Prisoners of Tiresias        by Christopher Leeson         © 1996  Rev. 05/00

Part 2

"Shame on you! you who call evil good and good evil,
Who turn darkness into light and light into darkness,
Who make bitter sweet and sweet bitter.
Shame on you! you who are wise in your own eyes
And prudent in your own esteem."

                                                              Isaiah, 5:20
                                                              Chapter 7

 

Chapter 7

Immediately after the meeting, I followed Billie back to her room for the loan of her maid's cap

It was true; in Billie Walters' closet there hung the complete outfit of a French maid, down to the feather duster. Never having understood the excitement surrounding the French maid (except that I could always appreciate a good set of legs in fishnet hose), I now found myself wondering where the fetish could have come from. French bawdy houses? I couldn't imagine that any well-to-to 19th or early 20th Century French household would have accepted a servant costume that looked like a cross between a miniskirt and a ballerina's tutu.

Had Billie lived a strange lifestyle back home? If not, how else could she have come by the risque ensemble? I deciced to ask her.

"The Sally's had an all-guy party a few months ago," Billie explained cheerfully, "and they needed someone to play the maid and serve drinks. It seemed like it'd be fun, so I helped them out and they all chipped in to get me this uniform. When I go home I'll have to pass it on to one of the other girls here, but I'll be taking back some wild pictures of me wearing it when I do. Do you want to see them?"

Does the Pope want to hold Easter Mass?

"Billie," I began uncomfortably, "I'm sorry that I embarrassed you the other day."

She looked me in the eye and grimaced. "That's all right, Erin. You didn't know; I suppose I'll have to face that I'm stupid. I never learned much in school no matter how hard I tried. All I can remember being taught about is sex. I figured out that the teachers considered you well educated if you're willing to do it all the time and with anybody who wants to do it with you." She shrugged, "Well, to be fair, I guess I also learned that teachers aren't paid nearly enough."

I put my hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "You're not stupid! I'd be in the same boat as you, except that I was home-schooled. --- And not many people by the year 2000 could do what my folks did, but Dad had gone to a private school and Mother attended a parochial one, which gave them all the basics to pass on to me. They gave up a lot of quality time so that I could have the same chance that they'd had."

"You're lucky," Billie said wistfully. "How are your folks doing now?"

I looked away uncomfortably. "They're dead. A boating accident." Then I changed the subject: "Say! I could teach you to read and write, if you'd like me to."

The blonde stared with disbelief. "Honest? If you could do that -- I mean, I've felt like half a person all my life. But -- but it's too much to ask from a friend."

"What are friends for? I like to keep busy and what else is there to do at night? Go out and get laid?"

"Maybe," Billie suggested teasingly. "You seem to be getting awfully chummy with that Rod Ganners guy. Everybody's talking."

For crying out loud! I felt like I was living in a fish bowl. "We're just good friends," I assured her.

Billie smiled wisely. "I know that -- but if you ever want to borrow my maid outfit -- "

"Stuff it, Billie!"

#

Rod, Jordana, Allie, and I met Christy at her infirmary bed. She was a terrible sight to see -- eyes blackened, lips broken, bruises all over her face and, where there were no bandages, dark cuts were scabbing over.

The patient seemed to withdraw into herself the instant we came in, which wasn't unexpected since she didn't know any of us very well. Beating victims, I'd read, often felt humiliated and blame themselves somehow. -- But we did our best to reassure the convalescent and we soon had her talking.

"Maybe it was my fault," Christy suddenly said.

"Your fault? How can that be?" asked Jordana, who was just a little better acquainted with the officer than the rest of us.

"I was doing some bad things; what else can you expect when you do that except something bad?"

"Why did you do those things, Christian?" I asked softy. I had used her real name without thinking. For some reason, whenever one Charlie tried to express a serious or intimate thought to another, it always seemed more sincere to use her male name.

She shrugged to reposition her bruised shoulders, registering discomfort at the corners of her swollen lips. "I didn't feel very good about myself, I suppose, and I had trouble making friends. Then Jesse came along and, well, one thing just led to another."

"Well, we want to help you now, Christy, so you won't have to depend on people like Jesse for company," Jordana promised.

Was Jordana right? Or did we just want to use Christy's tragedy for our own ends?

"But we need your help, too," continued the Association treasurer, "so that nobody else will ever have to go through what you just did."

"How can I help?" the battered girl asked dubiously.

"We're going to start a "Violence Against Women" action against Jesse," explained the ash blonde. After that, when you're up and around, we want to get to know you a lot better. I suppose that it's always the shy people who are overlooked; we're all sorry for not paying more attention to you."

While Jordana comforted Christy, I was thinking hard about what we could do. There was no Men's Protection commission, of course, no People's Protection commission even, and despite the broad language used in writing the VAWA, there wasn't even any Lower-Class Women's Commission. Women had been assaulted in the corridors and offices of the White House, and back in the '90's government reached a nadir which it never recovered from when a sitting president was himself the perpetrator -- a man with a lewd history of cocaine use and violent rape as an office holder back in his home state.

"How can anyone help me?" the young guard asked glumly.

"If you only want somebody to mistreat you," replied Allie evenly, "there's nothing we can do. -- But we want to start a support group for people who have special problems that even the psychs just don't understand."

She shook her sore head. "I don't want a support group; I don't want anyone feeling sorry for me. I just want to fit in." I thought that saying that had taken a lot of courage.

We talked for a little while longer and the battered girl finally consented to let us take some pictures. Rod had said nothing all this while, but I think he was affected by the victim's plight as much or more than the rest of us. Maybe he was feeling guilty just because he was a Sally and it was a Sally who had hurt the girl.

The victim-group spokesmen aimed at instilling this kind of guilt in society, but I didn't care for it. Good people should never feel responsible for what scoundrels have done, not even if they're the genetically-linked descendants of scoundrels -- unless, of course, they had been one of the idiots who had voted the said scoundrel into office. Guilt for what others have done just leaves the door open for new rascals to take advantage of it and them. Whole societies can be twisted out of shape by a cunning pressure group practiced at playing the blame game.

Rod took the photos and Jordana promised to visit Christy again the next day. As we were leaving, Dr. Trent intercepted me in the corridor.

"Erin," she said, slightly agitated, "I'm sorry that we haven't had a real chance to talk since you arrived. Are you doing anything for dinner tonight?"

"No, Doctor. What did you have in mind?"

"Gabrielle. My place. Eightish?"

"I'll be there. Thanks -- Gabrielle."

#

Being a senior staff physician had its advantages. Gabrielle had a private two-room apartment and a private kitchen whose warm air was sweet with cooking aroma. Our main course was Tiresian "duck" (it looked more like a loon, actually) bartered from barbarian bird-catchers. I could appreciate a skilled chef because I was an amateur gourmet cook myself. We talked pleasantly, about cuisine mostly, until my hostess maneuvered us out to the sofa, when our conversation grew more serious.

"Was there any particular reason that you asked me over tonight, Gabrielle?"

She nodded gravely and touched her gravid belly, as if my question had unwittingly involved her unborn child. "I've regretted not attending your meetings," the physician began, "but there's so much on my mind these days. Even so, I've been very impressed by what you're doing," she went on, "-- organizing the women, I mean."

"I don't deserve the credit," I shrugged, "It was more their idea than mine."

"You've taken a load of guilt off my shoulders, Erin. No one knows more than I do as ranking -- Charlie -- that I should have been doing more to help our people."

I smiled sympathetically. "Don't feel bad, Doctor. For all its jawboning, our group hasn't really accomplished anything yet."

"I think you've done quite a bit for morale. Men -- Earth men -- have lost the art of standing up and bitching. Back home it's all around us and we can't see how low we've really sunk -- but once you get to Tiresias, the blinders come off and the truth slams you in the face."

"Christy got slammed in the face, I know."

"We're all at risk -- so be careful," Dr. Trent warned. "The ascendant power doesn't like anyone rocking the boat. Remember that policeman in California who tried to start a white male officers' advocacy group?"

I remembered he was labeled a racist and a sexist and fired. Free association was always discouraged; even Senegalese illegals had their own advocacy groups, but the California officer, despite a sterling record, had been suspended, harassed, and finally driven from the force.

I slumped back into the sofa; the future for a rebel under tyranny was never bright. The 1960's hell-raisers never suffered societal reprisals because their revolution was, at its heart, a sham. They had really been a tool of people who already had power to take even more power, much like the Red Guards who served the Party Chairman in China at the same time. What kind of revolution is ordered by the prehistoric fossils doddering at the top?

"A man has to do what a man has to do," I finally said.

"Yes, we do, don't we," my hostess nodded. "What's next?"

I sighed. "We're following the official channels as far as we can -- and we'll be putting up those posters. If the Sallys are going to defend their position, we have to show them exactly what kind of sleaze they're defending."

"It's a good start," Gabrielle affirmed. "We have to change things, but we can't stop with just Tiresias. We have to set matters right back home, too, or there's going to be a bloody revolution -- and we all know what revolutionaries are."

She suddenly grimaced self-deprecatingly. "Big talk from a do-nothing, I know. It's easy to spin one's wheels, easy to be bought off. I didn't live badly before; a cardiovascular surgeon of either sex can get along, even as a second class citizen. Maybe I don't deserve any better -- I don't know." Gabrielle then touched her stomach thoughtfully. "But what I've had isn't good enough for my son. My son can't be second class to anyone!"

The eternal parental vow, but I knew that her boy would be exactly that, unless some important changes were made, and quickly.

"It's going to be a boy, then?" I asked, skirting a subject too big for me.

"It's going to be a girl here on Tiresias, but he'll be my son back on Earth."

I could tell by the gleam in her eyes that that was exactly the way she wanted it. "I'm very happy for you."

"Thanks. The baby should arrive in a couple weeks. "I'll be a father a couple weeks from now; it's incredible if you think about it."

"You don't think of yourself as a mother?" It was that lapse which seemed slightly incredible to me.

"Biologically, I'm the baby's father. I couldn't bring viable semen for artificial insemination across from Earth, so I found a willing egg-donor and had as many of her eggs as I could fertilized in vitriol with my sperm. She was a concert pianist with a 160 IQ and a family of good physical and mental health.

"The sex of the eggs changed when I brought them over, of course, but their viability remained. I had to have three eggs implanted before one took. That wasn't bad odds, all in all; I guess it was fated."

"What would you have done if all the implants had failed?"

Trent frowned. "Then I would have found a Sally willing to do the job for me. I wouldn't have liked the randomness of it, naturally, but any port in a storm."

I nodded but her determination amazed me. Why such a seemingly normal and intelligent person like Dr. Trent would go to such lengths to bear a child herself. Despite the delicacy of the subject, I put the question to her.

"That's what they all want to know," the doctor smiled wanly. "The truth is, I had a bad experience in marriage -- one of the worst a man could have. I swore that I'd never again trust a woman with a child of mine."

	This is a snapshot from Dr. Trent's album. It shows Gabriel and his wife before the unplanned pregnancy which embittered them. We see them trying to save a little accountant-expense by doing their own estimated taxes. Under stress like that how could any marriage survive?

"Those are strong words. It must have been a terrible experience."

"It was," she sighed, then explained how she had been a staff surgeon servicing cases referred over from the Mayo Clinic. "When I got married I wanted children very badly," she went on, "and when we were courting my wife had assured me that she wanted the same. But I guess she only wanted a surgeon's income because after we were married she kept putting off starting a family for the sake of her career. She was an English professor -- quite a mediocre one, if you ask me, but she had connections with several Women's groups and could work the University quota system for all it was worth."

Gabrielle, lowered her gaze. "I'm sorry. That's my bitterness talking."

"No problem. I'm still mad as hell about what my fiancee pulled on me."

"Well, anyway, you can imagine that my wife's attitude was driving me up the wall. By the time she'd gotten pregnant, because of contraceptive or condom failure, things weren't at all good between us. I thought that the child could be a new beginning for us, but she was very ambivalent about bringing it to term. I did everything I could to encourage her, but toward the end she decided that it just wouldn't fit in with her career plans.

"To get me off her back, she got a restraining order and put me out of our house. She had no problem there; it's easier to get a court order against a husband than it is to get a fishing license."

Right you are, Doc -- carp, not husbands, are a protected species.

"But even on her own she kept vacillating, giving me hope, then taking it away, until the baby was almost due. Then she opted for one of those partial-birth abortions. -- You how that goes -- it's infanticide in everything but name."

Trent rested back in the sofa, her face uncharacteristically gaunt. "I loved my son, even unborn; I would have been glad to rear him alone, if that's how it had to be, but I couldn't do anything because the whole system is against the child and the father."

Her mouth turned down with seething inner anger and I thought it best just to listen quietly while she went on. "I knew where my son was going to die; I knew when he was going to die. I knew who was going to kill him -- but I couldn't stop it. The man is supposed to protect and preserve his family, isn't he? Well, I failed miserably and after you've washed out that badly you stop being a real man. Tiresias is as good a place as any for me."

No, Dr. Trent's story was not fun and games at all.

When agony like Gabrielle's comes out -- especially out of a person whom his listener doesn't know well -- his company can only sit in stunned silence; that's the way it was with me. I didn't know what to say, I didn't even know what to do with my hands and feet. When to blink or swallow became a major decision. Even so, when Dr. Trent at last fell silent I reached over and laid my hand upon her forearm.

She looked up gratefully and said, "Sorry to get so emotional, Erin, but you did ask. That's all there is to it. -- I have to do this; at least this way there's nobody in the universe who'll be able to say that I don't have any rights to my own child as a parent!"

With the air cleared, the rest of the evening was light and convivial. By the time I left the apartment I had become pretty solid with Dr. Trent, and what she had said had given me a great deal to think about.

#

By now life on Tiresias had started to fall into some kind of routine. I met with Rod almost every day and filled him in on everything that was happening, but he would never let it go until I had also told him exactly what I felt about it also. In a way, the journalist had turned into my confessor; I could talk to Allie and some of the others, but the greatest relief of all was to talk to Rod. Maybe it was because Rod could be considered one of "the enemy camp" and I felt a special need to express myself to him, to justify myself regarding the life I was living, and how I was living it.

"I'm going to have to remember that my book is about everybody on Tiresias, not just you," Rod remarked one day. "I want to write about you so much -- I mean, the material that I'm getting from you is so good that it's making the whole work top-heavy. Erin-heavy."

"You can't let that happen; I'm nobody special," I cautioned him over a glass of lemonade.

"It's tough being objective when I'm so involved."

"Do you think John Reed was objective?"

"I bet he had an easier time at it than I do."

I wondered what exactly he meant by that.

Usually, after the formal interview, we'd pass some time in friendly banter. At such a time Rod once asked me: "Do you girls teach one another how to walk that way?"

"What way?"

"That sexy way."

"Do you mean I still walk like a guy?" I asked, glad to hear it.

"No, I mean you walk like a sexy girl."

I started, not at all glad to hear that. "I do not!"

"You do so!"

"I do not!"

We seemed to end a lot of conversations like that and I usually got in the last "I do not!" Ever since I'd been a woman I'd found that being tenacious and unbending in an argument came easier. Maybe pig-headedness is a sex-linked trait.

On that subject, even though I didn't actually think of myself as a real woman, Rod believed that I should be full of new insights into male-female relationships. If anything, life on Tiresias had only reaffirmed what I'd known intuitively for years. It was part of my new argumentiveness -- my new confidence in my analysis of events had given me the courage I needed to articulate and defend my core beliefs.

"Why do men fear commitment so much?" Rod once asked.

I replied without batting an eye. "A man values his relationships and he doesn't want to threaten the intimacy of the alliance by completely changing the nature of the partnership."

He seemed genuinely astonished. "You're joking!"

I grinned. "For crying out loud, Rod, "it's as plain as that Grecian nose in the middle of your face!"

"Explain."

"Commitment, the way women define it, is a swell racket only if you're a woman. When she commits, she only gains by it; she's taken care of financially, and marriage sets her free to work full-time, work part-time, or not work outside the home at all. She can putter at cottage-industry hobbies or low-paying jobs that carry personal rewards -- such as doing volunteer work. If she's particularly stupid and self-righteous, marriage even allows her the luxury of feeling morally superior to the man who's daily grind at a job he usually hates is giving her all these options.

"Her poor husband's part in the commitment game gains him nothing but more of the same dull grind, except that he's burdened by supporting two people where he only supported himself before. Even if his wife had stayed at a worthwhile job at first, she might give it up when kids come. It couldn't be the other way around, not a woman in a thousand would stand for that. The man's burden gets heavier, the hours of work get longer and he has to opt for that overtime that he hates like poison. He has no time for romance and can only be a part-time parent. -- And because keeping that miserable job is so important he has to kiss up to people he despises to get the extra income of a promotion that he deep down doesn't really want. Finally he reaps the real payoff for having "committed" to a woman -- his family hates him for neglecting them."

"But hasn't the economic success of women changed things?" Rod asked.

"Where have you been?!" I asked with a shake of my head. "Does a millionaire woman ever feel secure enough to marry a penniless, but amiable guy who'd has all the time in the world to be there for her? -- Not on your life!

"If she has money, she'll insist on chasing after men who have even more. A growing boy soon figures out that looks and personality don't cut it in the mating game; he's not a woman and he can't operate like she does. If he wants the woman of his choice he has to be an economic success -- and he has to be more successful each year or he'll risk losing her.

"A man is always being judged by his investments, or by the power he wields in the work place; he never gets any credit just for being a good person, or being there for his family. Nothing counts except bread-winning.

"Sociologists who pretend men and women are the same are nuts; they're different and complementary. Men want sex and beauty; women want material security. Women don't want to be looked at like sugar-candy, but that doesn't stop them from sizing up every man as a sugar-daddy. The two views are just the male and female version of the same thing, but the one is accepted as normal and the other is treated as some kind of degeneracy."

What I liked was that Rod usually didn't get contentious when I graced him with my wisdom. In this he way encouraged me to be frank and open whenever he asked me a question.

"Why do you suppose that women always want their husbands to change while men always want their wives to stay just the same?" he asked at some early point in our association.

I was game. "Because men marry for love and women for money."

"There you go again!" Rod moaned.

"Open your eyes, beautiful! If you like somebody because of the person she is you don't want her to change. But women never marry a man. They marry a wallet which only happens to have a man attached. Only after a woman has her hands on the loot, does she remember to take a hard look at the man whose community property she's sunk her claws into. She's probably never even thought about his looks before, or his personality, or whether she could tolerate his human habits. A husband might as well be something that a woman pulls out of a grab bag for all the study she's put into him beforehand.

"Her thinking is, 'What do you do with this booby prize?' Well, you try to find a use for it -- usually something that was never intended by the manufacturer. The day that a man can't serve the function that his wife has created for him without his consultation, he goes out with the trash while his house and money stays with her."

Another good Rod-type question was: "Why are men such jerks about sex?"

I threw up my hands; the man could be so dense! "You'd be a jerk, too," I said, "if it was left to you to do all the work that goes into initiating and building a relationship from the ground up! If you're a woman you only have to sit back and rate your suitor's performance; if a man makes one misstep, or tries to angle a little pleasure exchange for all the bankrolling and ego-stroking that's expected of him, he's suddenly considered a jerk."

"Am I a jerk?" Rod asked all of a sudden.

I regarded him with surprise, but after a second I couldn't help but smile. "You've got your good points," I assured him.

******

"Hypersensitivity and political correctness are signs of a society in which too many people have nothing serious to do. Playing Gestapo with the words and deeds of simple social interrelationships makes a bland and sour society, full of rancor but devoid of spirit."

M.B. Watson, 2006
Los Angeles Times

   
Chapter 8

But understanding the deplorable state of male-female relations was a far cry from being able to do anything about them. I didn't even try, there was so much else going on.

The association members made up some great posters for our shame-campaign against the Sallys. The most effective one that we concocted was a picture of the doe-eye girl smiling shyly at the camera at her ingenue party juxtaposed against a close-up of the battered woman.

"This is the Progress you stand for!" the sign said. It was crucial at this stage that we tar the status quo with the stigma of both physical and psychological brutality. This wasn't a new strategy, and we surely hadn't invented it, but history had proven it an effective means of propaganda.

If the truth be told, I could be detached, even cynical about launching what was essentially a campaign of half-truths. That was one way you moved society; that was the way that a long campaign of lies beginning in the 60's had convinced average Americans that their country was a monstrosity that could only be reformed by putting into power people who hated both it and them. What we Tiresians were confronting was an entrenched set of assumptions born of an anti-Western, anti-religious social revolution.

By means of media propaganda, politicized public education, and block-vote manipulation, a faddish political and social doctrine had been enshrined into everyday life. Constitutional law, which should have protected society against centralized rule, had been rendered impotent through spurious and fatuous interpretation. America's authoritarian masters usually operated subtlely, only occasionally demonstrating who was boss by means of police-terror -- such as the notorious attacks against Christian communities and gun owners beginning in the 'Nineties. The PC masters reserved the right to call anyone they didn't like a "cultist" or a "fascist" and when that happened the tanks and incendiary bombs were never far behind.

The radicals had won the high ground of moral superiority by treating complex social issues as stark White Hat-Black Hat affairs. It has nothing to do with truth, but in the war of persuasion it is a good route to go. In effect, we had to offer the repellent Jesse as the defining face of the whole establishment. Hopefully the unique conditions of Tiresias would render the keepers of the faith so disoriented that we could arm-twist them into some change for the better.

Knowing what we were about, we of the association steeled our stomachs. After all, no revolution can get off the ground if it lets itself be embarrassed by its own tactics, and it was them, not us, who had for so long operated on the principle of the end justifying the means. Still, aware of the dangers in stirring up heated passions, I tried to impress moderation upon some of the more excitable association women, such as Andrea. No matter what we said for public consumption, we had to keep ourselves grounded in reality.

To my mind, taking an extreme stance prior to sitting down to negotiate is a necessary evil, though one runs the risk of starting to believe one's own rhetoric, as happened in the various civil rights movements of the last century. An immoderate starting position can easily decay into an uncompromising doctrine, especially if it doesn't meet with a revolution's best friend -- namely heavy and effective opposition -- so that real compromise is forced upon revolutionary leaders, who in turned are kept from acquiring overweening pride. American society had opted to understand instead of fight its radicals, so it was rolled by a small elite of chest-beaters who never had the support to win in a real fight.

Bad things happen when any movement's leaders get too full of themselves. If such gain power, the revolution takes on the trappings of permanence, though it already has become an empty shell to be co-opted by infiltrators from the System. That's how the party of the Ku Klux Klan overnight became the party of civil rights without changing its discriminatory outlook or coercive tactics.

We Tiresians were a long way from being co-opted, though, so I didn't immediately fear becoming a limousine revolutionary overseeing a government program with a cellular phone in my taxpayer-provided car. (And may I be dead before that day comes!)

Besides my work with the association, I occupied myself teaching Billie to read and write. I enjoyed these sessions owing to the Virginian's convivial charm. The girl was no airhead either, I found out, though she tended to be reticent about broadcasting those things which she could do well. I found it hard to imagine the mild and agreeable Billie as a prison guard but, in fact, she worked closely with Andrea in Cell Block C.

	It was especially hard to think of Billie as a prison guard after seeing a copy of her famous "maid picture." Here it is. Who says "good help is hard to find"?

Besides a knack for entertaining, Billie had a surprising aptitude for language; she had picked up a good command of Spanish and even some passable Chinese just by growing up on the edge of poor immigrant neighborhoods. Gregarious to a fault, Billie had mingled with foreign-born neighbors and had often helped them to get along. The boy's interpreting skills had been especially helpful when his immigrant friends had to deal with the brusque personnel of government agencies -- reptilian men and women suspicious of all who came before them and who spoke only a thick dialect of bureaucratese -- and that only between the hours of nine and five-thirty.

Billie's noteworthy antics on Tiresias had surely been the actions of a person with a low sense of self-worth trying to get her fair share of attention in spite of many handicaps. She instinctively employed every asset she could muster, especially her easy charm and good looks.

The golden-maned girl was learning to read and write at a pace that I would not have predicted at the outset. It was a terrible indictment of our educational system (and the over-paid posers who benefited from it) that it had so utterly failed to educate one as bright and eager to learn as William Walters.

About that time, and much to my dismay, Jordana composed a humorous fight-song that made me look like some kind of hero. This was no cross I wanted to bear; maybe Stonewall Jackson could go all the way to the grave and never let his friends down, but I was just simple Aaron Carter -- and sooner or later I was going to fall on my face. A hero falls heavily, and hurts more people when he does.

Even so, Jordana was a good chum and I never doubted that her intentions were among the best.

Her song went:

Come all you proud women and open your ears,
Of Jake and his bullies you quickly shall hear.
They went to a party, but came not to dine,
They came to bash Charlie and keep her in line!

All rowdy, all shouting, and giving the yell,
Like so many demons just burst out of hell,
The gang was all drunken on power and wine,
They came to bash Charlie and keep her in line!

They came to bash Charlie, they came not to pay,
But bold Erin Carter stepped into their way;
Their faces turned purple, their blue tongues stuck out;
They discovered in time just what Charlie's about.

All rowdy, all shouting and giving the yell,
Like so many demons just burst out of hell,
The gang was all drunken on power and wine,
They came to bash Charlie and keep her in line!

They came to bash Charlie, but dared not to stay,
Buck Channey learned Erin was heading his way,
He saw her eyes flashing and took such a fright;
He ducked in the toilet to get out of sight!

Oh, Carter's a fighter and everyone's friend,
Yet woe to the Sally who tries to offend;
She takes what they dish out and serves them back more,
But for good folks there's never a bolt on her door!

#

Whenever any Tiresian officers went back to Earth at the end of their tours, new personnel were sent over for the first time. -- That had always been the case, but now there was a difference: the rights association was providing an unofficial welcoming committee for new Charlies. I went along with the first delegation myself, to find out whether the new committee would turn out to be as good an idea in practice as it sounded in theory.

Remembering my own strange state of mind that first day, I knew it would not do to put any additional strain upon newcomers. I knew, too, that we shouldn't come off as seeming excessively political, nor make the association sound like a coercive outfit that expected everyone to join.

So, we delegates agreed to keep the meetings short, friendly, and to avoid specifics except to answer questions which might occur spontaneously to a new arrival. After all, there was much that should rightly be left to a person's roommate/counselor. Allie had done a pretty good job with me.

My spiel to each new Charlie went like this: "Turning into a woman isn't easy to adjust to, but we've all been through it and it's really not an all-negative experience. We've found that the main problem on Tiresias is that sometimes the system doesn't treat us very well and we're doing all we can to peacefully change that. There are times that you're going to feel alone, but you don't have to; company and advice are only a phone call away. -- And we're starting some hobby groups and sports clubs for people who like that sort of thing. On the other hand, if you want privacy, you can have privacy."

That was about it. We ended each session by passing along some phone numbers.

One of the new Charlies was not a correctional officer at all, but an anthropologist named Lyle Rudensky. The prison required a team of trained ethnological scientists for dealing with the aborigines, but few officers had direct contact with such people. Dr. Steven Donnalyn had for the last couple years headed the detail, normally aided by two or three assistants. But one by one these associates had been reassigned back to Earth, there to assist the human studies department of Duke University, which was preparing a major expedition to Tiresias. To replace Donnalyn's staffer in the interim, the correctional office had recruited a promising graduate student, Lyle, who was then working on his doctorate in the Shantee language, the tongue spoken by natives living in the vicinity of the penitentiary.

Normally, Lyle would have been oriented by a Charlie from her own special detail, but Dr. Donnalyn, now running the office alone, was a self-involved prig who couldn't bother himself with "little people." So Billie Walters had been asked to become Lyle's roommate/counselor.

I thought it amusing that a staid young academic had to be paired up with a fun-loving eccentric who, through no fault of her own, was so ill-educated; yet, as it developed, the two of them got along fine. In fact, because Lyle was lacking in social graces the outgoing Billie was exactly what she needed to acclimate herself into our peculiar little community. And given Billie's interest in learning new languages, the match was an inspired one. No chance that anyone on high had planned it, though, unless we include God. If the bureaucracy had brought it about, it had to have been pure dumb luck.

About twenty-five years old, Lyle was tall for a girl and thin with pale, translucent skin. I suspected that she would respond to a makeover very well, but her self-conscious movements, and her too-large, precariously-balanced glasses gave the impression of ungainliness. According to Hollywood, any nerdy girl in unbecoming clothes and a frumpish hairstyle will always turn into a raving beauty with the doffing of her glasses and the unbinding of her do. I didn't believe it, but did think that Lyle had potential. When the next ingenue party came along I would be watching to see what Lyle Rudensky. looked like once Billie had worked a little cosmetological magic upon her.

#

I began my first menstrual period the same night I met Lyle. Allie, coming home and finding me in a funk and reading the instructions on the back of a box of tampons took charge and did her best to talk me through my immediate task as well the terrible days which followed. She even made an effort not to enjoy my suffering too much.

Fortunately I was myself again when the expected party took place. I arrived wearing my white dress again -- having taken the government up on its half-price offer. A month ago it would have been hard to believe I could see putting a hard-earned nickel into it, but I was no stay-at-home and a person needed something to wear for those special occasions. What's more, as chairman -- chairperson -- of the Rights Association, I had to maintain a confident public profile. -- And you've got to be confident to wear that little number.

Andrea showed up, despite the ordeal that the last party had put her through. From the way she was looking at some of the Sallys, I thought it best that none of them find themselves alone with her in the dark. Jake and his boys were on hand, too, but this time seemed a little subdued -- which was all to the good.

Andrea looked pretty good in a mini-skirt, but all the time I've known her she's one angry lady. Unless she's all talk, which I don't believe, she runs the risk of ending up on the wrong side of the law. But the wrong side of the kind of law that's handed down from the citadel on the Potomac sometimes puts one on the side of the angel, so I say, "right on, baby!"

Jesse, I noted, didn't show up at all, though Christy attended accompanied by Jordana, who had taken her under her wing after she'd gotten out of the infirmary. She still wore some bandages and scabs and off-color bruises still showed. It took courage to show up looking like that, but Christy's appearance was calculated to send out a message -- that physical coercion was not going to break the spirit of the Tiresian women, not even the meekest of us.

I danced with Rod often that night, most of the Sallys having become guardedly polite but standoffish toward me. Maybe I really had earned the reputation of being a ball-buster! That was regrettable, but the party was meant for the new people, not us old-timers and so I tried to introduce the ingenues to as many genial people as I could.

Mort had christened Lyle Rudensky as "Lila" and Billie had introduced her to several of her Sally friends, one which she eventually asked to join her for the vid showing. In her short, misty-blue party dress, I was amazed to see how much the tall, slim Lila looked like a Parisian fashion model. She even had the small breasts common to the denizens of haute culture.

When I had first come to Tiresias, I had envied the Charlies with flat chests, but by now I actually felt sorry for girls who had been "shorted" by Nature. My own thoughts surprised me and I thought that I must have been getting vain, since I knew of no practical use for my more womanly figure.

The movie that wound down the night was porn just like the last one, but it had nothing to do with Tiresias; "Bad Babes" it was called. One of the ingenue Sallys asked me to adorn his lap during the showing. I hadn't expected this, and I didn't really want to be torn away from the deep conversation that I was having with Rod, but I couldn't hurt an innocent man's feeling nor break the community tradition by refusing.

Anyway, the guy must have thought I was pretty.

#

The next day brought news of community-wide importance. Dr. Trent had gone into labor.

All the gossip for the rest of the day was about Dr. Trent; then in the late afternoon the word came that Gabrielle had given birth to a strong, healthy baby daughter and that the mother was alert and doing well. A cheer went up all over the office.

I reflected on the event; it was an astonishing thing, really. Less than a year ago Dr. Trent had been a man who was hoping to be a father. Tonight he -- she -- had given a new human life into the world -- and from out of her own being. There was an awesomeness to it that gave me pause.

Amazing to tell, Gabrielle was already back in her apartment by noon of the next day. Rod, Dori, and I went over to pay our respects and to see the baby. Even if it were only for the benefit of his book and not for the fact that he and the doctor were already friends, this was one call that Rod could hardly have failed to make.

Gabrielle's small apartment was full of baby things now -- most of them still not removed from their storage boxes. The greater part of her tour was already over, but a year's extension had been approved and I understood that the doctor would have six months unpaid maternity leave and then function in a part-time and advisory capacity at reduced pay until the end of her second tour. It seemed that the surgeon had sufficient private resources to make this arrangement palatable.

"A baby does best if he has a mother's attention for as long as possible," Gabrielle explained. "It was good of Warden Gershom to approve my extension, especially since I'm not going to be able to give my job anything like my full attention anymore." That the warden had done right by Dr. Trent was something in his favor, I granted, but otherwise the Sally's acts, both of omission and commission, had usually been hard on the Charlies' morale.

"Who's going to baby sit?" asked Dori.

Gabrielle blinked bemusedly. "It's strange," she replied, "I bought nearly every baby thing I could find in the catalog before I left Earth, but neither then nor anytime afterwards did I give a single thought to who I'd find to take some of the burden off me. Maybe it never occurred to me that a baby who's really wanted might be a burden."

"Don't worry, Doc; I've got two kids," offered Dori. "I think I can take care of your little girl when you need a breather without breaking her."

"If only you could!" the new mother replied gratefully.

I was elated to hear that Dr. Trent would remain part of our little community during the whole of my exile upon Tiresias. I liked her and realized that in the weeks and months to follow my other Charlie friends would be leaving one by one.

But it was not easy to think of Dr. Trent as merely a Charlie now; it was as if she had undergone some arcane rite of passage and had emerged ennobled in some way -- that she had become a real woman amid the flock of us sorry make-believes.

"What are you going to name her, Gabrielle?" I asked.

"Eva. That's her mother's name. I'm going to call him Evan when he's a boy."

It was disconcerting to be reminded that Dr. Trent was, biologically speaking, the father of the infant. I also found it disconcerting that she instinctively thought of the tiny girl as her son, not her daughter.

Boy or girl, she's lucky to have a parent like Dr. Trent.

Rod stepped closer. "May I hold her, Gabrielle?" Consenting without words, the woman carefully passed her blanket-wrapped bundle to the journalist's arms. Rod held Eva like, I noted, a woman would.

"I'm glad I was on Tiresias at the right time to see this," he remarked, rocking the infant. Then he looked across to me. "Erin? Would you like to hold her?" We both glanced to the mother for permission and Trent nodded.

I took the child with the same care I would have afforded a loaded and cocked .45. I couldn't manage to cradle her exactly like Rod had, but without starting Eva crying, I successfully clutched her. Gazing down into that miniature face many stark impressions whirled dizzily through my mind -- like the birds on the turning mobile that Gabrielle had already erected above the baby's crib.

The newborn was surely no beauty, except for those striking eyes that were so much like her "father's." Otherwise Eva looked wrinkly, flushed, and pinched -- just as, I suppose, all day-old babies do. The tyke yawned as I held her, an action that reminded me of a monkey in a zoo.

But to feel the weight of her (and she was heavier than I expected), to experience the reality of her, was something to give one moment. Getting pregnant was not for me, but knowing and respecting Dr. Trent the way I did my thoughts on the subject were no longer simple. This child, in a strange way, represented the incredible new world of possibilities of which I was now part -- whether I liked it or not.

I looked to Dr. Trent, who had never taken her eyes off her child. How different her life would be from here on because of this birth, I realized.

-- And the incredible possibilities! If this child lived and had children of her own, and then they had children, too -- ad infinitum -- the issue of Dr. Trent would, in the course of generations, number in the many thousands. Each of them would be a person who never would have lived without a strange and courageous act on the part of a man named Trent. They would take the place of people who would have been born otherwise and by their numbers the world itself would be transformed, made-over into something that it could not have been had Gabriel Trent never lived.

I glanced across at the physician in a new light. Dr. Trent was making himself forever part of the future by the simple act of parenting, and would continue to do so perhaps to the very end of the human race. This was true of every fortunate parent, naturally, but how much more starkly the cosmic significance of it registered upon one's mind when he was allowed to think in terms of archetypes. I remembered all those Madonna-and-Child stamps the post office puts out in the Christmas season and grasped for the first time what a powerful and universal symbol they represented.

I soon passed the child back to Gabrielle and she regarded her baby's face as if seeing it for the first time -- though I doubted she had ever taken her eyes off it for more than a few minutes since leaving the infirmary.

"This planet made a miracle," Dr. Trent whispered as tears -- of humility and awe, I think -- rolled down her cheeks and she pressed the cooing infant to her breast. "I love this world," she murmured, but I couldn't tell whether she was speaking to us visitors, or to some entity much greater than any of us will ever be.

*****

"The ruling class of America, that mix of political, medial, academic, and financial people who occupy the 7000 significant positions of power, holds a number of false beliefs. Unless these beliefs are corrected, or the ruling class is refreshed by a revolt from below, the United States is finished."

Karen Pinkerton, 2014
"The Ruling Class."

Chapter 9

I was taking dinner with Mickie and Jordana when Billie and Lila came into the cafeteria a week later. Billie, being Billie, had on a low-cut white blouse, a mini-skirt, and high heels. Lila had clearly chosen her own clothes, since she was wearing a wine-colored pants suit which she had had the foresight to bring from home.

	Lila Rudensky brought several pants suits with her from Earth and this is her wearing one of them. She'd go on for hours on her anthropological enthusiasm if one let her. But she seemed to get on all right with her roommie, Billie Walters, so she couldn't have been all bad.

The young scholar was squinting right and left as she crossed the dining room, the fashion-conscious Billie having advised her to keep the unflattering eye wear out of sight even though her new spectacles were not yet ready. In fact, I understood that Lila was expected to return to Earth for laser surgery to cure her hyperopia; she had a phobia against contact lenses and wearing glasses on Tiresias would make her a curiosity to the tribesmen she intended to go among.

As I waved Billie and her roommate over, I noticed that Lyle had misjudged her size as a woman and her overly-long pants legs were slipping under her heels. Before I could warn her she stumbled against a man standing in the lunch line.

Lila, as I've mentioned, was far from the most coordinated person on the planet. When the pair had gotten their dinner and joined us, Lila bumped her chair against the leg of our table, which scrambled what was left of our meal. A moment later, being introduced to Mickie and extending a handshake, she knocked over a paper cup of soft drink with her too-long sleeve.

The disruption notwithstanding, we wished to welcome Lila into our odd little community as warmly as possible. She was, as we'd suspected, rather isolated in her own department with no one but the self-absorbed Dr. Donnalyn for company. The disorientation and strangeness of life on Tiresias could be a deadly thing at times; loneliness had lured Christy into a bad mistake and none of us wanted the same thing to happen to any other Charlie.

The young linguist seemed ill at ease as, indeed, she always had during our earlier meetings. Very probably us working stiffs were not Lyle Rudensky's accustomed company. Lyle had bought into the social system without apparently noticing how much it disadvantaged him. As with most egalitarians, class distinction was the be all and end all.

Fortunately, like most intellectuals Lila craved an audience and we found that playing to that trait was the best way to help her to relax. Whenever we got the slim brunette talking about any of her favorite subjects she became lively and animated. -- And, in fact, what she had to tell us was seldom uninteresting.

"I've wondered why we don't have a company of marines here," remarked Mickie. "We're just a little island of civilization in a sea of warlike barbarians."

"Attack is always a possibility," the linguist was saying, "but a remote one. Your guards are drilled in using military weaponry, should the need arise. That makes each of you worth twenty to a hundred barbarian warriors. Anyway, troops could be sent across from Earth at short notice."

What kind of planning was that? I wondered. I couldn't imagine a company of marines jumping into womanhood on the run and getting into the breech. In fact, they'd probably strain their backs trying to lift their basic equipment, much less move at more than a stumble in over-sized boots. Any scheme so idiotic could only come out of government.

"I remember the training I got when I first arrived," put in Billie uncertainly. "It's like a fire drill; they make you do it once and by the time there's a fire you can't remember the way out anymore. Anyway, my trainer said that I was good with an M76!"

So, the vivacious blonde had another talent that I hadn't suspected -- weapons proficiency. I felt a bit envious; the clerical staff hadn't received any such training.

"I've never been trained," I said.

Billie shrugged. "Budget cuts."

"The prison is built in a backward, low-population area," Lila assured us. "Primitive people are usually friendly to strangers, provided they're shown strength but not aggressiveness. Mountain men used to travel among the Indians all their lives -- and Jim Bridger lived to be seventy-seven.

"What the Indian traders did in the American West, we're trying to do here -- a non-judgmental appreciation of aboriginal cultures: learn the local languages, treat the people with respect, and provide a market for their trade goods. In fact, trading helps to defray some of our expenses; museums still pay well for Tiresian artifacts."

I silently chuckled at the very idea of old Jim Bridger filling in some band of craggy frontiersmen about his "non-judgmental appreciation of the Shoshones' aboriginal culture."

"But there are cities on this world, too," I reminded her.

"Oh, yes. They're on the level of the Bronze Age of Earth and are actually quite impressive. I'd give anything to visit one of them; it would be like stepping into ancient Antioch or Mycenae. We're making aerial surveys of the closest of these city states from Base Gephardt."

"I wonder what the natives think when they see a helicopter," grinned Jordana.

I had read about Base Gephardt -- another major "punch" site for two-way traffic between Earth and Tiresias. Unlike the penitentiary, Base Gephardt was strictly scientific in its purpose. There also were nonspecific reports of other, smaller "crossing points" around the planet. Some good work was being done by foreign institutions, too.

"Gephardt? That's a new word," murmured Billie. "What does it mean?"

"It's the Tiresian god of greed and destruction," I quipped.

Lila, somewhat short in the humor department, gave me an annoyed glance and cleared up the matter factually: "Speaker of the House Gephardt led the fight to get funding for the exploration base; he put a tax on RV's to support it. Duke University honored his patronage by naming it after him."

Ugly names and crass political patronage aside, Tiresias was a fascinating place for many reasons.

The planet's fauna was exceedingly rich, and a large portion of its animal species appeared to be the same as, or merely minor departures from, Pliocene mammals of prehistoric Earth. It was as if the biology of the two worlds had run in close parallel until recent geological history, after which the worlds for some reason went their own different ways. In fact, the shapes of the continents were so close that it took a minute examination to see basic discrepancies.

The reasons why some beasts became extinct on Earth while they survived on Tiresias were not at all apparent, except that Tiresias seemed not to have had any Pleistocene glaciation. Perhaps the Ice Age had forced evolutionary changes in wildlife that only had proven to be a detriment to them after warm weather had returned.

But the survival of ancient mammals on a neighboring world excited the world's zoological gardens, which were bidding competitively for specimens. Zoo teams had come across, too, but care had to be taken when transferring animal life back and forth between planes of reality. Who could say that dangerous microbes might not be transferred with them which would devastate Earth animal populations, or even people?

So far, though, no new diseases had been spread via transdimensional exchange, which was very strange. Some studies seemed to indicate that virulent new cultures often translated into commonplace ones during the transfer process. Even so, extreme care continued to be taken lest a Tiresian plague sweep unchecked across the Earth, or vice versa. Like so many other bureaucracies, the United States Center for Disease Control had its thumb in the Tiresian pie, but actually, if they knew their stuff, which was questionable, the USCDC's contribution could potentially be the most useful.

The entire subject of xeno-exploration was extremely exciting. If only I could be one of those few who "boldly go where no man has gone before, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations." How I envied what shy, clumsy Lila Rudensky was about to do. But where was my opportunity? I had been born in a country too wracked with social and economical ills for all but a few to realize their career ambitions.

Despite our talk about inter-dimensional diseases, Lila seemed more interested in another kind of contamination -- repeatedly calling to mind the lengths to which official policy went to avoid passing on Earth-specific knowledge, and particularly American traditions, to the natives of Tiresias. Clearly she was parroting the accepted cant, never having been trained to thinking deeply in any independent fashion.

I could guess the attitude of her instructors. Everything about a new culture was wonderful and exciting, while everything about Western Civilization was decadent and corrupting. I recalled a line from "The Mikado": -- "the idiot to praises with enthusiastic tone, every century but this, and every country but his own."

But it was just as well that government policy was what it was. Even if their intention was to protect aboriginal innocence from Voltaire and Charles Dickens, in doing so, they were also protecting the Tiresians from their own civilization-killing ethos. That would change, though, as soon as somebody in power found a way to profit by Tiresias' "deconstruction."

Next thing I knew Lila was describing a captive woman chaining and tattooing ritual.

	No matter how Tiresias movies start out, they all seem to end up the same way. I found this still in a movie news zine, but I can't remember the title. Anyway, I wanted to enclose the right kind of illustrations so let people taught in public schools can at least enjoy looking at the pictures.

"It really sounds like they treat women rough on this planet!" Billie observed when Lila described how the proudest act of Tiresian manhood was to kidnap an enemy's woman, tame her with the whip, and then, marked as property, chained, and collared, they were trained to cook, clean, make love, and dance.

"It's a paternalistic culture," Lila replied matter-of-factly, even though it would send any of her teachers into paroxysms if any of the same barbarian customs were practiced in the United States in the Old South, or even the more abhorred 1950's. But all was peachy as far as the morally-exalted were concerned. I didn't blame Lila, though; she was an intellectual and so didn't know better.

"Woman-stealing makes sense among primitive people," the young anthropologist was saying. "It keeps the gene pool stirred. -- But you're right, Billie, you shouldn't go outside these walls under any circumstances. You'd probably be considered by the locals what they call 'na sheri tigi' -- 'prime slave meat.'"

"I'm not the one who's going out there," Billie reminded her pointedly. "You are."

The scholar fell silent. Billie wasn't always brilliant, but sometimes her insights were right on the money. Work on Tiresias might be a wise career move -- but only if a man was willing to risk ending his days as a barbarian dancing girl. -- Or so the movie fantasy went.

#

On Friday night my roommate popped in carrying Rod's camera and a brown paper bag -- but what struck me at once was the mischief in her blue eyes.

"What's the camera for?" I asked, looking up from my library book.

"I want to take some pictures of myself!" Allie chirped. "Will you help me out?"

"Sure." I sat up, pitched the book aside and reached for the camera.

"Not yet! Let me put on something sexy."

"What kind of pictures are they going to be?" I asked suspiciously.

"Lingerie, bikini shots. My tour is up in less than three months and I want to have something to remember this planet by."

"Allie, I thought you'd be the last person who'd ever want to be photographed again."

"Oh, Erin, those trading cards were dirty-minded and sick! This is going to be fun.'

"Different strokes for different folks."

"You know," she went on, "I was thinking that maybe I'll become my own favorite pin-up girl! 'Who's that hot chick on your desk, Alex?' she said, mimicking a man's voice. 'She's a real turn-on! Where can I find a babe that hot?!'"

"All right, I'll photograph you, if that's what you really want, but isn't the backdrop here pretty grungy?"

"That doesn't matter! A good paint program'll plug in any sort of background you click on -- a beach, a boudoir, a Wild West saloon -- anything. Say, do you think I could make a convincing saloon girl?" She held up a modern version of a sassy Victorian bustier.

"Is that what you have in the bag? Costumes?"

"Yeah! I don't have a lot of lingerie of my own, so I borrowed what I could from the other girls. Billie has a pile of stuff; guys give her a lot."

"That's our darling Billie. Did she loan you the French maid costume, too?"

"Oh, jeez! I forgot to ask!"

"You're getting weird, Allie."

"Oh, well, I've got plenty of other things. Maybe later."

For the next couple hours I was able to live out a personal fantasy of mine -- being the man behind the camera of a girlie magazine. Unfortunately, the girl in front of the camera wasn't a real girl, and the man behind the camera wasn't really a man.

But Allie did after all look like a girl of a very superior issue. I snapped her in baby dolls and then in garter belts, bustiers, and camis, in teddies and briefers, in bras, panties, and bikinis. She started getting carried away and before long she had me photographing her with her bra almost off, then completely off, her panties gradually rolled down to the last modicum of modesty, then shed entirely. My roommie sure looked cute nude in pigtails and hugging that borrowed teddy bear.

If the shots turned out well enough she might even make some money by selling them to a magazine. Sometimes serials like Ruby or Gentlemen's Agreement ran photo features of gorgeous Charlies along with their regular fare of all-girl models. In fact, I had seen one pictorial entitled "The Girls of Tiresias" that had come out almost a year before my planet fall, and so none of my current friends had appeared in it. I wondered, though, whether Allie might show up in some future issue; a man has to earn what he can, wherever he can, considering the economy.

Allie then fell back on the bed, tired out. "I guess that's enough for me," she panted. "I wonder what my grandchildren will think when I show them those pictures someday."

"I just hope you wait until they're over eighteen!"

She released a rippling laugh that hardly sounded grandfatherly. "Say, Erin, why don't you let me take your picture, too, now that we've got all this stuff here?"

"Me? I don't think so."

"Come on, A.C, be a sport. You'll probably want to do it before you leave anyway. When will you have a better chance?"

"No way!"

About fifteen minutes later I was wearing a purple bikini, holding a beach ball, and pretending that I was happily frolicking under the broiling sun of Acapulco. Allie had always had a knack for talking me into the silliest things!

Once I'd overcome my initial reluctance, I actually had fun. With Allie's help I went through many changes of hairstyle and makeup, trying on garments which I would have loved to have ogled on the body of any well-endowed lingerie model back home, but which I'd hardly have considered wearing myself.

Nonetheless, Allie's mania proved infectious and, just to show that I didn't have less nerve, I posed for my own series of shots. My Svengali roommate even coaxed me to going to the limit -- the West Saloon Girl.

Then, inspired, I went to the drawer and brought out my one and only real piece of lingerie -- the green tunic that Mort's gang had given me. I slipped the wisp of Lycra over my head and Allie helped me tie the hair ribbon. When I was ready she clicked away. How would I ever believe these pictures once I had my natural form restored?

Eventually, just as worn out as Allie had been, I collapsed into bed and my roommie fell in beside me wearing only panties and a flower-printed cami. She looked so delectable that I couldn't help thinking, "If only I were a man and she wasn't."

"You're incredible!" Allie exclaimed.

I closed my eyes and stretched out long like a cat, practically yawning, "If I have to be a woman, I prefer to be a gorgeous one -- not that I wasn't gorgeous as a male."

She laid her hand on my bare thigh, stroking it in a way so unlike her that I looked up askance. Her smile began to fade, like a dark cloud rolling over a sunlit field.

"Erin, I -- " she began haltingly, "I've been wanting to ask you something, but -- but no matter what it is, you have to promise me that we won't stop being friends."

"You sound serious," I responded slowly, losing my own smile. "-- Well, sure, I promise. I'd never want any silly little thing to come between us."

"That's good," Allie grinned, but in a way to suggest that she was not wholly reassured. "I -- "

Her question was sticking in her throat, and I found myself hoping that the question would not be asked. Despite my misgivings, I reached out and took her hand. "What is it, Alexander?"

Calling her Alexander actually encouraged her to swim out into what I sensed was dangerous waters. "I don't know how to say this, Erin," she struggled to say, "but -- but sometimes I get the strongest feelings -- about, well -- like asking you to -- "

I studied her expression carefully; I didn't want to ask, but I had to: "What, Allie?"

"-- to let me make love to you."

I sucked in a long breath.

Now she had said it; her face, though forcing a smile, was braced as if expecting pain. I don't think my own expression had changed, but I felt my discomfort keenly and my mind raced to respond.

If I ever have to be reminded why Allie was coming on to me, all I have to do is look at some of the pictures she took of me. Here's the one of me in the saloon rig. The backdrop, by the way, is just a digital insert that my roommie added later, to dress it the scene a bit. Or maybe "dress up" is the wrong word to use.

Oh, Alexander, why did you have to ask me that?

I knew what my reply had to be, but how could I express it and still give no hurt? Allie, my best friend, had asked me something very personal, very difficult, and had rendered herself very vulnerable.

I stared at her, suddenly distracted by the fluorescent light on her amber hair. A feeling of crisis squirmed within me; it was like my best friend had just dropped the bomb that she was gay and wanted to be my lover.

But this wasn't homosexuality, not really. What was happening to Allie, I realized, was succumbing to her male persona and was seeing me, and not herself, as an attractive woman -- a woman whom she could love. What a strange thought!

"Erin?" she asked in a ragged whisper.

I was taking a long time answering, but it was because I didn't know how to frame that answer. One wrong word and our friendship would be scorched, scarred forever. We might still smile and have comradely moments afterwards, but it would never be the same. Allie was opening her heart to me, baring her soul; if I couldn't reply in a similar spirit something very precious to both of us would be lost forever.

At last I gazed directly into her eyes, as if piloting a ship through a minefield and said, "Allie, I won't be able to take very much away with me from Tiresias -- some souvenirs, some clothing, some sexy pictures, but that's about it. Except for one other thing -- something that's more important than any of that stuff. It's something so important that I don't want to leave it behind, no matter what."

"W-What do you mean, Erin?"

"Our friendship, Allie. I came here expecting a bad time and some hard knocks, but I found a best friend instead. I want to see you again when we're both back home; I want to see a lot of you. I want to be best buddies for a lifetime."

"That's what I want, too."

I squeezed her hand. "I know. But we've got to be careful or it just won't happen."

"You're mad at me!"

I winced, as if an exploding torpedo had just torn the bottom out of that ship of mine.

"No, Allie," I insisted, "I love you. I love you in almost every way that a -- human being -- can possibly love another, but we don't dare love each other -- that way."

"Why not? I love you, too!"

"Because we're living an illusion! It won't last. What we do today will be gone tomorrow, no matter how hard we try to hold on to it. But if we're not careful, it's an illusion that'll ruin things for the rest of our lives."

She didn't reply, so I hurried on.

"Allie, I could very easily make love to you; I could have a wonderful time being a lesbian, I'm sure. In fact, that's probably what I am."

"Don't make it sound that way, Erin."

"I only mean that there's no one I'd rather go to bed with than you. I know I could be gay as a girl, but -- but I could never be a gay guy. Could you?"

"No! Of course not! But it's not about being gay."

I stroked the back of her hand. "Back home we're going to be two guys again. -- That's great, but if we have sex together now, how could we ever look one another in the eye later on? All we'd feel is embarrassment. It would drive us apart. Don't you see?"

Allie bent her head and I studied her expression anxiously, afraid that I had hurt her despite my best efforts.

"Damn it, Aaron!" she said.

She had used my male name; what that meant I wasn't sure. I waited with baited breath for the other shoe to fall.

"Damn it, Aaron -- you're right!" she exclaimed.

#

She dropped back to the spare pillow and her azure irises rolled up toward the ceiling in self-censure.

"What was I thinking?!"

I sat up and looked down into her grimacing face. "You were only expressing what I've thought about doing a hundred times, Allie. You just had more nerve than I did."

"But less brains!"

I felt a surge of relief; even though I had sexually rejected her, I really dared to believe that I had saved our friendship!

I stroked her pale gold hair. "I've had sex before, Allie, but I've never had a friend like you. I'd never want to do anything to spoil what we have; I only wish that we could be the opposite sex when this is all over."

"Me, too."

"Of course," I added, "I'd want to be the man."

She perked up in surprise. "Hey, why should it be you? I want to be the man! You make a better woman than me."

I looked at her incredulously; what she was saying was so patently ridiculous that I snatched up my pillow and hit her with it. "What do you mean I make a better woman?! You've got woman written all over you!"

She took her own pillow and replied in kind. "I do not!"

"You do so!" And I hit her again.

"You're the hottest chick on the whole planet!" she laughed, smacking me in the face. "I bet you're great in bed!"

"I am not!" I yelled and the pillow fight went wild. Once we had pummeled one another for all we were worth, we fell down together, laughing hysterically, our arms wrapped around one another -- in care, in trust, and comradeship.

*****

"Corruption is like a ball of snow; once it's set rolling it's bound to increase."

Gloria La Farge, 2011               
"From Arkansas to Washington"

 

Chapter 10

There really could be an upside to being a woman, (which didn't include menstruation, of course); on the other hand, some of the Sallys were finding out there could be a downside to being a man. Men needed more sex than women -- or, rather, women could sublimate their erotic drive so much easier than men; maybe it was that which had been behind my and Allie's photo session and pillow fight.

It didn't help the Sallys that so many of us Tiresian females were holding off from sex, or while not shunning it entirely were cutting back to punish piggish boyfriends -- as I had recommended the night of my ingenue party. The tension of the situation mounted but, interestingly, some of the most gonadal types like Jake and his randy pals, seemed to remain their usual steady, obnoxious selves as if nothing was happening. Go figure.

After a couple quiet weeks passed, the news came down that Jesse was being recalled to Earth to be charged with a criminal assault against a co-worker; he would be confined to quarters until then.

He should have been tried under the draconian Violence Against Women Act, which, like tax law, assumed the accused's guilt and required him to prove his innocence. The much more mild assault charges were therefore just a token gesture -- but tokenism usually went in the vanguard of real concessions, and it could have meant that our movement as a whole was making progress.

#

On Thursday night Dori and Andrea invited me to go watch a taped Falcons vs. Jets football game in the monitor room. The event came as a courtesy from the prison recreation committee and was intended for the entertainment of the staff and, after them, the prisoners. I really preferred baseball, though, and the pigskin action soon had my mind wandering.

Dori Gurtz always had a card up her sleeve, since she was a damned good amateur magician. She was a sweet, even-tempered guy who was always ready to take on her share to help the group out. We also depended on her to teach us to baby-sit, since she was the only one in our immediate crowd who'd ever had children back home.

Why would a man make a career out of the physical danger and punishment of professional football? The money? The cheerleaders? The popularity? I suddenly realized that I wasn't looking at strong men exercising a power, but desperate males trying to escape the consequences of powerlessness.

It seemed to me that to win the esteem of his parents, his community, the more attractive girls, and even of his peers, almost every boy wanted to become a pro athlete if he could. The majority of us who couldn't begin to cut it lived vicariously through the sports hero's life; everything that a young boy could do outside the realm of major league sports was considered second best.

If he performed well in school, he was just a nerd; if he excelled at the arts, he was a sissy. The lad who made the field goal was automatically a champion, while the boys who couldn't perform for the crowd were ignored.

Did such denigrated youths find power in the mere fact that they were male? Hardly. Theirs was a whole different "ball game" from their sisters'. To win esteem, a woman simply had to be what she was born, her challenge to the world being, "Take me as I am."

In contrast, a man was considered incomplete in his own being; he had to make something out of himself -- no matter what the cost to his health and soul.

To me, the professional athlete could scarcely be envied. Where was the cheerleader who would tell Rocky Rhodes, a has-been at thirty-five with the knees of a geriatric: "I don't care that you'll never walk again without a cane, Rocky; any woman you marry would love to work to support you at home. You've got a cute face and I love your personality."

Fat chance.

The whole history of the male in society was one of his trying to get around the inescapable fact of his powerlessness. This powerlessness came ultimately from his primitive role of defender of the group. An Achilles or Hector might be admired, but their very role of first-rank defender implied expendability. People around them could make their plans fairly certain that A and H wouldn't be around for long.

It was the male who died young in war, or came back crippled or blind. It was the male who wore the false limbs and back-braces acquired in the course of dangerous civilian work that women could disdain without approbation; it was the male who had to endure the lonely sea voyages, the treks into the mountains to trade furs with cruel savages.

There were plenty of bad men, such as the prisoners of Tiresias -- twisted products of a twisted culture, but the brute male of modern sociological fantasy, the gorilla in human mask burning and raping his way across history, had to yield to the sad reality -- that of a very vulnerable being whose capacity for self-denial and self-sacrifice bordered on the heroic. Or was it only a dysfunction -- a craving for outside approval at any price?

#

On Friday, as I did almost every day, I got together with Rod to have a few sets of love -- tennis, I mean -- while talking about his book. Neither of us owned a real tennis outfit and so we wore just T-shirts and workout shorts; it made no sense to buy expensive clothes for Tiresias that wouldn't fit us back home.

Because the employees had no special tennis court for themselves, we had to use the prisoners' during those hours when it was closed to them. Surrounded by a high wire-mesh and with plenty of tough Sally guards patrolling the vicinity, we felt safe enough, though the court abutted the recreation grounds and the prisoners were able to press up close to the wire and gawk at us. We soon learned to ignore them as we played.

Rod and I had earlier discussed the Jesse business, with Rod agreeing that the Service's decision was just a sop to the Charlies -- one which would frustrate more than satisfy. What was more galling, we couldn't forget that Jake and the others hadn't received any discipline at all so far. -- But because rehashing so disagreeable a subject was lousing up our game, we concentrated upon the sport for the next half hour.

Once, when Rod was chasing after the ball, my attention wandered to the prisoners. Some of the inmates were pretty good-looking chicks -- especially one wearing extra-tight, cotton-Spandex shorts with tulip-cut legs and a tank-top that advertised 36 or 37 inches of high-quality jiggle. A fetching Hispanic, her black hair bounced thickly in large ringlets while her simple-but-sexy outfit emphasized her physical femaleness -- as it was intended to.

	This is the "top con" of Tiresias prison standing where she could watch the tennis matches. It wasnt' easy to keep from watching her, either.

Transforming a prisoner's self-image was part of the psychological conditioning; the more our killers and thieves thought of themselves as women, the less dangerous they tended to be. Much more could have been done in this regard, but the policy couldn't be carried too far; this was federal prison, after all, not some transvestite humiliation fantasy.

But I thought that I recognized the girl. That fact nagged at me until I remembered that she was the same hot tamale whose lovely butt I had seen exiting the transference chamber when I crossed over from Earth. Her Latin lips and dark liquid eyes could send shivers down a man's spine. -- I knew because despite my transformation, I wasn't totally immune to a woman's beauty. But, I reminded myself, it was foolish to think of her in that way. The femlin wouldn't have been behind the wire at all if she didn't possess the mind of a violent criminal.

#

When Rod and I called it a day as far as tennis was concerned, he continued unusually quiet and coaxed me to a spot out of sight of both guards and prisoners. This aroused my suspicions, because he'd seemed uncharacteristically preoccupied over the last few days. I'd already questioned him about it, but he'd only told me it was personal business and then, with obvious effort, he'd always act cheered up. But now that vexed look had come back in force.

"Did you want to tell me something?" I asked. Then, thinking I was being too solemn, I tried to make light of it: "It can't be another presidential scandal; you could broadcast those on Radio Free America and no one would care."

He set his face in a tight smile and shook his head. "I don't know if I should tell you what I've been researching, but you're going to be here long after I'm gone and I don't want you stumbling into trouble you could avoid. I'll be risking enough of that when I go back home and write up my "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" story for my paper.

I already knew that Rod intended to write a feature article about Tiresias prior to compiling his book, but up to now he'd never suggested it was going to be anything more than a light fluff piece for a Sunday edition.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Corruption."

"What a relief! I'd thought it might be something serious." My levity, however well-intended, was not playing well and my companion's face remained grave. "Why the gloom, Rod? Nobody cares about corruption anymore. Nothing is corrupt if you have the Washington Post and New York Times on your side."

"Maybe not."

He grew so silent that I feared he was going to chicken out of telling me after all. "Hey, come on, guy; don't be so mysterious!"

He shrugged. "I guess you already know that I talk to everybody about everything."

"Yeah -- and I'm as jealous as hell!"

He looked at me and I cursed myself. What made me say a thing so stupid? "Trash that last statement!" I said hurriedly. "I was only kidding!"

"I know," sighed Rod, letting me off the hook much too easily, consider the pleasure he took in teasing. That told me that something momentous was troubling him and so I waited quietly and attentively.

"You mentioned a while back that Jake and his boys are shrugging off your association's sexual boycott as if they didn't care."

"Yeah," I nodded. "I've figured they were beating the meat, or maybe each other."

"It's not that simple."

This sounded interesting, if a little gross. "So what are they doing?"

"Prostitution; it started up since about the time you came three months ago."

"Hey -- I don't like the way you're putting that!"

He took my arm. "I'm not much of a writer if I can't say what I mean better than that."

"Well say it better, then; I'm no madame, God damn it!"

"I'm serious, Erin; quit clowning!"

I realized that my continuing facetiousness was going distinctly against the grain, so I put on an attentive face.

"I've got good reason to think that one of the prisoners who came across at the same time as you has put it into operation. He -- she -- picks out the vulnerable, good-looking prisoners and beats them into compliance, or bribes them into performing for any Sally who wants to get his rocks off."

"The guards? The administrators?"

He nodded.

This was gross! -- But it begged another question: "Bribes them with what? Biscuits purloined from mess?"

"Drugs. Mostly blizzard."

I frowned; 'blizzard' was an almost-untraceable synthetic drug popular with addicts back home. "That's rotten stuff," I said.

"Yeah. They're covering its trafficking the way prison drug-use has always been covered up -- guards and administrators on the take, bad-reaction cases are turned over to collaborating physicians. . . ."

"Not Dr. Trent?"

He shook his head. "No. In fact, Trent got suspicious first -- about the way that some prisoners were coming in already assigned to other medics, even though she's head of the department and should have final say on any such subject. Gabrielle put me on to this better than a month ago. -- She's as worried as hell."

"She never let on to me."

"I asked her not to tell anyone else until after she went back to Earth. It's for her own good; who can be trusted here? Even Warden Gershom has to be a suspect -- in fact, he's so fond of Jake and Company that it's hard to believe that he isn't involved. Some higher-ups have to be, the junk couldn't be phase-shifted from Earth -- if that's really the way they're bringing it in."

"Is there another way?"

"Yes," he grimaced. "We're set up here to be much more self-sufficient than most penitentiaries -- because we're so isolated. We've got a good chemical synthesis lab and, therefore, if some harmless-seeming chemical components are ordered in, it would only take a couple corrupt techs working nights to synthesize blizzard locally."

"The bastards!" I exclaimed. "-- Say, do you suppose that Gershom came across with maternity leave for Dr. Trent because he wanted to put his own department head in her place?"

Rod nodded. "I've thought about that. -- If the warden's involved you can bet he'd like to hand-pick some crony to cover up on the medical end. In fact, doing it the way it's being done is a lot smarter than simply getting rid of Trent by refusing her a second tour. If she up and left, the U.S.C.S. would pick a replacement from outside -- one who might turn out to be just as incorruptible. As is, there's much less scrutiny if Gershom is allowed to pick an acting head."

I was rapt.

"-- Well," he said mournfully, "I don't know a whole lot more than that. I'm still probing, but I don't want to get my informants into trouble by tipping off the culprits to my investigation. A lot of accidents can happen to inconvenient people way out here -- and every bureaucracy knows how to survive by cover-up."

"I also know that drug gangs can be damned mean," I muttered, suddenly concerned for my friends working down in the blocks. If one of them should find out something -- and then someone should find out that they'd found out. . . .

"It could be bad. But there's just one more thing: I do have a pretty good idea about which inmate started the balling rolling."

I wanted to know everything, but as for the prisoners, I had no direct contact with them -- and hardly any motivation to dig into their sordid rap sheets before this.

"You've seen her," he stated.

"Who?"

"That Latin girl, the one watching us play tennis today."

"The banana bombshell?"

"Yes, her."

"Hell, she'd make a better whore herself than a pimp."

"She doesn't have to do a thing if she can organize other people to earn her profit. I've talked to my prisoner contacts, but all I know is that her name is Luis Robles and she's Columbian. The gossip says that she's an illegal whose mother sneaked into the country already pregnant to give her baby citizenship. I also gather that Luis grew up to be a pimp back in L.A. -- and got into a lot more bad shit than anyone his age should have had time to do."

Here's a security camera printout of Luis Robles (front row, middle), the Colombian street kid with big ambitiions. It was taken shortly before his exile to Tiresias. He looks a lot better now, but from all I hear he's nothing but trouble.

"I could get the details from the prisoner files," I offered.

"No!" Rod said with surprising sharpness. "That's the last thing I want you to do."

"Why? What kind of reporter doesn't want to know?"

"I'm a reporter second and your friend first! Don't touch any sensitive files; the personnel records of every prisoner, guard, administrator, tech, and medic involved in this scam could have been red-flagged -- and your password would point them your way."

I wasn't going to be daunted so easily. "I think Mickie could find away around that; she's a whiz with computer systems. We might find something to get the goods on the gang. In fact, if there was red-flagging it could work against them -- anyone who was marked would stand out as a suspect!"

"No! Absolutely not! Don't get Mickie or anyone else involved! -- I'm only telling you as much as I am to keep you out of trouble -- and to keep any of the other girls out of trouble, too, if they learn something dangerous on their own and come to you for advice. I can't help putting myself into risk, but I don't want to be responsible for endangering anyone else."

I looked at him, admiring the way he was coming off like a courageous, commanding loner -- really adventure-movie stuff. "I think you're becoming a man, Rod," I observed with a wry smile.

He smiled right back. "Thanks. -- And may I say I've been watching you turn into a woman one inch at a time -- and I kind of like what you're becoming."

"Hey -- don't start talking dirty! I'm the same old lovable Joe Zilch I ever was!"

#

After talking to Rod the sky seemed to grow dark; it was like a cloud had been hung over the prison to stay. Sure, I'd known that most of my superiors were S.O.B.'s, but it was much worse to find out that among them were actual criminals who could be counted on do almost anything to protect themselves against discovery. I wished I could talk about the problem with confidants, but I didn't dare involve anyone else, not even Allie.

Life on Tiresias had never been something to recommend, but this news had made it worse. And to think that just one greedy, black-haired tart had started it all! -- No, I was wrong. Luis Robles was a nobody who was simply pulling the right levers to harvest power and influence in a system already poisoned. In fact, I could almost admire the way she had defied her lowly status to become the linchpin of a conspiracy involving many other people -- all of them better off and better educated than she, and nearly every one of them with much more to lose.

Even so, my indignation centered on Luis. I couldn't help fantasizing about the senorita being thrown over the shoulder of a Tiresian barbarian, carried off into the wild, and turned into the slave girl 'Luisa," collared, and treated like the heroes in all those Tiresias movies. Of course, Luisa was a villain, so things should go twice as hard for her.

-- As for Jake, I didn't have any fantasies about him -- except the one where he does a dance at the end of a rope.

Fantasies aside, I didn't like the idea of Rod facing trouble alone, but drug gangs played for keeps and only ignorance could protect a person. If I were some plucky heroine in an adventure novel I suppose I'd snoop and pry, no matter what my guy had said, until I got caught by the bad guys and Rod would have to rescue me. -- And there'd be shooting and -- oh, hell!

Who needs shooting, kid? Keep your mouth shut. -- That's how people survive.

#

After having warned me, Rod didn't volunteer any more information and he resisted my attempts to revisit the subject. His attitude was frustrating, but our talk seemed to have relieved his anxiety and after a couple days he was acting more like his old self.

"Allie invited me to Andrea's bikini party," Rod commented a week after our serious talk.

I nodded, knowing that it was the custom for a person to get a going-away party at the end of his or her tour. The most popular variety was the "bikini party," a last chance for the Charlie to "strut her stuff" and to get some mind-blowing photos of herself and her best buddies.

"I didn't know that you and Allie were such good friends," I remarked with a hint of stiffness. "Are you escorting her?"

"No. She said you were unsure about going and thought you'd be more likely to go if I escorted you."

"I wasn't unsure. -- I told her flat out that I wasn't going!"

"Why not?"

"Because she said I couldn't go if I didn't wear a bikini. Well, I don't own a bikini -- I don't have any real swimsuit of any kind! They cost too much here."

"You can borrow one."

"Where I come from you don't borrow intimate things," I fibbed. The real reason was that wearing swimsuits and lingerie in front of Allie in the privacy of my own room was one thing, but wearing a bikini outdoors for all to see was another. For Christ's sake -- under all this deceptive flesh I was still a man and I had to live with myself when this was all over.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Erin. Maybe you'll change your mind."

"Don't count on it!"

#

I was surprised and a little disappointed when Rod failed to make a date for Friday night after our Thursday get-together. Resigned to pass a quiet Friday night alone, I was reading "Riders of the Purple Sage" when the phone rang and Allie practically broad-jumped across the room to answer it.

"Yes," she replied excitedly into the receiver, "Send him up."

"You're expecting a guest?" I asked. "Are you taking a date to Andrea's party?" I knew Allie wasn't the dating type, probably because of the way that Buck had double-crossed her.

"Not exactly," she hedged.

My friend clearly wanted to play it coy, so I decided to wait her out; the mysterious Sally would arrive any second and then I could see who he was. To my surprise, Rod showed. "Look who's here!" Allie piped.

I saw them exchange knowing glances and wondered if there was something going on between the two of them. Come to think of it, Allie and Rod had been getting very chummy of late, like when she had gone to him to borrow a camera even though some of the other girls had cameras, too. Maybe Rod had offered to escort her to the party after I had refused him. -- All right, that's fair. But why hadn't Allie mentioned it? Was she feeling guilty and thought she should conceal it? But why would she feel guilty? She wouldn't -- unless she had something to feel guilty about!

"Are you here to see Allie or me?" I asked and immediately felt stupid asking two friends such a question.

"To see Allie?" Rod echoed incredulously. "No, I came because I've got a gift for you."

"For me?" I blinked, profoundly relieved.

He held out a little carton about the size of a candy box. When I took it I instantly realized that it was much too light for candy.

"It's not my birthday. It's not any holiday at all; what's the occasion?"

"It's Andrea's last night on Tiresias."

"What's that got to do with me?" As I fumbled the box open I had my answer -- it contained a leopard-spot bikini with a wrap -- one of those high-cut items with a sparing halter and practically nothing for bottoms -- a thong!

"What's this for?" I asked sourly.

"It's your outfit for the party," Rod said. "You said you didn't have a bikini of your own, so I bought you one."

I scowled. "You were in this together! What is it about seeing me naked that turns you two on so?"

"Nobody at the party is going to be naked," grinned Allie. "Anyway, wearing a bikini isn't the same as being naked. If it really bothers you, you've got a cover-up!"

"You picked it out, didn't you?" I accused my roommate.

"She didn't have to," Rod broke in. "I know my way around bikinis. I used to look pretty good in one myself, if I do say so."

I threw the suit at his smirking face. "Fine, you wear it!"

"Erin, be fair," pleaded Allie. "You never told Rod you were against wearing a bikini on principle; you just said you couldn't afford one and wouldn't stoop to borrowing. So he got one for you and it cost him a lot. You're being unreasonable."

"You could have told him the facts!" I snapped.

"I don't tell personal things about my friends!" she explained ingenuously. "Come on, be a sport; you don't want to hurt Andrea's feelings. When I told her that you were getting a bikini, she took it for granted that you'd come to the party!"

"Every time somebody tells me I have to be a sport, I end up having to do something dumber and more humiliating than the last time."

"What's the big deal, Erin? We're all going to be in bikinis."

"Except me," put in Rod.

#

Most of the girls were already at the pool when we arrived. Allie ran ahead of Rod and me, laughing, "Okay, everybody, 'Two, three, four. Tell the people what she wore!'"

They all began to sing:

"It was an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny, wild leopard spot bikini,

"That she wore for the first time today!

"An itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny wild leopard spot bikini!

"So in the locker she wanted to stay!"

I wrapped my cover-up around myself and spun on my heels, declaring, "I'm out of here!" But Rod took hold of my shoulders and I could have more easily dragged a mountain. The other girls, all wearing two-piece swim wear, surrounded me.

"It was just a joke, Erin," coaxed Jordana. The others offered their own blandishments to convince me to stay. I even got a couple kisses.

	This is Jordana McNallen trying hard to look sultry. She was always a good bud and one of the smartest people in the Association. She also played a wild guitar and became the minstrel of our movement.

"Hey, cut it out!" I rumbled. "I can't stand being kissed by men!"

"I don't know about you, baby," said Andrea, "but I'm not going to be a man until tomorrow. -- Come to think of it, that's no reason to stop kissing a cute little pieces like you!"

"Chill out!" Dori told everybody. "Erin's a good sport and we've picked on her enough."

"What am I supposed to do with you guys?" I sighed. "Thank Heaven you only want to humiliate me, not sell me into white slavery."

"The white slavery doesn't come until midnight, buttercup," Andrea teased.

They led me back to the pool chairs and, still disgruntled, I plopped down into one. Allie sat at my left side, and Rod took the chair to my right. I adjusted my wrap to cover as much of my thighs as possible.

"Bullshit aside," grinned Andrea, "I'm awfully glad you came, E