thing which would stand in the way of her living with her boy- friend.

My tour of duty ended in Europe with my separation from active duty. I moved to Daytona Beach with my two children to complete my aeronautical de- gree. My wife stayed in Europe with her lover. I joined a sing- les group and jumped right back into the real heavy macho world of fast moving women and night life. Yep! And I had another purge of my feminine garments. I did keep several pairs of shoes because I knew, down deep, that I would return to the feminine world, some day.

After a full year of school, wild affairs, one engagement, a divorce finalized, the return of my wife to make amends, col- lege graduation and a search for work after 12 years of mili- tary duty, I had almost burned myself out.

I moved to Mississippi to live with a very dear friend with whom I had served in Vietnam. The children wanted to go back to Louisiana to finish high school so I gave my ex-wife all of our property to set up a home for them. My friend had married one of the nurses from our Viet- nam tour and now had a family of four small children. We got along great since we were both engaged in corporate flying. I even helped each night with the children and household duties. It was a real relaxing escape from the hard driving macho pace I had lived the year before. With everything very peaceful, my thoughts turned to feminine things once again. I dug out my high heels and purchased several other feminine items of clothing. Every night I would sleep in my pretty things. I began to think how good it would be to dress any time I wanted. I would find out someday.

After about a year I got a job offer in North Carolina so I bid farewell to my friends and moved. I got a small apart-

to make

ment on a mountainside over- looking Asheville and then went out and purchased everything to complete a feminine wardrobe. I will never forget the night it all came together me a total girl for the very first time. In the past, things had been in the fettish stage. I had my hair cut short and shaved off the mustache that I had worn for twelve years.

I went hog wild - I got hold of makeup, false eyelashes and all kinds of cosmetics. When I put the shoulder length blonde wig and adjusted it in front of a full length mirror, my dream of being like a girl had come true. I found that I could be sweetly prim and pro- per at one moment and a little saucy bitch the next. I could portray any mood, any feeling that I desired. I found this total girl within so fascinating that I began to search for another

person who felt the same as me. I combed the newstands for con- tacts with other crossdressers. I located an ad from California dealing with the names and ad- dresses of organizations which dealt with crossdressers. In- cluded with this material, was a brochure about Tri-Ess Sorority. After reading it carefully, I hur- riedly wrote to Carol, for I had found my home.

I was the most excited girl you ever saw when I received the Directory and suddenly found all my sisters out there who share my feelings about crossdressing.;

Up to this time, I had no femme name so I took the name NICHOL which is a slightly different spelling from that of my daughter's name Nichole, who I dearly love. Now that I had a name and an identity, this butterfly was about to un- furl her wings and go out into the world - out of the closet.

I conceived a very unusual idea. I had always had an un- canny way with women now that I was studying every

move, habit, mannerism, etc., I would take a bold step to see what would happen. I became very perceptive of subtle things that women do and would open- ly comment and compliment them at every opportunity. The secretaries that I worked with were puzzled by my obvious awareness of feminine things. Their curiosity brought them closer to me for now I was not the average macho guy with only one thing in mind about girls.

I would cook meals for them, party with them and go out with them as a group of friends. I found myself caught up in some very feminine con- versations.

Suddenly some of of them asked why I was so different, so understanding. Well, since I figured that they were my best friends that I would carry through my plan. I pulled out the photo of Nichol and was pleasantly surprised that no one rejected the idea that I was a crossdresser. Instead of rejection, they were more facinated by me and I was happy to receive offers from them to take me shopping. or to come to their homes to dress for them. I even received girl-thing type of gifts.

Our corporate secretary was my favorite running buddy. She was tall, my height, wore size ten dresses and size ten shoes. She cleaned out her closet of dresses that she did not wear any longer and gave them to me. We had a great time at work laughing about our little secret. We spent many hours together the relationship was too good for us to spoil it by becoming lovers.

During the year that I lived in Asheville I repeated many times the seneteo of telling female friends about Nichol. I wished to find out how real girls would accept the idea of crossdressing, if they knew the person underneath the clothing. I "revealed" Nichol to twelve different girls and was never rejected by a single one. I should