were back in the President's bedroom, the door safely shut. Irena slipped off the negligee and tossed it over the bed.

Then she glided over to the bed, sat just below her pillow, took off her heels and slipped into bed. She smiled in ec- stacy as the nightie wrapped itself tightly about her.

"I enjoyed what?" she asked, indicating to Consuela to join her in bed.

Consuela remained where she was. "You enjoyed being a woman!" Consuela shouted. She picked up her own wrap from the chair beside the bed. "I'm going to bed, darling,' she snapped. "My own bed." She flashed her eyes at the wide-eyed girl in the bed. "I don't sleep with young women or people the same sex as me. I only sleep with men!"

She turned on her heel and strode to the connecting door that led to Isabel's room and then on to hers. She had to report on the call to Ag- uilar anyway. And it would be nice to talk to Isabel woman- to-woman, she thought angrily, than to talk to Esteban woman- to-woman. She couldn't under- stand why she felt so bitter, and that upset her more. She'd been so sure that the boy could never carry off such a deception. How could she be so disappointed when he was succeeding so mangificently in doing what she had taught him to do?

Consuela did not sleep well. When she finally called upon Isabel and they went together to help Irena dress for breakfast, she still felt depressed. Perhaps she shouldn't have left the 'girl' alone that night. But when she found that Irena was missing from her room, in her sudden spasm of grief and fear, she knew how wrong she'd been to turn down the opportun- ity to share the bed with the sensitive boy-girl.

Despite Consuela's taunts, which had made his stomach dance with the qualms he felt, Esteban was happy as sleep came upon him. It felt very good to be pandered to after so many years of being shun- ted aside. He didn't doubt that Consuela would let him make love to her again. He was beginning to enjoy, too, the

admiration and compli- ments he received from others. He was such a good actor that they didn't even recognize him! He tried not to think of Ric- ardo Querido, but that was another example of how success- ful he was at being Irena. The silk nightdress felt to soft about his hairless body and legs. He wished Consuela had stayed. He had kept on his bra and panties so that he felt very feminine as he lay on his frilled pillow, his hair gently rubbing against his neck. Sleep came easily.....

Waking came hard. His throat felt extraordinarily dry, and the hot air about him was almost unbearable. There were hard boards beneath him, jerking and bumping, while an engine roared close to his gold- pierced ear."She's coming out of it," a strange gutteral voice said. Esteban, trying to remem- ber he was Irena and a woman, forced his eyes open. He was lying in the back of a truck, still in his nightdress, on a dark rug.

him

Two people were watching a thin man with a thick, dark mustache, and and an even thinner woman, who resembled the man in facial features closely.

"Wh-where am I?" Esteban mumbled, trying out his Irena voice as sitting up came dif- ficultly, dizziness engulfing his brain.

The thin, deeply tanned man snickered, but the woman stood up, swayed with the truck's motion, and brought a canteen of lukewarm water over to 'Irena.' "You worried us,"

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she said, concern on her thin face. "You've been out longer than we expected."

Esteban took a drink of the warm water. His head swam and he felt very dirty, more SO perhaps because of the scented baths Consuela had him

taking several times a day. "Where am i?" he whispered again.

"You are our prisoner," the thin man leered. As Este- ban's eyes focused properly, he saw that the man's skin pock-marked and very

was

dirty.

The woman gave the man an angry glance. "We need the money desperately," she said apologetically. "You were chloroformed, wrapped in this old rug, and delivered to us outside the Lorenzo. We are taking you up to Arricos," she named the center of the north- eastern coal-mining area, "where we are being paid to deliver you."

Esteban leaned back against the side of the truck to think, the hair of his wig clustering at his neck, his nightdress tight about his legs. The thin-faced man leered at Irena, and Este- ban instinctively put his arm across his padded bra.

"I have clothes for you," said the woman hurriedly. She indicated the forward portion of the truck to where a blanket, hung on a cord from one side to the other, created a separate, partly private section.

The woman assisted 'Irena' to her feet and led her behind the blanket screen. The clo- thing she had for Irena was not particularly clean. Yet the skirt and petticoats were very bright.

"I-I can't wear these," whis- pered Esteban, guessing how he might appear.

"You must," murmured the woman quietly. "Or he will make you." Her eyes darted warily over her shoulder. She patted Irena on 'her' hip and retreated back behind the screen.