THE AWAKENING OF A TRANSVESTITE (Con't).

49,

But, horrors, instead of two there were three. An un- expected third, invited by the others, and to make it worse, a woman who knew me. That almost unnerved me, but somehow I managed to get by the introductions and the others work- ing in my defense managed to divert the conversation from me. I sat very primly for the hour or so of the visit--say- ing practically nothing and trying to be as unobvious as possible. The visitors must have thought me a terribly shy person, or a perfect snob, but I got little attention there- by and that was what I wanted. But all the time I was in- wardly thrilled, and thoroughly enjoyed the whole affair. But just before the visitors left, the woman who knew me said to me, "Gloria, we have met somewhere before haven't we?" I mumbled some thing to the effect that I didn't think so--completely off base by this unexpected turn of events But the woman wouldn't leave it at that and began to pump me for all it was worth. This minute questioning was terrible for the first few moments, but then its utter rudeness made me angry and I began to answer flippantly. Rude on my part too, but it was the perfect solution for the woman, in turn, became angry at me for my supposed smartaleckness and point- edly disregarded me for the remaining moments of her stay

When the three visitors had left my family fairly fell on me so delighted were they with the way I had handled my- self--particularly in the bout with this woman who was not too well liked by any of them. I was delighted with myself too, I had carried off the deception with no trouble and felt good all over. When we got home Dad was, as usual, more or less flabbergasted at my appearance and when he learned of my success with "that woman" he laughed heartily for he thoroughly disliked her prying ways, and he ended by stating that he was glad I had done it.

Thus for all intents and purposes my career in femin- ine clothing was over, and other than occassional joking references my life was wholly normal. Though I thought of it often, there was always one jarring note to my memories