Transvestia

-

My sister, P____, 3 years younger than I, was the apple of my Father's eye as I have already mentioned. Things I would be punished for doing she could do and get away with. I can recall words to the effect of, "You are older and a boy--she is just a little "girl", and then my Father would use the old fashioned razor strap he had for his straight razor to emphasize this point on my be- hind. I can never recall that strap being applied to P as punishment--only me. After all, "boys can take more punishment and shouldn't flinch, my Father would say. (For years Dad used a straight razor to shave. He told me safety razors were for sissies and that a real man always used a straight razor. Only when he got older and his hand became less steady did he grudgingly change to a safety razor---and then only because of the strongly masculine appeal of Gillette's sports advertising.) Therefore, did I thus turn to femininity out of envy of my sister's favored status regarding my Father's love and affection, and her seeming immunity from his punish- ment?

P _____ and I were also very close as children. When she was 6 and I was 9 the family moved to a home in the country about 50 miles from Dad's business in Chicago. Dad commuted out to the house only for weekends and holidays and took an apartment next to his store for the balance of his time. Our home was in a sparsely populated area and for want of playmates of our own age P and I did everything together. She played cowboys and Indians with me and I played dolls and house with her. We became so close over the period of the next 6 or 7 years (until I went away to college) that we established a mental rapport that even today amazes my Mother,

P

's husband, and my wife. We can talk to each other in half sentences, each understanding what the other means after the first few words are spoken. If we simul- taneously hear a witty story with a "double" meaning, we both seem to smile at the same time, indicating how attuned are our thought processes. It is almost as if we were identical twins rather than being 3 years apart in age and of opposite sexes. Shortly after moving to the country our relationship became even closer, for Mother and Father started drifting apart in their marriage. We children soon became aware from overhearing heated ar- guments between them that they would have dissolved the marriage had it not been for us, but that they would

6