It was about a week before my 13th birthday. Having come home from work unexpectedly, the Ogre---who was what passed for a masculine role model in my life---had decided to take one final stab at "making a man out of me" before writing me off forever as a hopeless little bitch...

"What the hell you cryin' for? You're a boy, nothing's gonna change that! What's that you're coverin' with your hand, huh? You think putting on a damn dress changes anything? Do you? Answer me, goddamn it!"

I stood there shivering, feeling horribly vulnerable. By now I didn't know what I was or what could change what. I was sobbing, trying to nod my head yes and shake it no at the same time.

"For God's sake Sam, that's enough! Let him get dressed."

"No, I want him to say it first! What are you?"

"I'm a boy," I blubbered.

"That's a start. Now put some damn trousers on and come with me."

In a drizzle of slushy snow I was marched across the yard to the shed, where I was forced to take part in a grotesque and humiliating ritual of destruction. This was the heart of darkness...

She cradled the guitar with the neck up by her shoulder, closed her eyes and began to warm up by playing some adlibbed Flamenco. When she got into the flow of the music, she began to play ‘La Malagueá±a’. The girls began to Tango when Angel played ‘La Cumparsita’. Angel just let the music carry her away as she kept on playing and smiling.

An hour ago Punkin' Judy had been a bozo in love. Gloriously so, and suddenly with hopes for a life quite different than the ill-fitting male one that she had previously resigned herself to. But her harlequin romance had come to a sudden halt after an alarming change in Miss Tricia revealed her to be one very unstable clown, forcing P.J. to abandon both their professional and romantic relationships. We find her sitting out the final hour of their first & last clowning gig together, unable to decide which hurts more- her battered body or her broken heart...

======== HUMOR ME
======== by LAIKA PUPKINO
======== Part Five: NOBODY'S FOOL

"What does Shufflebottom's dad do?"

"What else, Susie - iguzzabout purrinipsifowk."

"Come again."

"Iguzzabout purrinipsifowk. He's a reet clever mon - as my granddad would say."

"Jeffrey!"

"Yes, chuck."

"Stop it!"

Susie and Jeffrey 25 - 31 by Jamie Hayworth

"Hang on love, I'll pull you out," shouted a man standing on the side of the quay about 5 metres above me.

"Leave me alone, I don't want to be rescued," I shouted back and prepared to push the float away.

My life growing up was a little strange. You might have blamed it all on that oblong orifice lurking just below my penis and testicles. My parents of course knew of my condition but ordered me never to reveal the existence of said orifice by word or touch to any other living soul. And so I attended school as a boy named Fred. I was physically smaller than the rest of my male peers and when I reached puberty I didn't have the facial hair or completely lose my high pitched voice. My chest developed small mounds around my nipples and my ass was bigger than any of the other boys in the school. So it wasn't
 

Just how low n' lovely would a strapping red-blooded junior jock go for a motorbike?