Lavender Is a Harsh Mistress

by Earl Watson

  “Oh it’s you Mandy. The champagne must have had rocks in it because something is rolling around in my head.”

  Amanda sat on the side of the bed and looked at the floor.

  “Carney tell me the truth, do I know anything about men? I mean really about them!”

  “You are not just talking about any man are you? You are talking about Marcus.”

  “Of course I am talking about Marcus, who else would I be talking about?”

  “I don’t know Mandy, he is a great guy that has it all but he is a little bit mysterious. I can read most men when it comes to women, but I can’t read him. You are talking about going from Patrick to Marcus.

  That’s like going from roller skates to one of those Testarossa things that he drives. Like going from flying a kite to flying a fighter jet.”

  “I know Carney but what am I going to do? I am really lost.”

  “You look like a helpless kitten. You really have it bad don’t you?”

  Carney slid off of the bed and into a pair of slippers.

  “Wait here.” She scampered into the kitchen and returned with two glasses and a bottle of wine.

  “Come on let’s celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?!” Carney filled the glasses and gave one to Amanda.

  “Let’s celebrate and make a toast to the end of “Little Dick Patrick!”

  Amanda had already made up her mind that she was going to ask Marcus out to dinner and drinks. She would make it perfectly clear to him that she was interested in him. Where ever he wanted to take it after that was up to him. But no matter what she was going to make her move on him. She made sure that she arrived at work before he did. She wasn’t going to wait to confront 121

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  him, she’d ask him as soon as he walked in. She sat at her desk in the quiet coolness of an early morning with her courage and confidence up. She noticed that the message board on her desk was flashing. She pressed the button and heard the voice of Willis Paige.

  “Hi Mandy, me and Marcus are in the air. We will see you in ten days. Paris, here we come!”

  Amanda Michelle Wilcox, was the first born child of two New York City, civil service workers. She was soon followed by a brother and a sister. Her parents settled in Laurelton Queens, and that is where she spent the formative years of her life. When it came to school she always knew that she could always do better. But aca-demics was something that she wasn’t that interested in. By the time that she was a senior in High School, she figured that she would soon be finished with her schooling. But somehow by luck she was picked to attend Tomlinson College and given a four year scholarship. The donor who set up the fund had gone to Amanda’s High School. After a lot of lobbying her parents were able to convince her to go and give it a try for at least two years. Her biggest gripe was that Tomlinson was a all girls school. Her parents made a deal with her that if she stayed for only two years and did well. They would agree to let her transfer to a school in New York and pick up the tab.

  After she graduated she packed her bags and left for rural Pennsyl-vania.

  It is fair to say that Amanda’s first look at Tomlinson was far from what she had imagined. It was located on a fifty acre patch of woods that was located in an area that looked nothing like the pictures that were in their catalog, to her it looked like the primeval forest. The entire college consisted of seven buildings in all. Three for learning, one for gym, two for housing, and one for administration.

  The total number of the female students at the school was a little under eight hundred. On her first day she was paired with another 122

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress girl by the name of Carney Lipton-Pennish. Her mother and father had divorced so she used her father and mother’s names. As soon as the girls had settled into their room, Carney locked the door and introduced herself.

  “Hi, My name is Carney, a hot fast and loose chick from southern Virginia. My father is a Major in the Army and he sent me here to keep me chaste, because he caught me in bed with a few boys. It was three boys at three different times but that didn’t make any difference to my dad. That’s my story Amanda.”

  “Please call me Mandy.” Her roommate paced around the room like a caged animal.

  “Look Mandy I don’t know if I can do this. I mean if I don’t find some appropriate aged boys within a few miles of here, I am going to get sick.” An innocent giggle came out of Amanda’s mouth.

  “Please don’t laugh Mandy, I really mean it. I am sure that you feel the same way. There is absolutely no way that I can deal with that LUG stuff until after we leave here. For me it has to be that good old biological testosterone. Look I have worked out a plan that came to me during orientation. The school was looking for someone to drive a bus that has a stick shift. No one else knew, but I have been driving a stick since I was twelve, so I got the gig. Do you know what that means?”

  “Noooo, I don’t think that I do.”

  “Mandy, it means that we will have a way to get into town. There is a mid-sized town about twelve miles away. Do you know what is in that town?”

  “No.”

  “Three colleges that have boys in them. It’s perfect but I need a partner to help me. What do you say, are we partners?” Amanda was trying to process the question before she answered and thought to herself.

  “What a strange, adventurous, and remarkable girl I have for a roommate. I have never met anyone like her or heard a girl talk so openly about sex like she does. But I do like her and I think that we are going to be good friends.”

  “Well Mandy, what do you say?”

  “I guess that I am in, what do I have to do?”

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  “Nothing now because I am still refining all of the details of how we are going to pull it off. Right now I am working on getting a key to the bus.”

  After the first few months Amanda had found a group of girls that she got along with as well as Carney. Carney could mix with all of the cliques at school. She knew how to take care of herself and not any of the older girls ever messed with her. By extension because she and Amanda were best friends, nobody messed with Amanda.

  After three months Carney had come up with a plan that would get the key to the bus. Every time that she drove the students into town to shop, a chaperon came along. One day as soon as they got into town Amanda pretended to be violently sick. She was doubled over in excruciating pain. In a panic Carney raced straight to the hospital. The chaperon waited with Amanda in the hospital and let the other girls go shopping while Carney stayed with the bus in the hospital parking lot. Carney sprinted around the corner to get a duplicate key made at the locksmith. The only thing that went wrong with her plan was even though the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with Amanda he gave her a flu shot just in case. For the next week her arm was black and blue and really hurt. In true military fashion Carney consoled her as if she was in the Army.

  “All that matters Private Wilcox, is that we completed the mission.

  Your country will be sending you a purple heart any day now.”

  It was a few days into the New Year, and Carney was ready to put her plan into motion. When she returned from bringing the girls back from shopping in town. She parked the bus fifty yards away from the administration building. Under the pretense that the radi-ator was running hot, so that when she started the bus up it wouldn’t be heard. Before they left their room they went over the details.

  “Now Mandy, make sure that you are at the gate at exactly nine thirty. We can’t afford to be more than a few minutes behind. Make sure that you wear your sneakers because where I parked is muddy.

  You can put your shoes on when we get on the bus.” Everything went as planned and after picking Amanda up at the gate they were off. Carney filled Amanda on or how the rest of the night would go.

  “We are going to a party at Duran Tech. It’s one of the three schools 124

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sh Mistress in town and it’s all boys. I figure that we will have a better chance of finding a guy that is unattached. When you find your guy just give me a nod, when I find mine I will do the same. We can then go our separate ways and meet up on the bus later. After twenty minutes Carney pulled the bus into a church parking lot and switched off the engine.

  “Carney do we have to split up after we meet our....guys?”

  “Of course we do. When it comes to sex I am pretty open minded.

  But I am not into the orgy scene, not yet anyway.”

  Amanda remained in her seat as Carney led the way off the bus. She could sense that Amanda was a little scared.

  “Hey you can’t chicken out now, this is a two woman operation.”

  “Maybe I will sit this one out.”

  “Oh come on now, don’t you like boys?”

  Of course I do. It’s just I have never been with a boy before.”

  Carney closed the door to the bus and took a seat across the aisle from Amanda.

  “Are you saying that you have never had sex with a boy before?”

  “Yeah.” Carney took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Wow! I just thought that you had. But I should have guessed that you didn’t because you never talked about it.” Carney then asked cautiously.

  “Have you ever given a boy a blow job?”

  “No.” Carney followed up by asking incredulously

  “Well you do know how to give a boy a hand job don’t you!”

  Carney didn’t wait for an answer. The look on Amanda’s face told her that the answer was no.

  “Mandy didn’t you ever have any boyfriends?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t any of them even try?”

  “They did but I guess that I was just too good at resisting.”

  “Well Mandy can I at least assume that you know about the birds and the bees!”

  “Oh I know all about that.” Carney stood up and walked to the back of the bus and then walked back and sat down again.

  “It’s alright, I’ll keep an eye on you. If I meet someone that catches my fancy I will come up with something. You just dance, talk, smile, 125

  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress and look pretty. But aren’t you at least a little curious about sex? I mean when you hear all of the other girls talking about their sexual experiences. Isn’t it a bit of a hassle carrying the weight of your virginity around on your shoulders for so long? I mean in a matter of speaking.”

  “No it doesn’t bother me, I really don’t think about it that much.”

  ‘Do you think that you will make it?”

  “Make what?”

  “Make your four years here and still leave a virgin.”

  “I don’t know. I might.” Carney gave Amanda a soft tap on the top of her head.

  “Not if I have anything to do with it!”

  The dance at Duran went well for Amanda. She met a frat member and they spent the night dancing a little and talking a lot. He appeared to be just as unsure and nervous as she was. About an hour before they were ready to leave Carney came over to her and whispered in her ear. “I am going to the bus for a minute. When I come back we can leave.”

  The girls lay awake in their beds after they got back and were still reveling in their induction into the world of being hardened criminals.

  “He looked like a nice guy Mandy what’s his name?”

  “His name is Arthur Carlton he’s from Atlanta and he wants to be an engineer.”

  Are you going to see him again? In two weeks they are going to have another dance.”

  “Most likely, what’s your guy’s name?”

  “I have’nt the faintest idea. But, he really knows how to please a girl.

  You can bet that I am going to see him again!”

  “Carney I am curious, didn’t you even ask?”

  “Mandy I really didn’t care, I was interested in him screwing me. Not learning about his family tree! In all honesty I just about raped him.

  When I told you that I was a girl that needed sex, I wasn’t kidding!

  I can’t help it, I really do.”

  “But how did you manage to do it on a bus?”

  “Easy! You use the back seat on the bus on the driver’s side. That seat is a little longer and there is a little more leg room.”

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  “Did you take off all of your clothes?”

  “No I just pulled down my skirt and my panties and loosened my bra.”

  “What did he take off?”

  “Nothing, he just pulled down his pants and shorts.”

  “I don’t know if I can take my clothes off in front of a strange man.”

  “Mandy when you start taking off your clothes for a man and having good sex. If I read you right it will be with the right man and the sex will be great. Then you will want to take your clothes off all the time.

  You won’t be able to get enough of him.”

  “Carney what was it like your first time?”

  “It was horrible! I swore to myself that the next time that I lost my virginity I was going to get drunk a week before and stay drunk.”

  Amanda was able to hold onto her virginity for another two and a half years. When it did happen it wasn’t a big deal. She had been seeing a boy who was a student at one of the other schools in town.

  She had been seeing him for almost six months. Their physical relationship moved slowly. When Amanda was ready, Carney got them a room in town. Later that night the boy dropped her off at her dorm. As soon as she walked into her room Carney had taped a large handmade sign over her bed that read. “Don’t forget I was first.”

  Carney and Amanda both graduated and received degrees in Liberal Arts. Neither of them had any idea of what they were going to do.

  Carney went to live with her father in San Francisco, and Amanda went back to live with parents in New York.

  Amanda got into the fashion world by pure luck and by being in the right place at the right time. An old friend at her mother’s church worked at a fashion and design company in Manhattan. On the woman’s suggestion she applied for a job at the woman’s company and got it. There was no particular reason that she would take to the fashion business, but she liked it. Within two years she had become the manager and top buyer for all the company’s material.

  Slowly but surely she was becoming one of the top buyers on “The Street.” She was then hired by another firm by the name of Black and Tan. It was one of the top class stores that catered to middle and upper class women. Amanda was given a fifty thousand dollar bonus and a yearly salary of seventy five thousand dollars. Five 127

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  months after she started working there the owner passed away and his children wanted no part of running the company. Before they could sell it off Amanda got them to sell her the store’s client list.

  They sold it to her for her fifty thousand dollar bonus money. As soon as she got the list she was off and running. She turned her small walk up apartment in Harlem, into an office. For over a year she struggled to make a go of things. There were many days when the light bill, the gas bill and the rent, had to wait until Peter, was able to rob Paul. Her outfits and designs were good but they needed a boost. That boost came when one of her evening gowns were seen on television being worn by an actress, while walking “The Red Carpet” at the Tony Awards. The next day the gown and it’s design were being pictured and talked about in every fashion magazine in the country. Amanda couldn’t believe that just a few weeks ago she was desperately trying to hold onto her business. Now she was adding names to her client list as fast as she could write.

  Amanda’s new store was located on Thirty Ninth Street, between Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue. The timing of opening her store could not have been better. It was at the exact time that

  “Women Of Color” were starting to earn good money in New York’s public and private sector. It was only n
atural that they would want to start wearing a better class of clothing that was more stylish. Amanda Fashions was right up their alley. What was also different was that almost a hundred percent of the other stores catered to small and petite women. The whole idea of Amanda’s business was that it mainly catered to women with hips and behinds as well as petite women. From the time that she opened her doors the company was swamped with orders over the phone and customers that walked thru the door. The work was hard and there were days when Amanda had to put in fifteen hour days. But it was her hard work that allowed her to buy her parents a new home in Florida, and help her sister and brother out. For herself she was now living in a high end apartment in the city, and being able to afford many of New York’s finer things. It was also this kind of success that had allowed her to send two of her most important employees to Paris.

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  Lavender Is A Harsh Mistress As soon as Willis and Marcus landed in Paris they checked into their rooms and went directly to bed. Marcus had always wanted to visit Paris. It was referred to as the “City of Lights.” Rome was called the “Eternal City” and since he had actually grown up there he wanted to see how the two cities differed. The first two days were vacation days that allowed them to do some sightseeing. Before they began any going out to see the sights, Willis came to Marcus’ room that morning to speak to him.

  “Marcus I don’t know if Amanda mentioned it to you but I wanted her to let you know I was gay.”

  “Yes, she did say something like that to me. But I didn’t know why that was necessary.”

  “I asked her to do it, that way you would have time to back out of going with me if you didn’t want to.” Marcus put a little more sugar into his coffee and took a sip.

  “I don’t get involved in other peoples sexual habits for one very good reason. I don’t want them getting involved in mine. So let’s just leave it at that alright.” For the next two days the two men explored as much of the city as daylight would allow. Marcus was especially thrilled to walk under the Arch De Triumph. This was the same arch that Napoleon had marched his Grand Army under. This was the same kind of feeling that he got in Rome. When he had walked along the same roads and streets that the Caesars had. He counted himself to be very lucky to be one of the very few humans to have been able to have done both. He and Willis had also taken in many of Paris’ many famous art museums and had also taken in a few shows. In the evenings before they turned in they would take long walks along the city’s beautifully lit streets. On the third day they got down to business and they got down to work. Marcus was glad to find out that Willis spoke pretty good French. It helped a lot when they needed to set up times and places for Amanda’s up coming shows. They were having dinner on their forth day when an old friend of Wills’ spotted them and sat down.