RANSVESTIA

cisco as two women during this period in which I was Virginia from leaving the apartment to arriving back again. We stayed in hotels in several places and naturally ate in restaurants and did the sight- seeing bit along the way. It was, as most of you will be able to imagine, a very great experience.

After about three months in the apartment it happened. I had bought two beautiful chocolate brown chemises by Vanity Fair with pleats and lace over the bodice and around the hem. One of them was a 12 and one an 18. One evening we were both wearing them with hose and heels and lounging around when "D" suddenly got serious and said that she had gotten her National Health forms from England. This is equivalent to our Social Security. She had been paying into it from over here and she put the question-"If I'm going to stay in America there doesn't seem to be any reason for continuing to pay into the fund in England. But if I am going to go back there I expect I should, what do you think?" Well, in American slang that could be translated—"Are you going to fish or cut bait, Buster." So I got the message and, dressed in my pretty lingerie, heels and makeup, I proposed to her then and there in effect, saying I think you should stay over here. She accepted. We were married in Santa Barbara a few months later and she bought me a beautiful white satin nightie for a wedding present.

In due course we began to think about having a home instead of an apartment and began scouting for a lot. We found one on a promon- tory overlooking a canyon in Hollywood and bought it. Access was by a quarter-mile long dirt road maintained by the fire department so it was pretty well isolated but with a nice view down over the canyon. Well, we designed the house ourselves and it became pretty unique having to fit onto a small lot and conform to the Building and Safety Departments' rules. The contractor said it couldn't be sited on the lot, we said it could and one Sunday morning with stakes, string and a sledge we went up there, laid it out, drove in the stakes and con- nected them by strings and then told the contractor, "It's laid out for you, now build it," and he did.

Somehwere in the 50s I had gone to a Halloween dance at our church dressed as a girl of course and I danced with various of the men. One of them was our young minister. I got away with it for some- time until we got into some conversation about where he had gone college which was in a small town in Illinois. Since my mother came