Cross-Dressed Fairy Tales

by Dawn DeWinter

  

Part 3

  

In parts 1 and 2, Sherry and Sadie, two married men, went to a lesbian bar on their "girl's night out." There they came into the clutches of Mike and Big Sue, and are in danger of being raped – or worse – if Sherry cannot keep Big Sue entertained with "original" stories. This task has just become a mite more difficult with the arrival of two more people. Can they too be kept satisfied?

Part 3 is based on Pinocchio, the story of the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real live boy (just like that "I See Dead People" Haley Osment in Spielberg's AI). But in a cross-dressed fairy tail, it's more likely that a male puppet is going to end up being a real live girl. Thanks are owed to Tracy for suggesting that it's not only the nose that can grow when one tells a lie.

On the other hand, Tracy, why couldn't you have suggested a shorter story for Sherry to "borrow"? Cripes, The Adventures of Pinocchio is a book with 36 chapters! Readers pressed for time may want to skip this tale, and move onto the next, which I promise will be much, much shorter. On the other hand, the plot of the original story is far from predictable (or recognizable if you know only Disney), and it's worth following, no matter how transmogrified. (Amazingly, that last word is in Word's basic dictionary. Do you suppose that Bill Gates gives seminars about the 'transmogrification' of Microsoft? Or does he only whisper the naughty word in bed?)

The adventures of our Marionette, Pierrot, begin in a "superior land" which may remind you of a European country, just as part 2 may have reminded you of a "fair land" far … psychologically, very far … from Texas, but nevertheless bordering on the states of Washington, Montana, and New York.

Obviously, Part 2 took place in high summer because not a snowflake fell in it -- which should prove to you that there is NO STEREOTYPING or cheap, obvious jokes, none at all, in the cross-dressed fairy tales!! (By the way, anyone who believes the preceding sentence should contact me about sharing my Nigerian inheritance. These stories are not making me rich, but maybe you can.)

 

The Adventures of Pierrot By: Sherry

Sherry didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified to see two men at the door. One did look a bit intimidating: thirty-something with the stylishly unshaven face and shaven head of a Hell's Angel, he was dressed in kick-ass boots; super tight, faded blue jeans; a studded, black biker jacket; a white "Hey Stella!" T-shirt to show off his rippling physique; and a wide, leather belt, from which hung several key chains, from which hung several more key chains.

His companion, on the other hand, looked gay. Sporting a woven toque, Nike sneakers, baggy jeans, and a T-shirt much too large for his scrawny physique, he looked just like Eminem, the melts-in-your hand rapper. Sherry didn't like the look of the pair. "Will there be trouble," he wondered when "Butch" learns that "Eminem" is a fairy?

To Sherry's surprise, "Butch" – whose real name was Randy -- had a high, squeaky lisp, while "Eminem," or Brad, had a deep base falsetto. Appearances could be deceiving! The two men, it turned out, were lovers. "But we're not against a threesome," Brad hinted, "just so long as the fairy in the bra and panties is not on top."

Sherry was appalled. It was bad enough, he thought, to be caught with his panties showing by two males, but for them to assume that he wanted to be the bottom flower in a daisy-chain, was – let us not mince words – an insult, a veritable insult to his masculinity! He puffed out his padded breasts and sucked in his padded bottom to make it clear that he was, where men were concerned, an untouchable.

Fortunately, Big Sue came to his rescue – at least temporarily. "The bitch is mine," she said. "You can have seconds, but his ass belongs to my fist. Got it, boys?"

"Whatever you say, doll face," Randy lisped. "When it's my turn, will you hold the girlie-boy down for me?"

"That's another way of his asking you to stay," Brad explained, "while we show the sissy what man-to-man sex is all about. Randy likes to have an audience."

"Sure, why not. I've got a digital movie camera. Are you ready, Sherry, my sweet, to become an Internet star?"

Sherry gulped. He wasn't sure his wife would understand if he emerged as a cross-dressed, gay porn star. She'd wonder about his sexuality and fidelity. So he continued to play for time. First, he insisted on looking in on Mike and Sadie – just to make sure that his friend was intact. It seemed he was. Both Mike and Sadie were smoking cigarets, which seemed friendly enough, although later Sherry began to question the idyllic scene. After all, she'd not seen Sadie smoke in years – and not once through a cigaret-holder in her upturned butt.

But second thoughts were not first thoughts, and there was nothing in the bedroom to justify lingering a while. Indeed, given the way the two gay males were leering at her, she decided it was time to resume her story-telling. To catch them in her web of woven tales, she decided to risk Big Sue's wrath by focusing her third tale on a bad boy (or is that a good girl?) and his father. As Brad and Randy settled down to hear her tale, they held – and occasionally caressed – Sherry's thighs, while Big Sue kept a close grip on his neck. Now, it's to be understood that Sherry occasionally ended her paragraphs with giggles, sighs, and choking sounds, but for the sake of brevity and clarity, these will be assumed rather than transcribed.

Sherry began her tale –

Centuries ago there lived in a superior land –

"A lascivious lesbian!" said Big Sue immediately. "No, a horny hunk," Brad hazarded.

Sherry replied, "No, guys, you are both mistaken. Once upon a time there was a piece of wood. Will it turn into the handsomest woman has ever known? Or will it become the most beautiful man in the world? You'll never know the answer if you interrupt. Please let me tell the tale in my own way." In a bid to win their acquiescence, Sherry batted his drooping eyelashes, but one fell off, fluttering to the ground like a dying housefly, and his audience looked away in silent embarrassment.

Sherry filled the void with his tale --

It was not an expensive piece of wood. Far from it. Just a common piece of pine, but it had once appeared more glorious. Long ago it had been stained to look like ebony, and upon it could still be seen the fading remnant of a golden letter "N" girdled with laurel leaves. No longer worthy of an emperor or … (Big Sue was glaring!) … a queen, it was best used as firewood, to make the cold rooms of humble folk cozy and warm.

One fine day this piece of wood found itself in the shop of an old carpenter. His real name was Lepen, but everyone called him Maitre Cerise, for in the local dialect of his ancient land, "cerise" was the word for cherry, and heavy tippling had made the tip of his long, long nose so round and red and shiny that it looked like a ripe cherry.

As soon as he saw that piece of wood, Maitre Cerise was filled with joy. Rubbing his hands together happily, he mumbled half to himself: "This has come in the nick of time. I shall use it to make the leg of a Looie Cat-Oars table."

Randy, Brad and Big Sue looked confused. They even took to scratching each other's head. So Sherry had to explain, "In Maitre Cerise's country, animals were so beloved that it was chic to own furniture carved with cats rowing or dogs playing baccarat."

Big Sue snorted. Danish Pre-Modern appealed to her more than carved table legs, but Randy was impressed: He'd seen a similar table in a trendy Provincetown boutique. Or had it been in Soho? Wherever. The table had been extravagantly expensive, so he had lusted after it.

Sherry resumed her history –

Maitre Cerise grasped his hatchet to shape the wood, but as he was about to give it the first blow, he heard a petite, little voice beseech: "If it pleases you, take carrre! Hit me not too harrrd!"

What a look of surprise shone on Maitre Cerise's face! He turned frightened eyes about the room to find out where that petite, little voice had come from and he saw no one. He opened the door to look up and down the street--and still he saw no person.

"Oh, I see!" he then said, laughing and scratching his toupee. "I must have been imagining the call for help. Well, well--to work encore."

"Encore? What's with the fancy-schmantzy French words?" Big Sue groused. "Ain't plain 'merican good enough for you anymore?" She spat on her carpet.

"I'm putting a lot of fine French words – you know, bone mows – into this story so that you will appreciate that I'm a genuine intellectual," Sherry replied. "In effect, French is the language of the great poets – of Doggerel, Limerick, and Hallmark – as well as being the language …," Sherry paused suggestively, "… of love."

Brad leered: "I tell you what, Sherry, you can French kiss Randy while I'm vigorously plucking your cherry behind."

"But I've already told you, I'm not gay," Sherry protested loudly.

"Then why are you wearing panties and a brassiere? Hey, I'm an intellectual too; I can speak French. Brassiere – that's a French word, sure enough," Randy mocked in his high-pitched voice, as he pinched Sherry's left breast form.

"I'm afraid that the French is actually …." Sherry got no further, for Big Sue choked off the next few words – something about a Sudanese gorge – with her right hand around Sherry's bobbing Adam's apple, as she indicated that he should get on with his tale.

Sherry resumed his petite history –

Seeing no one around, Maitre Cerise whacked the wood hard.

"Oh, oh! You hurrrrt!" cried the little voice.

Maitre Cerise grew dumb as a talkative mime. His eyes popped out of his head, his mouth opened wide, and his tongue hung down on his chin. Indeed, he looked like he was blind drunk on bourbon, or, if you prefer, like a blind Bourbon drunk.

As soon as he regained the use of his senses, he said, trembling and stuttering from fright: "Wh … wh …where did that voice come from, when there is no one around? Is it that this piece of wood has learned to cry like a child? I can hardly believe it. Here it is--a piece of common pine, its gilt paint so faded that it's good now only to burn in the stove, the same as any other. Yet, might someone be hidden in it? If so, the worse for him or her. I'll fix him or her!"

With these words, he grabbed the wood with both hands and knocked it about unmercifully. He threw it to the floor, against the walls of the room, and even up to the ceiling. "I am Maitre Cerise," the ruby-nosed muttered aloud; "I am master of wood. Even the most existential of hardwoods – Brazilian walnut and Cambodian teak – have not the will to resist my force. As for pine, it will – and must – submit to me."

And yet it did not. So feeble had Maitre Cerise become in his dotage that he could not even intimidate a decaying morsel of softwood. This time the tiny voice giggled as it spoke: "Stop it! Oh, arrrrest it! Ha, ha, ha! You tickle my stomach."

This time poor Maitre Cherry fell to the floor as if shot. When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting on a Persian rug. His face had changed – fright had turned even the tip of his nose from red to deepest purple. "I must appease this pine," he thought, "before it starts beating on me."

In that very instant, a loud knock sounded on the door. "Enter," said the carpenter, not having the courage to stand up.

At the words, the door opened and an elderly, big-nosed man with a giant forehead entered.. His name was Jacquot Sheerak, but to the boys of the neighborhood he was "Jepeto," on account of his being an "old fart." Poor man, whenever he opened his mouth to speak after a rich meal – for example, after a snack of goose liver, sea snails, and black fungi – he'd let loose a "pet," as it was called in the local slang -- which made it clear that he was speaking out of both sides of his … body.

Jacquot had a very bad temper. Woe to the one who called him Jepeto! He became as wild as a poodle and not even a brandy could soothe him.

"Good day, Maitre Cerise," said Jacquot. "What are you doing sprawled out on that exquisite Oriental rug?"

"I am teaching the ants their Ah, Bay, Says."

"Good luck to you! It is extraordinarily difficult to teach our beautiful language to lesser life forms – such as insects, parrots, and Texans."

What brought you here, my friend Jacquot?"

"My legs, naturally. And it may flatter you to know, Maitre Cerise, that I have come to beg for a favor."

"Here I am, at your service," answered the carpenter, raising himself on to his knees. (Brad and Randy winked at each other. They thought they knew what was going to happen next.)

"This morning a typically brilliant idea came to me while I was gnawing on the crust of day-old, white bread as it my custom. I broke a crown …."

"So you decided to change your ways and henceforth to eat something softer in the morning – like ham and eggs?

"Abandon our ancient customs of breaking fast simply because I lost a crown? What do you take me for? An Anglo-Saxon? No, if stale bread breaks my ageing teeth, it is not a question of throwing out the bread. That would not be economical, and the starving people of Africa would surely object to the waste. It is necessary instead that I augment my income so that I can afford to fill my mouth – and home – with gold, as much gold as possible."

"Let's hear how you'll achieve that," said Maitre Cerise.

"I thought of making myself a beautiful wooden Marionette. It must be wonderful, one that will be able to dance, fence, and turn somersaults. With it I intend to go around the world to earn my crust of bread, cup of wine, and dental work. What do you think of my high concept? Is it not worthy of an Enlightenment philosopher?"

"Brrravo, Jepeto!" cried the same tiny voice which came from no one knew where.

On hearing himself called Jepeto, Jacquot turned the color of red velour, and, and, facing the carpenter, said to him angrily: "Why do you insult me?"

"Who is insulting you?"

"You called me Jepeto."

"I did not."

"I suppose you think I insulted myself! Yet I KNOW it was you."

"No!"

"Yes!"

And growing angrier each moment, they went from words to blows, then slaps on the face, then pats on the derriere, and finally to goosing each other.

"I knew it," said Randy. "They're gay, huh?"

"No," Sherry replied, "the people of the superior land merely act gay. I assure you that our two heroes are so virile that they both have a wife AND a mistress."

Big Sue was unimpressed: "Two women each? That doesn't prove the old geezers are straight. The women are probably lesbians. That explains why they come in pairs."

"As you wish," said Sherry soothingly, as he resumed his tale –

Neither man could win a fight, for neither ever had his heart in it. At last, they kissed each other several times – on their cheeks, mind you – and made up.

"Well then, Maitre Jacquot," said the carpenter, "what is it you want?"

"I want a piece of wood to make a Marionette. Will you give it to me?"

Maitre Cerise went immediately to his bench to get the piece of wood which had frightened him so much. But as he was about to give it to his friend, with a violent jerk it slipped out of his hands to strike against poor Jacquot's bony legs.

"Ah! Is this the gentle way, Maitre Cerise, in which you make your gifts? You have made me almost lame!"

"I swear to you I did not do it!"

"Liar!"

"Jacquot, do not insult me or I shall call you Jepeto."

"Burger eater!"

"Jepeto!"

"Ketchup user!"

"Jepeto!"

"Surrender monkey!"

"Jepeto!"

On hearing himself called Jepeto for the third time, Jacquot, enraged, threw himself upon the carpenter. They once again dissembled a fight. By hazard, their aimless thrusts occasionally hit home: Maitre Cerise ended up with two scratches on his magnificent nose, and Jacquot had two buttons missing from his designer suit. Thus having settled their accounts, they kissed each other several times on the … CHEEK and swore to be good friends for the rest of their lives.

Then Jacquot took the block of faded pine, thanked Maitre Cerise and limped home.

It was, as usual, quite empty, his wife spending the night with his mistress, as was their custom. Though quite petite, the house looked quite grand thanks to artifice: the ancient hearth once opposite the front doorway had been replaced by a trompe d'oeil of a magnificent Miele stove painted on the wall. And over this German stove, there was painted a copper pot full of something which kept boiling happily away and sending up clouds of what looked like real steam.

Jacquot immediately took out his tools and began to cut and shape the wood into a Marionette. "What shall I call him?" he said to himself. "I think I'll call him Pierrot, in honor of the great comedians who have graced the superior land since antiquity."

After choosing the name for his Marionette, Jacquot set seriously to work to make the hair, the forehead, the eyes. He gave special care to the noise, making it as magnificently long as the block of wood permitted, for males in the superior land valued a big proboscis because it allowed them to appear quite grand whenever they looked down their noses at lesser beings, which was fairly often.

Indeed, a long snoot was considered essential for sniffing at sulfurous wine and moldy cheese, and at aged pheasants and peasants, as well as for finding truffles, and – it goes without saying – for being merely snooty.

Alas, Jacquot made the nose too long, and most of it broke off in his hand. No amount of glue could re-attach it, which meant that Pierrot ended up with a little button nose so feminine in appearance that no one would believe that he had anything between his legs. But in fact he did. As compensation for the broken nose, Jacquot gave Pierrot a long, long penis – the ideal woody, in effect, except that he made it flaccid and useless because if rigid, it might break.

Next he made a mouth. No sooner was it finished than it began to laugh and poke fun at him.

"Stop laughing!" said Jacquot angrily; but he might as well have spoken to a striking ticket salesman.

"Stop laughing, I say!" he roared in a voice of thunder.

The mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue. Was the Marionette insulting Jacquot or offering himself for sex? Not knowing the answer, Jacquot made believe he saw nothing and went on with his work. After the mouth, he made the chin, then the neck, the shoulders, the stomach, the arms, the hands, and a penis that stretched halfway to his left knee.

As he was about to put the last touches on the finger tips, Jacquot felt his wig being pulled off. He glanced up and what did he see? His black toupee was in the Marionette's hand.

"Pierrot, give me my toupee!"

But instead of giving it back, Pierrot put it on his own head, which was half swallowed up in it.

At that unexpected trick, Jacquot became very sad and downcast, more so than he had ever been before: "Pierrot, you wicked boy!" he cried out. "Even though I have given you an enormous penis, you're already acting like a transvestite! And it's frightening how feminine you look. Very bad, my son, very bad!"

And he wiped away a tear.

The legs still had to be made. Jacquot tried to rough them up with sandpaper so they wouldn't look too smooth and hairless, but he failed miserably, for the more he rubbed, the more feminine-looking the legs became.

Jacquot took hold of the Marionette under the arms and put him on the floor to teach him to walk. Pierrot's legs were so stiff that he could not move them, and so Jacquot held his hand and showed him how to put out one foot after the other. When his legs were limbered up, Pierrot started walking by himself, strutting like a runway model, his bottom wiggling seductively. When he came to an open window, with one leap he was out into the street. Away he flounced!

Poor Jacquot was unable to run fast enough to catch him, for Pierrot was skipping ahead in leaps and bounds. His two wooden feet, as they beat on the stones of the street, made as much noise as twenty men staggering about on four-inch spiked heels.

"Catch him! Catch him!" Jacquot shouted. But the people in the street, seeing a naked Marionette flapping in the breeze, stood still to stare and to laugh until they cried. At last, a policeman grabbed Pierrot by his penis (it was so extremely long that it seemed made for that very purpose) and returned him to Maitre Jacquot, saying, "You'll have to put some clothes on the Marionette. It's not decent for him to go about wagging that big thing."

Jacquot shook Pierrot two or three times and said to him angrily: "We're going home now. When we get home, then we'll settle this matter!"

Pierrot, on hearing this, threw himself on the ground and refused to take another step. One person after another gathered around the two.

Some said one thing, some another.

"Poor Marionette," called out a man. "I am not surprised he doesn't want to go home. Jacquot, no doubt, will beat him unmercifully. He doesn't like impudence from those he must subsidize."

"Jacquot may look like a good man," added another, "but with boys he cannot be trusted. Why do you think he made a puppet with a nose so small and a schlong so big? The puppet must be sexually confused; he'll be easy prey. To leave that poor Marionette in his hands would be like sending the boy to Neverland."

They said so much that, finally, the policeman ended matters by setting Pierrot at liberty and dragging Jacquot off to prison. The poor old fellow did not know how to defend himself from the official accusation that he was "acting uncivilized," but wept and wailed like a child, blubbering: "Ungrateful boy! To think I tried so hard to make you a little gentleman! I deserve it, however! I should have given the matter more thought. Once the nose broke, it was clear that my boy was not going to turn out right!"

Was it true? Was there something queer about the puppet – other than the obvious fact that it was odd, even in a land passionate about talking, for a Marionette to speak? After all, how normal could a boy with a pert little nose be? Shall we see?

Once free of the policeman's clutches, Pierrot skipped homeward with gay abandon. There he found the house door half open. Locking it, he threw himself on to the floor, which had been painted to look like an imperial divan. Still naked, he looked – if viewed from the right perspective – just like a Picasso nude.

His happiness lasted only a short time, for just then he heard someone saying: "Cri-cri-cri!"

"Who is calling me?" asked Pierrot, with terror..

"I am!"

Pierrot turned and saw a large cricket crawling slowly up the wall. Dressed in a prim, loose-fitting black dress with a white collar, it was clearly a lady, despite its heavy makeup, broad shoulders, small ass, and big feet.

"Tell me, Cricket, who are you?"

"I am Josephine, the Talking Cricket, and I have been living in this room for more than one hundred years, ever since the celebration of our last great victory in war."

"Today, however, this room is mine," said the Marionette, "and if you wish to do me a favor, get lost."

"I refuse to leave this spot," answered the Cricket, "until I have told you a great truth."

Pierrot was unimpressed. He may have been born only today, but he already knew that there was no "great truth". Indeed, one's man truth was another man's lie. In the superior land, it was bestial, indeed insect-like, to believe that there were universal values to which all good men must cleave. "I am clever," Pierrot thought. "I can prove anything to be true, as my needs require."

So he was rather abrupt with Josephine: "Tell me the Great Truth," he snickered, "and then hurry off to find it."

Josephine Cricket replied: "Woe to boys who refuse to obey their parents and run away from home! They will never be happy in this world, and when they are older they will be very sorry for it."

"Sing on, Cricket mine, as you please. What I know is, that tomorrow, at dawn, I shall leave this place forever. If I stay here the same thing will happen to me which happens to all other boys and girls. They are sent to school and whether they want to or not, they must study their letters, their numbers, and the proper comportment for their sex. As for me, let me tell you, I hate to study! It's much more fun, I think, to make origami butterflies, to skip rope, and to play with dolls."

"Poor little silly! Don't you know that if you go on like that, you will grow into a perfect sissy and that you'll be the laughingstock of every other boy?"

"Keep still, you ugly Cricket!" cried Pierrot.

The insult stung. The Cricket had taken hours to get ready for this meeting, but it was hard to look beautiful at his … er, her advanced age. Even so, Josephine stayed in character: "If you do not like going to school, why don't you at least learn a trade, so that you can earn an honest living? Sewing or millinery might suit you."

"Shall I tell you something?" asked Pierrot, who was losing patience. "Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really suits me."

"And what can that be?"

"That of eating, drinking, sleeping, and partying all night."

"Let me tell you, for your own good, Pierrot," said the Talking Cricket in her irritatingly calm voice, "that those who follow that trade always end up in the hospital or in prison."

"Careful, ugly Cricket! If you make me angry, you'll be sorry!"

"Poor Pierrot, I am sorry for you."

"Why?"

"Because you are a Marionette and, what is much worse, you have a small nose and an uncomfortably long penis."

At these last words, Pierrot jumped up in a fury, took a hammer from the bench, and nailed the Talking Cricket.

With a last weak "cri-cri-cri" the poor Cricket fell from the wall, dead!

"Wait a second," Brad interrupted. "This story is becoming goofy. What planet are you coming from? Pluto? Don't you know that talking animals are indestructible?"

"That's true," Big Sue agreed. "I don't ever recall seeing one die, leastwise not in a movie."

"Well, this isn't a movie," replied Sherry. "In MY story, the cricket has to die. I was going to have Pierrot whip up the perfect sauce for filet of cricket so that you'd realize that he is, despite being a blockhead, an excellent chef. Once you know that he has mastered the culinary arts, you can rest easy in the knowledge that he is, despite first appearances, the hero of this story."

"Oh, I understand," said Randy. But he didn't really. However, he wasn't the only one who thought Josephine Cricket tiresome. After all, it wasn't cricket to be such a puritanical know-it-all.

Despite an excellent sauce meuniere, the cricket did not long satisfy Pierrot's appetite. A growing boy, he was soon as ravenous as an American on a diet. He ran about the room, dug in all the boxes and drawers, and even looked under the bed in search of a croissant, a chocolate ιclair, or scallops in a white wine sauce – almost anything would have satisfied his appetite, so long as it was tastefully prepared. Even bones would have sufficed, for he knew a simply divine recipe for Osso Buco. But he found nothing.

And meanwhile his hunger grew and grew. Soon he became dizzy and faint. He wept and wailed to himself: "The Talking Cricket was right. It was stupid of me to disobey Father and to pack him off to jail. If Jepeto were here now, I wouldn't be so hungry! Oh, how horrible it is to be hungry!"

But then, seeing a very realistic light bulb painted on a fashionably drawn Italian lamp, Pierrot had a brilliant idea: "Deceit will get me what I want. I will play the food vendors for fools."

And sure enough he soon obtained from the vendors in the open-air market an asparagus quiche, an apple tart, a cultivated butter that quoted Rabelais as it was being consumed, and a saucy white wine that suggested that it was too fine to be drunk by someone so minor. To each of the people he swindled, Pierrot had promised that his father Jacquot, who was known to all, would soon be by with the payment.

Why had the peddlers, who were normally as cynical as the rest of their countrymen, fallen for such a naked falsehood? It was probably because of the Marionette's unblushing nudity. As he told his fibs, he not only remained a fashionably pale white, but his nose did not grow; and everyone in the superior land knew that nothing grew a nose faster than lying, as the extraordinary noses of the country's rulers amply revealed.

"The Marinette can't possibly be lyin' to us," Georges drawled. "After all, he has the smallest damn nose I've ever seen on a boy. And it hasn't grown at all."

"You have reason," Antoinette seconded. "But did you see what's been happening to his orb and scepter? I swear they've been shrinking before my very eyes."

Georges scowled. He wasn't about to admit that he too had been looking at the boy's privates – no matter how much they were on public display. But he had to say something, so he remarked, "That boy's looking a mite titty, don't you reckon?"

Antoinette nodded: "A hormonal imbalance, I suppose. It's bound to be a temporary phenomenon. The boy will surely turn out all right."

The two vendors had noticed a very curious thing – whenever Pierrot told a lie, his breast fat GREW and his genitals SHRANK by a millimeter. Pierrot didn't notice the changes to his body – not then, at least – because it took his entire concentration to keep his lies straight; and later when he was alone at home, it was only his nose that he measured in the vain hope that the lies of the day had made it longer and more masterful.

As the trompe d'oeil German stove failed to keep the room warm, Pierrot built a fire in the center of the floor, using books with foreign influences. Then, his belly full and his ego bloated, he fell asleep by the fire; and while he slept, his wooden feet began to burn. Slowly, very slowly, they blackened and turned to ashes.

Pierrot snored away happily as if his feet were not his own. At dawn he opened his eyes just as a loud knocking sounded at the door.

"Who is it?" he called, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"This is me," answered a voice. It was the voice of Jacquot.

The poor Marionette, still half asleep, had not yet found out that his two feet were burned and gone. As soon as he heard his Father's voice, he jumped up from his seat to open the door, but, as he did so, he staggered and fell headlong to the floor.

"Open the door for me!" Jacquot shouted from the street.

"Fatherrr, dearrr Fatherrr, I can't," answered the Marionette in despair, crying and rolling on the floor.

"Why can't you?"

"Because someone has eaten my feet."

"And who has eaten them?"

"The Lion King," answered Pierrot, seeing a painting of the Disney animal on the ceiling. "It envied the fact that I have … er, had … only two legs."

With these words, three things shrank, and two things grew, by a millimeter.

"Open! I say," repeated Jacquot, "or I'll give you a sound whipping when I get in."

"Fatherrr, believe me, I can't stand up. Oh, dearrr! Oh, dearrr! I shall have to walk on my knees all my life."

Jacquot, thinking that all these tears and cries were more pranks from the Marionette, climbed up the side of the house and went in through the window. At first he was very vexed, but on seeing Pierrot stretched out on the floor without feet, he felt very sad and sorrowful. Picking him up from the floor, he fondled and caressed him, talking to him while the tears ran down his cheeks: "My little Pierrot, how did you burn your feet?"

"It was the Semenites, fatherrr. They used my legs to light theirrr wicks."

Now, that was a story that Jacquot could believe, for almost everyone in his land mistrusted the Semenites, for their noses were even longer – without even having to lie! – than those of the King and his courtiers. The Semenites tried, as a result, to keep a small profile. Some bobbed their noses at great expense, while others hid behind veils.

A victim of the Semenites! Jacquot felt so sorry for the puppet that he pulled three pears out of his pocket, offered them to him, saying: "These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly. Eat them and stop weeping."

"If you want me to eat them, please peel them forrr me, then poach them in a grrrand and crrrude wine. The chocolate topping should be Belgian and as black as the heart of darkness."

Jacquot was surprised: "You are so dainty and fussy about your food. Bad, very bad!" Even in this gastronomic heaven, one didn't expect to eat well at the first "little" break in the nighttime's fast unless … unless …

Was it possible that the puppet was gay? Had Jacquot made a mistake in giving Pierrot the giant flaccid tool of a gay male porn star in a lesbian movie?

In the end, Pierrot proved to be less finicky than he had at first appeared: He was willing to let Jacquot use a simple table wine for the poaching. "But this one time only," the puppet instructed.

As soon as his hunger was appeased, Pierrot started to grumble and cry that he wanted a new pair of feet. But Maitre Jacquot, in order to punish him for his mischief, left him alone the whole morning. After their two-hour "dinner" from noon to two, Jacquot said to him: "Why should I make your feet again? To see you run away once more?"

"I prrromise you," answered the Marionette, sobbing, "that from now on I'll be good …"

"Boys always promise that when they want something," said Jacquot.

"I prrromise to go to school everrry day, to study, and to succeed--"

"Boys always sing that song when they want their own will."

"But I am not like otherrr boys!"

 

"All too true," Jacquot thought glumly. "You're much prettier than most boys, with a pert little nose that most girls in this country would kill for."

Pierrot continued to plead his case: "I am better than boys and I always tell the trrruth."

The boy checked his nose after telling that whopper, hoping it had grown. But alas, it had not. His breasts were, however, quite another matter. But Pierrot never checked them out, and his gonads were so outsized it never occurred to him that they might be shrinking with the passage of lies.

Pierrot kept lying: "I promise you, Fatherrr, that I'll learrrn a trrrade, and I'll be the comforrrt of your old age."

Jacquot, though trying to look very stern, felt his heart soften when he saw Pierrot so unhappy. He said no more, but taking his tools and two pieces of wood, he set to work diligently. In less than an hour the feet were finished, two slender, nimble little feet, strong and quick, modeled as if by an artist's hands.

"Close your eyes and sleep!" Jacquot then said to the Marionette.

Pierrot closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, while Jacquot stuck on the two feet with a bit of glue melted in an eggshell, doing his work so well that the joint was as flexible as a diplomat's morals.

As soon as the Marionette felt his new feet, he gave one leap from the table and started to waltz around the room, singing "I could have danced all night," as if he had lost his head from very joy. When he changed to "I feel prrretty, oh so prrretty," his father silenced him with a stern look.

"To show you how grrrateful I am to you, Fatherrr, I'll go to school now. But to go to school I need a suit of clothes."

As Jacquot had spent all his money on expensive wine and cheap women – or "Putins" – as they were called east of his country, Jacquot did not have a penny in his pocket. And so he made his son a "Little Lord Fauntleroy" suit of flowered paper, a pair of strapped shoes from the fragrant leaves of a lavender bush (with fashionable high heels made of bark), and a tiny cap from a bit of velvet and a parakeet feather.

Pierrot ran to look at himself in a bowl of watery Chablis, and he felt so happy that he said proudly: "Now I look like a gentleman."

"Truly, you have the look of haute couture," replied Jacquot, at the cost of a slightly longer nose of his own. "A gentleman? Not exactly. It's unnerving how feminine the boy looks in that dress. I wish I'd the skill to sew some trousers for him. Well, that big lump at his crotch will let everyone know his true sex. But what could possibly be causing the folds in the flowered paper at his chest?"

Pierrot interrupted his thoughts: "In orrrderrr to go to school, I need an Ah-Bay-Say Book."

"To be sure! But how shall we get it?"

"That's easy. We'll go to a bookstore and buy it."

"And the money? Don't you realize that the superior land has the most expensive books in the world? And even then you have to cut the pages for yourself. Do you have any money? I have none."

It was true. He had almost nothing in his pockets, for his workshop had produced very little – nothing in fact – ever since his helpers had won a zero-hour week.

"I will be rrright back, Fatherrr." And he was, soon enough, with the money for his class reader and a chest that strained against his flowered dress even more, and a crotch that strained against it even less. Indeed, it had taken so many lies to get the money that Pierrot no longer looked well-hung.

He then headed off to school – with all the best intentions. That is, until he came upon a Marionette Theater. Though he could not read its sign, he knew from the pictures that it featured puppets just like him. Pierrot, wild with curiosity to know what was going on inside, lost all his pride and shamelessly propositioned another boy: "Will you give me four petro-dollars if I give you a kiss?"

"Why would I want a kiss from a boy? I can't get a buss on the cheek anytime I want."

"But I'll give you a French kiss. I bet you've never had one of those."

The boy nodded, his nose growing by a millimeter. He was definitely intrigued: What it would be like, he wondered, to French-kiss someone his own age. Would it be erotic? And were the flowered dress, velvet hat, and buckled shoes feminine enough for him to pretend that Pierrot was a girl?

The answer was yes: Pierrot looked feminine enough. So the two boys thrust their tongues deep into each other's mouth. It was a lingering kiss, but the human boy refused to pay: "Why should I? You've filled my mouth with splinters," he wailed. "Father Paido, my rector, will be very upset."

He then ran off so distractedly that he ran headlong into a car parked on the crosswalk, and thereafter was too splintered to pay his debts.

Pierrot was almost in tears. The only one left outside the theater was a ragged immigrant girl, who looked too unclean to kiss – even for four petro-dollars. But fortunately Gitano wanted a school reader, which Pierrot quickly sold for hard cash.

Quick as a flash, Pierrot disappeared into the Marionette Theater. And there something happened which almost caused a riot.

The curtain was up and the performance had started.

Punch and Judy were on stage and, as usual, they were threatening each other with sticks and blows. The theater was full of people, enjoying the spectacle and laughing till they cried at the antics of the two Marionettes.

"Bravo," yelled out a distinguished professor in the front row, "Your humor is so sophisticated – so very Jerry Lewis."

"I am in accord!" shouted a theater critic. "The dialogue is the best I've heard since Marcel Marceau's one-man show."

The play continued for a few minutes, and then suddenly, without any warning, Punch stopped talking. Turning toward the audience, he pointed to the rear of the orchestra, yelling wildly at the same time: "Look, look! Am I asleep or awake? Do I really see Pierrot there?"

"Yes, yes! It is Pierrot!" screamed Judy.

"It is! It is!" shrieked Jospino, peeking in from the side of the stage.

"It is Pierrot!" yelled all the Marionettes, pouring out of the wings. "It is our brother Pierrot! Hurrah for Pierrot!"

"Pierrot, come up to me!" shouted Punch. "Come to the arms of your wooden brothers!"

At such a loving invitation, Pinocchio, leapt on to the stage. There then ensued a frenzy of kissing – on every cheek the actors and actresses could find. Embarrassed at having his flowered dress constantly flipped up in public, Pierrot for the first time wished that he was wearing tailored slacks.

The audience, seeing that the play had stopped, became angry and began to yell: "The play, the play, we want the play!"

The yelling was of no use, for the Marionettes, instead of going on with their act, made twice as much racket as before, and, lifting up Pierrot on their shoulders, carried him around the stage in triumph.

At that very moment, the Director came out of his room. He had such a fearful appearance that one look at him would fill you with horror. He was holding a conical white hood and holy script for the play in one hand, an Uzi in another, and was wearing a white linen dress, cinched at the waist by a belt of explosives, on which there glowed a devil's pentangle.

His beard was as black as pitch, and so long that it stretched down to his Uzi. His mouth was as wide as an oven, his two teeth like yellow fangs, and his eyes, two red coals burning with fanaticism. In his huge, hairy hands, a long whip, made of green paper money glued together by a black liquid, which swished through the air in a dangerous way.

"Bring that Marionette to me! He looks as if he were made of well-seasoned wood. He'll make a fine fire for my spit." He then spat on the floor.

Punch and Judy hesitated a bit. Then, frightened by a look from their master, they grabbed poor Pierrot, who was wriggling and squirming like an eel and crying pitifully: "Fatherrr Jepeto, save me! I don't want to die!"

To Punch and Judy, he wailed, "Why have you betrayed me? Did you not say we were a band of brothers allied for all eternity?"

They shrugged: "Cease your theatrics. We are no longer on stage. Here, in the kitchen, survival is all that counts. We must appease the Director. It is your turn to be burned so that we can play another day."

Meanwhile, in the theater, great excitement reigned. There was much debate over whether or not to help Pierrot to avoid the fire. Some said yes – "If we allow a Marionette to die each time that beast gets hungry, won't we soon run out of Marionettes? How can we expect the show to continue without Marionettes?"

"Don't be silly," replied some others, "Pierrot is responsible for his own doom. Had he not barged into the theater, and had he not encouraged the other Marionettes to ignore the script, then he – like the rest of the puppets – would be safe."

One final group carried the day by pointing out that Pierrot had acted alone. The assembly could therefore ignore his troubles. The matter decided, the audience went off to dine at the best restaurant in the land, for their debate had been as entertaining as a play; and – more to the point – it had made them feel important.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Pierrot seemed doomed, for his fearful entreaties merely strengthened the resolve of the Director to use him for fuel. Cowardice was, so far as the Director was concerned, a burning offence. But, as he was about to cast Pierrot into the flames, the Director gave a huge sneeze.

At that sneeze, Punch smiled happily, and, leaning toward Pierrot, whispered, "Good news, brother mine! The Director has sneezed and this is a sign that he is allergic to you. You are saved!"

For be it known, that the Director was allergic to many things. Softwood like pine was not normally among them, but there was something about Pierrot – was it the gilt paint and the fading "N" on his backside, or the ash from whence had come his second pair of feet? – whichever, Pierrot was too hard a wood to burn with impunity.

After sneezing, the Director, ugly as ever, cried to Pierrot: "Get away from me. You give me a funny feeling down here in my stomach and--E--tchee!--E--tchee!" Two loud sneezes finished his speech.

"God bless you!" said Pierrot.

All the other Marionettes shuddered. They had crowded into the kitchen, keeping well away from the fire, after the great theatrical debate had ended in a show of heartfelt indifference. The puppets shuddered because Pierrot had mentioned "God". He might as well have said "pet," for "God" was no longer a word used in polite company in the superior land.

To the Marionettes' amazement, the Director smiled at the reference to God. "Ah, you are a Marionette with faith. That is now rare except amongst the most ragged of immigrants. Go home to your parents, child, and learn how to be a God-fearing man. I shall use for fuel a faithless Marionette instead; he will not fear that my fire may be eternal, and so will suffer less.

"Hey there! Officers!"

At the call, two wooden officers appeared, dressed like Klansmen, with queer hats on their heads and swords in their hands.

The Director yelled at them in a hoarse voice: "Take Punch, tie him, and throw him on the fire. I want my lamb well done!"

Think how poor Punch felt! He was so scared that his legs doubled up under him and he fell to the floor.

Pierrot, at that heartbreaking sight, threw himself at the feet of the Director and, weeping bitterly, asked in a pitiful voice which could scarcely be heard:

"Have mercy, I beg of you, for pity's sake!"

"Well, what do you want from me now, Marionette?"

"I beg for mercy for my poor friend, Punch, who has never done the least harm in his life."

"No harm? Did he not betray you at my bidding? There is no mercy here, Pierrot. I have spared you. Punch must burn in your place. I am hungry and my dinner must be cooked."

"In that case," said Pierrot proudly, as he stood up and flung away his velvet cap, "in that case, my duty is clear. Come, officers! Tie me up and throw me on those flames. No, it is not fair for poor Punch, a true friend, to die in my place!"

These brave words made all the other Marionettes cry. Even the officers, who were made of wood also, cried like two babies. Even the Director opened wide his arms and said to Pierrot: "You are a brave boy! Come to my arms and kiss me where the sun don't shine!"

Pierrot ran to him and scurrying like a squirrel up the long black beard, he gave the Director a loving kiss on his upper lip, beneath his naturally long nose.

"Has pardon been granted to me?" asked poor Punch with a voice that was hardly a breath.

"Of course, not, poltroon! I just wanted to see if Pierrot was willing to kiss my ass for you. He was not, so throw the puppet into the fire." And so it was done – but in a kind sort of way, head first.

"As for the rest of you Marionettes, beware the next time," the Director cackled.

At the news that they had lived another day, the Marionettes ran to the stage and, turning on all the lights, danced and sang till dawn. Pierrot, they shunned, because he had not stooped to save Punch's ass.

Thus spurned, Pierrot had all night long to contemplate the meaning of life. By dawn's early light, he had finally decided that he was no one's puppet. He resolved to become a real boy. Then at least his loyalties wouldn't change as rapidly as the flick of a green whip, and he wouldn't be used for firewood.

The next day the Director called Pierrot aside and asked him: "What is your father's name?"

"Jacquot."

"And what is his trade?"

"He's a wood carver for the tourist trade."

"What does he make?"

"Radio towers and triumphal arches out of lacquered wood."

"How large are the arch supports? Are they large enough to contain … oh, let me see … twenty kilos of plastic?"

"Oh, I think so. The arches are quite grand in size. After all, they're made for the mansions of wealthy actors who dream of being a gladiator righting all wrongs."

"Does your father earn much from the arches? I suppose he does," the Director concluded.

"He earns so much that he never has a penny in his pockets. Just think, he could not afford to buy me an Ah-Bay-Say book for school."

"I don't understand – if he sells his triumphal arches to actors, he should be rich."

"Alas, his workshop has not produced anything in months. Soon my father will have to do some work himself."

"Poor fellow! I feel sorry for him. Here, take these five gold pieces. Go! Give them to him with my kindest regards. And do tell him that I have a need for large, hollow arches. I am thinking of entering the export trade."

Pierrot, as may easily be imagined, thanked him a thousand times. He kissed each Marionette in turn, even the Klansmen, and, beside himself with joy, set out on his homeward journey.

Too wooden-headed to ask for directions, he eventually found himself stumbling around in the dark. Not a thing was visible. Round about him, not a leaf stirred. A few bats skimmed his breasts now and again and scared him half to death. Once or twice he shouted, "Who goes there?" and the far-away hills echoed back to him, "Who goes there? Who goes there? Who goes. . . ?"

Pierrot noticed a tiny insect glimmering on the trunk of a tree: "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the ghost of the Josephine Cricket," answered the little being in a faint voice that sounded as if it came from a far-away world. She was, Pierrot noted, the most beautiful cricket he'd ever seen, with hips and lips, and breasts and fesses, to die for.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want to give you good advice. It's getting too late to be on the road. Stay this night at the Inn of the Red Lobster. There you may dine. Then, on the morrow, return home and give the five gold pieces to your poor old father who is weeping because he has not seen you for many a day."

Pierrot shuddered at he thought of eating seafood at a chain restaurant where they served cocktail "sauce". He forcefully replied, "I want to go on!"

"The hour is late and the road is dangerous!" advised the beautiful cricket.

"I want to go on."

"Remember that boys who insist on having their own way, sooner or later come to grief."

"The same nonsense. Good-by, Cricket."

"Good night, Pierrot. May Heaven preserve you from the assassins."

There was silence for a minute and the light of Josephine Cricket disappeared suddenly, just as if someone had snuffed it out. Once again the road was plunged in darkness.

"Dear, oh, dear! When I come to think of it," said the Marionette to himself, as he once more set out on his journey, "we boys are really very unlucky. Everybody scolds us, everybody gives us advice, and everybody warns us about the dangers of being headstrong. Assassins indeed! I have never believed in them. To speak sensibly, I think assassins have been invented by pushy people to stop children from going where they want in this world. Besides, if assassins do exist and I were to meet them on the road, what matter? My charm would disarm them. Even the Theater Director was no match for me."

Just then he heard a slight rustle among the leaves behind him. He turned to look and behold, there in the darkness stood two big black shadows, wrapped from head to foot in black sacks. The two figures leapt toward him as softly as if they were ghosts.

"Here they come!" Pierrot said to himself, and, not knowing where to hide the gold pieces, he stuck all five of them under his tongue. He tried to run away, but hardly had he taken a step, when he felt his arms grasped and heard two horrible voices say to him: "Your money or your life!"

On account of the gold pieces in his mouth, Pierrot could not say a word, so he tried with head and hands and body to show, as best he could, that he was only a poor Marionette without a penny in his pocket.

"Come, come, less nonsense, and out with your money!" cried the two assassins.

Once more, Pierrot's head and hands said, "I haven't a penny."

"Out with your money or you're a dead man," said the taller of the two assassins. "And after having killed you, we will kill your father also."

"No, no, no, not my Fatherrr!" cried Pinocchio, wild with terror; as he screamed, the gold pieces tinkled together in his mouth.

"Ah, you rascal! You have the money hidden under your tongue. Out with it!"

But Pierrot was as stubborn as an aristocrat. He would not give up his gold.

"Are you deaf? Wait, young man, we'll get it from you in a twinkling!"

The smaller of the two assassins pulled out a long knife from his pocket, and tried to pry Pierrot's mouth open with it. Quick as a flash, the Marionette sank his teeth deep into the assassin's hand, bit it off and spat it out. Encouraged by this first victory, he freed himself from the claws of his assailers and, leaping over the bushes along the road, ran swiftly across the fields. As he ran, the Marionette felt more and more certain that he would have to give himself up into the hands of his pursuers. Suddenly he saw a little cottage gleaming white as the snow among the trees of the forest.

"If I have enough breath left with which to reach that little house, I may be saved," he said to himself. Not waiting another moment, he darted swiftly through the woods, the assassins still after him. After a hard race of almost an hour, tired and out of breath, Pinocchio finally reached the door of the cottage and knocked. No one answered.

He knocked again, harder than before, for behind him he heard the steps and the labored breathing of his persecutors. The same silence followed. As knocking was of no use, Pinocchio, in despair, began to kick and bang against the door, as if he wanted to break it.

Finally, a window opened and a once-lovely maiden looked out. She had the fading allure of a yellowed painting on a museum wall. A barefooted brunette with a red Frisian cap, her white blouse torn, and her ample breasts exposed, she had a face as white as wax. With a voice so weak that it hardly could be heard, she whispered: "No one lives in this house. Everyone is dead since we lost our will to be free."

"But who are those men inside your house striking heroic poses?" Pierrot asked.

"They are but the ghosts of great warriors past. There walk Napoleon, Foch, Richelieu, and LaFayette. They look impressive – don't they? – but they are as dead as Ramses, Saladin, and Alexander the Great."

"Won't you, at least, open the door for me?" cried Pierrot in a beseeching voice.

"I cannot. I also am dead. I've not been alive in decades."

"Dead? What are you doing at the window, then?"

"I am waiting for the coffin to take me away." After these words, the maiden disappeared and the window closed without a sound.

"Oh, lovely brunette," cried Pierrot, "open, I beg of you. Take pity on a poor boy being chased by two assass--"

He did not finish, for two powerful hands grasped him by the neck and the same two horrible voices growled threateningly: "Now we have you!"

The Marionette, seeing death dancing before him, trembled so hard that the joints of his legs rattled and the coins tinkled under his tongue.

"Well," the Assassins asked, "will you open your mouth now or not? Ah! You do not answer? Very well, this time you shall open it."

They tied Pierrot's hands behind his shoulders and slipped the noose around his neck. Throwing the rope over the high limb of a giant oak tree, they pulled till the poor Marionette hung far up in space. Satisfied with their work, they sat on the grass waiting for Pierrot's last gasp. But after three hours the Marionette's eyes were still open, his mouth still shut, and his legs kicked harder than ever.

Tired of waiting, the assassins called to him mockingly: "Goodbye till tomorrow. When we return in the morning, we hope you'll be polite enough to be dead, with your mouth wide open." With these words they left to do their prayers.

As death drew nigh, the Marionette hoped for some good soul to come to his rescue, but no one helped, though many walked by with noses in the air. Perhaps they had not seen him!

As Pierrot was about to die, he thought of his poor old father, and hardly conscious of what he was saying, murmured to himself: "Oh, Fatherrr, dearrr Fatherrr! If you werrre only herrre!" These were his last words. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, stretched out his legs, and hung there, as dead as pasteurized cheese.

At this point, in the absence of miracles, our story will have to end as a disappointing lesson on the danger of a blockhead's not heeding the cricket's warning that the road through life has real dangers; and that the assassins lurking in the shadows are not imaginary, the ravings of a paranoid mind, but are quite ruthless and deadly.

"Wait a second," snarled Big Sue. "You're not actually going to kill off the damn puppet before he completes his sex change, are you? For the sake of my guests, I've let you get away with telling a story in which every leading character so far is male – even the frigging cricket before he became a ghost. I've put up with the males only 'cause I was counting on the Marionette turning into a female."

"Do you mean that he should turn into a girl – a real, live girl?" asked Sherry.

"No, that would be too much to expect. I just want the damn Marionette to realize that he's a she, and to stop ignoring the facts of life staring at him from his own chest. I strongly advise you against killing off the puppet before he's had a chance to appreciate the glories of womanhood. Understood?!"

"Don't worry," replied Sherry. "I always intended to resurrect the Marionette. I just thought it would be cool to do the E.T. thing – you know, to have the puppet die and then come mysteriously back to life so he could finally go home. That way I thought I could appeal to maudlin sentimentality. Also, I was hoping to resurrect interest in my story. Randy," he accused, "I saw you yawning."

"I was not."

"Yes, you was. Now, I've hope I've got you awake and wondering: How is Sherry going to bring the Marionette back to life? With a kiss? No, that's much too common an experience in the superior land to awaken the living, never mind the dead. How about the tears of someone who loves Pierrot? Will they open his eyes again? I must admit that I thought of having a teary-eyed Jacquot stroll by on his morning constitutional, but that would be too contrived, even a bit …"

"… Hokey," Brad helpfully added. "So how are you going to bring Pierrot back to life?"

"With a deux ex machina, of course – with a god flying down from the heavens to revive the puppet and the plot, so that we may all learn whether Pierrot will ever become the REAL boy that he yearns to be, or the GIRL that Big Sue yearns to see."

 

-- END OF PART 3 --

 

"The Adventures of Pierrot" will continue in Part 4, its readers being willing.

  

  

  

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