The girl in the red mini has strawberry blond hair and long, tapering legs. Stepping into the dressing room, she puts down her shoulder bag on the make-up table and hitches up her hemline, revealing a seemingly endless length of smooth, stockinged thigh. She poses in the window, completely oblivious of the council workers across the road. Benny and his friends suddenly pause in their labours, faces mesmerized by the prospect of seeing a pretty young girl adjusting her nylons before their very eyes.

With the girl out of sight, the battle resumes. Jaws are busted, noses pulled, lips fattened. The bald-headed priest tumbles into the ditch, still holding his bible aloft. In the background, all but lost in the general confusion, Benny is led away in an armlock by the PC...

The clothes KC had taken from the linen cupboard were not exactly the same as the girl's on Benny Hill, but that wasn't a problem. KC's imagination required only a close approximation. There were a pair of frilly white underpants which fortuitously happen to fit him exactly, and a small, creamy coloured crop top which - for KC - would double for a bra (KC didn't know what a brassiere was for, but it was unquestionably a necessary part of the costume). There had been no white satin half slip in the sewing bag, but he'd managed to find a bright pink cotton skirt with an elasticized waist. It was light and breezy, almost translucent, and KC judged it would feel cool and smooth against his flesh.

No stockings in his size, but there was a pair of longish girls' socks, which, to KC's inexperienced mind, was pretty much one and the same. The last piece of apparel had been the treat of the morning. Holding it up, KC wasn't quite certain what it was. A woman's blouse or top or something, but it was bright and red and stretchy; it would look just like the mini the Benny Hill girl had been wearing.

There was even a zip at the back. KC smiled, his eyes wide with innocent, childish pleasure, and began to take off his PJs.

Something happened while KC changed.

He didn't just put on girl's clothing, he seemed to put on a girl's body. No, not quite. His body felt different, there was no question of that, but he seemed to have pulled on a great deal more than a girl's shape. He...felt like a girl. Or at least, what he imagined a girl would feel like, if she was sweet, and saucy, and pretty - and very, very naughty. He could not, at his age, have put it into words, but it was as if he had somehow slipped into a new identity.

He had become the girl. The one from last night. The one who'd taken off her clothes.

KC could see her very clearly in his mind. He had taken a snapshot of her with his eyes and developed the picture in his imagination. It was like a high resolution moving photograph; he could visualize the finest details, the texture of her skin, the lacquer on her fingernails, the deep redness of her lips, the sweep of her hair over her forehead. But the photo wasn't just in his imagination. It was as if that picture had somehow been superimposed onto his body.
KC had become The Girl.

She played out the scene several times, recreating the scene from memory: the dressing room with its racks of feminine accoutrements, the make-up table with its cosmetics and brushes, the tall, wide window looking out onto the street, the vaguely lecherous council workers leaning on their picks and shovels - she moved through a complex, constructed mind-space, shedding her clothing and parading before a non-existent audience.

The ecstasy swept over her, simmering in her body like a ball of liquid heat, leaving her trembling with excitement and a new emotion she couldn't name. Something had blossomed within her, something huge and pure and utterly beyond description. It was a breathless, gasping delight without comparison, something which she would seek for the remainder of her life. And although this sensual fire would remain forever beyond her reach, there were a few rare moments when she would come extremely close . . .

She assumed her feminine role most mornings, basing her performances on TV programmes. It was the beginning of the seventies, an era of extreme political incorrectness and risque humour, when sexual innuendo insinuated itself into the least sexual of domestic comedies. Television provided her with an apparently inexhaustible source of inspiration for her fantasy-play.

At first it was enough just to become The Girl and act out her scenarios subjectively, but after a while she became curious to see what she actually looked like while she performed. KC couldn't let anyone see her dressed as The Girl, but at least she could watch herself.

KC had taken to hiding her props in an old suitcase under her bed. She rose at five one morning and dressed as The Girl, then examined herself closely in the dressing table mirror. She'd never performed in her bedroom before - there wasn't nearly enough space - but this morning she made an exception.
She stripped gradually down to her undies, smiling widely as each successive layer came off.

First her slippers, then her blouse, followed by skirt and singlet - the latter standing in for a full slip. Removing the slip was always the best part, the last thing to come off before her panties were displayed to the world. She felt thoroughly undressed, even though she was still wearing her bra and pants. Of course, the underwear was the most important part of the performance. If she'd been completely naked, she wouldn't have been The Girl at all. She just would have been some naked little boy. And where's the fun in that?

She didn't look much like the girls on television (they were all grown up, for one thing) but she was pleased by what she saw. Her striptease revealed a pretty little girl with short, curly brown hair and a roundish face, her body slightly pudgy with baby fat. If her hair had been slightly longer, she might have passed for any five year old girl, no different from the ones she used to play with back in Ashville.

Trouble was, KC wasn't trying to look like a little girl. She wanted to look like The Girl, tall and leggy and almost-adult. They were more like princesses in a fairy tale: always laughing, always falling in love and always living Happily Ever After. And best of all, The Girl could be naughty and get away with it. The Girl could get away with just about anything.

A little over a month later, KC grappled with the problem of being male. Boys looked different to girls, especially in one extremely crucial spot. It was easy to hide this difference when she was wearing a dress or a skirt, but once she'd completed her obligatory striptease, she could see her thing, quite plainly, pressing against the thin fabric of her underpants.

KC somehow knew it was out of place. Girls, even older ones, seemed to be perfectly smooth down there. While she was too young to have any real concept of sexual difference, it was still a baffling mystery nonetheless. She often considered asking her parents about it, but wasn't sure how to approach the subject. Her Mom in particular wouldn't appreciate the line of questioning.

Looking at herself in the mirror, KC pulled tight on the elastic of her panties, trying to hide the small bulge at the junction of her thighs. One time she'd tried tucking it up between her legs, then pulled on a pair of knickers to hold it in place. It had worked for about a minute or so. Her underpants had looked flat and completely faultless. Unfortunately, it had soon grown awkward and uncomfortable, especially when she tried moving around. She gave up after the first few tries, deciding it was more trouble than it was worth.

KC had no idea what "real" girls had down there, but it sure wasn't anything like she had. She placed a hand over herself, obliterating the offending outline. If only she could make it go away permanently. Dressing as The Girl made her feel wonderful; she would gladly have sacrificed that silly little thing if it meant she could feel this good all the time.

Such a small, unimportant thing, really, but it made all the difference. It made her a boy, and she could honestly say that she hated being a boy. If she could just get rid of it, she'd never have to live as a male again. People would think she was a girl, a real one. She would be one step closer to The Girl. KC wished she'd been born female.

She'd forgotten all about the spiders.

Mom and Dad had gone out to Bingo, leaving KC alone with Graham and one of his friends from Lachlan High, a short, scrawny boy named Franky Curtis. Franky was an ugly little bastard who was constantly grinning like a weasel. KC thought he had one of the most unpleasant faces in human existence. Years later, she discovered that quite a number of people agreed with this description. No one seemed to like him, except Graham, and even this assumption was debatable. Mom couldn't stand a bar of "that Curtis boy" and refused to let him inside the house if he dropped by when Graham was out. Even Dad used to refer to Franky as "the chinless wonder" behind his back.

KC quickly learned to avoid coming within arm's length of Franky whenever they were in the same room. That stupid, hyena-faced smile disguised a streak of brainless, gibbering cruelty. The chinless wonder scared her much worse than Graham ever had. Franky had this way of looking at her, as if she was an insect that he was about to step on for the sheer, vindictive fun of it. Fortunately, he wasn't too bright, and KC found that if she stayed out of his sight, Franky wouldn't bother her. Most of the time, KC was safe.

Not this night, however. She was drawing pictures in her bedroom when they came to get her.

KC realized almost immediately what they intended to do, and lapsed into tears and pleas as they dragged her out to the hallway. They had opened the spider-cupboard in preparation for the evening's entertainments. It looked to KC like a square, black mouth ready to swallow her alive. She shrieked when she saw it, a wild, keening, despairing noise barely contained by her tiny throat.

Franky's face swiveled down towards her. His eyes were huge and glassy. That enormous, vacant grin was back, more hideous than KC had ever seen it before. He looked barely human, more like some lunatic monstrosity from a nightmare. He was giggling to himself, an idiotic, meaningless sound that was halfway between laughter and drooling baby-talk.

KC looked up at her brother.

Graham's face wore the same expression of angry, impatient determination he'd had the night of the drowning game. Graham was a man of grim purpose, and nothing was going to interfere with the execution of his responsibilities. He'd made KC a promise months ago, and he was going to keep it. His eyes were dark and narrowed and completely devoid of mercy: Graham was a REAL MAN, and real men had no time for compassion.

KC's chest clenched up, as if a huge fist was crushing her lungs. She began to gasp for her ventolin. Graham ignored her. Franky continued to slobber out his demented laughter. KC's breath came in wheezing, grating sobs. She struggled against them, setting her feet against the floor, but Graham dealt her a stunning blow to the back of the head. She fell forward, gasping weakly. Frankly grabbed a handful of her hair and continued to drag her over to the cupboard. By now, KC was nearly passing out from fright.

They dumped her before the cupboard's gaping doorway. Huddled in abject fear, not even daring to look into the spider-lair, KC wrapped her arms around Graham's legs. Franky's hands descended onto her. She was pulled away and forced to stare in. The spiders were no more than a foot away now. Her face convulsed with absolute terror. They were going to put her in there, shove her in with all those swollen, scampering, biting horrors and slam the door shut, leave her in there to scream and claw and cry all night. She opened her mouth to wail with all her strength. A strangled, choking cough caught in her throat. Nothing else came out. It was the asthma.

Magnified by the lens of hysteria, the spiders looked supernaturally huge, their midnight bodies like shiny, jet-black grapefruit, their thousands of eyes red with fury. They would swarm all over her body, peeling back her flesh and boring into her deepest, most secret parts. There would be no escape, they would fill every crevice inside her, squirming beneath her skin, biting her to death.

They thrust her, weeping and hopeless, into that crawl space from hell. Graham braced the door with a chair, and they returned to the lounge room to watch Disneyland.

An unknowable length of time later:

Cry-baby! Look at the CRY-BABY. Not like a REAL bloke is he?
No. He isn't.

Mom and Dad'll be home soon. Can't let them see him like this. Get up you little shit. Get up.

KC lay unmoving on the floor. A spider scuttled out from under her elbow and disappeared back into the cupboard. Graham had to kick her several times before she got to her knees and crawled slowly towards her bedroom. Graham was careful not to kick too hard. He didn't want to leave any obvious marks.

KC said nothing to her parents about the spider-cupboard. Graham had warned her that if she told anyone - anyone at all - he'd kill her. KC never doubted Graham's capacity to follow through on such a threat, but it wasn't the only reason why she kept her ordeal secret. She simply couldn't talk about it - she could hardly think about it without wanting to run away and cry. She was incapable of articulating the humiliation and shame the episode had instilled in her. And whenever she closed her eyes ...

Cry-baby! Look at the CRY-BABY. Not like a REAL bloke is he?

KC had begun to hate herself.

She couldn't have explained why, but she had come to believe that the whole thing had been her own fault, that she had deserved everything that had happened to her. She had done something to get Graham mad at her, something she couldn't quite understand, but it seemed to have been connected to what Franky had said after they pulled her out of the cupboard: What are you, a fuckin GIRL or somethin? A real man wouldn't cry like that.

Early morning:

KC stared at her face in the mirror. Had they known? Had Graham found out what she was doing, dressing up like a girl when everyone else was asleep? Had he told Franky about it, discussed plans to teach her a lesson one night when Mom and Dad were out? Did they lock her in the spider-cupboard as some kind of punishment? Punishment for not being a real man? Was it really so bad? Wanting to be The Girl?

She took the suitcase from its hiding place beneath the bed, took out its contents, dressed before the mirror. Nothing happened. There was no warmth, no ecstasy, no magic transformation. The Girl was gone. A single, large tear formed in corner of her right eye, overflowed, trickled down her cheek. She - he wasn't a girl. He was just a dumb kid in a dress, pretending to be a lady.

They had broken him down, taken everything off him, reduced him to nothing. A real man wouldn't have let them do it; as Franky had said, real men don't cry. He closed his eyes, and for one terrible moment, he could feel the chinless wonder's hands on his skin once again, touching him, turning him over: C'mon, GIRL, showus whatcha got between yer legs -

KC began to undress. This time, however, he didn't bother to look at himself disrobing.

Life crawls by at a snail's pace for an unhappy child. A minute lasts for hours, a day seems to grow longer with the slow passage of each empty moment. A month stretches into the realms of the infinite. A year was the length of time it takes the winds to erode the Alpine ranges to sea level.

Graham gave KC the grand tour of hell.

They had all the time in the world.

KC's parents noticed the change in their son. Dad commented to his wife that 'Case' wasn't looking his usual chipper self these days. You sure there's nothing bothering the lad? Hardly know he's in the house, most of the time. Talk about seen but not heard. You're lucky to get more than two words out of him in as many hours.

Mom shrugged her shoulders and put it down to boredom and maybe a little loneliness since they'd left Ashville a few months back. He was missing his friends at the playgroup. Kids are like that you know. Still, it was a good thing we made the move when we did.

Dad lit a cigarette and nodded in agreement. Yeah, he was young, he'd make plenty of new friends once he started school. Maybe they could look 'round for another kindy in the meantime. I mean to say, we can't have the boy moping around the place tripping over his own lip, can we?

Guess you're right. I mean, he's only five years old, isn't he?

Rising early was a difficult habit to break. KC still got up around five-thirty and played in the back room until the cartoons came on. However, entertaining himself presented something of a problem now. He felt miserable and listless most of the time. Nothing was fun anymore, nothing seemed worth the effort of doing. He wished Dad was home more often, wished Mom was less busy during the day. He also wished that Graham would leave home and live with his friends, like he was always saying he would.

Climbing out of bed, KC picked up one of his trucks and walked out to the kitchen. The toy was virtually useless, a cheap plastic cement mixer which had lost all of its wheels. He suspected Graham had broken them off deliberately (Graham made a habit of destroying anything that KC loved) but he hadn't cried when he discovered the damage. He'd experienced much worse than a broken toy over the last few months. It was still dark outside. The house was dim and still, the lino cold against his feet.

He paused next to the kitchen table, looking out into the back room. Something was different about it this morning. It was like one of those dreams where you walked into your house and found yourself surrounded by strangely unfamiliar faces. The people you spoke to claimed to be your family - and indeed they looked and sounded exactly like them - but you knew, deep inside, that they weren't. Everything had changed, but you couldn't explain how.

KC blinked several times, then walked carefully forward, placing the toy truck on the table. He'd suddenly lost all interest in playing. Oddly, he felt no fear, as perhaps he should have under the circumstances. Any other time, he might have sensed ghosts or monsters lurking in the darkness and run away to wake his parents up. But this time there was no hint of threat. He had a mystery to solve.
Then he saw it. There was a sliver of light slashing across the floor of the back room. A fine, radiant shaft that might be cast by a light hidden behind a door which was ever so slightly ajar. And that, KC knew, was not possible. There were no doors on that side of the room. Only the one that led to -

No. It couldn't be. But there it was: The Door to Nowhere was open. And light was spilling out of it.

KC gaped at this marvel in childish disbelief. His life had been a montage of daydreams and fantasies up to this point. Months ago, he'd imagined that the door might open into Narnia or some other magical land. But he'd tested that particular fancy dozens of times; he knew that the door was merely a cover for a brick wall, nothing else. His mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing. Yet, here he was, the door was open, and there was light coming from somewhere behind it. Even from this distance he could tell it wasn't artificial light: it was too warm, too ... gentle. It was a soft afternoon haze. Another impossibility. He could look out the back window to confirm that the sun wasn't even properly up.

I must be dreaming, KC thought.

But he wasn't. He was awake, slowly approaching the Door to Nowhere, already reaching out with his tiny hand to grip the golden knob. The one which was perfect for his height, as if the door had been built for him and him alone. His heart was racing, his breath shallow: not with fear, but with an oddly exultant feeling, an emotion poised midway between anticipation and excitement.

He hesitated, relishing the scent of flowers drifting through the door. Roses, KC was certain, fresh cut roses, like the ones he and his Mother saw in the florist every time they walked into town. He could almost see them now, carmine red and dripping with cool, sweet water. Rosewater, he thought for no reason at all, and swung the door open.

A momentary confusion: KC seemed to be looking into his own room. No, not his room. But he had recognized it, nonetheless. It was Her room. The Girl's.

He was looking into The Girl's bedroom.

'Bedroom' wasn't the right word. There was another word, something his Mother used on occasion, something that sounded dainty and enchanting, a word ladies might use. Pretty ladies.

Boudoir.

It flashed through his mind and was gone. The room was aglow with pastel colours, muted pinks and lilacs, traces of midday blue. Stepping through the doorway, he felt a curious shifting sensation, like the start of a lucid dream. It would be years before KC could make such a comparison, but that was precisely what it was like: stepping consciously into a dream.

He halted, closed his eyes, and inhaled the subtle, flowing fragrance lacing the air. The smell of flowers struck him once again, but the roses were only masking something even more delicious and untouchable. He'd thought the room was empty, but he'd been wrong - the Girl was here; invisible, intangible, but present in every sense other than the physical.

He was breathing in The Girl.

KC opened her eyes.

The bed was an antique four poster, covered with an ornate satin quilt and plumped with half a dozen pillows. There was a skirt and blouse on the bed, along with a small number of delicates. KC approached, only vaguely surprised that clothes had been laid out for her. It was her room, after all. She picked up the skirt and held it against her waist, as if taking its measure. It was a little girl's full circle, blue with a white lace trim around the hem. She turned to face the three-way mirror at the far end of the room. The mirror, like everything else in the (boudoir) room was the perfect size for a five year old child.

KC studied her reflection. She'd never noticed before how funny she looked in boy's pajamas. Cute, sweet, but funny all the same. A little girl posing as a boy. She felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat. It was the first time she'd felt like laughing in months. Yes, she looked funny, no question about it. She replaced the skirt on the bed, walked over to the door, and shut it quietly, once she'd ascertained that there was a knob on the inside. She supposed she wouldn't want to be trapped in here. Then again, maybe she wouldn't want to leave. Who knows?
She walked back to the bed and started unbuttoning her pajama top. Maybe this was a dream - that was the only way to explain what was happening - but KC was no longer sure whose dream it was. KC knew she wasn't asleep, so this had to be someone else's vision. Well, it didn't matter who was having it, KC was happy again. In a dream, anything could happen. Anything at all.

She stood naked, looking down at the underwear on the bed. This was nothing like the old throwaways from Mom's remnants bag. Brand new, almost sparkling. There was a singlet, a pair of briefs and some long socks, the kind with a lacy ruffle at the top. All pink, a very faint hue that was almost white. No bra, KC noted, but for some reason, she felt no disappointment. Right now, she didn't mind being a little girl. She reached down, picked up the panties, and turned to face the mirror. KC smiled at her reflection.

The smile flickered out after a few seconds. KC staggered back, recoiling from her image in gape-mouthed shock.

The mirror showed a real girl.

KC's hands flashed down between her legs. Paradoxically, a glancing inspection affirmed that everything was still in its proper place. She handled her boy-things gingerly, assuring herself that they hadn't simply evaporated off her body (not that this would have been such a bad idea, KC would later speculate, but it had been one hell of a fright at the time). She then looked back at the mirror.

The girl in the three-way had nothing downstairs. Nothing at all. KC changed her position several times until she was absolutely certain of this. The flesh seemed to fold under and vanish between her legs, leaving only a dimple where KC's thing was.

What was going on?

KC walked up for a closer look. She noticed almost immediately that the girl in the mirror was not a precise duplicate of herself. She had larger eyes, and her face was fractionally softer and prettier. Her limbs and shoulders a little more rounded, her hair a little longer and curlier. She was more like KC's twin sister.

No, that wasn't right, not at all. The mirror-girl wasn't KC's twin, she was KC. The mirror was special; magical. It didn't show KC as she was, but how she should be. She swung around and wriggled her tushie at the three-way. It was plump and rosy-pink and smooth as a baby's bottom, so to speak. KC giggled to herself and looked away, blushing. She began to see how much fun she could have, playing her dress-up games in front of this magic mirror.

All the clothes fitted perfectly. Fully dressed, she admired herself in triple view, turning around several times, trying to see herself from as many angles as possible. She finished by twirling about like a top. Her skirt flickered up, revealing her thighs, like a dancer from one of those old Hollywood musicals her parents enjoyed watching. She came to a stop, paused, and glanced around the room, curious to explore.

A large window looked out to a late afternoon landscape. It was a familiar setting; the backyard of their house, except that there were clumps of Oak trees and no fence bordering the property. Perhaps she was looking into another time, 'the olden-days', as Mom was fond of calling the past. KC wondered if it were real. If she opened the window, could she climb out and go play in the shade of one of those old, weathered oaks?

Well, she could investigate that possibility later. Best not roam too far right now. If, as she suspected, this were an incredibly vivid dream, what would happen to KC when whoever was having it woke up? She decided to stay near the door for the time being. Not that she was really worried, of course. This was The Girl's (boudoir) bedroom, not the spider-cupboard: nothing bad was going to happen to her in here. The rest of the house might have belonged to Graham, but this room was hers.

She opened the folding doors of the built-in wardrobes, and discovered they were full of girl's things; blouses, frocks, dresses, shoes, and skirts. The dressing table contained nighties and underwear and various knick-knacks - brushes, combs, lacy handkerchiefs and cotton scarves, hairclips, oddsocks and buttons. A thousand small items for which KC had no name for. Things that might represent the bits and pieces of a little girl's life.

Her life.

KC's.

She looked over at the door for a few seconds, wondering what was happening out there, what time of day it might be. In here, it was late in the afternoon. Beyond the door, it was still morning. Mom would just be getting up to put on the kettle and call Dad to breakfast. That was a good place, in some ways, but it wasn't perfect. It had some terrible, dark corners. It had fear and hurt and shame lurking its the shadows. Most of all, it had Graham and Franky and the spider-cupboard. The Girl's room was better. Much better.

KC walked over and lay down on the bed, nestling in the cool satin depths of the quilt. It was just as she's thought before: maybe she wouldn't mind being trapped in here, maybe she wouldn't want to leave. Ever.

I've come home, KC whispered to herself, and closed her eyes.