Transvestia

was

When he awoke the next morning, there was some- thing 'different' about the hotel room. What was it? Somehow, it seemed to be a happy place. There was a certain feeling that Gracie was about---invisible, yet here!. Try as he might, he could not quite see her. She so tantalizingly near--yet so far--so unattainable! Perhaps she was coyly hiding because she disapproved of his bedraggled appearance. True his chin was stubbly; his shirt had disolved into a mass of wrinkles and his suit was getting rather baggy. Now conscious of the fact that his appearance was not that of a gay lothario, he resolved to amend that. "I can pick up whatever I need from a haberdashery. He then proceeded to do something about it. A bellboy was summoned and dispatched with his suit for a quick pressing. When it was returned, so did his spirits. Whistling a cheerful tune, Henry disappeared into a barbershop, emerging shortly with a clean-shaven, cumned face, hair neatly trimmed and combed.

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With the greater part of his day before him until he could again meet Gracie, Henry dropped into a bookstore. Rummaging through the books in the section which Ellen would call evil and disgustingly putrid, Henry found a morsel of satisfaction in his defiance. Several of the more exotic titles piqued his interest, so he bought them for the afternoon's reading. Thus armed, he returned to his hotel room, settled comfortably into the chair, and began more vicarious living. However spicily written, the books failed to hold his interest when it was so easy to shut his eyes and visualize a far more thrilling life with Gracie. So entranced was he, Henry fell into a deep sleep, only to awake with a start to find it well past six.

With the intention of buying a few shirts, toilet articles and a suit off the rack, Henry Detweiler hastened intently down the street, hoping to find a men's shop open. Without realizing it, his steps brought him to the department store in which was Gracie. Now, in the day- light, things looked differently-- Gracie seemed to have a strange reserve about her that could not be broken. He had to summon up all of his imagination to visualize her with life-talking and moving. But he did! Yet the ur- gency of his mission (he must look 'right' for tonight's date) caused him to enter the store to make his purchase.

Inside, wherever he looked, he saw nothing but women'i

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