Transvestia

For a moment he stood transfixed, hardly daring to breathe lest he miss a new sensation! He passed his hands over his body, feeling the cool slither of the soft gar- ments mold themselves into graceful curves. A hesitant step in unfamiliar heels brought a rippling feeling up through the hose and the girdle responded in it's own way, bringing a delicious tremor to the small of his back. Another few steps and a graceful turn and pirouette caused the skirt to balloon slightly and fall back into place. A warm flush suffused through Henry. He felt so different, so alive! Like being reborn as an entirely new person! "She" glided to the dresser on which lay the pretty jewel- ry and donned them as though it were a very ordinary thing. With the 'image' of a lovely lady now complete, "she" walked about as fluidly as a model, stopping before the mirror. This person saw, from the neck down a curvaceous- even young lady. Above the mink collar was a strangely familiar face whose features ebbed and flowed-- first verging on Gracie, and then blurring into Henry's, and next into an entirely new face of a 30-ish young lady! "How strange, how very delightfully strange" was the thought racing through Henry's brain. "What has happened to Henry? "And where was Gracie? and "Who was this

11

person I see in the mirror?" These and many more like questions whirled round and round in Henry's imaginative head. The thrill and delight in this stranger's appearance and the feeling of her personality were far, far too de- livious to be taken lightly.

It may have been one hour, or ten, but gradually an amalgam of all of the emotions of the two Henrys and Gracie were added to those already present. A person- ality and identity began forming and the composite person began thinking of herself as someone quite new, but with a mind of her own--one that insisted on having a life of her own too. This was "Alice", a person of dignity and grace--exquisitely feminine. Her mood and temperament were fused into the very soul of Henry Detweiler forever.

Much later, the 'other' personality of Henry J. Det- weiler, so long starved for emotional experience, came back. But this was quite a different Henry J. Detweiler-- with a new and fresh outlook on life; now given to seeing beauty in his surrounding, and with a fine sensitivity for things feminine. His and 'her' thoughts, quite naturally

33