all. I'm not really gay, it's just well, I'm all mixed up. I thought you might be gay too. I even wondered about the pictures and all way back then. I had to know, I didn't want to ask you. I always thought you were real nice. In the store you looked so neat and all, even the eyebrows. Even if your legs are shaved that's no crime. Jamie here always makes mountains out of molehills anyway. He said he bet you were like him, a drag queen he calls them. Doris was really going now, and she continued. "It figured, too, if you really did pose for the photos, your eyebrows and legs now and the clothes you are wearing although not real girlish... Oh Al, I've been a big fool about this thing, will you ever forgive me?" I kissed Doris for the first time.

I held Doris in my arms for a long time, then slowly we walked down the stairs. The big blond drag queen was still asleep from the terrible blow on his head.

We walked toward my apartment.

I kept every feminine item of

mine hidden just as at home. I was aware that sometime I would or might bring someone from the store home. Then it must look like just the average bachelor apartment. If an item or two did appear I could explain that it was a friend's or that my sister had left it. They couldn't guess unless they found falsies or wigs, but I kept these well hidden.

Doris was quiet till we went into my place.

"Oh, this is nice Al" she said.

"Comfortable, nothing fancy but pretty nice" I said.

"Let me eat something, I'm starved" she said.

"OK I'll fix it for you." I set about fixing a meal, just as any girl or man who was used to preparation of his own meals. Doris watched idly and probably wondered at my strangeness.

"Are those really girl's slacks Al, like Jamie said?"

"Naw, they are just ivy's. Jame just put all this stuff over on you, darling. You know how that kind is, even in the store he was suspicious. But hell, I just don't have a lot of hair, never did, and my brows, well, I can't see anything so bad about them. The guys have never said anything."

I was anxious now to appear normal in front of Doris. For one thing, she knew my sister Betty and I must convince her of my

29.