Miranda seems preoccupied with deformity. She has lured the fat man from the corner newsstand up to her rooms several times to model for her. There is no obvious reason for such a fascination in her own life, even if her living does depend on that tiny irregularity of hers. She is strong and straight. Her spine and legs are as long as history. It may be that the impressions of her infancy are caught somehow in the pulp of her eyes, luring her. Or there may be some hooked structure in her cells that twists her toward all that the world calls freakish. * * * Miranda was the last. The band went steamy and grinding. She came out in long white satin. My dove. My eyes hurt for her, a scorch along the nerve string to the brain. The men in front of me stood up, leaning forward, slapping each other's shoulders and sending out the high-pitched long-toned soooooo-eeeeee's of pig callers. I stepped on my own hands getting up onto the table so I could see. Her long arms were lifted, her hair snapped with light. A young blonde in silver at a table just ahead of me glowered at the backs of the men who were with her as they leaned toward the stage. Miranda with the Binewski cheekbones, the Mongol eyes. Wide-mouthed Miranda, the dancer on long legs. The chill wash of joy hit me: my daughter. She was good. Not great, but good. What's bred in the bones, when you have bones, comes through. And they looked at her, watched her, wanted to squirt her full of baby juice. _ She was down to her G-string with the fluffy lace plume on her rump, she had her thumbs hooked in it, looking over her shoulder at the crowd, she was waving her ass in a slow semaphore of invitation. The frowning blonde at the table had her chin in her hand. The men were hooting and grunting and watching with smiles. I held my breath, blinked, and she pulled the plume down, unsnapped the G-string and whipped it off in a flourish, waving her ass still, her head tipped up and an unmistakeable giggle bubbling out of her as she revealved the thin, curling tail that jutted out from the end of her spine and bounced just above her round buttocks. * * * The second time--the last time--I simply follow Miranda to work. - "Gentlemen and jokers! Lively ladies!" The bald man stuck his long- corded microphone between his legs and wiggled its silver knob. The crowd chuckled. "The Glass House proudly presents its Tuesday-night feature! On Stage Topless Auditions! Any member of the audience is welcome to step up to the stage at this time and try out for a topless position here at the Glass House--with the Glass House orchestra! Under authentic conditions! A ten-dollar prize to each and every contestant! Ladies and gentlemen, step up and test your talent!... And here they come folks!..." A scramble of flesh hit the stage. - The noise is suffocating and I have to squint to see in the strange light. The the cold air hits my scalp and a hand is thumping my hump in an investigative way. "You forgot one!" is the shriek. My wig is dangling high above my head in a wavering hand. My dark glasses are snatched away and the light sears in at me. The bald man is staring at into my eyes as big hands lift me, my own mouth opening though silent and the music beats into my face and the pinching, bruising fingers trap my jerking arms and legs and breath. There is a shout- many-voiced--and the bald man is coming toward me with a smile and the flabby woman is grabbing at my coat and yanking at the buttons and shrieking, "Little pink eyes!" and the red pants hop toward me, their crotches bobbling at my eye level, the thick buckles that hold them threatening to kneel in my face. My coat is being pulled away, my big blouse, which is cut with deep darts for my hump and hangs flat to my knees in the front, tears in an explosion of buttons that ricochet around the stage without sound because there is no room in this big sound for the little sounds of buttons hitting. They have come to my chest harness now, thick strips of elastic stretched above the hump and below to hold a solid band across my ragged dugs and their grey nipples. The bald man is talking to me in a confidential way without his microphone and I feel the movement of his lips and the hot wet of his breath in my ear but i cannot hear him as the harness slides off, scraping my hump, raking my ears, blinding me for a second. I kick as they lift me in the air and pull off my elastic-waisted skirt and wave me upward to the yellow spotlight and bring me down with my shoes hitting the stage and my white underskirt riding up over my crouching knees. I am standing alone in the light and the big bodies have fallen back from me. The college girl, dumbfounded, is still pumping away with her mouth open, her knees and arms still following an old order to dance, as her mind is pummeled by what I am, and what they have done to me, and wondering if I am in on it. The crowd is standing up and beating the tables. The laughter is fierce and the band is loud, but barely loud enough, as I lift my thin arms and waggle my huge hands and bob to the light, and my knees begin to shift in what my body calls dance, waving my hump at the crowd, the light warming my scalp and burning into my unprotected eyes. My big shoes thump at the ends of my little legs, and I am proud with my arrow tits flapping toward my knees, and the fat lady standing on my coat is staring, with spittle across her cheek, and the fat man with his electric G-string pumping at his invisible crotch and laughing, and the shouts coming up, "Christ! It's real!" The twisting of my hump feels good against the warm air and the sweat of my bald head runs down into my bald eyes and stings with a brightness and the spirit of the waggling hump moves over the stage and catches red pants, hairy bellies, and all, while i stamp on my buttonless blouse, slide on the tangled elastic harness, and open my near- blind eyes so they can see that there is true pink there--the raw albino eye in the lashless sockets--and it is good. How proud I am, dancing in the air full of eyes rubbing at me uncovered, unable to look away because of what I am. Those poor hop-toads behind me are silent. I've conquered them. They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born.