ME: Sally has the most lovely set of colored underwear. I've never seen such a

color before.

JANE: Oh, really? You must show me, Sally.

(Mother lifted her skirt and petticoats to reveal as fine a pair of legs as I had yet seen and the rich claret colored knickers and petticoats).

JANE: How wonderful! Where on earth did you get them?

MOTHER: (Looking very pleased with herself) In New York, Colored underwear is all the rage over there.

JANE: I just hope such things come here. I love them. (She turned to me) She has wonder- ful taste, your mother. (In shock at her revela- tion, she threw her hand to her mouth and covered it, drawing her breath in sharply. I just went white in sudden anxiety).

MOTHER: (Looing puzzled). Your mother...? Why, Jane, whatever are you talking about? I'm not Stephanie's moth. . . (the word "mother" died on her lips as she looked closely at me and recognition slowly dawned). Oh, my God! . Stephanie. .Steven . . . it can't be. Is that why you were so . . . .familiar? Oh, my God!

•

*

•

(She let the hem of her skirt and petticoat drop, looking very pale. She sought a chair and sat gingerly on its edge as though it might collapse).

•

er,

JANE: Ahem. just a little joke, Sally. A little trick we wanted to play on you. No harm meant. I didn't mean to let it slip (She turned to me) I think, perhaps, Steven, you had better go upstairs and change into your own clothes.

•

ME: But Aunt Jane. . . . (I was about to say that these were my own clothes and that I could not remember where we had put my male clothes, but a look from Aunt Jane silen- ced me and I went to go upstairs. I had almost reached the door when my mother's voice stopped me).

MOTHER: No. No, Steven, don't go. Or should I say, Stephanie, don't go. Come back and sit

- 42-

down. There's something I have to say.

(I came back into the room and sat on the sofa)

MOTHER: You, too, Jane. (Aunt Jane sat next to me. Mother sat in silence for a few moments, watching me). Jane, this was not just a little game that much is clear to me. Ste- phanie is too will coached, too feminine, in both appearance and behavior for it to have been a little thing you both cooked up for the occasion. I knew that there was something familiar about her. In the back of my mind I knew that we had met before. It says something for both your talents that Stephanie is so much a girl that I was unable to recognize my own. . . .son. How long have you been a girl, Stephanie? ME: About three months.

MOTHER: Very pretty clothes. Whose are they?

ME: They're mine. Aunt Jane bought.

•

MOTHER: Yes, I thought so. How perceptive you are, Jane. You recognized something in Steven I've suspected for years but never actua- lly done anything about.

JANE: You mean.

ܕ܂

MOTHER: The person who has lived with me all these years is an absolute delight. Charming, semsitive, caring. Also much too delicate and fragile to be a real male. To be honest I've al- ways thought of him as being something in between. The person I met here just a couple of hours ago is also charming, sensitive, caring, delicate and fragile. . . .and very beautiful and very feminine and dainty. That person is not

in between anything. She is a girl. I think that it is clearly better that a person be one thing or another, don't you?

ME: Oh, Mother, you mean . ?

MOTHER: I mean, Stephanie, that it has taken me only a few seconds to recognize a natural living girl when I see one. I think it would be unbelievably cruel and sadistic to expect you to be anything else.

(I jumped from my chair and fell at her knees and threw my arms around her, weeping for