20-MY SON, THE BRIDESMAID

His mother looked at his legs thoughtfully, "You know, they really should be clean shaven. Let me get my electric shaver."

Robin pleaded, "But I'll be wearing pants anyway, so it won't show."

Before he knew it, his mother was removing the light fuzz on his legs. "There!" she said finishing up. "Very smooth. I'll leave this razor in your bathroom, you might as well keep them smoothly shaven."

Robin wondered what this all meant. Boys didn't shave their legs but then again boys didn't wear polish or work in dress shops. He didn't say anything.

His mother told him, "Put the underwear on first, then one of the robes I've lent you and some slippers. We'll do nails and hair in my room. On second thought, I'll stay and help you with the bra. It closes in back."

"A bra too?" Robin questioned.

"Of course dear," she said matter-of-factly, "half the population wears them.

Robin's mother turned her back while he slipped into the lacy black panties. The poor boy's face clouded with uneasiness. Biting his lip, Robin looked at his mother for help with the brassiere. With no signs of relenting, she helped her son into the girlish garment; hooking it securely in back. She asked with quiet assurance, "Doesn't that feel nice?"

She opened a small box on the bed and pulled out two foam rubber breasts. "These were Trish's," she said in deep thought, then added, "Now, they're yours." She slipped them into the cups of Robin's bra.

Then came the black pantihose and the lace camisole completed his dressing for now. Robin quickly slipped on a silken bathrobe that he wore quite frequently nowadays. He had to, otherwise the confusing effect that these sexy feminine clothes were beginning to have would become obvious to his mother.

She led her son to her bedroom and sat him down in front of the vanity.

"Hmmm," his mother pondered his dangling wet locks, "Let me see. Have you ever wondered what you would look like with curly hair?"

TV FICTION CLASSICS--21

The question was rhetorical, but Robin mumbled his sarcastic reply, "Day in, and day out."

"There's enough time. I think we should give it a try." Again, a rhetorical statement. Robin watched, wondering what she was up to now, as his mother rummaged about in one of the vanity drawers. Then he saw what she was bringing out, and his heartbeat upped its tempo.

"What are you planning to do with those?" he asked, fearing the answer. His mother had taken out a plastic bag full of plastic hair rollers and a box of long bobby pins.

"Oh, don't worry. I've done this before, you know." Robin knew what she meant. His mother put her hair up in rollers most nights before bedtime. She had frequently set his sister's hair, and Robin remembered how he teased her about 'looking like some Martian with funny tubes in her hair'. He had the feeling that he was about to find out what it felt like to be a Martian.

He tried to plead that this wasn't part of the deal but his mother just prepared the curlers.

He watched in silence as his mother's skillful hands deftly sectioned and combed out his hair, sprayed setting lotion, then neatly wound the colorful rollers to the scalp. In fifteen minutes his head was all covered with the neatly set curlers.

"Oh, this will be a lovely hairdo," his mother gushed. "I'll sweep curls over from a side part, maybe hold it up over one ear with a nice comb!" Before he could make any other comments, and Robin was really lost for words, his mother carefully fitted a soft vinyl hair dryer bonnet over the lad's roller-covered scalp, and switched on a warm stream of drying air. The heat soothed him into a kind of happy, apathetic mood. Here he was, about to be dressed and coiffed like a 'good little girl', and he was going along with it. The boy did suspect that there would be some embarrassment to come that evening, but it was all in fun.

Without asking her son's permission, Mrs. Wilkes tilted the boy's face back and began to apply cosmetics. He was asked to look up, then down, and keep from blinking as eye shadow, eye liner, and mascara were applied. When she drew out what Robin was sure was some