Ransvestia

She really blew up. What right did I have to go into her drawers? What if I had ruined a six-dollar bra? What sort of pervert was I anyway? She carried on as if I'd committed a crime, and it was weeks before she let it die.

Of course, it's okay for her to wear my clothes. She borrows my shirts and my jeans and anything else that strikes her fancy. That's all right when she's the borrower. Just let me show the slightest inclination to reciprocate, though - let me borrow an umbrella, even - and she'll go after it as if it were really serious.

Okay, if that's the game, we'll play it. I'll be very careful to appear disdainful of things feminine. I'll be one hundred percent cautious about trying on her things. I'll carry out my little sorties in a way that she'll never detect. If this is an aspect of me that she's too frightened to know about, I'll hide it from her, and she'll just have to go through life knowing a little less about me than she could.

So, on that first, sweet, vacation morning, after I had given her plenty of time to catch her bus, I chained the door, and went to the bedroom to pick out the clothes I wanted to wear.

Most men would look ridiculous in a dress. Believe it or not, I don't. I look young for my age, and in a dress, I look quite natural. A pretty dress seems to set me off, to complement a graceful, well-shaped body and a friendly, boyish face. As long as there isn't anyone around to apply their narrow, stereotyped attitudes to the situation, I enjoy the way I look.

So I dressed in her clothes and felt good- gloriously, elatedly good. I felt a mite guilty that I was having such fun while she was at work. Of course, whether I was enjoying myself or not, it didn't make any difference to her, but I did feel a little remorse.

I puttered. I fixed the noisy toilet that the union plumber couldn't fix. I did the dishes, and straightened the apartment. I began the first of a series of books that I had assembled for summer reading. I did exact- ly what the mood of the moment told me to do, and I enjoyed it with the warm sense of well-being that wearing Sally's clothes always brings.

At about three in the afternoon, she called.

"I expected to hear from you by now," she said.