There don't seem to be many pirates. Only a handful seem to be around us. I see that if we had weapons...guns or swords...we might be a match for them. How they captured us, I do not know. I drop my parasol in case someone thinks it is a weapon. It rolls at dizzying speed down the wooden deck.

The leader of the pirates comes forward, brandishing his cutlass. He threatens the Captain, who reacts bravely, refusing to flinch. He insults the other sailors as well, but when he comes to me, he smiles and strokes my chin. I realize that I am dressed like a princess, or some other member of royalty. I must have been aboard for the sport of it, or perhaps to be taken to a distant land for a vacation.

I have a tight bodice, and I am surprised at the size of my breasts. I am momentarily transfixed by my own image, which I see as if I was the pirate staring at me. Buxom wench, am I! My petticoats are showing from under my blue velvet dress. My waist is incredibly small. My hair is a mass of red curls. My bodice is flouncy with lace.

The Captain and the rest of the crew are being ordered toward the side of the boat. They are going to be thrown overboard. They accept their fate, and they simply step over the side, one after the other. They are brave men!

The pirate leader holds me in his arms, he kisses me, and he tells me that I will be spared. I am so angry with him. I feel so weak...I can't get out of his grasp. I want to die with the others, I tell him. But he laughs. He points at me, he fondles me. He tells me I'm such a frail and pretty woman.

I struggle with him, but I am frail. I know that I can beat this monster, I just know that I can. But no matter how much I wrestle with him, he toys with me, holding me off with one hand, tickling me under the chin with the other. He makes me cry in frustration, and he rips my gown off like he was tearing the sail of a boat. I sink to the wooden floor, stripped of my dress, just in petticoats.

I crawl on my hands and knees toward the side of the boat. Before anyone can do a thing about it, I have dived over the side.

I am shocked to see that the boat is anchored so close to the shore. I can swim for it and be saved, perhaps join the Captain and the brave crew, who must have gotten ashore. But in my dream, I can't swim at all. My arms flail uselessly, weakly.

I am going to drown. My shoulder straps have tangled my arms, somehow. My petticoats are weighing me down, billowing out in the water, surrounding me in a swamp of lace. I want to be a man! If only I can get out of these women's clothes! Oh why, why did I put them on!

I find myself twisting in bed, my nightgown up around my waist. I am clutching the sheets.

Angry with myself, I pull the nightgown off, and I push it into the toilet and try to make it go down the tube. But the lace garment swirls turgidly in the toilet bowl, and water floods over the side of the porcelain.