by Lisa Selin Davis

Fred Gorski keeps a very clean house.
On a typical day at his 22-room Victorian in the Ft. Wadsworth
section of Staten Island, there might be two, even three maids
scrubbing the hardwood floors or cleaning the windows. One
might wear a typical French maid uniform: the knee-length black
dress with a white, ruffled apron rustling in front. Another might
choose the Swiss Miss look, with checkered pastel gingham and
a fluffy crinoline flopping underneath.
As long as the men are cleaning, Mr. Gorski suspends his normal
$150 per hour charge for choosing from his vast supply of maid’s
uniforms, evening gowns, and leather dresses.
That’s right: these maids – along with the rest of Mr. Gorski’s
hundreds of clients – are men, and they pay not just to learn the
ins and outs of dressing and acting like women; they pay Fred
Gorski to listen to their secrets, as he slowly teaches them to
accept a part of themselves they might have spent a lifetime
hiding.
Fairplay Male Image Consultants, Mr. Gorski’s business of 15
years, is more than a supplier of wigs, extra-wide press-on nails
and size 16 stiletto heels: it’s a haven for cross-dressers all over
the metropolitan area.
If the Island seems an unlikely setting for such a business, no one
is more surprised at its success than Mr. Gorski.
“Staten Island has a long tradition of being different from the rest of
the city,” he said, invoking the borough’s Loyalist stance in the
revolutionary war, its ongoing petition to secede from New York
City and its largely closeted gay community.
A Staten Island native, Mr. Gorski, has long, curly black hair and
piercing blue eyes, and speaks in a heavy Staten Island accent,
with much emotion. On the day I visited, he wore a flowing paisley
housecoat over baggy black pants, with a small ponytail on top of
his mane. (For an extra fee, he will dress in full female regalia, if a
client cares to be cross-dressed by a cross-dresser). He
reminded me of a favorite Italian aunt, or a larger, cuddlier Cher.
Mr. Gorski began his career as both a female impersonator and a
hairdresser, and worked for more than a decade at his St. George
salon, Hairplay. When his lover of 15 years died of AIDS, his
clients disappeared.
“I went from $1,000 a week to I was lucky if I got $30 to eat on,” he
said.
The reason his business expired was nothing more than
ignorance about HIV.
“People were terrified to come in,” he explained, but he chose not
to wash over the truth to try and save his salon. “There was no
shame in what he caught or how he lived or how he died.”
Mr. Gorski describes himself as a very positive person (but not HIV
positive, he adds), so he took his misfortune and turned it around.
He closed the salon and brought the furniture home after no one
would even take it for free, and began to offer waxing in his house.
Clients who knew he sometimes performed as a woman named
“Rain” at local clubs began to seek his advice, and he found
himself counseling hundreds of men – most of them heterosexual
and from suburban New Jersey  on how to cross-dress. Soon he
was stocking breast forms, extra large garter belts and size 44
negligees, and providing makeovers.
He starts the process by assessing the client’s color scheme –
winter, fall, summer or spring (bright colors, earth tones or
pastels)  and choosing wigs, makeup and clothes. He then fits the
client with press-on nails, which immediately transform the way
men interact with their environment.
“You really have to pick things up daintily if you have long nails,” he
said. 
Some clients choose to act out maid or wedding fantasies (One
heterosexual couple came in and cross-dressed, then posed for a
wedding photo by the rose arbor in the backyard).
Some want makeovers to prepare them for a night on the town (Mr.
Gorski often leads a group to cross-dressing clubs in Manhattan
on Saturday nights).
But some want something simpler.
“Sometimes they say, ‘I’ve never gone outside and felt the wind
against my stocking leg, and that’s all I want.’
“And I say, ‘If that’s all you want, you poor thing, let’s do it.’”
Going to Fairplay feels a little like shopping in Oz, if a
cross-dressing strip mall had sprung up along the Yellow Brick
Road. There’s a shoe room with high heels from sizes 8 – 17, in
leopard skin patterns or with fuzzy white pompoms affixed to the
front, and fishnet stockings in a variety of bright colors.
Next is the “fetish room,” including dresses made of day-glo
Pleather, bras in sizes up to 48DD, and the all important “gaffe” – a
little stretch of Speedo-like black fabric that tucks certain, um,
telling parts away, allowing men to sport skintight skirts.
The eveningwear room holds more sequins and rhinestones than
you’ve ever seen in one spot, replete with large jewelry, like size 13
rings and 9-inch bracelets.
Then there’s a full-service nail and hair salon (nail polish colors
come in names like “Blind Date,” “My Velvet Heart,” or “Make Men
Melt”), and a choice of wigs. The Bobby, for instance, is a sort of
brunette flapper-do, while the Tiffany evokes Farrah Fawcett, and
Mr. Gorski can style to wigs according to clients’ wishes.
Finally, there’s a steam room that removes not only makeup but
perfume from the skin, for those who are still hiding their
predilection.
But Mr. Gorski encourages cross-dresses to take both their
women’s clothes and their desires out of the closet. He does
more than teach men how to daintily lift a teacup to their lips or
walk in 4-inch heels.
“I’m teaching people that they shouldn’t be ashamed,” he said.
Many of the men are married or engaged, and Mr. Gorski pushes
his clients to be open about their cross-dressing needs.
“You need to not live life in shame,” he said.  “It’ll kill you.”

Fairplay is open 11am to 11pm, Monday through Saturday, by
appointment only. 198 Fingerboard Rd., Staten Island, NY
10305-3707, (718) 816-1318. www.fairplaytv.com.

Lisa Selin Davis is a freelance writer from Brooklyn.

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