ransvestia

who were spreading out the fish on long mats they'd taken out of the huts. Greg would have spoken again, but one look from his mother silenced the innocuous question in his throat. The girl became nervous under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes. "I have to attend to the fish," she muttered, beginning to step away, down the landing dock.

"Stay!" Kate's tone bristled with scarcely repressed anger. Jim Porter stepped down to the deck, a worried look on his face, but Kate waved him away. "Well, miss," she said, a touch of sarcasm in her voice. "Are you going to tell us who you are or do you want me to give you a name?"

The girl flinched slightly. There seemed to be a struggle going on within her. After a moment, she shrugged and looked directly at Kate. "I think you know who I am," she said to Kate. At Kate's nod, she sighed. "Yes," she said, "I'm Kenny Porter."

⭑

⭑

In a quick trip to the plantation house, Kenneth Porter had packed all his belongings into two cases, had put on a pleated dress with two or three petticoats, a pair of low-heeled shoes, stockings and a white shawl to cover his bare shoulders. He'd also touched up his makeup, adding a little blue eyeshadow above his eyes which brought out the vivid blackness of his irises. He hadn't put up any kind of a fight when Kate had categorically stated that he was going back with them to Nassau. He had sighed and looked resigned as if he expected it. It was only after he'd scampered off up the path that real objections had been raised to his going back with the Porters.

"I-I can't have that-that thing on my boat," Jim Porter had exploded.

Kate had been shocked. "Why not?" she asked. "I thought we'd agreed to take Eleanor's son back with us."

"That's a boy?" Cathy sneered and then shuddered.

"But what else can we do?" Kate had seemed bewildered.

"Leave him here," her husband had suggested. "He can play his dressing up games here, not in our house. Just think," he ran a

43