Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/88

66 The first week, it was an ordeal on a par with being forced into breeches. I was in a state of chronic fright. When addressed, my reply was inaudible six feet away. But after becoming well-acquainted with class-mates, I have seated myself on their laps right in the school-room. For they appeared demigods.

They would run a hand up my arm. "Your skin is softer than velvet. And your pencils look as if you had chewed them off with your teeth. And what makes you scream when a fellow merely touches you? Ralph, you certainly ought to have been born a girl! You will never make a man!"

On holidays I would run off to the house of a girl friend. With several of the gentle sex, I would play hide-and-seek in remote nooks, as hay-mows. Later I would exchange clothing with one, and we would seek boy acquaintances that I might display my skill in female-impersonation.

Adult intimates would point the finger of scorn in vain. To pass life as far as possible like a girl was the very essence of existence, for which I was willing to sacrifice everything else.

The instinctive manner of coasting is a criterion of psychic sex. Every boy of my set, excepting myself, rode bellyflops—too strenuous for the softmuscled and timid girls. As I possessed their physical and psychic softness, I also coasted upright.

In ascending the hill, I kept with the girls. I enjoyed talking about only their interests. As the boys passed, they would call out: "Girl-boy! Mollie Coddle!"

One afternoon, two snow forts were built fifty feet apart. All the boys, excepting myself, took their stand