RANSVESTIA

Bud laughed and reached into his pocket for a new pack of Chesterfields. He broke the seal and took one for himself without offering one to the other. "No," he said quietly. "I don't choose. I let you be what you are, and then I let you be. And this isn't the kind of harem I would choose. However, to business."

Jeannette seemed a little put out at his statement and so it was Lana who finally spoke about the men in Darlene's life. "She kept a scrapbook for a time centerfolds from Playgirl she called it her collection. But I got upset with her for keeping pictures of men and she stopped. I guess we should have known then what she really was. Or at least, that she wasn't like us, eh, Jeannette?" Jeannette nodded quickly. On stage a platinum blonde with shoulder length hair was doing an 'interpretative' dance. In a tight black costume to curve 'her' figure, in fishnet stockings with a blue lace garter at almost the top of 'her' thigh, the young transvestite was showing off impressive gymnastic ability, all the time managing to thrust forward bright red lips in a girlish pout.

"Who is that?" asked Lana, breaking off.

"Another Darlene," breathed Jeannette. "She's very good." The tiny black velvet bow about the 'girl's' throat concealed 'her' adam's apple so well that again Bud was surprised by how much a man could, with skill and persistence, convince the spectator that he was

a woman.

"Did she ever have a woman as a friend?" Bud asked and the two looked at him blankly.

The silk gown made a soft sliding sound as Lana turned back re- gretfully to him. "Never, as I recall," she said. "Kim might remember someone here before we signed her up. But with us, particularly over the last year, it's been men - usually big guys - truckers, ranchers, those she could control not to go too far. Those were the kind she went out with."

the like

"Did she know she was being replaced?" asked Bud.

"Yes," said Lana, reaching into the tiny, sequinned purse for one of her menthol cigarettes. "But it was funny. She just laughed at me when I told her she was through. She said it wasn't going to happen."