By the time I entered high school, I'd developed an overpowering crush on my older cousin. Dark, brooding and immensely talented, he was everything I aspired to be. Viewed by our family as a rebel and an outcast, he had achieved almost legendary status after he won a Fulbright scholarship to Chamberlain University, taking up a major in Fine Art. By the end of his second year, he'd secured three additional grants, making him one of the best-funded students in the state.

As Karl's prestige grew in the digital media, I struggled up the academic ladder at Ridgewick High School, determined to score the highest grades possible and win a few awards of my own. My childhood had been spent in competition with my sisters, but now I had another goal to occupy my misdirected attentions. I planned to ride roughshod over every other candidate for the Fullbright and follow in my cousin's footsteps.

The thought of studying art at Chamberlain University horrified my folks in ways that no human language could possibly describe (OMG, why can't she study something useful, like hairdressing or podiatry?), but I'd set my heart on the idea and wouldn't be deterred.

At much the same time, their attitudes towards Karl had begun to soften, particularly since he'd been offered candidacy in the Master's Program, along with a part time lecturing position at The Chamberlain Center For The Arts. In the space of five short years, he'd gone from an unspeakable family secret to a recognized and respected figure within the local art scene.

Following a sell-out solo exhibition at The Pretentious Gallery, he was able to set himself up in a second-story apartment over his own private studio, proving once and for all that he was the creative prodigy he'd been claiming all along (as opposed to the shiftless, deadbeat manchild his own family had labeled him).

I guess that was why my parents finally allowed me to visit Karl up in Chamberlain. They still had some reservations about letting me spend an entire week with him – old reputations die hard, or so I'm told – but I was now in my senior year and needed to spend some time in the big city. I was almost eighteen and would be attending university the following March.

After all, they reasoned, what was the worst thing that could happen? They were cousins; life long friends, thick as thieves. He used to babysit the girls when he was a kid. Remember how much fun they used to have together? Yeah, they'll be fine, he'll take her out to the university, introduce her to all the staff, show her around the city. Then she'll have a head start for the new year.

Speaking for myself, I was far more interested in raves and nightclubs of the Westside, to say nothing of the malls and plazas I'd heard so much about. I'd spent virtually all of my life in Ridgewick, and while it wasn't exactly Hicksville, I was desperate to cast off the shackles of parental supervision. I viewed the upcoming excursion as an adventure of Homeric proportions, and as things turned out, I was completely right – though not quite in the way I expected.

What was the worst thing that could happen?

I would discover that very soon indeed.

The first day went extremely well. Karl picked me up at Grand Central and took me out for lunch at The Esplanade, remarking on how much I'd changed since our last reunion. We caught up on all the family gossip and exchanged the most outrageous lies about our various siblings.

We then took a leisurely stroll around the inner city with its arcades and cathedrals and vast, towering skyscrapers. Chamberlain came as a revelation to me, a shimmering vision of glass and steel and concrete, its streets clamoring with trams and buses and roaring subway lines. Hidden music wavered from every storefront and widow display, vying with curbside musicians and classical bandstand performers. Even the glaring traffic lights blared their warnings in coded electronic voices, cycling above the din and chaos of the early afternoon.

And the people! There seemed to be millions of them, sprinting from crosswalk to lamplight, subway to stairwell, pillar to post in a gushing stream of grappling knees and elbows. It was a meandering tide of humanity, streams of faces and rivers of flesh, crammed into asphalt causeways that could barely contain them. I stared in heartfelt wonder at this kaleidoscope of on-rushing bodies, astonished that so many could exist in so confined a space.

The most amazing part – for me at least – was that nobody in Chamberlain knew I was a tranzie – nobody apart from Karl, and he wasn't about to go crowing it from the rooftops. He understood how I felt: back in Ridgewick, I was embraced and accepted, even loved on my own terms in many respects…but I would never be viewed as normal. That was the nature of small-town society. Deep down in the ragged shreds of the human soul, beneath all the tolerance and civility, I would always be marked as One of Them. An outsider, an intruder, a stranger. A Not Quite Right.

Here in this sprawling metropolis, I could finally be the girl I'd always wanted to be. Not a spook, not a quiff, not a freak of nature. A girl.

I spent the night nestled between cool satin sheets in the spare room, drifting off to sleep with the ambient noise of the city lulling through the bedroom window. I thought fleetingly of my parents, my sisters, my friends. My sweet provincial existence at the edge of civilization. It was a good life, a wonderful life as Jimmy Stewart once said, but I was growing up, and there was so much more to experience in this world.

The following morning, Karl agreed to take me out to Chamberlain Mall – ostensibly to stock up on food and groceries, though he knew I was eager to go cruising the fashion salons out along Centennial Drive. There'd be literally nothing within my price range, but that made no difference whatsoever. Even a hicktown girl like me I knew that window shopping didn't cost a cent.

While we were getting ready, Karl entered the room, shrugging on his black leather Brando jacket, then glanced around the floor as if something had evaded his attention. After a few moments, he picked up my tote-bag and started sorting through it.

"May I help you?" I asked, knitting my brows in mock disapproval.

"Put on the girliest things you have in your suitcase," he replied, apropos of nothing, "something pink with puffy sleeves and lots of frills."

"You kidding?" I demanded indignantly.

"Nope. Half the stores out here offer discounts to kids under fifteen."

"I'm seventeen!" I protested crossly, assuming The Defiant Stance with my fists planted firmly on my hips. What did he think I was, an infant?

"Suit yourself," he shrugged indifferently, and turned towards the door, zipping up his jacket as if my needs were of no consequence. And like any other girl my age, I took great offense at such cavalier treatment –

Then immediately reconsidered.

Quite suddenly, I found myself estimating how much extra I could pack into my carry-all when I went home at the end of the week. Girls' clothes could look extremely mature depending on the label, and with my slight frame I could pass for a young teen on a good day (which this was clearly shaping up to be). Perhaps I had been a little too hasty...on this occasion, at least.

"Well," I sulked with all the feigned reluctance of a prom queen on her first date, "what do you think I should wear?

Nodding to himself in wry satisfaction, Karl picked up the bag and started scrabbling through it again. After a few moments, he pulled out a sheer, cotton sunfrock; one I'd squirreled away in the event of unseasonably warm weather. No ruffles, no flounces, no frills, but it was the perfect shade of pink for what we had in mind.

"This," he said, and handed it to me.

I must've tried on at least two dozen dresses as we made our way through the fashion district, and Karl had been completely right – there were plenty of sales and mid-season knock-downs in the specialty stores.

Karl played his part perfectly, assuming the role of the bored but indulgent elder sibling, sitting patiently through all of my impromptu catwalk parades. Some of the younger sales assistants were impressed by his casual charm and raffish good looks (causing me more than a few pangs of jealousy), though he did very little to actually encourage them.

After the first twenty minutes or so, I realized I had no reason to complain. As Karl had predicted, most of them took me for a twelve year-old and treated me with the kind of deference accorded to a Disney Princess. I was practically inundated with miniskirts, tanktops, stretch-jeans and stiletto heels (as I said, kids' fashions these day could be alarmingly mature), none of which I was capable of resisting.

By the end of the day, I must have maxed out at least three of my parents' credit cards. There would be a great deal of explaining to do when I got home, but I'd already decided to cross that particular bridge when I eventually came to it.

The last thing I bought was a pair of frilly pink girl-socks; the kind with a sheer, nylon instep and a delicate lace trim around the ankle. They were about the cutest little things I'd ever seen outside of Cosmo magazine, and they were a perfect match for my breezy cotton sundress.

"Let me pay for those," Karl remarked with an admiring glance, then beckoned the attendant over with a discrete wave of his hand. The vaguest hint of a smile crossed his lips, though I didn't notice it at the time. I was too busy liberating the socks from their garish plastic coverings. I wanted to try them on, right there in the store, and wear them all the way home.

I never inquired as to how much they cost, and Karlos never offered to tell me. I had, however, incurred a somewhat exorbitant debt for that morning's adventures – one which I would be extremely reluctant to pay. All the same, this was one loan I would be forced to compensate at triple the interest...probably more. Karl would see to that.

"Ready to go?" he asked, lips still curved in that faintly pernicious smile.

I wasn't ready to go anywhere, not by a country mile, but I couldn't afford to press my luck or my dwindling finances any further.

"Okay," I nodded, gathering up my rag-tag collection of designer labels, high-heel pumps and patented leather accessories. Karl leaned down to scoop up two armloads of gaudy, gift-wrapped trinket boxes, and we headed out towards the car park. The sales attendant saw us off as we left the building, though for some unknown reason, I suspected that her brilliant farewell smile wasn't really intended for me.

The moment we arrived home, Karl told me to leave the merchandise in the living room; we had the rest of the day before us and I could check it all out later on. At the time, I mused on how he had no understanding of how the feminine psyche worked, but with the benefit of hindsight, I realize he knew considerably more than I (and maybe any other woman) would ever have given him credit for.

To this day, I have no idea why I followed him into his bedroom like a deer into a hunting blind. He made no motion, gave no sign that my presence was required. He simply sauntered through the open doorway, slumping off his jacket and hanging it on the cedar wall rack, the way he'd done a zillion times before.

Maybe I was curious. I maybe I wanted to talk. Maybe I just wanted his attention. But when he turned around, I was already climbing onto his king-sized double bed, stretching myself comfortably out on the quilted satin. I wondered absently how many other girls had done the same over past couple of years, then imagined how I must have looked, a slender young girl in a flimsy pink dress, wide of eye and sleek of limb; a teen who could pass as a child with her thick blonde hair tied back in bright yellow ribbons. The sales attendant had thought I was twelve. How old did I look to –

Before I had time to pursue this chain of thought, Karl had seated himself beside me, carelessly rolling his sleeves up to the elbow.

"Lie back for a moment," he said, inclining his head in my direction, "stretch your feet out this way."

"Why?" I asked, following his instructions with barely a second thought.

"Because it's time for your tickling," he replied, as if the answer were blindingly obvious.

I blinked my eyes in a classic double take.

What?