They would have been too large for me then, though not by much, close enough for me to have the feel of them, like stepping into another life, another skin. This was not arousing, not sexually stimulating, as I remember it, but just profoundly sweet. It must have reminded me of the times (here's the memory) when I played dress-up with my sister and cousin at my grandmother's house (years later, when I was in high school, I would go to my grandmother's house with my mother, and, while my mother and grandmother went to the supermarket, I would go to my cousin's room and find her stockings, try on her shoes; she was a year older than me and had better taste than my sisters, I thought, not to mention larger feet; I remember a pair of clear plastic spring-o-laters with rhinestones on the heels, some open-toe sling pumps; I never had time to try on any of her clothes, of course, had to be extra careful with time, not let it get away from me).

For a time, having begun to try on my mother's bras, slips, blouses, skirts, dresses, dipping freely into the dirty clothes hamper, I imagined that I might be some kind of freak, a hermaphrodite, and I examined my chest with some anxiety, fearing that my breasts would begin to swell any day, triggered by the female thoughts I'd been having, my fancies of being a girl. I would not really have minded having breasts, but then people would notice. No, that's not right. I would have minded. I did not want my breasts to grow, my nipples to enlarge. I believed I was experiencing what it was like to be a girl, that this was a very secret and special experience, one that no other boy ever could have had. I did not dislike being a boy, and, as the dressing began to become arousing, I began to feel guilty about it, ashamed of myself, excusing the behavior only on the grounds of my youth. I would grow out of it. (Children were spoken of in those days as always going through phases; you had to be patient if you were a parent; and, as a child, I was infinitely patient with myself.) Of course, it became harder and harder to fool myself. The "phase" went on and on. Well, I told myself, perhaps this is my fate, my destiny, my sin and my pleasure. In other ways I seemed to myself rather normal, ordinary. I was skinny, and this made me shy, self-conscious around other boys, but I thought myself not so bad looking. I had heard girls speak of boys as cute, and I fancied myself cuter than most--at least in my face. And I always had girlfriends, was crazy about one girl after another. I gave my identification bracelet away (which meant going steady) for the first time in the sixth grade.

The girl was the daughter of a rich dentist, who years later (the father I mean) capped my broken front tooth. Although she had no Spanish blood to my knowledge, she took lessons in flamenco dancing and was noted for her performances in school assemblies, complete with black tiara and fan and castenets, a red lacy dress with many-colored swirling petticoats beneath. Her braces did nothing to diminish the effect for me, but there was always a certain giddiness to her that gave me pause. Her father had an old accordion that he strapped onto me one day. I had been taking accordion lessons for about a year, but this accordion was much bigger than mine, heavy and smelling vaguely of sweat and dust, many of the keys sticking. I could not get a tune out of it.

It never occurred to me to leave the house while dressed up. Where would I go, after all? This was a suburban neighborhood, without sidewalks. But the thought didn't cross my mind, and probably wouldn't have, no matter where I lived. When I went away to college, and then left the state a year or so later, I was without clothes for a time. I sometimes fantasized buying some things, but money was scarce and, anyway, the opportunity to wear them was very limited, living as I was in communal or near-communal flats and rooms. In my imagination I still dressed, observing women carefully on the street and in newspaper ads and assembling in my mind a very satisfactory wardrobe.

I had been married about a year when I at last got up the nerve to purchase a pair of high-heels. They were black patent leather, with the pointed toe and spike heel fashionable then. We lived in a basement apartment in San Francisco's Fillmore District, and the day I bought the shoes I hid them in the narrow passageway that led from the street down to the apartment. That evening my wife went out to SF State for a course she was taking. I drove her--no, she took the streetcar, but I was to pick her up so that she wouldn't have to ride the streetcar back at night by herself. When she was gone, I retrieved my shoes.

Although I had no clothes of my own, I could wear some of my wife's. She even had a coat that I fancied fit me (it must have been way too short). I realized that I had to shave my legs. I had never done this before, but when I was younger I did not have such dark thick hair on my legs. The process was more tedious than I had imagined, consuming valuable time, but when I slipped on the hose I knew that the effort was worth it. I don't remember what else I wore. A skirt and blouse, no doubt. And nylons, of course. I put on some lipstick and perhaps reddened my cheeks a bit. The coat was gold, I remember. I tied a scarf around my head. Then I walked out the door.

Lord, was I nervous! First I walked to the end of the passageway, then turned around, went back to the apartment. Repeated this several times. No one used this passageway but us. It led only to our apartment and to a storage area beyond. So there was no great danger as long as I didn't go out the second door, which opened directly onto the sidewalk. Naturally, I had to go beyond that outer door. I don't know why I felt such a powerful urge. As I said, I had never felt it before. I guess I had never felt so womanly before. The idea that I was wearing my own high heels! The very sound of them reverberating in the passageway as I walked back and forth was intoxicating. I just had to go beyond the door, if only to the corner and back. In part it was a matter of trying out my new shoes, breaking them in. Simple enough. But it was also a matter of proving my womanhood, as if all that had come before, the secret raids on the dirty clothes hamper, the closet meditations, the studying of the fashion advertisements, was preparation for this.

Anyway, I told myself, this was not a busy street, especially this time of night (must have been around eight or eight-thirty), a quiet residential neighborhood. I peeked out the door. No one in sight, good. I could not see in the other direction, of course, and no sooner had I boldly pushed open the door and stepped out than a man came up behind me. What a fright! He walked past me, did not even turn and look, but I was so scared that I walked straight to the car, parked at the corner just a few doors down, and I quickly got in, locking the door behind me. Another man was coming from the other direction. I leaned down in the seat to hide. What if he saw me, tried to open the cardoor? He did not. I listened to his footsteps. Not even a hesitation. I peeked up. All clear. I made my break, rushed out of the car and back to the passageway--what a relief to close that door behind me! But I had done it, I had proven to myself that I could do it. So that was over. I walked down the passageway, proud now. Back in the apartment, I had just enough time to change clothes, go pick up my wife.

Now a new anxiety. I could easily enough keep it a secret that I'd worn her clothes, gone out, but what about my shaved legs? Should I say nothing, hope that she wouldn't notice? Oh, she would notice, though, no doubt about it. No, I would have to say something to her, prepare her for the discovery, confess what I'd done. Maybe she would understand. Maybe she'd be amused. It turned out that she was rather angry. I told her that I'd bought the shoes and that, trying them on, I saw that I'd need to shave my legs. I told her in the car, as we drove over Twin Peaks toward Market Street and the Fillmore, the lights of the city stretching before us, and the Bay Bridge beyond it, Oakland and Berkeley shimmering in the outer darkness. Seeing her failure to understand, her anger, I apologized. The hair on my legs, I assured her, would grow back, and I wished that she wouldn't take it so seriously. But I was contrite, ashamed.

Not so contrite and ashamed that I could not shave my legs several other times that week, as if to keep them smooth for as long as I dared. Couldn't I say that hair grew back slowly? Who could say how long it would take. So I shaved them two or three times in the next couple of weeks, enjoying the pleasant sensation of the smoothness of my knees rubbing against my bluejeans. Finally I did let the hair grow back, and did not shave them again for many years, ten or eleven, at a time in my life when I resolved to pursue those feminine urges in earnest.

I kept those first high heels for the longest time. My own daughters, not knowing where they came from, played dress up in them, and I remember fondly the sight of each of them, taking turns, teetering in the black patent-leather high heels! The shoes are gone now, thrown away in one of our moves, but of course I have a closetful of high heels and flats now, and my daughters, too, have their own.