Archive-name: Changes/bobbie1.txt
Archive-author: Leigh de Santa Fe  Copyright 1990
Archive-title: Bobbie: A Girl's Own Story


Bobbie was not actually a pretty sixteen year old blonde girl
with a towel wrapped around a pile of wet hair but as he stared
into the bathroom mirror he pretended he was. With his lips parted
in a pout as he turned his head this way and that as though he
weren't looking at himself at all but merely catching coy glimpses
of his turbaned beauty in a passing reflection.

Across his chest he wore a strapless white brassiere, its cups
firm with underwiring that left no natural curve to chance. It was
an old bra frayed from too many trips through the spin cycle, a
discard he'd found in the Goodwill bag his mother kept in his
closet. Nearly an artifact now from the fabulous fifties, it
possessed none of the lace of today's fashion but Bobbie favored
it because he could stuff anything, socks, tissue, underpants, into
the cups without deforming the basic cone shapes that formed his
illusory bust.

But the girl in the mirror didn't need real breasts. Didn't
need real waves of golden hair underneath her purple terrycloth
turban. She was the perfect girl. And as Bobbie drifted farther
into her, forgetting his own breastless three dimensionality, he
miraculously began to feel the heft of her breasts heaving beneath
the brassiere, feeling their constraint against the fabric, the
nipples stiffening even as her breath quickened and her mouth
became dry as she looked out at him from the mirror.

"Bobbie, are you still in there," his mother called. He could
almost see her hand reach for the doorknob and his knees went weak
as he listened to the frustrated metallic click. The door was
locked. He knew he was safe and yet something so powerful as this
spell he was conjuring never seemed safe from others. It had to be
locked behind doors, kept in secret places, observed in silence
under the half-light of a single hall light.

But now the spell was broken and he hastily twisted the bra
around so that the breasts projected from his back and the clasp
was available to his clumsy fingers. He didn't look at the blonde
in the mirror now. She had dissolved and left a shy, 16 year old
boy in her place.

"Bobbie, what are you doing in there. You've been in there 45
minutes just to take a shower. I swear you act more like a girl
than a boy sometimes," her voice trailed off down the hall.

"More like a girl than a boy," she often said that. And it
always sent him racing in two directions. The mirror was one
direction with its exciting Breck girl vision of girlish
perfection, pretty, pink, and pouty. The other was the agony of
being different. Of being the only one in the world with this
impossible, and delightful burden. In anyone else's eyes it was not
a delicious miracle but a sickness and now, in a sweaty frenzy, he
switched over to that way of thinking himself. Would she see the
marks the too-tight bra had left on his back? Could she read his
mind?

The strange thing was: he knew his mother knew about the girl
in the mirror. It was unspoken but hardly a secret between them.
As a child he had dressed up a few times in the clothes he'd found
in his closet. A cache of clothes from the thirties that belonged
to his mother's aunt, clothes that had somehow escaped the Goodwill
bag, were stored in his closet in clear plastic bags alongside his
own clothes. A vivid memory from his childhood that he had examined
many times found him alone in his room wearing a purple satin slip
and creating a bust with the unlikely padding of a toy punching
bag. His mother opened the door as he vamped away. She laughed and
shook her head and disappeared only to return a moment later with
a box of jewelry and some old make up which she placed on his bed
without a word. Then she left him alone.

One Easter morning he had found a little pink Easter dress and
a pair of shiny Mary Janes on a chair. His mother had said nothing
about them and neither did he and after a week or so they were gone
but not before he had secretly slipped them on and felt the first
pulse of their talismanic power rocketing through his veins.

That was all he could remember until he turned thirteen when
the game, for it was a game, resumed. One day not long after his
birthday he was rummaging in his dresser drawers for some
firecrackers he had hidden under his clothes when he pulled a white
brassiere out from beneath a pile of sweaters. It was clearly not
one of his mother's. In fact, it was barely a bra at all but more
a wide strip of slender elastic. He held it for a long time then
he tucked it back under the sweaters and closed the drawer.

Every day he would open the drawer and take the delicate bra
out, taking care to lock his door before hand. He would fasten and
unfasten the hooks, hold it up to his chest or lay it on the bed
and stuff socks into the tiny cups. Finally one night when his
mother had gone out he went into his room, intending only to
retrieve a book, but instead found himself pulled toward the
dresser. He pulled the drawer open and pulled the bra out, his
heart pounding. Then very deliberately he locked the door and took
off all his clothes. In the dim light of desk lamp he knelt down
on the soft carpet and with a clear knowledge of the voyage he was
undertaking he put his arms into the straps and the old world
seemed to recede and a new one filled with powerful mysteries
loomed on the horizon. Fastening the hook and eye took him ten
minutes but when he felt the eye hold, the elastic secure across
his back, a wave of ecstasy shuddered through him.

He knelt there for several minutes before he felt ready to
actually look in the mirror. Finally he brought himself up and
walked unsteadily to the door, unlocked it and stole along the
darkened hallway and into the bathroom.

When at last he looked at himself in the mirror he was
unprepared for the dramatic effect the strip of white cotton cross
his chest had. Blood pounding, his hands quickly stuffed Kleenex
into the cups and as he turned to observe the infinitesimal change
in his profile the once weak pulse of the girl in the mirror became
a manic, driving beat.

That was how the girl in the mirror had been born with his
mother as midwife and the training bra as her swaddling clothes
From now on when Bobbie looked in the mirror he would see her
waiting patiently behind his eyes with the secret longing that only
he understood.

Ever since that time there had been "gifts" placed in his
dresser drawers after special occasions, his birthday, Christmas
or when he had been good at school or for no reason at all. There
were brassieres that changed in size to match the unseen growth of
the girl in the mirror or panties or blouses or skirts until the
bottom drawer was stuffed exclusively with "her" clothes. With the
steady accretion of "her" wardrobe came more frequent visits into
the mirror and more confusing feelings about her presence there.

By the time he began high school, his ash blonde hair had
grown past his shoulders, framing a face that still retained the
soft androgyny of childhood. And increasingly the thrill of his
secret conjuring was mingled with a seering guilt that gave a
exotic edge to his secret pleasure.

His closeness to his mother made him uncomfortable and yet she
seemed to be his best friend. In fact, their trips to department
stores were notorious excursions where she would furtively tease
him. "What do you think?" she'd ask holding up a risque black
brassiere to her chest. He'd be embarrassed but at the same time
flushed with excitement. When he nodded assent she'd ask, "For me
or for you?" Then they'd laugh like conspirators as the imperious
sales ladies walked by. The world was such a fool.

Games like these that teenagers loved to play with each other
Bobbie would play with his mother. When he was down and withdrawn
she would ask him if "Bobbie wanted to go shopping." It nearly
always worked.

And even though the thrill was increasingly blended with
guilt, whenever she left the apartment for a few hours he could not
resist opening the bottom drawer of his dresser to finger the most
recent acquisition. Sometimes it was a lacy bra or a pair of new
high heels or once, after a particularly vicious fight with his
mother, a lovely red v-neck sweater. When, at last, he put them all
on he felt such power and such confusion that it overwhelmed him.
And yet he managed to swivel hip his way across the house with a
trembling euphoria to see what he looked like in the reflection of
his mother's full length mirror.

Nothing could touch the thrill of seeing himself with a bust.
It was absurd. If he had been a girl he would have probably barely
needed a bra but the girl in the mirror had a precocious bosom and
a tight sweater to display it. He loved to walk about the apartment
wearing nothing but a pair of heels and a turtleneck sweater
stretched tight over the strapless bra. He was entranced by the way
his bosom led the way as he moved from the mirror in the bathroom
to the mirror in his mother's bedroom. Mincing his way across the
carpet in black pumps he was amazed at the steadfastness of his
curvy bust. No matter how he moved, they moved with him, they were
his and he was possessed by them. The excitement grew unbearable
as he shifted from heel to heel to catch glimpses of his profile
miming a startled doe-eyed innocence in one moment and lustily
clutching his pendulous breasts in the next.

And now his hair was long enough so that he could, with a few
subtle brushstrokes or a well-placed barrette, create the illusion
of a feminine hair style. He had no curls, of course, but curls
weren't necessary. Most of the girls he knew would die for straight
hair like his and he took a profound joy in the irony of his secret
fashion coup.

He knew he was turning a corner that other boys hadn't but as
he laid out his wardrobe for an evening's entertainment he was
helpless to change course. And somehow the tacit approval of his
mother made it both easier and a great deal more exciting. It was
a hidden pleasure but a sanctioned hidden pleasure that somehow
wasn't so strange after all.

One night he put on his black strapless bra and his lacy black
panties and sat on the bed and wept for an hour. He was so lonely.
He thought of Margaret Wilding, a girl at school that he liked.
What would she do if she could see him like this? Or his few male
friends. Then he walked to the bathroom and revived by his sexy
figure forgot about them all. His girl was here with him.

He opened his mother's makeup drawer and pulled out a
lipstick. It was old, in a worn brass cylinder. He took the top off
and rotated the base. The vivid, hopelessly out-of-date red stick
appeared. He held it up to his lips and paused here in a silent
tableau he'd seen his mother repeat a thousand different times. But
this was his first. He'd never worn makeup. Gently letting it
course over his lips all thoughts of Margaret Wilding and his
classmates receded and the pure pleasure of painting his lips
overwhelmed him with the specialized ecstasy that his first bra
his first blouse, and his first heels had evoked.

After he'd rubbed a little color on he rolled his lips
together, smoothing and covering them with red. The gesture made
his legs weak it was so filled with the passionate mystery of
femininity. It was just too sexy to be endured and he sat down on
the edge of the tub to regain his composure.

The doorbell rang.

Blood, already rushing in all directions under his skin, now
stopped abruptly and changed course and a tidal wave of anxious
fear swept over him. He was paralyzed. The world was on the other
side of that door. Margaret Wilding, his friends, everyone.

Breathing deeply, he stood up and caught his reflection in the
mirror. He could never remove the lipstick in time. Stiffly and
feeling quite naked and exposed he walked softly across the carpet
to the front door. Then he thought with horror, "What if they
opened the door?"

The doorbell rang again and he crawled to his mother's room
and waited. From her window he watched a postman with a package
walk down the front stoop. He breathed in deeply. He was safe.

Then the doorbell rang again. "Bobbie, it's me. I've locked
myself out. Open the door." Another wave of panic forced him back
on the bed. Then he leapt up and raced to the front door, unlocked
it and raced back to the bathroom, jumped in the shower and drew
the curtain. When his mother opened the bathroom door to say hello,
steam was already fogging the bathroom mirror.

That night he lay in bed and recalled the whole scene over and
over again. What disturbed him most was not being seen running
across the apartment in black silk panties but the impulse he'd
suppressed to walk to the door and defiantly display his delectable
if illusory feminine charms. Although his mother had colluded and
conspired to create this clandestine creature she'd only imagined
what she looked like. To open the door and face her would have been
a grave unmasking of the game they both were playing. And it would
have destroyed the sense of conspiracy they both shared. Despite
all that, Bobbie wanted to come out to his mother. He wanted her
to know how confused he was about the beauty he had invoked in the
mirror.

He stopped dressing for a long while after that and his
mother, sensing something had changed in their game, stopped taking
him shopping or buying him girls' clothes.

But that afternoon was replayed again and again in Bobbie's
mind. Sometimes with terrible guilt but often with an overwhelming
excitement. He would play it over in his mind with different
endings.

Sometimes he would open the door and his mother would drop her
groceries in shock and other times she would lead him into her
bedroom and finish making him up. Then they would go out and shop
for a new dress.

In one ending she stares for a long while and then smiles.

"I've wanted to meet you for a long time and now at last
you're here," she says putting her hands on his shoulders and
drawing him close.

"Oh, you don't know how I've waited for your, darling. My
sweet little girl is all grown up. Come with me, honey. I want to
show you something," she says taking his hand and leading him to
her bedroom.

"Sit down on the bed for a moment," she says as she opens the
closet door and retrieves three boxes from the top shelf.

The first box contains a pair of shiny black high heels, the
second a black skirt and white cashmere sweater and the third, an
ash blonde fall.

"Want to try them on, honey?" she asks. Without answering he
slips the sweater over his head and steps into the skirt. Then he
slips into the heels without difficulty.

"Bobbie, you look so lovely. Go look at yourself in the
mirror." He turns on his new heels and flies to the mirror.

"Oh, mother, I'm beautiful, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are, young lady," she says fastening a necklace with
heart shaped pendant round his neck. "Would you care to go shopping
with me?"

"Outside?"

"That's where the stores are."

"But . . ."

"Why not? I think it's time we bought you some bras that fit
don't you?"

"But . . ."

"But first let me fasten your fall and redo your make up. That
lipstick should have been thrown out in 1954."
An hour later he stands once again before the mirror but this
time he has long bangs that kiss his eyebrows and long, straight
blonde hair pulled back by a large black bow.

"Oh, Mommy, I feel so . . . beautiful. I want to be a girl
forever."

And in his fantasy he does. These fantasies are so vivid that
at times he can no longer remember if he had actually tried on a
blouse in the dressing room of Bloomingdale's or had his face made
over at the Macy's make up counter or actually been to the beauty
parlor to get a bubble cut.

In the real world, however, relations with his mother
continued to deteriorate. He felt angry with her all the time
without knowing why.

Then one day Bobbie came home to find his mother looking
through his drawers.

"What are you doing?"

"I, uh, was wondering if I could borrow one of your uh, 
bras."

Bobbie started to cry. His mother rushed over to him and he
pushed her away and ran to the bathroom and locked the door.

"Bobbie, it's okay. It's okay. I know you like to dress up,
It's okay. I don't care."

"I don't like to dress up. I hate to dress up," he screamed
between sobs.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I, I, didn't realize. I'm sorry. I'll take .
. . . those things and give them away."

"No," he yelled.

"No? What do you want me to do?"

"Leave me alone. Just leave me alone."

"Okay, honey. I'll go. I'm going."

She left the house.

When he came out of the bathroom he found a note on his
pillow. "Meet me at Flanagan's and we'll talk if you want."

He put on his jacket and walked for two hours before arriving
at Flanagan's, a dark, narrow pub with a long bar and three grimy
booths with ancient green leather upholstery. His mother sat in a
both at the back of the bar.

"Hi, Bobbie. Want a beer? Ed, get him a beer will you?"

Bobbie studied the cocktail napkins.

"It used to be a game," he said finally. "But it's  not a game
anymore."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. I don't know."

"Bobbie, if you don't want to dress up anymore I'll take the
clothes away and you won't have to see them again."

"It's not those clothes. It's . . . it's being a . . . girl.
I want to . . .I like to dress up, but . . ."

"But what?"

"It's  not right. It's not normal. But I . . ."

"You were always so cute. I always . . ."

"You aren't normal either," he said suddenly. "We're all so
weird and fucked up."

"Bobbie, I love women and it's not weird."

"But who do I love, Mom. Who do I love?"

"You have to start with yourself."

"But how can I do that when I'm weird."

"You're not weird. You're just different. But that's something
you share with everyone that breathes. That's what makes life
interesting."

"But I don't want to be different. I want to be a boy not a
freak. You made me a freak."

She looked over at the bartender. He was holding the phone and
pointing. She frowned and shook her head."

"I didn't make you a freak, Bobbie. I . . ."

"But you did. You did . . ." he yelled.

"Look, stay here, okay. I'll be right back." She left the
table.

He turned to watch her. She took the phone from Ed and she
suddenly became coy and girlish, laughing and flirting into the
phone. She saw Bobbie staring at her and she turned around and
continued to talk for a minute.

When she got back to the booth he was gone. On a napkin he had
written, "Whore."

Bobbie walked the streets for hours, finally winding up on
Market Street where the girly shows, hock shops and wig stores
were.

He often came down here and paced in front of Wig World with
its flirtatious, bewigged heads revolving in a lurid window
display. In all his years of dressing he'd never had a wig.
Sometimes his own hair had been long enough, like now. But even so
he was lured by the sirens in the window with their absurd piles
of curls. The wigs were arranged like Neopolitan ice cream with a
blonde, redhead and a brunette all framing the same pertly
seductive face.

Today he might actually go inside. He was that upset.

The street was filled with the noon hour business crowd. He
felt they all knew why he paused ever so briefly in front of the
wigged window and stared blankly through the glass door into the
heaven inside. Aisles of wigs, dozens of them in all colors and
styles. God, what would it take to push past that door into that
world? Who would see him from the street?

He walked up the street, crossed it and watched the store for
a while from a safer distance. Then he crossed with a large crowd
and as they moved en masse down the street he peeled off at the Wig
store and pushed the heavy glass door open.

Immediately his mouth went dry and he was gasping for air. The
Asian saleslady looked up at him as though he had a machete in his
teeth. He smiled nervously and so did she.

"Can I hep you?" she asked in a strained attempt to be
natural.

"Oh, no, I'm just looking," he smiled, the sweat beading at
his temples.

He walked down the aisle breathing in the deeply inorganic
smells of dynel and hairspray. Another woman was at the back of the
store teasing a wig on stand that looked like a cloth football. She
smiled with an ingratiating grin of someone that speaks no English
and for whom nothing is strange because everything is strange. He
returned her smile and they both shared a small laugh at the
absurdity of life. Then he walked back up the other aisle admiring
all the exciting tresses.

A young Asian man in a suit walked in the door and looked
uneasily at the saleslady as he saw Bobby staring at a row of
brunette Supergirls. She shrugged at him and he said a few
exasperated words at her and then he walked up to Bobbie.

"Excuse me, my sister is not very polite. She doesn't
understand that in America, men buy wigs too," he smiled and almost
bowed.

Bobbie was horrified by this immigrant frankness and he turned
a bright red color that blended well with the row of hennaed wigs
in back of him.

"Perhaps you would like the privacy of our back room," he
said, smiling fiercely and it occurred to Bobbie that perhaps it
embarrassed the man to have him wandering around the store. Bobbie
nodded obligingly and followed the man past the smiling woman into
a room not much bigger than a walk-in closet. Two cheap vanities
each with its own mirror were cramped up against one wall.

A young man sitting at one of the vanities looked up with a
startled look as Bobbie and the owner walked in. He and Bobbie
looked at each other a moment and then looked away immediately.

The Asian man motioned for Bobbie to sit down on the vanity
stool. "What kind of wig are you looking for? Blonde, brunette.
Long and wavy?" he said motioning with his fingers along side his
head.

Bobbie was confused. He wanted to just blurt out, "I'll have
what he's having." But he just nodded and grinned.

"What color, blonde, brunette, redhead what?"

"Oh, one of each," Bobbie said with a forced casualness.

The owner rolled his eyes slightly and disappeared.

The man next to him turned his head from side to side to
examine the long blonde wig on his head. "What do you think?" he
said matter of factly.

Bobbie was silent but the other man didn't seem to mind.

"Not my color is it? I know it isn't but we all dream of being
blonde once don't we?" he said sarcastically.

"It'd look great on you," the man said putting the wig back
on the stand. "Hi, I'm Del Street. But you may know me better as
Miss Della Street."

"No, I don't think . . ."

"What kind of a queen are you anyway?" Della Street said good
naturedly. Turning to try another wig on he said into the mirror.
"I'm part of the show at the Mogambo. It's not much really . . ."

The owner suddenly appeared with four wigs and set them down
in front of Bobbie and waited for Bobbie to nod which he finally
di. Then the man left.

"Anyhow," Della continued, "it's more or less a burlesque show
except that all the girls are boys which makes it more interesting
I think. Oh, that one would look good on you."

Bobbie was too embarrassed to try it on with the man in the
room but he picked up the blonde wig called "Dolly" and pretended
to look at it while Della continued to primp and chatter next to
him.

"It's your standard courtroom burlesque and I play  Della
Street of course. I come on stage in a severe pants suit, hair up
in a bun, glasses, that bit and the defendant goes berserk and rips
off the pants suit to reveal a steamy red bustier and garters etc.
When he's done with me my hair is down and I'm singing, "Put The
Blame on Mame." It's corny but it's better than lip-synching old
Sophie Tucker routines. What do you do?"

"I'm a student . . ."

For the first time Della turned on his swivel stool to look
at Bobbie. "A student? You mean a high school student?"

Bobbie nodded.

Della noticed for the first time how frightened Bobbie was.
"This is your first time in a wig store, right?" He took off the
brunette wig and put it back on the stand. "What's your name?"

"Bobbie."

"Does it feel strange to be here?"

"Yes, I guess so. I . . ."

Del put his hand on Bobbie's knee. "Look, let's get out of
here. I'll buy you a coke at Stanton's. It's right down the street.
Okay. C'mon, I'm not going to molest you. You can talk to me.
Okay?"

Bobbie stared at the wig in his hand. He felt frozen to the
chair but Del took the wig from his hand and pulled him up and in
a minute they were walking down the street toward Stanton's diner.

"So how old are you, anyway?" Del said after their cokes
arrived.

"Seventeen," Bobbie replied.

"Seventeen. When I was seventeen I was already performing at
The Detour. My friends and I had a Supreme's lip synch act. It was
fun. But it's not so much fun for you I guess."

"No, sometimes . . ."

"Do you dress up at home when no one's around?"

"Not for a while. I used to when I was a kid more."

"But now you feel strange about it?"

"It's not normal," Bobbie blurted out.

"Normal." Del drew himself up and stared out the window at
people in the street. "Let me tell you about normal . . ." He
looked back at Bobbie whose eyes were welling with tears.

"No, you tell me about normal. Why do you want to be normal?"

"Everybody but me is happy. Other boys don't have a drawer
full of bras and girdles their mother gave them. They don't have
to dress up to feel . . . good. They don't feel guilty all the
time. They don't want to be girls. They want to be what they are.
It's so easy for them. Just once I want things to be easy for me."

"Have you ever talked to anyone about this before, Bobbie? 
Del asked.

"No. Just my mother."

"She doesn't sound like the right person to talk to. Why did
she buy you girl's clothes?"

"She never wanted me. She didn't want kids at all. She wanted
a little doll, a doll to play with. When I was young it was okay
to wear a pinafore and mary janes but when I got older everything
became weird."

"Weird?"

"I didn't want to dress in front of her anymore. But I wanted
to dress. And so she kept buying me all these girl's clothes
knowing that I was dressing up when she wasn't around. It's sick.
But now I don't feel good about it. I feel dirty and weird. I'm a
pervert."

"Is that because you get excited when you dress up."

"I guess."

"I was confused too. My mother never knew I dressed up. Even
when I was doing the shows at The Detour. I'd change at the club
and change back before I went home. I was different though and they
knew I wasn't exactly the boy next door. But I had friends that
were different too. We'd get together and dress up and practice our
act and it never seemed anything but normal to me. Well, most of
the time. It sounds different with you and your mom. That changes
everything. What happened to your Dad?"

"I never knew him. He left when I was two."

"My dad should have. So it was just you and your mom."

"And my mom's girlfriend's."

The waitress asked them if they wanted anything else. Del
looked at his watch.

"Jesus, I gotta go. Listen, I have to get ready for the show.
You're welcome to come back stage and talk to me while I get
dressed but we have to leave right now."

Bobbie was too startled to say anything.

"Come on. I'll introduce you to all the perverts. I'm sorry.
I was just kidding. Come on. It'l be alright."

Once again Del was pulling him through the busy streets but
he wasn't embarrassed anymore. He was actually excited about seeing
the inside of the Mogambo Club. He'd often looked for their ads in
the Sunday paper because sometimes they featured pictures of the
female impersonators. Usually they looked like movie star photos
from the 40s. For a while he collected all the ads in a shoe box
but he burned them one night when he was lost in guilt.

"Now don't be disappointed when we go in the dressing room.
It's a dump. But everyone's friendly. Almost everyone anyway. Watch
out for the stage manager. He can be a real asshole. Just tell him
your my brother or something." Del chattered as they raced down the
street.

When they arrived at the Mogambo Bobbie was disappointed.
Sandwiched between topless bars which advertised live sex acts The
Mogambo had vestiges of dignity from an earlier era but that had
been a long time ago. Del pushed open the studded vinyl door and
turned to Bobbie on the threshold and smiled. Then he disappeared
into the darkness. Bobbie followed. As his eyes adjusted to the
light he saw a bar, and the small stage surrounded by a semicircle
of tables. Pictures of statuesque female impersonators with mile
high blonde pompadours in sequinned gowns or large Sophie Tucker
queens with miraculous cleavage spilling over the top of their
dresses covered the wall in the foyer. Bobbie lost himself in this
visual feast. For him, photographs of queens had a precious, iconic
quality and heretofore he had had to worship in private with the
random pictures he had gleaned from the newspaper or the occasional
magazine but here at last were more than he could ever have hoped
for. He drew a tight breath as his eyes tracked along the wall
taking in every bead, feather and tiara. It was as fascinating as
the Sistine Chapel.

This revery was broken when Del's hand touched his shoulder
gently. "They're wonderful aren't they. Did you spot my picture..
Del pointed to a photograph of a brunette in a clinging black gown
which displayed a very feminine figure including dramatic V-neck
cleavage. That's my Suzy Parker look. I think she's gorgeous."

"That's you?"

"Yes, and don't act so surprised," he laughed. "C'mon, I'm
late."

Bobbie followed Del past the Tahitian bar with its thatched
roof and back of the stage into a brightly lit but cramped, low
ceilinged room. It was long and narrow with dressing tables on one
side facing a mirrored wall and a rack sagging from the weight of
the glittery costumes on the other. The dressing tables were
littered with cosmetics, brushes, the exhilarating detritus of
feminization, and against the far wall row after row of elaborately
coiffed wigs perched on shelves that looked like they might
collapse at any moment.

"Hi, girls. This is Bobbie. I just met him at Wig World.
Bobbie, this is Jackie, Silvio and Darlene and . . ."

"And I'm Cubby," said a man in his fifties who didn't look up
from the difficult taskof squeezing his thick frame into a tight
strapless gown that billowed out at this feet in a cloud of tulle.

"And that's Bunny."

The three young men at the dressing tables turned briefly to
eye Bobbie before turning back to their images in the mirror.
Jackie was a tall, sleek looking black boy, Sylvio, an exotic
Filipino with straight black hair and Darlene, a petite young thing
with naturally long eyelashes, was Puerto Rican.

"Louie's pissed. You'd better get dressed quick," Jackie said
to Del.

"Alright, alright. Bobbie have a seat." Del said while kicking
his shoes off.

"Bobbie, you going to join the act?" Darlene said as he
delicately applied wax to his eyebrows.

"Bobbie's not here to compete for your job, Darlene. I just
met him. So lay off."

"Hey girl, I wasn't saying that. I thought he could do
Debbie's act."

"Where is Debbie?"

"Haven't you heard? She's having a baby," Bunny cackled.

"Old jokes. Who writes your material, Bunny. Moses?"

"Debbie is giving up drag to devote her life to Christ," Bunny
said, unfazed.

"You mean he's becoming a nun?" Sylvio said with a straight
face.

"Naw, she joined Drag Queens for Jesus," Bunny said.

"Debbie is leaving the squalor of the city and returning to
Iowa," Jackie interjected.

"Why?"

"He's a masochist. He wants to cruise the streets of . . .
where's he from?"

"Otummwa."

" . . . the streets of Otummwa in his Chevy and forget about
life in the theatah. He'll be back. It's in his blood."

"When did all this happen?"

"Oh forever. Hasn't he ever talked to you about Otummwa and
the golden fields of whatever."

"Corn."

"Yeah, corn. He has this idea that drag is just a phase he was
going through and now that it's over he can ditch his panties and
become Stanley Kowalski back on the farm. He doesn't know he's
Blanche."

"Blanche. Who's Blanche," Sylvio asked.

"Oh, she's so cute. Who's Blanche? 
Blanche DuBois, darling.
When were you born?"

"Give it a rest, Cubby. She wasn't born here."

"Del, who's Blanche DuBois?" Sylvia asked.

"Blanche DuBois is a character in a play, honey."

"I knew that. I knew that. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Blanche the
cat, right?"

"Right. Anyway so Debbie's gone. And that means we don't have
a blonde in the act. It's not the United Nations of Drag without
a blonde."

"Part of our act is called the United Nation of Drag." Del
explained.

"I'm a blonde," Bunny protested.

"A natural blonde, Bunny. You're not natural."

"Neither are you, darlin'."

Bobbie sat off to the side of this banter taking in the
sidelong glances that Del delivered with apologies or
embarrassment.

What fascinated him was the way in which the secret ritual of
transformation which he had observed so many nights in dark silence
was taken for granted and carried out with the routineness of
putting on a shirt or a sock. As they talked back and forth they
stripped themselves of their male selves and replaced it with their
femaleness. And not just any drab representative of the fair sex
but a steamy, sensual and extravagantly feminine one. Bobbie
watched in awe as these four bare 
chested men painted, daubed.
brushed and stroked their faces into an exotic, lushly painted
sexuality. And to do it without the hushed suspense of guilt
hanging over the room. It wasn't the same thing at all.

"How you doin?" Della said turning to Bobbie.

"Fine."

"You want to get me that wig on the far left, hon."

Bobbie fetched the wig, a Bubble cut bouffant number with a
cast iron flip, and handed it to Della.

"You can watch the show from back here 
on the TV monitor,.
Della said, laughing slightly at the ancient pun, "or you can go
front and watch with audience such as they are."

"I think I'll stay back here if that's 
alright," Bobbie said.
Still intoxicated by the atmosphere, he couldn't imagine watching
the show with other people. He looked forward to having the
dressing room to himself.

"You want to take in all in first, huh?" Della said smiling
slyly. "Well, if you decide you want to play with the toys in here,
use mine, okay?"

"Okay," Bobbie said incredibly embarrassed at having someone
acknowledge so openly his burning desire to sit at the table with
the others, stroking his own lashes with mascara.

Pulling on her turquoise lame gown, Della turned to Bobbie and
asked him to zip him up. Then he turned and gave himself several
severe sidelong glances to check the illusion at the seams and make
last minute repairs. Then he turned and faced the mirror. Slowly
he smiled and then suddenly the smile disappeared and his face
flashed through a series of quick facial expressions, all of them
broad caricatures of the wide range of feminine traits he sought
to project over the evening. All of this seemed grotesque to Bobbie
and he wished that Della would stop turning his face into a rubbery
gargoyle of femininity. Finally, Della's contortions stopped and
he turned to Bobbie and her face relaxed into a broad, beautifully
serene smile. "If ya think I'm sexy, and you want my body, c'mon
boy let me know," Della sang out unselfconsciously bringing his
hands up to his voluptuous bodice and then letting them slide cooly
out to his wide hips. When he caught Bobbie's eye he could see this
made him uncomfortable and he laughed. "It's just a song. It's in
the act."

A fat bald man put his head in the door and said, "Who's she?.
pointing to Bobbie.

"He's with me, Louie. It's okay."

"Is she gonna take Debbie's part or what?" then without
waiting for a reply, he said to Bobbie, "You'd be a natural, kid.
You're blonde, you're her size and you're beautiful. How about it?"

Bobbie stared awkwardly at Della.

"I don't know, Louie. He's pretty young."

"So how old were you, Della? Jesus, how old were you, Bunny?"

"Sweet sixteen and never been kissed."

"Some things never change."

"See. Look, kid, you can start small. All you have to do is
walk on for the United Nations of Drag number and we won't do it
until the second act, okay?"

Bobbie nodded assent after an approving glance from Della.

"Great. Bunny will help you find everything while Della's on
stage. You dressed up before, right?"

Bobbie turned crimson but the bald head was gone without the
answer.

Suddenly he was surrounded with encouragement and advice but
he couldn't hear a thing. He was too numb from the prospect of
being onstage in a dress.

It was one thing to try on his sexy bras under the romantic
veil of secrecy and quite another to strut in front of an audience
in a sinuous satin gown and heels under the bright stage lights.
On the other hand his whole body trembled with the excitement of
having an opportunity to dress up under the loving direction of
such experts and the greater luxury of then having an audience that
would become the new mirror and keeper of his secrets.

The music started up and all the girls took deep breaths.
straightened up and walked past Bobbie onto the stage. He heard
some polite clapping and then they launched into song. It sounded
more like a corny King Sisters act than Disco drag but that was the
Mogambo's hold out against the dismal tide of bad lip synching and
fashion modeling that posed for drag entertainment.

Bub Bobbie's attention was directed toward the dressing table
and he sat down on Della's stool and looked things over. Pasted
onto the upper corner of the mirror were more drag pictures, mostly
unprofessional snapshots at parties and back stage. There was a
picture cut out of a magazine and signed, "With Love to Della from
Michelle." The picture featured a gorgeous young queen in a sheer
leotard with a leather skirt and gold heels. She was very
convincing with real soft brown hair that fell past her shoulders
and a minimum of makeup. There were also pictures of Della in her
prim pants suit and one in a vermilion bustier.

Bunny rushed in out of breath and after restoring her
composure, walked over to Bobbie and put her hand on his shoulder.
"Better get undressed, honey. This may take a while. I'll get some
of Debbie's things together."

Bobbie stripped down to his underwear. "Take your t-shirt off
too, you'll just get your make up all messed up when you take it
off."

Bobbie complied happily, blissfully. "Okay. Now, Bobbie, I
have a plan which I think we'll make you the dish of the evening.
Here's what we're going to do . . ."

When Della returned after the first set Bobbie was the one
giving himself sidelong glances in the mirror.

"Bunny, what an inspiration. Bobbie, you're gorgeous."

Bobbie was dressed in a white cotton sundress with big red
polka dots ala Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits. A nearly white blonde
wig framed his face with soft poufy bangs fell to his eyebrows.

"Do you really think I look good?" Bobbie asked shyly.

"Just like Marilyn only younger and prettier."

The others gathered around him now and showered him with
praise and more advice.

"Now stand up straight . . ."

"Don't be afraid to display your bust."

"Be lovely from the inside out, Bobbie. Be a girl from inside
those luscious lips. Be a girl up and down your legs and down to
your fingers and even to the split ends of your wig. Feel it here,.
Del said touching Bobbie's heart with a gloved hand.

--