AS I WRITE THIS I'M WEARING . . .

Dear Lola,

I saw your ad and picture in the classified section of Transvestite Lust. I couldn't tell much from your photo. Were those your knees or your breasts? Either way, they were lovely.

I should tell you a bit about myself. I'm 35 and work as a draftsman for a construction company. I'm married but separated. No kids. I've been a transvestite for as long as I can remember but had never dressed up completely until a few months ago.

I've been eager to meet others like me. I'd love to hear from you.

P.S. I'm enclosing some pictures I took. I have to apologize for the quality. My eyes are not really red, it's just the flash.

Charlotte

Thank you for answering my letter so promptly. As I write this I'm wearing a pink teddy, red panties and red mules. (What are mules anyhow?) I have a dark brunette wig on. Michelle. It has bangs which cover my eyebrows. This is good because my eyebrows look more like Edward Teller's than Marilyn Monroe's. Do you ever use eyebrow wax? When I use it my eyebrows become this sticky mess, like bad plastic surgery. Then I become afraid my eyebrows will come off when I remove the wax. Horror of horrors. One eyebrow. What would they say at work?

Anyhow this letter may seem a little strange because I've had four gin and tonics to loosen me up for femininity. I'm not a drunk, Lola. But I like to drink when I dress up. I feel sinful, like Tallulah Bankhead. It adds to the mood.

To answer your questions. No, I'm not gay. No, my wife was not understanding. No, I've never gone out in public in drag but I've often thought of it. Here in Pocatello there aren't a lot of places where a TV can go freely. I don't know whether I could pass or not. It's very difficult to judge from my photographs or the mirror. The mirror can fool you. After four gin and tonics, it outright lies.

I can tell you right now I feel like Jill St. John. Like Jill St. John after she's had too much to drink. Whether the guys down at U Save Liquors would have trouble with me I don't know. Jill St. John doesn't get around here much.

Thanks for the pictures. Those were your knees. I especially like the one in the angora sweater. If you don't mind a personal question, what size bra do you wear. I wear a 36 B cup. I started out like a lot of Tvs, I guess, going for 38 D cups which on my build looks like a Dolly Parton/Nancy Reagan mix. Not the purest of breeds. I use water balloons. What do you use? I just can't seem to see birdseed.

Well, tomorrow is a workday and it takes forever to get all this mascara off so I'll be signing off.

Charlotte

Things have been slow here. When daylight savings time comes along it seems more difficult to feel private. Even when all the windows in the house have been covered with sheets, the light seems to penetrate right through to my vanity (actually it's just a desk) until the sun becomes the eyes of the world peering in on my strange activities.

When you think about it, the two big TV nights of the year are in October and December. Dark nights.

I spend my spring and summer months preparing for the fall and winter. Shopping through catalogs, that sort of thing. I also write TV stories and poems.

My latest effort.

It's not Robert Frost but . . . it'll due. I sometimes think that real poetry (as opposed to my doggerel) is the best medium for TVS to express themselves. It's ambiguous like we are and at the same time it can insinuate feelings with more accuracy than prose. And since TV experience is complicated and diverse poetry's evocative nature can touch on things that unite us all. What do you think?

I had a dream last week I think you might find interesting. I was in a jungle, a benign Hollywood jungle. Actually I hate to admit this but it could have been the stage set for Gilligan's Island for reasons that become apparent later. I am dressed in a pale lavender slip that ends just above my knees. My legs are smooth and white. I don't feel like I belong here. I come across a small round mirror fastened to a palm tree. I look into the mirror and see not my face but the pretty face of Tina Louise. (She played the movie star, Ginger on Gilligan's Island.) But I'm not thinking, "That's not my face." I'm feeling that this gorgeously made up face is really mine. I feel as though by some miracle I finally look as I want to. Beautiful, glamorous and sexy.

But since the mirror is hardly bigger than a compact I can only see my eyes, nose and mouth. I feel so frustrated that I can't see everything, my hair, my breasts, my whole body.

Suddenly I hear something crashing through the jungle. But I don't want to stop looking at the beautiful face in the mirror. The sound gets louder until it's right behind me. Even when it's breathing on my naked shoulders I keep looking into the mirror. I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder. It pulls me around.

There in front of me is Tina Louise wearing a pale lavender slip like mine, her face exactly like my face in the mirror. She is lovely with long red hair falling over her shoulders and thick bangs covering her forehead.

She leans down as if to curtsey and picks up the hem of her slip. Lifting it slowly, she reveals her secret: an erection beckoning like a crooked finger. Then she gestures me to lift my slip. I do, uncovering a flame red snatch where my cock used to be.

Lola, I can't tell you how excited I was by this revelation. But the best is yet to come, so to speak. After sensuously licking her finger, she parts the red sea of snatch and probes my wet lips, finds the spot and rubs it until I fall to my knees in ecstasy.

I woke up in a pool of spunk, my first nocturnal emission (sounds like a TV show with Peter Graves) in fifteen years. I felt such a mixture of delicious pleasure and guilt. After I lay there awhile I got up and ordered a red wig from Lee's. Life imitates art.

Well, I'm going to sign off for now. Keep sending the pictures. I'm enclosing a couple I took last February. Soft focused to death but it's Penthouse style don't you know.

Charlotte