RANSVESTIA

mistakeable fact that I would necessarily have to marry a girl. Secondly, there was the unmistakeable fact that I was a Prince in habit, thinking, with some attention to detail."

even in appearance

There had been a growing movement of public sentiment that the Prince should begin actively seeking a wife. And, because it was inevit- able, the Prince went through the motions. He visited the other capitals of Europe and there was always discrete talk of allying him to one or the other of the daughters of the remnants of nobility. Talk only, for nothing seemed to come of it. Until the Prince chanced to visit Paris.

"Of course it was all the same thing there everyone's daughter being shoved at me until I wanted to scream. If the truth were known I was, in spite of my upbringing, a rather healthy young woman underneath it all, and despite the problem of the throne I still had fantasies about finding a young man.

"One night, as I was leaving a reception featuring the latest candi- dates — you can't imagine what nightmares these things were for me — one of the men there said to me, 'Impossible, aren't they?' I was unso- phisticated enough to say 'yes.' My partner in this conversation was one of the remnants of a decayed house - but how decayed I didn't realize. He proposed that we visit a certain place he knew of where I would find, he assured me, an interesting sight.

"He was, of course, completely mistaken about me the reason I was not interested in girls did not imply I was interested in his kind, either. But he unknowlingly offered the start of a solution, although I didn't know it."

Places like that have existed from the time of the Greeks who had made something of a science of it. Places where young men of certain persuasions can meet other men. The Prince's guide had taken him to a homosexual ball. There was something simultaneously repulsive and fas- cinating about it. The companion had disappeared shortly after arriving, leaving the Prince to stare at the crowd from darkened corner.

"I was startled," she said, "when someone spoke to me, saying, "They are interesting, aren't they?' I replied instantly, 'They're disgusting.' The voice went on, ‘But there's something about them, all the same...

"I turned to look at my unwanted companion and found myself star- ing at a well-dressed woman with a sympathetic smile on her face. 'What