Ransvestia

reality; a specialized sub-genre of fictional womanhood. It struck me as interesting that it takes a man with my special inclinations to distill such a quintessential image of the female. No woman would look as I did on that sidewalk. Neither could any man. It required a balance. A har- monic mixture of the two to produce the flesh and fantasy that I am and represent.

*****

At three minutes past five Schyler Moxtone came out of the building and started walking in the direction of Penn Station all the time staying close to the buildings, ready at any moment to duck into an entrance way and hide. Poor little creep. I followed him from across the street. In point of fact I wasn't really following him seeing as I already knew where he was going thanks to Betty's little chat. Moxtone was headed for Penn Station to board the commuter train that would take him to his home on Long Island (a home, I might add, that he shares with his mother). Moxtone would get at the station at the height of rush hour, but he wouldn't go near the trains for at least an hour. The man hated crowds so much. He would spend that lonely hour in a small bar deep in the bowels of the underground railroad station looking into his vodka martini and hoping no one tries to sit at his table.

Moxtone didn't vary from the scenario Betty had given me. Once in the station he moved to the little bar which was tucked between two Amtrack gates and I followed him in after giving him a few minutes to get his drink and sit down. I pushed aside the glass door and stepped in to realize the place was perfect for my little one-woman show. The bar was dark, smoke-filled and inhabited by silent, gray-faced businessmen who used the place as an air lock between office and home. It was not pre-war Berlin, but, after all, I wasn't Greta Garbo either, so it would do for my purpose.

I lifted my dark glasses to see better in the subdued light. I saw Moxtone seated at a booth removed from the larger part of the bar. He sat alone, looking into his martini as if he expected something to sur- face from the bottom of the glass.

Very well. The time had come. I lowered my glasses and moved toward Moxtone. Now the hard part began. I walked to his table and let my gloved hand rest on the table top. Moxtone looked up at me and in that instant I knew that even without opening my mouth, the image I wished to project was the image he saw. I spoke in conspiratorial tones.

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