Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/154

124 All classes of sporting men—young actors, professional gamblers, racetrack bookmakers, and adolescents of some means and without occupation other than to sip continually of all the gross pleasures of life—constituted the associates of "Jennie June" during the following year and a half. I read in the newspaper several times that one of my paramours held a world's record in one branch of sport. I found that very few of this moneyed, sporting class cared to go beyond joking with me and teasing me, and none beyond the age of twenty-five ever went to extremes. In this neighborhood at that time female filles de joie were numerous, and the sporting men were more than satiated. The fairie's success is inversely proportional to unmarried adolescents' opportunities with the gentle sex.

About the beginning of my 14th Street career as a highclass fairie, I removed all the growth of hair on my body and limbs by means of a safety razor so that they were as glabrous as statuary. I considered that I thus beautified my body. The operation had to be repeated about once every two months. I would let the hair on the face grow for a full week, remaining in my room continuously the final two days, Saturday and Sunday, because of my untidy appearance. I would then pull it all out by the roots through the application of depilatory wax. For two or three weeks subsequently my face would be as devoid of hair as any woman's, when the new growth would reach the surface of the skin. After another week's growth, it was necessary to repeat the operation. I had hoped that the repeated violence to the hair-cells would