I was proud of my muscular shoulders, molded by swimming and tennis, and I used to stand facing the bathtub, holding up a hand mirror so I could stare at the reflection of my back in the bathroom mirror. At school, though, I felt like a football player, hulking, musclebound. For some reason, almost all my friends were very short, and I loomed over them. In my mind's eye I was a leering giant, gesticulating and capering around the little people, making them laugh, just one jot off a Frankenstein monster. My parts didn't match; I couldn't even make them move smoothly together when I thought I was being watched. I scrutinized myself in the shop windows on my way home from school and cringed at my hustle, the way my butt stuck out so I could take big steps, the way my jeans strained over my thighs, the funny bulge someone might take for a penis where my jeans bunched up in front. Mind you, it gave me an interesting feeling to look down and see the penis-bulge. While what I really wanted was to keep the stick-figure of childhood, I wouldn't have minded a boy's body, all narrow and hard, and I might have traded in the indignity of breasts for the indignity of a penis, which at least I could bundle invisibly away. Or no, perhaps not. I remember thanking my luck that what I had between my legs was tucked neatly up and away. Everything that wiggled and hung loose seemed embarrassing to me. I wanted to be shiny and aerodynamic.