS BY JOYCE

ent that the rough and tumble of the working world was of no concern. (That was Jessica.) Precisely who was who and who did what is not of much concern.

But back to the sitting room before I retired to the 'ablution block' to prepare: to wash my distasteful maleness down the plug hole and emerge all softly smooth and plump and pink and powdered and oh, so desirable.

I was almost sorry no males were coming.

The long period of total masculinity had made me slightly mad. When you have seen enough 'johns' to stretch from Land's End to John o'Groat, you get a bit sick of them and I was virtually numero uno in the queue for a penectomy!

Vaginas are so much nicer to look at! That day I wished I'd had one.

"Now go and have a bath and do your legs and underarms." She leaned forward and opened the gown to look at my chest. "Clean as a whistle," she said approvingly. "I am sure you must have a fair dollop of estrogen flowing in your pipes and ducts. And then, you lovely thing, you may come to my bedchamber, hee, hee, heee!"

She said it slowly and voluptuously, like a vamp eyeing me with wicked intent. The skirt of her dress had risen to her thighs and the welts of her dark stockings showed.

I rushed away. I don't think I remember ever being more ecstatically happy. It was the air of complete and utter approval and even slight 'command' that thudded home right to the core of my 'pleasure center'.

How dull it must be NOT to be a transvestite. Perhaps that thought is ill aimed as real pleasure often comes from contrasts from barracks to boudoir, serge to satin, raucous bellowing to rapturous belle-ing. The Third Reich propagandists coined the phrase, 'Guns before Butter' but' Dresses before Battledress' is better and infinitely more civilized.

I emerged forty five minutes later, smelling like a dream, smooth as a hen's egg and feeling as pure as the driven snow. I made my way to Aunt Helen's 'bedchamber'.

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