RANSVESTIA

either get busted or you pass well enough so that someone suggests you be a female impersonator. It's just the job you've always wanted. But you hate not being a woman all the time, and you start to dress everywhere. You use a femme name and everyone calls you 'she.' Then you want more real breasts most likely. Then you'll be on to hormones, and the, the big operation. You'll have boy friends along the way who'll do strange things to you, so strange that you'll forget how it is to make it with a woman. You'll become a woman yourself." She looked sorrowfully at Eddie. "You reminded us that we were all really men in here. You just dressed for the show."

Eddie pulled on the mini-slip that Allison had donned him with that morning. "But you could do as I did, if you wanted to."

Kiki pulled a face. "Don't you believe it," she said fiercely. "You talked to Cissy, didn't you? She wasn't the first, you know. No-one leaves this place after you've signed on. It's a downhill road." She looked desperately at Eddie.

"Why don't you up stakes and pull out?" whispered Eddie.

"What do you think they assign boy friends to all of us for?" said Kiki bitterly. "Besides, they know where my daughter lives, and they make sure my alimony is paid out of my money here. No," Eddie had never seen the big blonde so despondent. "Sooner or later, I'll offend someone and it'll be the big chop for me. I'm only trying to hang on till Jane finishes school next year." She looked at Eddie, desperation in her eyes. "I've nothing else but her. My wife is long gone, both my wives, in fact. Mom looks after Jane, but she needs the money I've sent to her. I can't make that kind of money anywhere else but in this city." She looked back into the room. Audrey was telling the others about some loudmouth in the audience, holding forth in aggrieved tones, oblivious to the fact that he was clad only in bikini panties, which he had restored after his bedroom act. "When you got away with it for a few days, we thought maybe things were changing. But.. She sighed as her lip quivered. "I'd better run along. Marty doesn't like it when I'm late, and tonight he told me he was really going to pin my ears back..." With a woeful, unhappy look at Eddie, also in street clothes now, Kiki hurried off before any reply could be given.

Eddie began to leave, too, when Karen suddenly grasped him by the arm. Dressed in the bridal gown, when she didn't smile or leer, she was the picture of virginal innocence. "You're not to go," she said, smiling. "The boss wants to see you in the foyer."