Transvestia

lowered the glass screen so that we could talk as we went. Five minutes later we were cruising through the summer evening in the maze of traffic lights and neon signs of downtown Johannesburg.

We stopped for a while and drank lager in the open at what seemed to be an almost exclusively German beer-hall and where no-one seemed to find Maurice's driver's cap and my long dress and mink stole and odd combination. At eleven, climbing back up the hill out of town I said "Maurice, drive round past Mario's place do you mind?"

He turned his head and gave a little laugh "Don't tell me you're worried about Dawn with Mario surely not after all her other adventures!"

"No" I said, "nothing like that I just felt I'd like to speculate on how the evening's going for her." Maurice parked at the curb-side opposite Mario's apartment block and we looked up to the roof garden silhouetted against the purple night sky. The ornamental lamps were all out except the big central one at the foot of which was what Mario call- ed his "Conversation Piece", a leopard-skin covered divan with a canopy and masses of cushions. I knew this meant that dinner was long over and the other guests would have been tactfully chased away to their hotel. Mario was a past-master at making it clear when the time had arrived when he intended to be alone with his lady of the evening. I should know I've been among the "chased-away"! By now Dawn would probably have discarded her white chiffon gown for one of Sophia's lounging robes and they would be reclining there looking up at the stars Dawn would be anyway! I envied her but was in no way jealous. My mind was quite clear on that point.

Maurice looked at his watch and said with mild cynicism "Good old Dawn - right up to schedule. Can we go now, Doll?" We drove back to my place and I said goodnight and went up alone. As I put my key