Excepting the years that George Greenwood was with me as “adopted son,” I have in New York lived |Not Willingly Half-and-half.| all by myself in a 5-room apartment. Thus I have been able to transform myself into a young woman and set out for a female-impersonation spree without any one getting wise.
If I had had my say at birth, Ralphie, my lot would have been that of a full-fledged woman, or, less to be wished, a virile man. Not half-and-half. But at twenty I cut out the foolishness of all the time shedding tears over my fate. Those tears were chiefly due to the world’s forbidding a bisexual’s living according to his-her nature. I could not assume the responsibilities of a man and pay court to women—an ordeal so horrible, but expected of me if I stayed in my home town. I balked at having my life forced into a masculine groove. In New York one can live as Nature demands without setting every one’s tongue wagging.
I was unconscious of sex until my fourteenth year. Up to that age, I went to pay school. My dozen schoolmates—including four sisters—were all of the goody-goody type. No one ever tried to seduce me.
From fourteen to eighteen I went to public high-school. Several boys hugged and kissed me now and then. While I liked this, I shrunk away for shame. Now for the first time I felt sorry I was a boy. I stole a sister’s discarded garb, from corset to hat, which I kept under lock and key in my room and put on now and again in order to strut before a full-length mirror and feast my eyes on myself as female-impersonator. Because of shame, I never told a soul.
So counter to the fate of most hermaphroditoi, I was a virgin until the beginning of my female-impersonation |Dressing for a Spree.| sprees. Because in high-school, morbid bashfulness kept me from becoming well acquainted with a single boy. Down to twenty I lived as sheltered a life as any girl. I had really never been under any kind of temptation.
Ralphie, mon cheri, I can never forget the entire day spent in getting together my woman’s wardrobe on arrival in New York. I went to a ladies’ store in the Ghetto. I lacked the cheek to buy feminine finery uptown. I gave the Russian Jewess the usual hoax of amateur theatricals. And women are so dense as to believe it! She helped hugely to the end of my being able to turn myself into a stunning soubrette.
An evening or two later, in my flat, I dressed for my first spree. I touched up eyebrows with a stick of charcoal and cheeks with rouge; applied padding where needed, laced on a corset, and adjusted a soubrette’s wig. Lastly I put on my art gown, pinned on a picture hat, threw an opera cloak about me, and was ready to set out.
On my sprees I have always been careful to avoid a clue to my identity. No one would have ever learned who I really am even if I had been sent to Sing Sing. Since the world thinks female-impersonation utterly disgraceful, I had to spare my family all risk. Furthermore, they themselves would disown me if they ever learned of my mania for cross-dressing and female-impersonation.
It is bitter to be so misjudged! And people balk at being set right! While I get much joy out of life, I often feel crushed to earth when seeing how I am scorned, and now and again weep a full hour. When, |The Bowery a Magnet.| in the pride of their manly vigor, the virile throw at me a glance full of hatred or of ridicule, I feel like killing myself!
I always closed my hall-door noiselessly and used the stairs. The elevator boy might have recognized me in my disguise. If, on the several flights, I heard an approaching footstep, I would slink for a moment to a dark corner of the spacious hall. Reaching the street, I had my regular hiding place for my key and a yellow back. It was most necessary to be able to let myself in on my late return, when the street door was locked, instead of ringing up the janitor.