Dressed for Disaster: The Sequel

He found himself approaching an adult bookstore. Entering without hesitation, he picked up a newspaper filled with personal advertisements and started to leaf through it. The greasy cashier behind the high counter eyed him warily as he turned the pages, until one advertisement, in bolder type than the rest, caught his attention:

WANTED: SUBJECTS FOR ROLE REVERSAL EXPERIMENT. Must be heterosexual, under thirty, and in good health. Successful candidates will be required to live as a member of the opposite sex for a minimum of three months. All expenses and a generous stipend will be provided. Deadline for application is Sept. 15, 2001.

The advertisement ended with an email address. Pat memorized it and returned to the street, looking for an Internet café.

***

Dr. Vendetta Frankenwiener switched off the television and walked out onto her rooftop terrace, overlooking Washington Square park and the horror to the south. The air was thick with dust and debris, and she wondered if the wail of sirens would ever end.

To most New Yorkers, daily life had been eclipsed by the events of the morning, but such was not the case with Doctor Frankenwiener. Her bizarre compulsion to feminize unwilling men had long ago crowded out other, human emotions, and her principal reaction to the events of the day was frustration that her latest round of experiments might be delayed.

Returning to her small study, she switched on her computer and checked her emails. To her surprise, she read the following message:

Interested in your experiment. Please provide contact information. Must have response no later than five o'clock today.

That was odd. She had never been pressed by a subject for a response like that. Usually she had to cull through an assortment of pranksters and deviants, looking for a witless subject who would submit to her experiments. Rarely did they take the bait like this. Nevertheless, she decided to reel him in. She replied:

Come to 19865 Bleeker Street, Apt 4C, at six o'clock tonight.