Iransvestia

"Why?"

"Can't you guess?"

"I'm not a mind reader."

"Well, I am. Does it fit?"

"Does what fit?"

"The dress."

"What dress?"

"The dress you're wearing. Does it fit?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, what are you talking about?"

"You mean you're not wearing a dress?"

"Of course not. I'm wearing exactly what you would expect."

"I'm sure you are, so maybe you had better go look in the mirror," she said facetiously and hung up.

She couldn't know. No one could. Our apartment was on the ninth floor and had well-curtained windows. No one had been at the door or anything. No way; there was absolutely no way for her or anyone else to know. She was pulling some sort of joke.

Nevertheless, I took off her clothes and put them away, exactly as I found them. Regretting the hour or so I had yet to go, I started to put on my own clothes.

Started, that is. My own clothes had disappeared. From the chair where I sometimes left them, from all of my drawers, from my closet, from the clothes hamper even, all my clothes had vanished, all of them. I searched again and found not so much as a sock.

Obviously she had hidden them. But why? What was she up to? And why, for the first time in my life hadn't I taken the precaution of laying out some clothes ready to jump into?

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