wearing them must have been evident, for a few days later Mother told me she had something else for me which she thought I might enjoy. That proved to be the understatement of her life, as her second surprise consisted of an old pair of her nylons and a pair of spectator pumps. Everything was much too big, of course, but I'll never forget how the nylons looked and felt on my legs. From that point on, I think I was hooked. At last I felt like the girl I had dreamed of being, and with my mother's approval. I must have literally floated around the house all week.

My father, however, was far less sympathetic. Once he returned home from his business trip, I enthusiastically got dressed to show him what we had been doing, only to be greeted with severe sarcasm and derision. I was crushed, and never mentioned it around him again. I love both my parents dearly, but I had seen a reaction to my innocent desires that I never wanted to see or feel again. Days earlier I had learned the magic of dressing; now I had learned something of the guilt and shame which usually accompany it. Soon I began to hide my things under the bed and even stopped dressing around Mother. I imagine Dad's reaction (which I'm sure he felt was in my best interests) had an effect on her own, for from then on I was always afraid of her finding me in her things. Indeed, I often wonder what impelled her to give me her clothes in the first place. Probably humoring me because I had been so sick.

As for what could have impelled me to ask her for them, two things have always intrigued me about that: (1) how, except for that isolated dream at four, the impulse to wear that skirt seemingly came from almost nowhere, full-blown as it were, and (2) the astonishingly early age at which it came.

My return to school that fall saw the resumption of what seems to me to have been in every other respect a pretty normal childhood. With one interesting exception: I was the only boy through the fourth grade who had a steady girlfriend, a little girl with whom I had been terribly smitten my first week back. I remember announcing to her one day on the playground that she was going to be my girlfriend, and she was, for three years until we moved. At the same time, I had plenty of friends. among the fellows and quickly became the elected leader of the group both in and out of school (I mention this only to

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