RANSVESTIA

pocket. "Look," he said gently, "you won't get there in one piece if you continue like that. Just slow down. You can go on now. I'll drive a little way behind you."

Annette's brown eyes widened as the policeman handed her the license. He had gone back to the cruiser before she realized that he was not going to give her a ticket.

She flicked the indicator and pulled away quickly, but kept her cruising speed at two or three miles below the limit. The cop was as good as his word. He drove behind her until they crossed the Rampton County line, and then pulled off into a cafe.

Relieved, Annette relaxed back into the driving seat. Her thoughts almost at once returned to replay the argument she had had with Jean just an hour before.

You don't know how it is, Jean had screamed at her, to have a hus- band who's a transvestite. Every one of her favorite dresses was dirty and just put back on the rack, and, as for lingerie, she could never find any because her husband, she had stressed the word, was always wearing hers. In vain, Annette had tried to point to the fact that it was Jean herself who had put the lilac mini back after wearing it to the Fox- ton Car Rally. Jean had been past rationality, however. Get out of my way, you stupid, little queen, she had shouted at Annette. And that had started Annette off.

It wasn't easy being a transvestite, she had said. Just trying to get through one day without saying the wrong thing to someone was a feat in itself. Besides, Jean wasn't complaining about Annette in the bedroom. Go on, Jean had said. You always bring sex into it, don't you? Well, why don't you do something about it, she had taunted. You're just a little coward. You could be a whole woman, not just a part-time one, if you had the guts. At that point, Annette had fled from the house, jumped in her car and taken off.

As she drove along, she thought to herself. Could what Jean said be true? Was Annette's reluctance to go any further into womanhood a lack of guts, or, as she had always thought, because it would be wrong to do so? Tears blinded her eyes. She loved Jean, and that couldn't be changed. She was doing eighty again. Annette realized how dangerous her thoughts were becoming to her driving. She would have

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