hand.

"I'm glad," Nancy said, squeezing his

"I only ask one thing," Gerald said, "What's that?"

"Please stop teasing me in front of your mother and my aunt, " he said.

"Of course " she replied.

000

that really bother you?"

"Yes, it did.

"Did

Very much, for I have always liked you," Gerald replied.

"Well, I like you, too, Gerald," she said. "And the only reason I was teasing you was that I was under strict orders from my own mother to do so. And she was taking her instructions from your aunt."

"I see," Gerald said.

"Your aunt will do anything at all to crush your boyish spirits, Gerald," said Nancy. "She really hates boys!"

"I guess you're right."

"Of course I am, "Nancy insisted.

"The best thing you can do is to cooperate with her to the fullest extent.

58

-

Once you

can convince her that yoy really love your girlish clothes, she'll let up on you. I know what I'm talking about, for it has happened to me,"

"I see," Gerald said. "Sort of like the old saying, 'If you can't lick them, join them.!!!

"Exactly! Now you've got the idea. Cooperate them to death!" Nancy declared.

Gerald sat silent staring at her, a sense of hope flooding into his soul as he considered the wisdom of what she had said. For the first time since he had first been petticoated, he knew what he had to do.

What he had to do was to be as cute and feminine as he possibly could at all times, give instant obedience to every order given him by anyobody in the house, and become so nauseatingly girlish that even his aunt would gag on it.

Maybe then she would relent in her mad scheme to feminize him.

The sibilant swish of taffeta could be heard as Josie now came back into the room. Gerald and Nancy looked at each other, then slid down from the bed where they had been sitting.

59