Davinia DeCoupe looked absolutely gorgeous tonight and she knew it. It had been the right move to switch to being brunette, it set off those fabulous Eastern European cheekbones and those piercing silver-blue eyes of hers. Whoever had said that blondes have all the fun really needed their head examining. She admired herself some more in the mirror - it was always so difficult to tear herself away. If it weren't for the thought of making all the other girls green with envy, she'd never, ever leave the house. She imagined the scene, months from now, when the police would break in and find her perfectly coiffured skeleton, still elegantly clad in her shocking pink kidskin and rhinestone outfit, the bony fingers of her outstretched hand stretching out to touch the mirror. Boy, would they have a shock when they got her dental records and found out that "she" was in fact a "he".

"Mirror, mirror on the wall - who is the goddamn, drop-dead sexiest bitch of all!" she said and laughed, making sure that she hadn't smeared any lipstick on her teeth. She was very proud of her teeth, as she should be given that they'd cost her what most young couples would spend on their first home. Slowly over a number of years, she'd slowly been augmenting what the good lord had seen fit to deal her. In addition to her capped teeth, she'd also had her nose bobbed, her ears pinned, her eyelids lifted and her lips made fuller.

Davinia glanced at the faded photographs that were tucked into the edge of the mirror's frame. One was a black and white print of her mother as a girl, leaning provocatively against a dry-stone wall, the majestic ruggedness of the Welsh Border mountains making for a dramatic backdrop. Yes, Sian Williams had certainly been a beauty when she was younger. She'd told him many times as a young boy of how her eyes had used to sparkle when she smiled, of the gentle Welsh lilt she'd had to her voice, and of how she couldn't stop herself from dancing whenever she heard the strains of one of those big band records that the American GI's had brought with them. No wonder they all fell in love with her, she used to say. She'd smile as she said, "I could have had any one of them, that I could". There would always be a pause then and an empty look would come into her eyes before she'd add "And of all of them, all of those handsome boys in their fancy uniforms, I had to go and pick your dad!" She'd cry a little then, she always did; the emptiness of her eyes would be replaced by big salty tears, the drops of which ran down her face, sploshing down onto his head.

As he'd held his mother's hand tight at those times, he'd started to hate his father with a vengeance. He'd always felt a little guilty about this, that maybe he wasn't being fair by taking sides with his mother and that he should give his father more of a chance. He was 13 when he stopped thinking like that and started hating his father with a passion that knew no boundaries. It was then that his father had caught him trying on his mother's clothes and decided that the only way to make his son "normal" was to humiliate him in front of the whole town.

It had been a hot summer day and David was sure that he had the run of the house for the day. His mother had gone shopping with a friend into the big city and his father was out working on the fields. He'd made some excuse about feeling sick to avoid having to help with the harvest and his father had stormed out of the house, muttering that the boy was "too soft for his own good". David had lain quietly in his bed for 5 minutes or so, waiting to make sure that the house was truly empty, that he truly had it all to himself before he got out of bed and climbed up into the attic.

Davinia shuddered now when he remembered how scary the attic had been to the young boy he'd once been. It was so dark and dirty, with big spider's webs everywhere, each holding fat and misleadingly dormant spiders, all just ready to pounce on some poor unsuspecting fly or small boy that just happened to pass their way. It was during one of his parents many fights that he'd first found his way up there. He wanted to be anywhere except with the two of them, with their cruel and hurtful words followed by the sound of hard blows being struck and his mother's anguished screams, and then later, her fractured sobbing.

He must have sobbed himself to sleep that day and when he awoke, the attic seemed transformed into a magical kingdom. It was by then growing late in the afternoon and now that his eyes had adjusted to the limited light, what there was seemed to throw a golden light onto the attic's contents. He noticed the wicker trunk about 6 feet away from and his curiosity was aroused. He was pretty sure that was the trunk that stored all of the dressing up clothes that his mother used to let him play with. They used to get brought out whenever he was ill and he'd always had great fun dressing up in his father's old shirt and pants and pretending to be a farmer. Sometimes his mother would encourage his games and together they would work out a show to amuse his father. He remembered that one time, he'd been the farmer, his wife, and their two children in a performance of "The farmer wants a wife". He also remembered that his father hadn't been amused in the way that his mother had, he hadn't laughed when he'd slipped her old dress over his head and proceeded to plump up his imaginary breasts. No, his father hadn't found it funny; he'd turned at scowled at his mother, as if to say "look what you've done to the boy - this is all your fault!" Nothing more was said but after that day, the play clothes never came out again when he was ill and he'd just assumed that they'd been thrown away or cut up into rags.

It was with excitement and trepidation then that David had made his way to the wicker trunk. He struggled with the rusty catches and finally the lid of the trunk popped open. He gingerly lifted back the lid to reveal a load of dusty old movie magazines. He was just about to fasten back down the lid when he saw some shimmering sequins sticking out from under the magazines. Hastily, he grabbed piles of the magazines, lifting them from the trunk and scattering them on the floor around him in his rush to retrieve the dress. The blue sequined evening gown was just as he remembered it. It had always been his favorite and as he ran the fabric through his fingers, he remembered the story that his mother had used to tell him about it.

His mother had called it her "Celeste Bronch frock" because she had painstakingly copied the design from the cover of a movie magazine that had Celeste gracing its cover, stretched out invitingly atop a white grand piano, the signature tortoiseshell cigarette holder dangling from her lips and fire in her eyes. As a girl, she had always loved the movies and Celeste Bronch had always been one of her favorite actresses. She had watched every movie of hers at least two or three times (well, there had to be some benefit to having a kid brother who worked as a part-time projectionist at the local Roxy) and she could recite all of Celeste's lines from many of them. It had been the movies that had first attracted her to GI Joseph Kravetz and her naivete that kept her from realizing that not every American knew every film star back home. As he'd wooed her and won her heart with his fancy ways, he'd told her of the wonderful parties that he went to back home with all of the film stars - how they all knew him by his first name and how he let the really big stars call him "Krav".

She thought that she was in love with him and took no notice of the people who tried to offer advice about the "flashy no-good Yank". "They're all jealous", she said, as she lay in his arms one night. "Yeah honey", he'd said and then added "you know, you look just like Celeste Bronch in this light - and let me tell you, she sure is one cute dame". A thrill went through her as she heard herself being compared to her favorite movie star. As his hands sought to loosen her restrictive underwear, she was temporarily lost in a movie star dream world.

"Do I really look like her, Joe?" she asked.

"Oh sure, baby" he'd grunted, focusing on his very own dream that was close to becoming a reality.

"And am I as pretty as she is, Joe?" came her next question.

"Oh absolutely, baby - you'd leave her standing any day of the week!"

"And do you love me, Joe - really love me?"

"Oh baby, course I love you - you're beautiful baby, you're my Welsh starlet, that's who you are!"

She didn't even notice the weight of his body on hers or his hot, sweaty hands pushing up her skirt and then unzipping his trousers. She was too busy thinking of the all the Hollywood parties that he'd been to and the ones that he might take her to one day. It was over in seconds (he didn't even enter her body) and it wasn't until she'd missed a second period and her skirts started to feel tight did she begin to wonder if she might be pregnant.

Her condition had come as a bit of a surprise to Joe (he'd always thought that virgins couldn't get pregnant the first time) and he was all for skipping his obligations until Sian's father had a little chat with the commanding officer. Before he knew it, they were being married in the little village chapel and then within 48 hours he'd been shipped off to France to help drive the German forces back to Berlin.

It was 3 months later, as his unit had been waiting for revised orders, that he got the letter telling him about the miscarriage. The CO had offered him 7 days compassionate leave and seemed surprised when he turned it down.

It was to be a further 15 months before he left the European mainland and he was on English soil for just 24 hours before he was on a troop carrier being shipped back to the US. If he'd been hoping to conveniently forget his marital obligations once back home, he had a surprise there waiting for him. Somehow, Sian had got his home address from the US base and had been writing regularly to his mother and father. They left him in no doubt as to what he had to do and as soon as he had saved up enough money for the passage, he sent for Sian to come and join him.

He'd met her at the train station on a Thursday afternoon approximately 3 weeks later and he could see at once that the events of the last 18 months had taken their toll on her looks and her nerves. She looked pale and a little drawn as he drove her back to the farmstead in silence, her hands clutching a brown paper parcel which looked like it held a mantel clock. Behind them, in the back of the truck, he'd placed the wicker trunk, which he'd noticed was surprisingly light considering that it held all of her worldly goods.

After exchanging welcomes, his mother had suggested that she lay down and rest for a while after her long journey. When it got to 5.30, he'd shouted up to her that dinner was ready and that she should hurry up and come downstairs as there were people here to meet her. Her entrance was met by silence (from both the Kravetz's and their neighbors, the Patterson's) as she slowly descended the stairs, the rustling of the sequins announcing her arrival. None of them could believe their eyes as they took in the sight of the young woman wearing a hand-made, blue sequined evening dress and carrying a tortoiseshell cigarette holder.

Sensing something was wrong by the way that they were all staring at her open-mouthed, she stopped and stared back. "What's wrong" she asked after a while. "Is it that dressing like this might offend Miss Bronch?"

"The film star Celeste Bronch?" her mother-in-law asked.

Sian nodded, seemingly unable to speak at that moment.

"Now why would anything that you do offend Celeste Bronch", her father-in-law asked as he tore at a thick strip of chewing tobacco with the stumps of his teeth.

"Isn't that who is coming for dinner?" the girl asked, realizing what their answer would be before the question left her lips.

At that, they all started laughing at her, laughing in a way that she thought would never stop.

The last thing she had heard as she turned and ran upstairs, flinging herself on the bed was her mother-in-law's mocking voice, echoing in her ears. "You don't want to go believing anything what any Kravetz boy ever tells you, honey" she'd said, adding "just look at me, I did one time and now see where I am!" before starting to cackle once more.

Later, Joe had come upstairs in a vile temper, beating her for making him look a fool in front of his family. After that day, she never wore the dress again, not in public anyway. She'd sometimes put it on when no one was around and would daydream about the life that she might have had (the parties, the fast cars, the yachts, and the glamour). Then, she would open her eyes and take in the reality of what her life as a farmer's wife really meant, the disappointment of it all. After she had David, she never lost the extra weight she'd gained and so the dress was consigned to the attic where it had languished in the dressing up clothes box.

Of course, as David held the dress to his face, smelling his mother's scent on the fabric, he knew nothing of the sadness that it had seen. The version of the story that he remembered from being a little boy was how his father had swept his mother off her feet, how she'd made this dress herself to go to the swankiest party, where everyone had stopped and looked at them as they danced, applauding at the end. The dress felt safe and warm and without thinking, he slipped it over his head and pulled it down around him. It felt good and it felt even better when he slipped off his pants so that he could feel the fabric against his legs. He turned his attention to the trunk again, rummaging further in it's depths until he found a battered shirt box which contained an assortment of half used beauty products; lipsticks, powders and paints that were left over from his mother's short-lived career as an Avon lady.

His eyes caught the cover of a movie magazine and he realized that he was looking at the original picture of Celeste Bronch that the dress had been based on. He felt a thrill as he noticed the resemblance between the beautiful actress and the old pictures of his mother as a young girl. He loved the way her face was painted and found himself wondering how he would look made up that way. Within seconds, he was opening pots and tubs and applying the thick cream to his cheeks. Its coolness felt good on his skin and he next turned his attention to the lipstick which he applied thickly, rubbing his lips together as he'd watched his mother do.

He searched desperately for a hand mirror so that he could see the results of his handiwork, see whether it looked as good as it felt. Not finding any reflective surface, he decided to go downstairs and look at himself in the full-length mirror in his parent's room. He was startled by what he saw and then more startled when he realized how funny it made him feel. Although his attempt at make-up was crude, he could almost squint his eyes and see a pretty young woman looking back at him. He'd pucker his lips and she'd do the same. He'd arch his eyebrow and she'd do the same. He'd blow a kiss and... and he'd see his father's reflection in the mirror. He turned quickly and saw the anger and horror in his father's face. Before he could offer any explanation, before he could even open his mouth to speak, his father's hands and feet were raining in on him, leaving him bruised and bloody, curled in the fetal position on the floor, cowering like a wounded animal.

His father dragged him to his feet and bundled him out of the door and into the truck. David was mumbling "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" but his father ignored him, the veins pulsing on his head and neck and his hands white where they gripped the steering wheel. Tears were running freely down David's face now, causing the make-up to run too, leaving a spiders web of mascara on his bruised and swollen cheeks.

The truck came to a sudden halt in the downtown shopping district and his father came around to his door and dragged him out into the street. It was a busy Saturday afternoon and Main Street was full of shoppers, all stopping and staring at the spectacle in front of them. Holding him by the arm, his father dragged David into the department store and straight to the ladies department.

"My boy seems to have decided that he wants to try at being a girl" he shouted (at no-one in particular).

"I figure that you're just the folks to help him with that" and with that, he pushed David away from him and turned and left the store.

As the memory flooded back to her, Davinia found that she couldn't remember what had happened from the moment his father had left him to when his mother had showed up 2 hours later. He must have been given some other clothes to put on by someone, as he was no longer wearing the dress. He'd tried to avoid his mother's eyes as they left the store, as he tried to ignore the sniggers of people as they passed by. "Why, David, why?" was all that his mother could ask him. He didn't know why and so he didn't answer her; instead he just hung his head in shame. Deep down however, his heart was in a turmoil. He knew that he should be apologizing for what he'd done, for the shame that he'd brought on the family (his father's words) but he found that he couldn't. Deep down inside, he didn't regret it. Deep down, it had stirred something within himself, that no longer dormant, would ever go away again.

As Davinia adjusted her padding (her ass was a latter-day miracle of latex technology) and readied herself to leave the house, she remembered how her father had taunted her until she finally could take no more and left home at 16. It wasn't just that he only ever addressed here as "Celeste" or "Miss Bronch" after that. No, he could have taken that. It was the way that he used this against his mother some way, as if it were all her fault, that "she'd ruined the boy" by showing him too much affection as a child.