The Swashbuckler

by Lee Lynch

  “You sure are looking handsome.”

  Frenchy allowed a smug expression to cross her face. “So are you, angel baby. Real pretty. I like that sweater,” she said, touching it lightly on Donna’s breast.

  “Hey,” Donna objected, pulling back. “You want us to get arrested?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a night locked up with you, beautiful,” Frenchy smirked.

  “In there, bigshot?” Donna asked, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb at the Woman’s House of Detention. Its windows were empty now and the building looked heavy, looming over the intersection where they stood. “The house of D isn’t my idea of a good time. How about it tonight, though? You got a place we can go?”

  Frenchy smoothly took a drag on her cigarette. “No, I couldn’t come up with any place.”

  “Did you try?” Donna asked sarcastically.

  “Sure I did, babe.”

  “Well, I did,” Donna said proudly, patting her hair back where the warm city breeze had pushed it. She raised her penciled eyebrows. “What do you say, lover?”

  “Where is it?” Frenchy asked, coughing on her smoke, her poise shaken.

  “Marie’s got a friend with an apartment in the city. He’s out of town. All we’ve got to do is make sure Marie’s got a date. And it looks like you made sure of that when you brought Jess along.”

  Frenchy silently cursed Jessie for breaking up with her girl. “Donna,” she began, leading the way along the sidewalk toward the bar, glancing back to make sure Jessie and Marie were following. “Donna, I can’t tonight.”

  “How many times are you going to give me that?” Donna whispered angrily. “I finally got us a place, something you say you can’t do. It doesn’t cost any money. It’s private and away from our neighborhoods and you’re telling me you can’t?”

  “Donna, honey, you know I love you,” Frenchy said, tossing away her cigarette and placing a hand on Donna’s arm. “I just didn’t know. How could I know you’d have a place tonight?”

  “Sometimes I’d swear you’ve got another girl, Frenchy. I don’t know why the hell I bother with you.”

  “I don’t, Donna, you got to believe me.” Frenchy’s brow was creased and her eyes had the look of a trapped animal. “Come on, girl, you can believe me,” she said, shaking Donna’s arm.

  “Stop it, Frenchy, don’t make a scene. I brought Marie down here for a good time. She’s never been with girls before. Except me, when we were kids.”

  “You two? That’s a laugh. You’re both femme!”

  “Hey, we were only kids. It was a few years ago. We were experimenting. We both liked it, but we were scared to talk about it till a few months ago. Then when I told her I’m gay she wanted to do it again. I told her how I’m femme and all. Besides, we’re cousins. It wouldn’t be right for us to do it together now we’re older.”

  “No,” Frenchy agreed thoughtfully, “it wouldn’t be.” She glanced around at Marie who smiled brilliantly toward her. Frenchy turned back and hitched up her jeans again, bowing her legs more and swaggering.

  “You have your eye on her?” Donna asked suspiciously.

  “No, angel. What are you so jumpy about? I’m just making sure Jess is showing her a good time.” Frenchy was thinking about how sexy Donna’s tall cousin was. She really ought to bring her out herself, not Jessie. There was something clumsy about Jessie. What did the femmes see in her? She was a great pal, but still, if it was the girl’s first time out with a butch, someone more skilled ought to do it. Donna’s fooling around with Marie didn’t count, they hadn’t known what they were doing. She needed an expert, somebody with a lot of experience. Somebody talented — like Frenchy. One of her girls had told her that. What was Donna complaining about, she wondered. She gave her a good time even if they couldn’t stay together all night. She’d probably be ugly in the morning anyway, she thought, remembering her mother making breakfast all those years, her hair still in pincurls, no pencil on her eyebrows yet, her shapeless nightgown hanging sloppily on her body. No, she preferred her girls all spiffed up on a Saturday night, looking their best. She remembered to put more spring in her diddy-bop. Marie might be watching her.

  “Hey, you coming in?” Donna asked, stopping.

  “Sure, I was thinking.”

  “I thought I heard wood burning,” Jessie quipped as she halted next to Donna and Frenchy.

  Marie laughed and looked excitedly at the door to the bar. “I’ve never been in a gay bar before.”

  “Don’t worry, beautiful, we’ll protect you, right, Jess?”

  “I’ll protect you from Frenchy, is more like it, ain’t it, Donna?”

  “Hey, I thought you were my friend.” Frenchy playfully punched Jessie, and held the door for Donna.

  She and Jessie paid the bouncer and the group walked the length of the bar. Frenchy half-wished she were sitting at the bar cruising all the women who went by. If she wasn’t with Donna and wasn’t Jessie’s friend, she wouldn’t have to keep her hands off Marie. I’m falling in love, she thought, then smiled over at Donna as they reached the back room.

  They sat at the last empty table. Frenchy looked around the small room. She waved at a few women and nodded distrustfully to the man who sat with his arm around his bleached blonde girl friend. Potbellied and middle-aged, he was one of the owner’s friends. Every week some man like him sat surveying the dykes. It made Frenchy mad. She could imagine what the men thought. More than once she’d been approached to accompany a straight couple home. The men acted like they had a right to be there, in her bar, just like out on the street they thought they had the right to humiliate her. “Pervert,” she hissed low, wishing she didn’t even have to dance in front of this week’s grinning man.

  “Okay, girls,” the waitress said. “What’ll it be? How you doing, Frenchy? Still got the shackles on Donna, huh? Let me know when you’re free, Donna.” She winked.

  “You live around here?” Donna asked the waitress. Frenchy turned to stare at her.

  “Over on the East side, hon. Got my own place. You come up any time at all.” She turned to Frenchy. “Just kidding, lover. I wouldn’t touch her.”

  Frenchy eyed the waitress’ slicked back hair and the white turtleneck she wore under her black shirt. She was competition, Frenchy decided. “Give me a seven and seven,” she ordered sull-enly, throwing a five-dollar bill on the table.

  “Jealous?” Donna asked.

  “Let’s dance,” Frenchy said roughly, pulling Donna from the booth with her. Little Anthony and the Imperials sang Tears on My Pillow. She walked bowlegged onto the floor, holding Donna’s hand and scowling at the waitress’ back. She told Donna harshly, “I don’t want you fooling around like that.”

  “Why not? It’s a free country.”

  “Yeah, but you’re my girl.”

  “Not hardly.” Donna yanked herself away from Frenchy.

  Frenchy pulled her back. “Keep your voice down.” She looked around and deliberately took her jacket off, still moving to the music. She leaned off the dance floor to lay it neatly on the back of her chair, then returned to Donna and looked into her eyes. “You don’t want to be my woman any more?” She neatly rolled her blue sleeves up toward the elbows and took Donna into her arms once more. “Don’t you remember the good times we’ve been having?” She knew she sounded half-hearted, her uncertainty about wanting Donna in her voice. But if Donna was going to give her a hard time, better to get out now.

  Another woman caught her eye. Her long blonde hair was in a flip and she was wearing a straight light green skirt and a silky white blouse, the collar wide open and flat against her throat. Such pretty blue eyes, Frenchy thought as she brought herself back to Donna.

  “I want someone who’ll hold me all night, Frenchy. Don’t you understand that I want a girl who’ll take me home?”

  “You want a woman who’ll keep you home. You want a husband,” Frenchy accused.

  Donna’s dark eyes flashed anger and she pulled away. Frenchy grabb
ed at her arm, looking around to see if anyone had noticed. The other couples were either pressed against one another, dancing, sweatily erotic in the dim smoky light, or stared unseeingly at the dancers from their crowded tiny tables. “And what’s wrong with wanting that?” Donna asked loudly. “I’m twenty-three. I want to settle down. I thought...” Her voice broke and she chewed her gum for a moment as she let Frenchy lead her into the dance again. Tears on My Pillow, Little Anthony sang. She raised her head and looked wistfully at Frenchy. “I thought you might want to settle down too. I mean, you have a steady job, but no place of your own. I thought maybe we could get together.”

  “I ain’t the marrying kind,” Frenchy said, remembering the dream she’d once had of having a woman to come home to.

  She’d never quite figured out how to do it, how to hide her gayness and live with a lover; how to be a butch and look the way she needed to when she was with her femme, yet pass for straight otherwise. How to figure out the dozens of other details about a split life.

  “No.” She shook her head. “You were wrong. I’ll never settle down. I like the gay life, the bars. I like having a good time.”

  “I’m tired of it!” Donna pushed Frenchy aside. She struggled through the crowd to her seat. Whispering something to Marie, she picked up her purse and walked around the dancing couples and out of the back room.

  Frenchy watched her, sadness welling up. She was going to miss Donna, she thought as she finished rolling up her sleeves. She shrugged when she reached the table. “Easy come, easy go.” She picked up her drink and swallowed it in three gulps, grinning down at Marie.

  “You drink fast,” Marie said, impressed. “Doesn’t that get you drunk?”

  “I can hold my liquor,” Frenchy bragged, slipping her hands into her pockets, feeling the hot alcohol press down on her sadness. She shrugged again. “How are you two doing? You look like you’re getting along like a house on fire.”

  Jessie blushed to the roots of her wave. Then she smiled toward Marie. “Want to dance?” Marie grinned across at her and gave her hand to Jessie. Frenchy could see their excitement about each other. “What happened to Donna?” Jessie asked Frenchy.

  “It’s over.”

  Jessie looked sad. “Tough break.”

  “Love ’em and leave ’em,” Frenchy said, standing. “You two have a good dance. I’m going to see who’s here.”

  “She always bounces back fast,” Jessie explained to Marie.

  Frenchy moved from table to table, greeting almost half the women in the back room. By the time Jessie and Marie had danced their third slow dance, to Exodus, bumping and grinding as close as the bar owners would allow, Frenchy was dancing too — with the blue-eyed woman. She held the woman loosely and they talked as they danced. Afterward they pushed their way to the table. “This is Edie,” Frenchy said to Jessie and Marie.

  “Hiya, Edie.” Jessie smiled, shaking her head in wonder at Frenchy.

  Soon after that the two couples separated for the night. Edie and Frenchy walked hand in hand along Greenwich Avenue past the male hustlers leaning against buildings.

  “I better be getting home pretty soon,” Frenchy sighed. The Village was difficult to leave. Even in darkness it seemed to glow, to light up the sky out of sheer Saturday night energy. The streets were still crowded, but now with young straight couples nervously visiting the bohemian coffee houses in their shiny shoes and pastel dresses. Beatniks shuffled beside their guitar cases to join other folk singers in their many gathering places. A few bars flashed neon signs, restaurants were still full.

  They walked all the way to the East side to catch Edie’s subway. Washington Square was quiet as they passed, though in one corner a classical guitarist played for some straight lovers. From Fifth Avenue on, New York University seemed to dominate the streets, silent and empty of its students. The streets narrowed, and warehouses began to appear.

  “It seems awfully early to go home,” Edie said as her station came into view.

  “By the time I take you home and go back to the Bronx it’ll be a lot later.”

  Edie’s face brightened. “You’re going to take me home?”

  “At least as far as the subway goes. You think I’d let a beautiful woman like you walk the streets of the City alone at this time of night?”

  “That’s sweet of you. Somehow I imagined if I could ever meet a woman my first try tonight we’d go back to her place or I’d go home alone. I never thought of being escorted home.”

  “Queers are just like anybody else, baby. Got respect for a woman, treat them politely. Why,” Frenchy drew herself up to her full height, “it wouldn’t be gentlemanly of me to let you go all the way out to Queens alone.” She was proud of the way she had skirted the issue of spending the night with Edie. “Just like I’d never ask a girl to — you know — go against her principles the first night.”

  “You’re adorable.” Edie laughed affectionately as they descended the subway stairs. “I just never imagined myself with someone like you,” she said when Frenchy insisted on putting a token of her own in the turnstyle.

  They walked past the blue and white tiling which lined the walls of the small station. “And I never imagined I’d have such a good time with a college girl. Or that a college girl would be interested in me,” Frenchy said modestly.

  “Why wouldn’t I be interested? You’re cute. And interesting. And sexy.”

  Frenchy leaned against a dark green iron column. “You think so?”

  “I never dated a boy as good-looking as you. They don’t go for my type: too studious.”

  Frenchy saw her reflection over Edie’s shoulder in a mirror on a gum machine. She smiled and took Edie’s hand. “I’m just glad I got to you on your first night downtown before someone else did. Were you nervous, coming down to the bars by yourself?”

  Edie flushed. “I was,” she said, her blue eyes seeming to search Frenchy’s for sympathy and comfort. “But you rescued me,” she said, laughing.

  “How’d you know where to go?” Frenchy asked, moving slightly closer to her.

  Edie stepped back a bit, as if afraid. Her warm laugh had turned to a nervous giggle. “My aunt is gay. She lives in the Midwest, but I wrote her a letter hoping she would know where I could go to see if I was gay. She said there used to be a place — The Sea Colony — and told me how to find it. She wished me luck.” Her eyes twinkled with confidence again. “I guess her wish came true.”

  Frenchy had leaned closer, and Edie’s eyes glittered. She seemed to have lost her breath while she spoke. Frenchy leaned up and kissed her, a fugitive kiss taken in fear that someone would come through the turnstyle, but Edie relaxed into Frenchy’s arms as if in relief. When they leaned back to look at one another Frenchy could tell Edie had found her answer. Edie grabbed her and returned the kiss, knocking Frenchy slightly off balance. “Hold it, hold it,” Frenchy said gently, gaining control. “Somebody might come,” she whispered against Edie’s lips. She was a little taken aback by Edie’s aggressiveness.

  Edie didn’t seem to care who came. “I’ve waited for a long time to be here, to be doing this,” she said, tossing her hair back and straightening the white cardigan. “Isn’t there somewhere we can go?”

  Frenchy joyously sang more of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow in her head. She looked toward the women’s bathroom. Edie had too much class, she thought, to want to make out in a bathroom. But Edie had seen where she was looking and tugged at her until Frenchy led her inside. The floor was littered and the tiny room smelled strongly of disinfectant. They leaned against a grafitti-covered stall, kissing each other lightly, then more and more hungrily until Frenchy began to pass her hands across Edie’s body and over her breasts, creating sparks on her silky blouse. Their breathing was so loud in the silence of the white tiled room that they barely heard their train in time to catch it. In an empty car they leaned on each other breathlessly, laughing and straightening their clothes. “You’re pretty wonderful,” Frenchy said, sque
ezing Edie’s hand one last time as they pulled into 23rd Street and other passengers filed sleepily on.

  They changed trains at Grand Central, staring into one another’s eyes as they waited under the stairs, out of sight of the platform. Frenchy was glad she had broken up with Donna. The excitement had pretty much left that relationship, and she had almost forgotten how exhilarating it was to start a new affair. Especially when she was bringing someone out. Her heart pounded until it seemed as if her whole body must pulsate with it. Her hands were like ice, she shook inside. She was as excited as a kid going to a party, at moments so excited that a cold sweat broke out all over her body and she was almost overcome by a wave of nausea. This was living. This was the gay life. This was what made it all so worthwhile. It was a high better than any liquor could bring. The woman she was with became a thousand movie stars rolled into one — the most beautiful woman in the world. The subway became the most romantic of places, its trains rushing to exotic parts of the city, its passengers mysterious in their Saturday night finery, its promise of new destinations and new women. The Village truly was lined with magic lamps to lead her to all this.

  Frenchy’s life had become adventurous once more. She was swashbuckling. She stood tall in her black pointed boots and gazed romantically at Edie and felt herself melt in Edie’s adoring, desiring gaze. When the train came they huddled on a double seat at the end of a car and Frenchy grinned at everybody who stared at them. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She remembered once riding out to the end of the Flushing line with another woman and stopping at Willets Point; it had been big — and empty. She pulled Edie off the train there and led her to a high-backed wooden bench with seats on both sides. They went around to the side that faced the express tracks, empty this time of night. “I love you, Edie,” Frenchy breathed as they sat. “I don’t want to leave you yet.”

  “Let’s just sit here awhile.”