Whatever Your Heart Desires Part 6

It couldn't be a coincidence....

I was first in line at the bookstore door the morning it went on sale. I placed my hand on Danni's picture on the back cover, trying to recapture the warmth I had once felt when I held her. It felt so good to see her face again, if only on the cover of a book. I read whenever I had a few free minutes. It was told in the first person, as well as quotes and third-person narrations gleaned from the experiences of other T-Girls Danni had met while 'researching' her story.

I devoured every word, starting with Chapter One: When You First Dream The Dream. She told of T's who had known there was something wrong with their gender identity as early as age two, as well as those that "came late to the game", finding their other self for the first time in their adult years. She wrote of girls who lived their whole lives in the closet, as well as those who were proudly, defiantly "out". She chronicled those who shared their special identity with a Significant Other, those who had only each other, and those who had no one but themselves. She revealed those who had come out and found at least some measure of happiness, as well as others who had lost everything in the pursuit of their dream.

Some, mostly the cross-dressers ("weekend warriors" as they were known in The Scene) were identified only by pseudonym - to protect their 'straight' identities, jobs, families and friends. A cadre of the braver "24/7" (full-time) girls were identified by their street or "Drag" names. They provided the bulk of the quotes and third-person material. One in particular, the author's "Drag Mother", had been shadowed through her world on a day-to-day, sometimes hour-to-hour basis. Her life and world was described in vivid, sometimes tawdry detail; the triumphs, tragedies, successes, failures, joys, sorrows and almost casual horrors that made up her day. There was a picture of her, which I recognized immediately. I was stunned. The caption read: Celine D'Arcy. I hadn't had a clue.