FICTION

THE MASQUERADE

Beverly 32-G-12

"You're crazy! I won't do it!"

"But you promised! You said you'd do whatever I asked!"

"Of course I did. But that was before I knew you had this nutty idea in mind! I won't do it!”

I turned my back on my fiance, Nancy Amish, and strode to the bar to pour myself a drink. I took a long swallow and turned to face Nancy again, as she continued the argument:

"But why not? It's not as though you're the only man ever to dress in feminine clothes, you know! Look at all the professional female im- personators there are!"

"Yeah, but they get paid for doing it. What would I say if someone asked me why I was wearing a dress?"

"But at a masquerade party you can wear anything you want!"

"Well, I don't want to wear a dress!"

"But darling, with your face and figure, you'd make a beautiful woman!"

It was true. Much to my disgust, Nature had, in her sometimes eccentric fashion, given me an almost feminine body. My skin is silken smooth and practically hairless; despite weekly workouts at the YMCA, my muscles refuse to knot and bulge like other men's, but

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