The truth about dad and Sam

That's it, the one, the famous one, the photograph.
That's dad, of course, though looking more like mum.
It set the fashion for while, had everyone cross-dressing.
Became for dad life-changing when he took it up for real.
Joe Public saw the figure as some sort of cross
between a spy and a cross-dresser - and not far wrong, at that!
A stunt it was to start with. To advertise his book:
Spies, Moles and Sexual Peccadilloes.

Good title that, I thought, had every one a-flutter, wondering
and wanting just a bit more info than the book would give.
He went too far. Over-cooked it for the photograph. The wig,
the long, dark curls... did not sit well with the rough beard!
The there's the shadow of the man about to rape
or murder him or her - or so Joe Public liked to think!
And as for that great hole in him... don't ask. A camera lens!
Supposed to be a secret camera. The fashion then - for spies.

But it was Sam who turned Joe Public fully on.
He took her everywhere, his doll with porcelain-smooth skin -
and God-alone-knew-what on the inside.
Mechanical transexual.
Capable of Masturbation,
which she would demonstrate on cue
until the microfilm appeared
from God-alone-knew-where, somewhere deep inside.

He took her on his tours to publicise the book
and waited for the world to come,
to beat a pathway to her door -
which soon enough, they did -
especially security, the counter-everything brigade.
The photograph's iconic now,
worth a pauper's ransom, shouldn't wonder!
Pivotal it was in their divorce.

The image is this week's prompt on the Magpie Tales blog.