47.

going to have to make up your mind in a hurry".

My mouth agape, I realized that she was telling the absolute truth. Oh, I had dimly realized this, in a way, all along, but I had refused to put it into words. Yes, I could resume my status as a man, but it was as Constance had said: I would have to get a job of some sort in order to live and then I would always be plagued by the request for my draft status. And, I was faced with the prospect of always being hunted by the police of all cities, towns, and the government. Reduced to this, I would be no better than a criminal, a fugitive from justice, as indeed I was already. On the other hand, if I stayed a girl, I would at any rate still have Connie's protection as long as she was of a mind to bestow it upon me. I had begun to like being a girl and wearing girl's clothes but it had been because I had thought it was a temporary thing to be endured only until things cleared up. Now I knew that this could never be cleared up except if I were to surrender myself to the authorities and the dread of awful and direful punishment made this an impossibility. So, faced with the choice of the only two solutions; leave Connie and go out into the world as a man, chased by the police, haunted by fears of arrest, trying to work or continuing to live as a girl, with my wife, not worrying about food or clothing and safe, up to a point, from arrest, as long as I remained undetected, the second of the two was by far the most appealing. But to face the reality of losing my identity as a man, of being a girl and woman for the rest of my life was a shock that was difficult to assimilate. I quaked in my innermost recesses at this appalling thought.'

Well, what about it, Orville?" Constance asked.

I shook my head to clear the dullness that was seep- ing into my mind. I could tell from her tone that she would insist on an answer right now and would