HALLOWEEN’S MASKED MOVIE BUFF

A MASKING EXPERIENCE STORY

BY RITA CHANTE

Author’s Notes: This short copyrighted Halloween story was started in response to another one of “Disguise’s” general email requests. As usual, the story took on a life of its own as my memories of sitting in old movie houses on Halloween bubbled into my consciousness. This year’s “Frightfest” was wonderful at the old Downtown Fox. The silver screen was full of horrifying Devils, goblins and ghoulish blood sucking vampires. My date and I went as a pair of completely masked and rubberized, leather-clad “She-Devils”. Believe it or not, we won second prize, which thrilled my date. Getting her to be the “She-Devil” with me for that evening may become the plot of some future Halloween Masking Experience Story. The wonderful masks we wore that evening were made by Nikki’s Monster Shop, which specializes, in “Quality Female Halloween Masks.”

The Downtown Fox has had a “Frightfest” every Halloween for the past ten years. In fact for several years they ran the festival for three days leading up to and including Halloween. Because of the large Chicano community in the barrios that surround the downtown theater district, this year the festival was extended to in include the Dia do Los Muertos that are the first four days in November. Every year for the past five years I have fantasized going this event with a masked female date. Any of the nights during the Fox’s Frightfest would work for me in staging this masked activity, but Halloween would be the perfect time and my preference if I could work it out.

The Old Fox Theater was the perfect place to have a festival like this one. It is one of those huge ornate movie palaces from the nineteen twenties and thirties and it has been fully restored to its original art deco opulence by private donations and an urban renewal project. The art deco gargoyles in the Downtown Fox are nothing short of spooky when the house lights are muted. They seem to come alive in the surround sound and the reflected light from the huge wrap-around silver screen. The acoustics are uncanny even though the original designers of the building hadn’t worked to create them and the original pipe organ has been restored and updated. In the hands of some of the old-timers who regularly worked at the Downtown Fox in their youth, that old organ makes for more suspense and thrills than the new movie scores and special sound effects.

While most of those who know me call me a movie buff, I am not really all that much into the movies classified as horror and thriller films. Seeing some alleged super sized rubber monster or blood sucking ghoul reek mayhem and destruction requires too much suspension of belief for me even when they are computer generated and animated. I’m more into the chills and thrills of a good mystery or compelling “who-done-it”. And for me, the pinnacle of this art form is the old Hitchcock thriller classics. In my opinion, they just don’t make movies and movie stars like they used to. On the other hand, maybe they never did, and I am just romanticizing a fantasy that happened before my parents were born.

Anyway, this year’s newly extended “Frightfest” featured many of the great old Hitchcock favorites. The list included thrillers like Suspicion, Notorious, Rear Window, Marnie, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, The Trouble With Harry, Dial ‘M’ for Murder, and the Man Who Knew Too Much. The bill for Halloween featured Psycho, The Birds, Vertigo, and Family Plot. There was to be a costume contest for those wearing disguises related to each film and if you came in character, the tickets were fifty percent off. Of course you know how tough it is to get real females to wear masks, especially when the masks are images of fabulous looking women. I guess that not all women are like the authorist, Rita Chante, who writes all that masked fiction that gets me going, masked and hot on long cold and lonely winter nights. However, for the moment, I am jumping ahead in my story.

If you really pressed me, I would be hard put to say which of those listed Alfred Hitchcock thrillers is my absolute favorite. He really knew how to place fabulously beautiful women in all kinds of danger. Maybe it was his fame as a movie director, but he also had access to some of the most incredible beauties of the Twentieth Century. In many cases he was able to work with them in more than one film. For example there was Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound and Notorious. Grace Kelly worked for Hitch in Dial ‘M’ For Murder, To Catch A Thief and Rear Window. Tippy Hedren did The Birds and Marnie for Hitchcock. Of course I loved the way he played with the identities of his leading ladies. This was the basis for several his plots and the anguish he inflicted upon his audience.

I always chilled to and understood James Steward’s persona in Vertigo as he experiences compelled fascination with the personality modification physical changes that Kim Novak’s character achieves in the film. Tippy Hedren’s identity changing character in Marnie is central to the plot and totally turns me on. The masking and disguises that move the story line in Family Plot also have never ceased to amaze me. I bought the videos so that I could watch the scenes specific to Karen Black’s unmaskings over and over again. When Hitchcock’s leading ladies are not in disguise or going through some kind of identity crisis, his male leads are doing it like Anthony Perkins in Psycho, Raymond Burr in Rear Window or Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief.

I think that I am incredibly addicted to watching his marvelous work because masking and mistaken identities often play central roles in Hitchcock films. Of course, in my humble opinion, it is even greater fun to watch a Hitchcock film if you can mask and dress as your favorite star. Doing this in front of a big screen television and full length mirror makes you feel like you have just walked into the movie. As you say the dialogue and make the moves of your character, you become one with the image on the screen. I believe that actually living the role is the greatest form of interaction that you can have with Hitchcock’s diabolical and devious way of thinking.

While I have personally done this interactive bit in the privacy of my home, I have never had the courage to do it in public. I was sure that if I could muster up the courage to mask and dress as my favorite star in public that it would even be more thrilling. I have enjoyed being a young Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound and Notorious. However, I truly get off being masked and dressed as the blonde, shiny black trench coat and boot-clad Karen Black as she portrayed her role in Family Plot. Even before the adventure that came out of this year’ Fright Fest I was positive that in the right environment, I could become the image of the sexy blonde Karen Black in public without any fear of my real identity being discovered.

To kick this sensation up a couple of more notches, I have always fantasized going to a Fright Festival with a hot young woman that is masked and dressed as a young Grace Kelly, Tippy Hedren or Kim Novak. Seeing someone else animate your masks is even more fun than observing your own transformation in a full-length mirror. In the mirror you can sense the moves that the image is about to make, but when another person who is independent of your thought systems makes the moves that animates the perfect latex image, something absolutely magical occurs. This is not to say that I cannot do a pretty good Kim Novak, Karen Black or Ingrid Bergman, because I can. After all, Karen, Ingrid, and Kim are good-sized, full-cut women and I love being them. I would love being Grace Kelly or Tippy Hedren as well, but their facial features, body frames and heads are just too small for me. My strong bone structure manages to distort any rubber appliance or mask that I might try to use to impersonate them.

I have to admit that the latex based masks and torsos that I have created of my favorite female Hitchcock movie stars are totally believable. I have used the small lab at my house to create skin like latex materials. While they slip on easily over a body that has been coated with talcum powder, once this latex formula heats up to skin temperature, it adheres to my body like a second skin. In areas where I have hair, I have to apply a coating of nonadhering latex first or I would have to remove all of my body hair. Someday I may try that if I found a reason to do it or a situation where it was absolutely necessary. The only way to remove the latex appliance once its adhesive quality is in full force is to immerse yourself in hot water heated to at least one hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit. While this method works well for the body suit and skullcap area of the head, I have to use a hair drier to carefully remove this material from my face. To be honest this is not a process that I relish doing and probably why I leave my latex appliances for as long as I can.

The latex like substance that I have created is incredibly pliable until it sets up. The pliability feature eliminates the need for laces and zippers. While it is pliable it is also very strong with a tensile strength greater than steel. I could almost wear it for body armor if I had wanted to. This strength also allows for extremely thin feathered edges that makes it almost impossible to see where my skin stops and the body suit and/or mask start. It also has incredible shape memory. This property minimizes distortion while allowing for total freedom of movement. My formula also breathes with you so the moisture and heat build up on the inside of the garment is almost nonexistent. This means that I can wear my masks and body suits for days at a time if that is required. Until this adventure, however, I hadn’t found it necessary to do that.

I have several of my masks made up with the specific look of the film that I am watching. I have studied the films that Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak and Karen Black made under Hitchcock’s marvelous direction. I guess you can say that “my hobby” of constantly interacting with their screen images as mirror images of my latex transformation has paid off. It has gotten to the point that I can mimic even their most subtle nuances, glances, expressions and movements. I have also employed my talent as an electrical engineer to create voice translators in each mask that takes my rhythmic impressions of those actress’s voices and converts them into the proper pitch and timbre.

All of this preparation and development takes hours of practice and tedious attention to detail. This is a real hobby. I have literally spent years creating and developing my harem of actresses. In addition, I have promised myself to maintain, as a hard and fast rule, that I am never to break out of character once I have one of my masks and body transforming torsos in place. Thus, I have trained myself to be whomever I am impersonating for the entire last the set up time and the length of the film as well as any retakes of the movie inside of my disguises.

I didn’t know when I first became addicted to this project that genetic females who mask and dress like I do are extremely rare. It never occurred to me that while woman may alter their look with make-up and wigs on a daily basis, few of them went in for a total change to their identity. Thus, over the past five years I have thought out and even attempted to implement parts of several scenarios for going about finding a real genetic female who had my same passion about the golden age of thriller/horror films. At first I figured that all that I would have to do was find a genetic girl who went to as many of these festivals as I did.

However, finding a good looking woman in a darkened movie house, especially a large one like the Downtown Fox Theater, was not as easy as I had first thought. First off, all you can really see, if you can see anything at all, are the shadowy back lit faces of the moviegoers. Since these women are generally sitting when you try to make a glance in their direction without revealing that you are a lascivious pervert, there is no way of knowing how long their legs are. If they are slouching in their seats there is no hint to how tall they are. In fact if they are really short, they may only appear to be slouching in their seats. Body shape is also hard to determine. Besides, they rarely go to these festivals alone and most of the women who try to wear a costume, if they wear them at all, go dressed in costumes that don’t have anything to do with the films that they are watching.

Sometimes when you think you are looking at a female in costume, during the intermissions of the festival you realize that this is her normal street wear. Maybe if I had been a Trekie or a Sci-fi buff finding what I was looking for would have been different, but except for Sigourney Weaver the actresses in that genre of film just don’t fascinate me the way the leading ladies of a Hitchcock horror/thriller mystery do. I have to admit that Miss Weaver holds my attention in the Alien series. She got my motor running in Galaxy Quest as well. She even comes close to the high revolutions I sense when I see the young Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak, or Karen Black in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s films.

I had all but given up in finding a female companion for my public tests of my masks and costumes when I went to my local shopping mall during my lunch hour about six weeks ago. The mall is near where I work and I often stroll around it to the various eateries at lunch-time. Actually I was on the prowl for dating material. This was just casual dating stuff and not the masking and dressing female of my dreams. There was always the outside chance that I might meet some one in the mall that was there for same reason that I was. After five years of failure in my quest of finding my fantasy woman, hoping that she was a masking freak and movie buff as well was almost too much to hope for.

Anyway, as I strolled along in my quest for food and companionship I saw a new store called Hollywood Memories. A one-foot by two-foot sign in the front window of the store said “Help Wanted”. Why would anybody open a store without enough staff to run it? Through that same window I could see life size posters of stars past and present as well as store mannequins that were posed and costumed in the roles of many of those same stars. Since this place wasn’t a museum, even though it had the look of a Hollywood museum, I figured that the costumes, accessories, films and posters were all for sale in this retail venture. The problem was that the customers seemed to be browsing more than buying. I figured that I had a probable solution for this sales problem that might also help in my quest to find generic women who enjoyed masking.

My first instinct was to walk into the store and apply for the job, but then I already had a great job as a programmer. I actually considered taking a leave from that programming job, but good jobs like that one were hard to come by just then. Besides, I had my small consulting electronic firm called “Masked Enterprises”. In this job I embedded security programs into credit card activities and business was on the up swing. Thus, I ate my lunch at the food court and went back to work. All afternoon, the images of those mannequins dressed in the roles of various Hollywood stars kept interfering with my concentration and I finally decided to go home early.

Like a moth to a bright light I found my way back to the store with the Hollywood memorabilia. I told myself that I was really walking to the food court to pick-up some dinner to go. I had done that on many previous occasions. I rationalized that eating this way was cheaper than making a meal for one. It was less lonely as well. But on this evening I kept finding myself back at the front window of the Hollywood memorabilia store. Finally I was able to take my food and go home. While eating my dinner in front of some boring infotainment styled television news program, it finally occurred to me once again why I was so attracted to this store. A commercial concern named Hollywood Memories just had to be a great place to find women that had some of my same interests. All I had to do was figure out a way to get some part time work in the store that didn’t interfere with my regular job. I would also have to wear some kind of disguise in case some one from my regular place of employment came into the store. This of course would also be the perfect reason for masking in public and help me get the courage that I needed to do it.

All of a sudden my idea about solving the store’s slow sales, my need for a place to meet women that had my interests in films and the need to be disguised while working in the store, all presented the same idea. I figured that if I was masked and dressed as “Kim Novak” in her Vertigo role, that I might have a real chance of reaching my various goals. Thus, the following Saturday morning I transformed myself into the voluptuous and sophisticated Kim Novak and drove over to the mall. I had practiced driving while masked in my work place’s parking lot after the night shift went home. So, while this was my first time driving in traffic while dressed and wearing a mask it was not the first time that I had driven while masked.

I wouldn’t suggest that driving while masked is a good idea for the general public. When I drive while masked I stay in the slow lane and keep my vigilance at one hundred percent. I also must add here that because masks and wigs hamper both your peripheral vision and hearing that unless the mask that you are wearing allows for the same level of vision that you have when you aren’t masking, driving with a mask on is a bad idea. However, doing this part of my outing was actually easier than I had imagined. I had designed Miss Novak’s mask so that my vision was almost as good as it was when I wasn’t wearing a mask. The ears on the mask also allowed me to wear my own prescription sunglasses. These glasses were borrowed from my blonde Karen Black look.

Most middle-aged and elderly passer-byes in the mall tried not to stare at the image of my tall graceful beauty. I am sure that most of them recognized me as a familiar face, but I think that they were having difficulty believing what they were seeing. Of course, they could see that I appeared to be a voluptuous blonde, early thirties “Kim Novak”, but they could also do the math and figure that in 2004, I had to be eighty something, if not dead. While my Kim was a real knockout, her gray tailored suit and its matching gray accessories were a retro look straight out of the 1950’s. I had searched through several estate sales and thrift stores to find something that I could convert into the look that I wanted. Fortunately for me, the elderly women who wore this type of wardrobe were generally large women and cutting the outfits down to fit into my look was a time consuming but not impossible task. The young kids dashing through the mall didn’t seem to care at all. They skipped around me like any other adult. All my attention to detail in creating my perfect replica of Miss Novak in her Vertigo role was lost on them. I guess that my generation has no sense of the sterling image of a classic movie star.

However, once my image of “Miss Novak” entered Hollywood Memories, that all changed and customers immediately flocked around me for autographs. People in the gathering crowd of fans made comments on how good I looked (Miss Novak) and one brave fool said that he thought that I was dead already. I assured him that I was very much alive, thank you, and I used that famous “Kim Novak” sexy vamp to lower his pseudo smart-ass attitude about six notches. The front cash register clerk must have buzzed the back office of the store because a tall, thin James Steward type came through the beaded entrance to what I figured was the stock room.

“How may I help you, Miss Novak?” called out the store manager as he worked his way towards me. This announcement only served to hype up the ever-growing crowd of customers.

“I am here in response to your help wanted sign,” I replied.

“Do you know some one that might want to work here?” he asked as he finally made it to my side.

“Yes I do,” I responded while continuing to autograph pictures that customers were buying of Miss Novak.

“My name is Mr. Henderson. Please follow me back to my office and our private screening room. I am so honored to have you in my store. We haven’t had a crowd in here like this one since our grand opening when we were giving tee shirts away,” declared the store manager.

I pushed my way through the crowd of Miss Novak’s adoring fans on my way to the manager’s office. The office/private screening area was nicely appointed and felt more like a part of a Golden Era movie mogul’s mansion than the back room to a store in a shopping mall. Once he had seated me, the store manager sat down in one of the over stuffed leather chairs and waited for me to talk. After several moments of pregnant silence he said, “Now who is this person that you think might be a potential employee for our store?”

“I am the applicant, Mr. Henderson.”

“Are you asking me to believe that a big motion picture star like you needs a part time job in a retail outlet, Miss Novak?”

“I am not Miss Novak, sir. I am her stand-in/stunt double. Miss Novak made the big bucks, not me. Now that she isn’t making pictures I am out of work. Bye the way, I can also be a convincing double for a young Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, or Karen Black. On occasion I also do work for Miss Sigourney Weaver and Angelica Houston.”

“You mean that you could showed up here as each of those women?” probed the amazed and doubting store manager.

“Sure, but it would be better if I showed up unannounced in my own persona and then changed into one of them after I arrived.”

“I guess that could be arranged. Are you aware that all of those women starred in at least one Alfred Hitchcock film?” asked Mr. Henderson.

“Yes I am. I did stunt work on Family Plot and I did some of Miss Novak’s stunts in Vertigo. I also took the jump from the bell tower at the end Vertigo,” I said in a total fabrication. I flavored that lie with the true statement informing my riveted listener that the bell tower as depicted in the film didn’t actually exist at the historic colonial Mission of San Juan Bautista. I embellished that truth with another lie by saying, “I jumped into San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge for Miss Novak.”

“That is absolutely fascinating. Did you know that we are one of the sponsors of the Eleventh Annual Fright Fest Film Festival at the Downtown Fox Theater? This year the focus will be on Hitchcock’s thriller Horror films. Could you attend the festival?”

“Yes,” I immediately replied. I hoped that response didn’t sound too eager.

“That is just great,” said Mr. Henderson.

“Does that mean that I have the job?”

“You are perfect for it, but how do I make out your checks?”

“Just pay me in cash like a contractor or small vendor. If you need to pay me by check, then you can make it out to Masked Enterprises. I have a DBA account at the bank in this mall that can take those payments as a direct deposit if you wish. That will keep everything more mysterious.”

“I’ll have to check on that with the regional office of the chain, but I am sure that something can be arranged,” said the Hollywood Memories store manager. “I also manage three other store locations for the company so if this works out, maybe I can have you move around to those locations with me as well.”

“That would be wonderful. Maybe you can sell this idea to the company as a promotional activity,” I suggested.

“That is a great idea. I will see if we can do that and I will pass that information along to the owners as well,” responded Mr. Henderson as he made some notes on a pad. “When can you start?”

“Is tonight too soon?”

“That would be perfect. What should I call you?”

“Call me Miss Novak for now and whatever identity I appear as from now on.”

“I will tell the other staff that is the procedure,” declared Mr. Henderson.

“Would you like me to teach some of the other store’s floor/sales staff how to impersonate their favorite motion pictures star?”

“I will make sure that there is a pay bonus in your contract if you can do that, Miss Novak. I am positive that the company ownership would go bonkers over that idea.”

So now I was “Miss Novak the contract clerk/trainer” for Hollywood Memories. This new job supplied me with several volunteers from each of four stores under Mr. Henderson’s supervision. The volunteers that took stabs at being their favorite star, but generally the men were better at it than the women and most of the time none of them went beyond the stock voice impression bit. I showed a couple of the female employee candidates my movie star mask collection, but none of them took me up on trying them on, even when the manager told them about the possible pay bonus. Instead, to my surprise, several of the male employees volunteered to be the female motion picture stars. I don’t know why this surprised me, because in my masking activities I had been made aware of the fact that most of the female masking sites on the Internet are put together by men. I guess that it is one thing to be aware of a reality and quite another to see it in action.

I told the genetically female candidates that I realized that masking was a hassle and at times uncomfortable, but that was what the extra compensation was for. In response to my queries a couple of the female candidates told me that they rather be some kind of monster or a Halloween character like Morticia Addams than wear an obviously female mask that managed to change their identity. The hassles and discomforts of masking along with the money differentials were not the issue. Others told me that if they had to mask that they might as well be wearing a male face like one of the U.S. presidents. I responded by saying that I had enough male volunteers for the monster and presidents categories. When I showed them my mask of Angelica Houston, (because of her connection to the Morticia Addams film role) they said that the one I had still didn’t look like a Halloween mask. The theory about women as reluctant maskers was being shown to be true and valid once again for me and I began to sour on what I had thought was such a great idea. Of course, in my various masks and costumes, I continued as a successful promotion in the Hollywood Memories stores.

I had all but given up on my idea of training women to mask in the stores when I was introduced to a part timer by the name of Cherry Luna. I had missed her on my first recruitment go around because she only filled in on weekends and holidays. Almost immediately I could tell that Cherry was different from most of the other clerks. First off, she was older than the mostly teenage staff that worked in the store. She appeared to have more than a commercial interest in classic films. In fact, her knowledge of Hitchcock films bordered on the “movie buff” level. I wondered why Cherry Luna was just a part timer when she obviously was one of the company’s more talented sales assets. Mr. Henderson told me that he was aware of Cherry’s abilities and that he had offered her more hours and higher pay on several occasions, but that she had refused his requests. When I asked him for her reason for refusing more work, Mr. Henderson said that Cherry Luna had refused to give him any. That is why he now used her in emergency situations only. He added that he had several others like Cherry who only worked occasionally. Figuring that I might find a couple of maskers on that list of alternate employees, I asked Mr. Henderson for it.

Did Cherry Luna have some other job like I did? I figured that I would try to find out the answer to this mystery when I broached the subject of masking with her. However, before I could get the discussion around to her reasons for working for the company like she did, Cherry told me that she would like to try masking as Ingrid Bergman if Angela Enciso would do it too.

“The would be fine, but who is this Angela Enciso?” I asked.

“She is also a part timer that floats from store to store like I do. However, she does most of her work at the Downtown location because that is nearer to where she lives. Angela used to work here with me in the Northridge Mall location, but she asked for a transfer when Mr. Henderson made the mall location his main office.”

“Why did Angela do that?” I probed through my “Kim Novak” disguise.

“Mr. Henderson has a habit of trying to get fresh with the female employees in the screening room,” offered Cherry Luna. “But, I am sure that Angela would love working here in one of your disguises as long as you don’t divulge to Mr. Henderson who Angela’s character really is. I know that she could also use the bonus pay and the extra hours that Henderson screwed her out of when she wouldn’t play his games with him.”

“Are you her lover or her social worker?” asked my image of “Kim Novak”.

“I am just trying to reach out to people. I like helping those who have ambition but haven’t had the opportunities that I have. Doing things like that makes me feel good,” replied Cherry Luna.

“Okay, that explains why Angela wants to mask as a female and why you are trying to help her. I am sure that I can keep Angela’s identity confidential so call Angela and have us her meet us here at the Northridge Mall location.”

“She won’t be able to meet with us until Friday evening. Is that okay with you?” asked Cherry.

“Sure, why don’t we make it a threesome on Friday.”

“That sounds good to me as well,” said Cherry.

“What are your reasons for volunteering for this masking assignment, Cherry?” I probed in Kim Novak’s sincerest voice. Actually the thought of training two willing females to mask as two of my favorite classic motion picture stars would have made me promise Cherry the Moon.

“Well, Angela turned me onto the idea when you met with the staff of the Downtown location. Now that I see the wonderful effect that your Kim Novak mask has on you, I know that I will enjoy being the Ingrid Bergman image that you showed me. I am a novelist and screenplay writer. People tell celebrities things that they wouldn’t confess to their priests. As Bergman I will bet that I pick-up some great story material, not to mention describing the experience of masking as a female motion picture star.”

“That all works for me, Cherry. I will see you on Friday.”

“I’ll tell Angela the good news if that is okay with you.”

“That will be just fine,” responded my perfect Kim Novak purr. I guess that I don’t have to tell you how this last series of remarks turned me on. I was pleased to know that my lovely Kim Novak mask and body suit hid this arousal from Cherry’s view. I could hardly wait until the following Friday night when they were both to be under my masked tutelage. When Mr. Henderson asked me where my second female recruit came from, I told him that the new recruit would only volunteer to mask if I did not reveal her identity to anyone except accounting. Miraculously, Mr. Henderson went along with the gag and left me alone to train my new latex movie stars.

One of the incredible realities of working for the Hollywood Memories Company is that it had a complete costume rental facility and a full line of period clothing for sale in each store. Henderson gave me total access to the rental line and a budget to transfer some for sale items to the rental stock. I managed to get around on Henderson’s limitations by getting most of what I needed for my personal use as comps from the store’s suppliers. The manufacturers were eager to supply me with gear that customers wanted to purchase when they saw the alleged star wearing the clothes. It seems that while women wouldn’t mask as their favorite star, they didn’t mind buying knock-offs of “her” fashions and trying to look like the star without a mask.

It was the male customers that started requesting masks that they believed could be of use with their girl friends and wives. And just like that, I found myself in the mask making business. Often they brought their girl friends or wives into the stores to see me in my masks and costumes and then return at a later date to make their purchases. A couple of times there were these scenes in the store where some guy would try to get his female to try on the mask and she would refuse vehemently. I don’t think that I ever saw a woman try on one of the display masks and say, “Oh Honey, please buy this mask for me. I just love the way I look in it.” I think I would have done a double back flip if one of the women had said, “Oh Honey, please buy this marvelous mask. I would love having you wear it for me.”

Actually, I was glad that the demand was not any greater than it was, because I was basically a basement operation and I still had my regular job to attend to. Of course, I didn’t use my secret latex formula to make these masks for sale in the Hollywood Memories stores. That would have been far too expensive and time consuming. Anyway, for my masking purposes with Hollywood Memories, authentic period dress was the rule of the day. The same thing held true for all of the accessories, wigs and jewelry. Of course the originals that were for sale were under lock and key in glass cases, but the replicas were almost as exciting once a well-built living female was animating them.

In fact, animation was the operative word to describe Cherry Luna and Angela Enciso. Cherry had the smooth grace of a Kim Novak or Angelica Houston, but Angela had the petite beauty of a Grace Kelly or Tippy Hedren. I could finally use my Tippy Hedren and Grace Kelly masks with Angela Enciso. On the other hand, Cherry was definitely the better mimic of the two women and responsible for recruiting other part time staff to the promotional effort. Carrie made for a great “Joan Fountain” from Hitchcock’s Suspicion and Vanessa did an interesting “Eva Marie Saint” from his North by Northwest. A clerk named Georgia Supplefinger became the epitome of “Janet Leigh” from Hitchcock’s Psycho. In a way I felt sorry for Georgia. She had an inferiority complex from years of taking jibes about her last name. Now I had five masked beauties learning their roles and moves. But, Cherry took instruction better than any of the other women did. Her auditory skills allowed her to pick-up accents and inflection with ease.

While the others looked like Tippy Hedren, Janet Leigh or Joan Fountain, they needed a lot of coaching to begin to move and sound like them. Even so, every move that my masked and costumed trainees made was pure torture for me, with no relief in sight. I was better off before I started this project. I had five masked beauties trying to please me with their attempts at female masking. Not even “Mr. Hand” could keep pace with my desire. I was living a fantasy that most female masked/cross-dressing male could only dream of. What is more, I was being paid to live this dream. I thought that nothing could top this reality, but then I had no way of knowing what Angela and Cherry was planning for Halloween.

By the last week in October, Cherry was expert at doing “Kim Novak”, “Ingrid Bergman” and “Angelica Houston”. Cheery had the uncanny ability to switch roles with the change of a mask. She could have been a quick-change artist in an old circus act. In fact it was almost unnerving to watch her switch roles in the middle of a workday. I knew that sooner or later and the sooner the better, I was going to have to have this woman. Maybe it was her natural acting talent, her ability to mimic, her intellectual approach to the masking process or the reality that the images of those three fabulous female film stars were being built on top of a gorgeous GG, but in my opinion Cherry Luna was better after three or four weeks of training than I was after six or seven years of work. If she got any better at it, she could take over my job and I could devote all my spare time to making masks and masking in the privacy of my home. To be honest, this almost took up as much of my time as I had spent creating my harem of gorgeous female actresses.

Georgia could do Janet Leigh’s Psycho role like a live action replay of the film. Carrie to a lesser degree made a sweet and innocent “Joan Fountain” type of victimized female. Vanessa did a passable, but not impressive “Eva Marie Saint”. Angela was still struggling along with her dual roles of “Tippy Hedren” and “Grace Kelly”. I finally made the decision to have Angela stay full-time with the “Tippy Hedren” role and recruited Susan Blaine to take over the “Grace Kelly” role. As a back up, Cherry recruited Ilea Hillman to do a very passable “Ingrid Bergman”. Angela never quite mastered the “Tippy Hedren” style, but unless you had spent a lot of time studying Miss Hedren’s films, you wouldn’t be able to pick out Angela’s mistakes.

Susan had the perfect frame for “Grace Kelly” and already had most of her petite feminine moves even before she put on the “Grace Kelly” torso and mask. In a white, full gored skirt and matching white angora sweater set, Susan was “Grace Kelly” as she appeared in Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief. I found my inward male spirit being attracted to Susan, but I suppressed those desires for the moment in the interest of maintaining my fantasy life. You would think that with all this masking in my life that my reaction to the transformation each day into these beautiful movie stars would have become common place, but that was not the case. To the contrary, my addiction to the process seemed to grow.

Maybe I was just being picky, but if you finally get a chance to live in and/or out one of your all time masked fantasies, you might as well go for broke. The extra recruitment also taught me that if a woman is having fun doing something that it is easier for her to recruit another female to the activity than it would be for a male to do the recruiting. Maybe there is something to the herd mentality for females or it maybe just simply a case of monkey see: monkeys do. I am still not sure of why that happened the way that it did, but I am positive that “Kim Novak” stood a lot better chance at starting the recruiting of females to the project than Mr. Henderson ever did.

When the Fright Festival was about to start I had my masked corps lined up to attend the film that their masked character was in. When I say character, I mean the same exact costume, hairstyle, moves and all. The festival scheduled four Hitchcock films on each day with five films being shown on Halloween. For example when To Catch A Thief and Rear Window was playing along with Marnie and Notorious, I went as “Ingrid Bergman” in tandem with Susan as “Grace Kelly” and Angela as a brunette “Tippy Hedren”. When North by Northwest, Suspicion, Spell Bound and Dial ‘M’ For Murder played I sent Vanessa, Susan, Carrie and Cherry with Susan as “Grace Kelly”, Cherry as “Ingrid Bergman”, Vanessa as “Eva Marie Saint” and Carrie in the role of “Joan Fountain”. That night I played “Cary Grant” in his debonair North by Northwest role. None of the women figured out that “Cary Grant” had been the prize winning “Ingrid Bergman” the previous evening. I would have preferred being “Ingrid Bergman” again, but I didn’t think that I could have made Cherry do “Cary Grant”.

Each night we entered the Downtown Fox Theater in the combination that suited the evening and by the third night our entrance brought the house down. I guess that there is a lot more movie buffs than there are maskers in the first place. In the second place, I guess that movie buffs also tend to be voyeurs. Maybe that is why they are movie buffs in the third place. They tend to live vicariously through the exploits or lack thereof being exhibited by the characters on the silver screen.

The films scheduled for the Halloween were Psycho, Spellbound, Vertigo, The Birds and Family Plot. That evening Georgia went as “Janet Leigh” from Psycho, Ilea as “Ingrid Bergman” for Spellbound, Angela as “Tippy Hedren” in The Birds, I played a blonde, PVC trench coat and boot-clad “Karen Black” from Family Plot and Cherry did a very classy “Kim Novak” for Vertigo. I have to admit that I just loved the “Karen Black” Family Plot look. This has to be my favorite female masked role. I diet every year so I can look right for the part. Cherry could have done it, and she would have been good at it, but I don’t share my “Karen Black” mask and torso with anyone, including Cherry. We looked incredible amongst the ghouls, ghosts and goblins that went to the Downtown Fox Theater that night. Each of us was dressed to the nines. Once again, our entrance brought the crowd of movie buffs in the Downtown Fox Theater rise to their feet. While most of the members of the audience were in costume, what they were wearing had little or nothing to do with the characters in this evening’s films.

Family Plot was the first film of the evening. From inside of my blonde “Karen Black” image I was thrilled as she stepped off of the bus to start off the mysterious sequence for which the film is so famous. This was the first time in all of the years that I had studied this film that I was able to view it in public while masked and cross-dressed, not to mention that I was with a group of women that were also masked and dressed as famous Hitchcock heroines. At the end of the film I was asked to go to the stage of the theater where I was awarded first prize for the best costume for this film. Along with my “Ingrid Bergman” prize for Notorious and my “Kim Novak” prize for Vertigo, this prize put me in the running for the best costume of the festival. With three first prize entries, I figured that I had a pretty good chance at the festival’s overall first prize.

I didn’t see any other costume in the Fox Theater that had won an individual round that was better than my rendition of the blonde “Karen Black” outfit from Family Plot. When I walked upon the stage I was the blonde “Karen Black”. Against the house rules flash cameras went off everywhere. Because of my masking at the Hollywood Memories Stores and my work to train Angela and Cherry along with varying degrees of success with the other store staff, I was totally at home in my blonde “Karen Black” look. The shiny, black PVC garments and the felt broad-brimmed hat that formed the exteriors of the costume’s full cover look were somehow sexier than a bikini consisting of two buttons and a cork. My “Karen Black” mask and body suit were made entirely of my bullet proof latex. This added measure of protection gave me a cocky attitude when I became the blonde “Karen Black”. I believe that this “body armor” sensibility added more to the authenticity of the image I was trying to portray. I hadn’t worn this mask and costume combination in the stores and I had left it off of the training program as well. After all, this was my favorite look and most advanced design. I had been perfecting “her” right up until the evening when I had planned to wear “her”. If only I had known how much action I was going to experience while inside of this costume and mask, maybe I would have worn boots with more sensible heels.

On Halloween, the Fright Festival at the Downtown Fox Theater started at four o’clock sharp and ended by eleven in the evening. They started that early to get the extra film in and still end early enough to allow the party goers a chance to go to the club across the street from the Fox Theater. They had given each adult Fright Fest participant a coupon good for one drink at the El Nido Club and the Nido was having a costume contest at the stroke of midnight. I had a long week with my regular job, the mask making and the training sessions with the Hollywood Memories staff. In addition, I still had three more nights of the Fright Film Festival to attend. As much fun as I was having and being with “Ingrid”, “Tippy”, “Janet”, and “Kim” (Georgia, Ilea, Angela and Cherry respectively) I actually wanted to go home and get into a hot tub of water. I couldn’t believe that I was thinking this behind my prize winning “Karen Black” mask, but I guess there is such a thing as getting too much of a good thing. Maybe I was just film festivaled and masked out to the limit at this point in time, but then Cherry suggested that the five of us go over to El Nido for that one drink and enter the costume contest as a group of Hitchcock film stars. She further suggested that after the contest that we could all go over to her place for a nightcap.

I probably don’t have to tell you that when it comes to an opportunity to live out a long held and intensely desired fantasy, caution and good judgment get thrown out the window without even a hint of thought about the consequences. Normally a little voice in my ear would have turned on alarm bells by saying that when something seems to good to be true, it is generally not true. But then again, I so wanted this evening to be true. After all, I was out in public with four beautifully masked women on my favorite holiday and I was in my favorite mask and costume. What is more, these women actually wanted to extend the time that we stayed and played around in our wonderful female disguises. I guess that I should mention here that my mask and body suit were measuring up to all that I had hoped they would be. The adherence properties of the latex were working perfectly and I did not sense any moisture build-up or heat problems.

Okay, so I wasn’t thinking straight, but remember I thought that I was living out a dream come true. Like so many maskers I had given up on what was happening to me as my four incredibly masked females, wearing my wonderfully fashioned latex masks and torsos crossed the street that separated El Nido Club form the Downtown Fox Theater. I mean I had two real girl/female maskers on either side of me and they were volunteering to mask in public with me. Well, not me really, but they were out with me as a blonde “Karen Black”. I was finally one of the girls.

My head was in the clouds and my painfully booted feet were not in contact with the ground. The irony was that I was more turned on by my own masking and portrayal of “Karen Black” than I was being out with “Tippy”, Janet”, “Ingrid” and “Kim”. It was also an unexpected reality that my own masking also turned me on to a greater extent than the fact that I was out with four real females who were wearing realistic female masks. You could have knocked me over with a feather and I believed that Cherry was primed and ready to do just that to me.

I still don’t understand why that ungrateful bitch had decided upon that course. Hadn’t I seen to it that she got a pay raise and a big bonus for working with me? Hadn’t she won two prizes for being Bergman in Notorious and Spell Bound? Couldn’t she tell that I was in love with her? Why did she want to bite the hand that was being so generous with her? I hadn’t been rough with her or forced sex on her like my inner being had begged me to do. I had even helped her to recruit Angela who didn’t deserve to wear my wonderful masks. Maybe the telling of this tale is just the ticket I need to figure out some of the answers to these questions and help me plan a course of action as to where to go form here.

What I know now that I didn’t know when we entered El Nido Club was that Cherry Luna was not only a writer of romantic mystery novels, but she was on sabbatical from an university in the area where she taught literature. This accounted for her literary background. She was using her position in the store and Angela's assistance to locate people with cult fetishes with the intent to write a book about them. At least that is how Cherry said that she started out until Angela suggested that they could probably make more money from threats to publish the book than they could ever could make from the royalties based upon book sales. Then I came along and opened the door to the female masking fetish and still unknown to me; the stage was set for my masked Halloween adventure.

Angela had convinced Cheery to make a video using me and my masked personas, supported by Georgia and Ilea to create a masking film loosely following the story line behind Hitchcock’s Family Plot. The fact that this was my favorite female masking role made me all the easier to ensnare. From what I have been able to piece together, neither Angela nor Cherry had any ideas as to which gender I was, so feminization wasn’t part of their original plan.

Anyway, the blonde, PVC trench coat and boot-clad “Karen Black” strolled with “Tippy Hedren”, “Janet Leigh”, “Ingrid Bergman” and “Kim Novak” into El Nido Club. The place was all decked out to the gills with Halloween motif decorations, including cauldrons, coffins, spooky sounds, bales of hay, jack-o-lanterns, tomb stones, spider webs and black lighting. We were an instant hit and drinks kept coming our way. We didn’t need our coupons, so we gave them to Frankenstein’s Monster and his oversized, blue/green Bride of Frankenstein. I hadn’t eaten much that day so that I could get the maximum effect out of my heavily boned corset. This meant that even the watered down coupon drinks were giving me a real buzz.

Even though my well-booted toes were going completely numb, I felt compelled to dance with a whole host of willing male partners. Not one of them seemed to believe that I was really anything other than what I appeared to be. I really wanted to dance with my sophisticated “Kim Novak” (Cherry), but she was off somewhere in the Nido Club with partners of her own, or so I thought. By this time in the course of the evening, I figured that there would be plenty of time for being with “Kim Novak” after we got to Cherry’s place and sent the rest of Hitchcock’s leading ladies home for the night. To my way of thinking at that point in time, I would reveal my “Cary Grant” persona to “Kim” and make love with her to the crack of dawn. To be completely honest, I was so horny, even the crack of dawn was beginning to look good.

As I look back on the blazing All Hallows Eve I guess that Angela, Ilea and Georgia had been “sharing” their drinks with me and this is probably why my glass was never empty. I have also surmised that they had planned without Vanessa or Cherry’s knowledge to rob me that night if we got to my place. Unfortunately, for Angela, Ilea and Georgia and fortunately for me, when I am in character I go all the way and the only identification I had in my large PVC shoulder bag said that I was Karen Black and gave a phony address as well. I wasn’t carrying a checkbook or credit cards. I was cash only and cash poor Karen. Since I had come to the Downtown Fox in a cab, (driving with a mask on at night is never a good idea, especially if you have been drinking) there wasn’t a driver’s license or auto registration to give my true identity to them. Thus Angela, Ilea and Georgia huddled and redirected their energies to reeking havoc on Cherry and me for their own personal satisfaction along with their need to perpetuate some kind of over the top Halloween trick.

So, instead of going to Cherry’s house or my place after our Halloween fun and games at the Nido Club, I guess that we wound up at Angela’s hovel or should I say the garage or basement of her place. Bye-the-way, we won the group prize at El Nido’s costume contest, which turned out to be complimentary dinner and drink tickets for all of us. We decided to use the tickets for a mini banquet after that last night of the Fright Fest Film Festival.

Angela’s little place felt crowded with the five masked women milling around it. Remember, at this point only three of the group had any idea of what was going on and only Angela had an overall picture of her agenda. All of us were still in our masks and costumes. I was the only enigma to the group as no one had even a clue to my real identity. Even in my inebriated state I reveled in this knowledge. I knew that they did not have the means to find out who I really was even if they wanted to, because they had no way of getting my mask and torso off without me telling them about the heat treatments that were prerequisite to the removal of my “Karen Black” mask and body suit. Had my masked peers been males, they would have tried to take my mask off at the earliest opportunity. I have heard it said that women are more curious than men, but I can tell you that this is not the case when it comes to masking. Maybe it is because most women alter their appearance on a daily basis and produce an image that is often very different from the one that gets out of their bed in the morning. They don’t get on each other to remove their make-up. They just accept it as part of the daily costume.

On the other hand, men always want to know who is behind the mask. The irony of this reality is that men often prefer the artificial reality to the real one. They love breast implants and butt implants that enlarge the areas that they consider sexual in women. They prefer false eyelashes and wigs on women more than women do. In some ways, it might be said that men often prefer the masked illusion to the real thing once they have had a chance to evaluate the perceived faults, imperfections and failings of the real female.

It is the old joke of the two naked guys walking down the street in a nudist colony. They simultaneously focus on the naked image of the fantastically endowed female that is coming in the opposite direction. After the naked female passes them one of the guys turns to the other and says, “Can you imagine how good she could really look if she was wearing a heavily corseted formal dinner gown?” The sentiment expressed by this old tale is that a total boring bow-wow of a female can become an exotic raving beauty with a decent mask and well shaped torso. Maybe that is also why so many ugly guys love to wear beautiful female masks.

To be completely honest, had my well masked companions known the secret to removing my disguise and really sought to strip me of my body transforming torso and unmask me there was nothing that I could have done to stop them. I was soused to the gills and “Kim Novak” (Cherry) seemed to be pretty well oiled too. I wished at this point that I had been in better condition so that I could have enjoyed the fruits of the masking training program, but I had lost track of the number of drinks that my companions had been feeding me. More to the truth, I had given up trying to keep track of what and how much I had been drinking. Actually I was surprised that that I was still on my aching and well booted feet. Maybe it was the stimulation of being surrounded by my masked beauties. More likely it was the reality that El Nido had been watering down those Halloween coupon drinks, because I didn’t hold my liquor all that well. I’m what most guys would call a “cheap date”. One or two beers and I am high for the rest of the night.

Angela (“Tippy Hedren”) brought me out of my internal thought by saying, “I know that the blonde Miss Black turns you on, Kim (Cherry).” With that comment, Angela pulled a Saturday Night Special from a drawer in a small table near the front door of her basement apartment. “Take these cuffs and chain your right wrist to Karen’s (my wrist) left one. Then I want you to make passionate kissing moves with Karen while Georgia and Ilea take video of the two of you doing those moves. Help them chain themselves together, Vanessa.”

“After the kissing I think that we should get some video of Karen and Kim having some girl to girl sex,” suggested Georgia as she fired up her digicam and Vanessa made sure that the cuffs were secure.

“You can’t be serious about me doing that,” protested Cherry from behind her “Kim Novak” face. The thought of having girl to girl sex with me seemed to have sobered Cherry.

“How is this for serious?” yelled Angela in a convincing “Tippy Hedren” move as she cocked and waved the loaded pistol.

I looked in “Kim Novak’s” direction and mumbled, “I think we had better do what they want. They seem pretty serious to me.” Actually the thought of having sex with Cherry as “Kim Novak” at gun-point was really turning me on and sobering me up as well. I was glad that my mask and body suit hid most of my sexual desire from the view of my protagonists. Angela would probably have moved on to some other perversion if she thought that I was enjoying the thought of what she and Georgia was suggesting. I remembered the bullet proof qualities of the latex form that my “Karen Black” mask and body suit provided to me, but I decided that this wasn’t the time or place to put them to the test.

“Don’t you think that I have the right to know the real identity of the person who has their tongue in my face and sex?” asked Cherry as “Miss Kim Novak”.

“You know who it is, Miss High and Mighty,” said Angel thru her “Tippy Hedren” disguise. “Maybe you can write a book about this stuff too.”

“Okay, why don’t you refresh my memory a little,” barked Cherry like she had no fear of the weapon that Angela was waving around in her classic “Tippy Hedren” style.

“It is the real Miss Novak’s stunt double in her blonde ‘Karen Black’ mask and costume,” asserted the gun toting “Tippy Hedren”.

“I want to be sure of that, Tippy,” snapped Cherry through the lips of her “Kim Novak” mask.

“Get a move on! I want Vanessa and Georgia to film some very heavy petting and deep throat kissing,” commanded “Tippy Hedren”. As I moved in on “Kim Novak”, and had my image of the blonde “Karen Black” do what I had been wanting to do for ages, Angela commented, “That is much better; good; more; okay, now pull off your panties and spread your legs, Miss Novak. Karen wants to eat you into ecstasy.”

Cherry as “Kim Novak” reluctantly did as she was ordered to do, while Georgia and Ilea shot the video and Angela handed her gun to Vanessa so that Angela could adjust some of the lighting in the room. Then she got another gun from her bureau drawer. I had never eaten anyone while wearing a mask, let alone eat a female who was wearing one of my favorite masked images. I decided that “Karen Black” was going to put “Kim Novak” into another time zone and I was just drunk enough to do it too. It wasn’t long before the image of “Miss Karen Black” had “Miss Kim Novak” beside herself with pulsating desire and convulsing passion. “That is fabulous, girls,” commented our masked and gun pointing director. “I wonder how this epic would play out in Mr. Henderson’s private screening room?” Then after she unlocked my wrist from “Kim’s” wrist, “Tippy Hedren” announced, “I want you to do me the way you just did, Miss Novak. You must have one long and slutty tongue, Karen. If you don’t do me like you just did, Kim, I will blow your brains all over the room. Is that perfectly clear to you my slutty, Karen?”

“Clear as crystal, Mistress Hedren.”

“I like that sound of that,” said “Tippy” as she pushed my well-masked head into her crotch. I really didn’t want to do “Tippy” like I had just done “Kim”. To be completely honest, I didn’t want to do Angela at all. The only thing that turned me on about Angela was that she was wearing my “Tippy Hedren” mask and costume. She was doing a pretty good “Miss Hedren” impression at the moment, but I just didn’t like her real looks and the exquisite mask was unable to cover her shitty, I hate all men attitude. Plus, with a loaded and cocked gun pointed at my well-masked head, I didn’t feel that there was a whole lot of room for protest. Besides, I figured that there was an even money chance that Cherry would recover from her multiple climaxes and that she might be able to get the other gun away from Vanessa once Vanessa was distracted by my work on Angela.

Thus, I went to work on Angela. This was one horny bitch. She came before I could get my tongue into her snatch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Vanessa, Georgia and Ilea were totally focused on Angela’s reaction. I worked her with a much rougher vengeance than the tender moves I had put on Cherry. Doing Angela was a chore and I wanted her to know that I felt this way. The first time Angela came, she managed to keep her gun pointed at my head. Georgia moved in to take close-ups of the action, while Ilea took the panoramic shots. The second time Angela started to convulse Cherry (“Kim Novak”) made her move on Vanessa and I reach up and stripped Angela’s flaying arm of its gun. Angela kept right on coming and her partners continued photographing “Miss Hedren” in ecstasy while I passed my gun to “Kim”. I guess that “Ingrid” and “Joan” didn’t realize that “Tippy” and “Janet” no longer had control of the weapons.

Cherry as “Kim Novak” waited until Angela as “Tippy Hedren” finished her cum to announce, “Now it is your turn to do me, Tippy, but I want to have Angela’s unmasked face between my legs. Take that Tippy Hedren mask off and give it to Karen.”

“Is she going to get to do us too?” asked Vanessa through her “Janet Leigh” mask.

“Of course, Janet. How else are we going to complete our little film,” responded the marvelously masked image of “Kim Novak”. Angela did as she was told and pulled off her “Tippy Hedren” mask and handed it to me. Ilea and Georgia took the unmasking from different angles and followed Angela down between Cherry’s legs. From what I could observe, the guns were no longer necessary and were merely props to spice up the action.

Georgia passed her digicam to me as she went down on Angela while Angela was doing Cherry. Ilea stuck with her camera like it was glued in her hand. She acted like she really knew what she was doing. If you can imagine what I was looking at through the viewfinder you know that I was no longer able to contain myself and exploded inside of my body suit. Don’t forget, that when I started this story, I told you that as much as I love cross-dressing and female masking, I love watching good looking genetic females mask and unmask even more. However, this reality that I was watching went way beyond all my most exotic and erotic dreams. I was frozen in place as I continued to watch the three masked and unmasked females drive each other into sexual exaltation and physical Nirvana time and time again. They seemed to know and anticipate each other’s moves and needs. I felt like a student for the first time with my masked troop of masked female trainees. The four women became so engrossed in what they were doing with and to each other that I was able to quietly put the camera on the little table that had held Angela’s Saturday-Night Special. I put the little gun in my coat pocket and ever so gingerly snuck out of Angela’s dumpy little basement apartment.

I had managed to get a hand towel as I had slithered through the front room of the apartment. The smell of Cherry and Angela’s love juice in the nostrils of my latex replica of Karen Black was actually making me completely sober. I mean, this stuff was more potent than smelling salts. It probably had a high ammonia content too. I wanted to take my high-heeled boots off of my aching feet, but I needed to catch the subway to my place and even though it was still Halloween, a bare foot Karen Black might become a target on the train. I didn’t want to become the center of yet another Hitchcock fantasy before I got to the safety of my place. I felt a lot safer knowing that Angela’s Saturday-Night Special was carefully hidden away in my leather coat’s deep front pocket.

The quiet, steady rhythms of the early morning train allowed me to reflect on my Halloween. Just about every fantasy I could have hoped for or dreamed of regarding female masking had come true and they had taken place in an arena that a classic movie buff could truly appreciate. My “Karen” and “Kim” would retire from the Hollywood Memories store until next September. I didn’t bother going to anymore of the “Fright Fest at the Downtown Fox Theater. The rest of the schedule was a series of repeats with no other incentives as far as I was concerned. They theater’s management mailed my prizes to my “Masked Enterprises” address.

I went into the stores a couple of more times as “Angelica Houston” to gather up my other masks, body suits and costumes from Ilea, Vanessa, Georgia, Susan, Angela and Cherry. I found out where Susan had gone on Halloween, but that is another wonderful story. I hope to set it down on paper one of these days. Of course I would continue to take special orders for female masks of classic motion picture stars through the online services of the Hollywood Memories Company.

By December I considered approaching Cherry in my own drab persona. She had ordered an “Angelica Houston” mask through the store’s online shop. If that didn’t work, next Halloween I figured that I could wear my Family Plot/blonde Karen Black costume with a flesh colored “She-Devil” mask. Trying to explore the parameters of female masking with genetic females had been exciting, but memories of Angela waving around that loaded revolver had sent me back to my closet alone. Then again, fantasies being what they are, maybe next year I will get lucky. After all, Cherry and Susan were great maskers. Maybe I would show up one night at one of their places as “Kim Novak’s stunt double” while carrying a suitcase chucked full of exotic costumes and female masks. This last Halloween had taught me that Cherry and Susan liked masking far more than seeing a cross-dressing male mask.

I have heard that next year the Fright Fest at the Downtown Fox Theater will be in the Thriller/Sci-fi/Anime mode. Maybe I will create a “Sigourney Weaver” or “Gena Davis” mask and costume. Of course I would prefer masking as the blonde bombshell Weaver created for her role in Galaxy Quest over her more famous bald headed look that she had in Alien III. I wonder if I could con Cherry Luna into being the blonde Sigourney for me while I played a blonde Gena Davis as she appeared in A Long Kiss Goodbye? Susan would make a great Linda Blair from the Exorcist. If neither of those options worked, I could always fall back on Angelica Houston’s portrayal of Morticia Addams. Cherry already had the mask for that. Maybe I could go as Gomez Addams.