by Lee Lynch
“You sure got style, Pam.”
“Oh, Frenchy, do you think so?” She sighed and sat on the couch next to Frenchy, a few dried flowers in her hand, looking like a picture, thought Frenchy, of a lovely woman.
“Sure I do, Pam. You look great, the table looks great, dinner smells wonderful.”
Pam lay her head on the back of the couch, suddenly still and relaxed. She smiled gently toward Frenchy. “Sometimes all I want to do is settle down with some appreciative woman like you and take care of her. Play house in a big airy space where every moment is planned and predictable. From nine to noon I’d draw, then clean house and prepare dinner in a leisurely way the rest of the day. She’d come home from work at five. At night we’d read by the fire, then walk hand-in-hand up the carpeted stairs and make love for hours, every night, till we were ready for sleep. Oh, Frenchy.” She sighed again as Frenchy leaned to kiss her gently, admiringly, lingeringly, her small hands gentle on Pam’s neck and shoulders. “You do have a way about you, don’t you,” Pam said. “You make me feel respected, delicate, instead of the big schlep I am.” Frenchy held Pam, simply held her, until the sauce began to burn and they both leapt for it.
Laughing, Pam said, “Typical, I can’t even be quiet without screwing up.”
“Listen, let me help,” pleaded Frenchy. “I got to be good for something.”
“Oh, I think I’ve figured out exactly what you’re good for,” Pam assured her, that salacious glint in her eye again. “But here.” She handed Frenchy the bread. “Cut it in half, butter it thickly, put some of this garlic on it.”
“Okay,” Frenchy said, cutting the bread in half with great care and concentration, thinking of Jessie helping in the kitchen. “Of course I’m butch,” Jessie had said, “but I’m more than that now.”
Finally, Pam lit the candles and they sat down to eat. With Pam’s glowing eyes across the candles, the meal was the best Frenchy had ever tasted. Their sexual excitement, their restrained desires, enhanced the common food. Garlic became an aphrodisiac, red sauce a sensuous texture. Halfway through the second bottle of wine, Frenchy vowed to step outside herself for the night.
She started by calling her mother. She was playing cards with the girls from work, she said, and would stay the night in Staten Island. Then she made up a telephone number and suggested that the phones on Staten Island didn’t work right because it was an island. She did not normally tell such outright lies, but she wanted tonight to be special, totally removed from her mother. Pam meanwhile had put a bossa nova record on the stereo, and though it was not her kind of music, Frenchy danced back to the table to it.
“Can you bossa nova?”
“Never heard of the guy.”
“Silly. Here, put your feet like this —”
Suddenly, she didn’t want to pretend anymore. Didn’t want to be civilized about seducing this woman. And she was a woman, not a girl. She fastened her eyes on Pam’s lips as Pam was watching their feet. In one motion, Frenchy turned to Pam and caught her face in her hands, pulling it to her so she could kiss her with the same kind of passionate abandon, almost desperation as Pam’s kiss the week before. The remains of dinner got cold, the wine sat uncorked and undrunk, while the two lovers turned and twisted their wet mouths against each other, and panted, and struggled to the bed. Pam’s robe fell off her shoulders, leaving her large, smooth shoulders open to Frenchy’s hurried kisses, then fell further so that her heavy breasts lay revealed to Frenchy’s open mouth and ceaseless tongue. Pam undid the robe’s tie, but Frenchy slid it apart. Now it was Pam who was overwhelmed by the inspired woman who was no longer careful or hesitant, but everywhere on her, hungrily sensuous and everywhere. Pam caught Frenchy’s sweatshirt and began to pull it over her head.
Frenchy stopped, dead still, looked at Pam with shocked, glazed eyes, then tore the shirt over her head and calmly, quickly, went to turn off the light. With only candlelight in the room, the tiny woman quickly removed the rest of her clothes.
Pam groaned as their naked bodies touched. Frenchy groaned as well. With her hands, her mouth, her tongue, with her words, Frenchy brought Pam to climax, and then lay back. Pam, as if sensing that this was not usual for Frenchy, crooned and comforted as she stroked her, slowed when Frenchy tensed, stopped and just held her, then went after her passion and wouldn’t let it go until Frenchy, too, had come, long and exquisitely.
Exhausted, they looked at one another in the candlelight. Pam finally laughed softly. “I knew you’d be good, but I never thought you’d be so passionate.”
“You make me feel funny.”
Pam laughed again, taking Frenchy’s small body in her arms and rocking her, squeezing her tightly to herself until their breathing quickened. The bossa nova kept playing.
Seeing, hearing, feeling each other’s desire, soon they were moving together again, a little slower, tireder, quieter. This time, Frenchy couldn’t finish, but when Pam promised in her breathy whisper, “Later, then,” Frenchy did, suddenly, with a surprised groan coming from her lips, her eyes half-open, able to see the pleasure this gave Pam. She felt insatiable, as if she’d never feel the end of this need for Pam’s touch, for Pam’s incredibly soft, enveloping, exciting body.
On and on it went, Frenchy’s night of fire, the only light the wavering sun of candlelight and then that too sputtered out. They fell asleep.
* * * * *
Sunday was a dark day. Frenchy showered at Pam’s apartment, but had to leave because Pam was visiting her own mother on Long Island. Her body, under the steaming water, seemed new. Every thought of what had passed between herself and Pam the night before sent waves of excitement through her. More than once Frenchy groaned almost audibly as she remembered certain of their touches. Where was Frenchy the butch now, she asked her body as she soaped it. She would never be the same, never be able to look at a woman in the same cool, appraising way. Somehow she was one of them now, not something other than what they were; no longer could she hold herself apart from their common experience.
Dried and dressed, she sat with Pam at the table, the remains of dinner still piled in the sink. “I’d be glad to clean up while you go off to the Island,” she offered.
“I’ll do it tonight. Or tomorrow. I’ve got nothing to do then.” Pam was dressed more neatly than usual.
They looked at each other with the memory of desire staining their eyes, its taste on their tongues, its power in the slight trembling of their hands when they touched.
“You take care, Frenchy,” Pam said at the door, hugging her protectively.
“You too, Pam,” Frenchy said, meaning it, wanting to say more, but not knowing what. She felt as if she would never see Pam again, as if their night had been a gift that couldn’t be repeated. “Can I call you?”
“You’d better.”
But Frenchy feared she might not, once the full impact of what had happened last night hit her. Even if she wanted to...
They ran down the stairs and walked as far as 6th Avenue together. Pam hailed a cab and Frenchy watched her ride off. Feeling as if something had been torn from her, she began to walk. At Sheridan Square she saw a subway sign that said South Ferry and remembered that she had resolved, when she was at Provincetown, to visit the docks, to ride the ferry. She went down the stairs and caught a train.
She found her way to the ferry slip as if in a fog. The terminal was huge and almost deserted, the boat larger than she’d imagined and carrying few passengers. Another kind of excitement, much different from last night, filled her as she heard the blasts of the ferry’s horn. She looked down into the water and, as she had in Provincetown, felt something stir very deep inside. Deeper than where Pam had touched her last night. The loading platform clanged closed and the boat moved out from the slip. The terminal slid backwards in Frenchy’s vision. The white water foamed up powerfully under the boat, and again Frenchy felt that sense of loss. The wind blew through her hair. She took her comb from her pocket, but stood, comb in her hand, trans
fixed by the receding city.
It was a foggy afternoon. Few pleasure boats were out. She’d given the last of her cigarettes to Pam and decided not to buy more, even when she discovered a snack bar within the cavernous, echoing boat. A few people slept on the benches on the bottom level where the water rolled by outside the windows. Iron stairways clanged under her feet. Eventually she found her way to the front of the ferry where huge ropes lay coiled, and chains hung across the bow. Wind pushed at her. She held onto a railing and swallowed mouthfuls of the wind, grinning at the salty spray that began to coat her face.
Here, she could think of Pam. She licked salt from her lips and remembered how they made love. How she had been made love to. How, holding Pam, she’d felt as this ship must on the undulating surface of the sea, hardly able to enter the water at all, large as it was. Yet the sea surrounded it, buoyed it up. And the pleasure of it, the crazy, all-consuming pleasure of it! She stared at the Bay, lulled by its motion.
Land was approaching. She felt she could ride back and forth on the ferry all day. Strange that she was ending up where she told her mother she was going: Staten Island. And really, compared to last night, she hadn’t done much more than play cards with most of her girls over the years, as she’d told her mother she had. She’d played hearts. And always won. Never got involved. Dropped each girl before she got too close. Then Mercedes had slipped into the deck.
As she paid her fare again and crossed to the returning ferry, the boat whistle sounded. It tore through Frenchy’s heart like the memory of Mercedes. She’d wrecked things all right. Driven Mercedes from her with her game of hearts. The game she’d always played to please her mother.
And what if she stopped playing? A wave from a passing boat threw spray into Frenchy’s face. Chilly and wet, she moved again to the front of the boat. As the boat neared it, the City grew bigger and bigger.
She stood at the bow, looking at the City with determination, her legs wide apart, her hands in fists at her sides. She felt as if she were going home, only not home to the Bronx. Home to a world of her own. Pam lived there: Pam and the Frenchy she was uncovering. Jessie and Mary lived there too. And Mercedes lived there. All of them, thought Frenchy, were doing okay out there on their own. When the ferry bumped the padded dock, Frenchy swayed, but didn’t lose her balance. Humming a bossa nova, she went into the City again.
Chapter 5
Baklava
December, 1966
Frenchy’s Saturday nights had changed. No longer did she willingly work until the last minute of a Saturday afternoon or even into the evening. She used her seniority to grab the choicest Saturday hours. She also used her good record and the high opinion of her boss to dare to wear pants — jeans — to work. She carried a big gym bag and changed into her boots, blue shirt and jean jacket after work right at the store, leaving through the big back storage room where no one else saw her. The bag she stashed in the tiny employees’ lounge where she could change back to her work shoes and smock on Monday morning.
Almost ready for the gay scene downtown, Frenchy hurried along the A&P alleyway away from her mother’s apartment, and walked several blocks out of her way to a subway stop in another neighborhood. She grabbed her pack of cigarettes at a newsstand outside the subway (her mother still had never seen her smoke) and dashed up the steps to the platform where she usually had time only to slick back her hair into its d.a. and pompadour before the train arrived. She checked out the car to make sure it hadn’t picked up a neighbor from its previous stop, but nobody went into the City late Saturday afternoon except her. As usual she’d told her mother she’d be playing cards with the girls from work that night, and would be spending the night at one of their houses. She suspected this story might be wearing thin, but her mother was getting older and older, and beginning to fail, and she didn’t seem to notice.
Pam, of course, was the reason for this change in routine. Frenchy was head over heels, not in love, but in desire, with her artist. They still had found almost nothing in common but their gayness, and Pam sometimes frightened Frenchy with her impulsive and irresponsible lifestyle. Yet they now had a bond deeper than any Frenchy had ever before shared with a woman. Frenchy, with Pam, had been able to throw off years of denial of her own womanhood, her sexuality. Every weekend she allowed herself to spend the night with Pam, to undress, to be made love to. Most exciting to her was that she did not feel threatened by the role she allowed Pam to take in their lovemaking.
She was still obviously as butch as she needed to be. If only all this had not happened too late. If only she could have changed sooner.... With Mercedes, it would not have been a matter of desire, but of love.
Tonight Frenchy was taking Pam to the bar. If Pam was in the mood. Pam never made promises to her any more, because Frenchy got too upset when she broke them. It was only because of the sexual spell Frenchy seemed to have woven around Pam that she managed to remember when Frenchy was coming and be home for her. In the weeks since the start of their affair, they had done little besides meet at Pam’s tiny, cluttered Village apartment and make love. Frenchy had made it plain that she was getting itchy for the bar and Pam clearly wanted to accommodate her if only to guarantee that Frenchy would spend the night.
Frenchy often wondered what drew Pam to a short, uncultured bulldyke from the Bronx. Pam was so sophisticated, artistic, educated. Nor did it seem to bother Pam to want nothing but sex from another woman, as if preferring that her relationships not integrate too many aspects of her life. If she met the woman with whom she could share sex, art, intellect, food, lifestyle, ambitions — then, said Pam, she would have met her future and would have to settle down. But Pam wasn’t ready to settle down yet.
So once more Frenchy skipped out of the Bronx the first chance she could get, and made a dash for Pam’s place, even sacrificing her ritual walk into the Village. Somehow, these days, she didn’t miss her first glimpse of the Women’s House of Detention at all. Full of anticipation, she rang Pam’s bell, knowing the pleasure they would give one another, excited to know she’d be in Pam’s arms in a matter of minutes, and relieved that she’d found a place where she was more of herself than she’d ever dreamed possible.
There was no answer.
Frenchy remembered that first time she had gone to pick up Pam. Surely Dorene wasn’t there today — it was 5:00 on a Saturday afternoon! And if she was— what would Frenchy do then? Pam wasn’t the kind to say she’d go with Frenchy, not officially. They hadn’t exchanged rings. She didn’t belong to Frenchy.
She rang again, angrily. How could she live like that, without knowing who would be in her bed that night? Frenchy felt a sudden pull at her heart: was Saturday night enough for her; did she see other women during the week, when Frenchy was working uptown? Sure she might, Frenchy slowly acknowledged, knowing Pam’s voracious sexual appetite. Even as much as they made love Saturday nights, Pam probably didn’t wait until the next week for more.
Discouraged, Frenchy leaned against the wall of the little vestibule, ringing one last fruitless time. The woman had made a fool of her. Stepping out behind her back while Frenchy let her do those things she did in bed. She felt used, violated. No wonder Pam didn’t respect her — she was a femme for her.
Someone was struggling with the outside door behind Frenchy’s back. Wearily, she turned to open the door, but then a smile transformed her face and she grabbed the door and yanked it open, Pam almost falling in on top of her, Frenchy catching the packages Pam dropped. She put her small arms right around Pam, packages and all.
“Frenchy, am I glad you’re here. I wouldn’t have made it another step. Look what I got!” she said, stepping back from Frenchy. “Dinner! Ever had artichokes?” Frenchy made a face through her smile. “And noodles. I’m going to make this great noodle dish: kugel. And in here, look!” She began to dig in a series of smaller bags.
Pam’s round gold bracelets clinked on each other as she raised her purchases in triumph. “For tonight!” She held a pa
ir of loose, black, oriental-looking trousers against her denim skirt, and a white low-necked top embroidered with multi-colored stitching. “For going to the bar tonight. I have the perfect jacket upstairs. You’ll never know I don’t go there every week!”
Frenchy looked skeptical as she led Pam upstairs, but was glad Pam hadn’t done anything really crazy, like buying butch clothes, because she would have refused to go.
“I’m really psyched up for tonight, Frenchy.” Pam unlocked her door. “Whoops, better not put these on the bed, we might need it.” She smiled over at Frenchy who had collapsed on the couch. Pam put the grocery bags on the kitchen table and sat next to Frenchy who had pulled off her boots. “Feet hurt? Cashiering is so hard on your feet.” She began to massage Frenchy’s feet through her socks, her back to Frenchy, who felt a stirring between her legs as she remembered Pam’s broad fleshy naked back.
“How’ve you been?” Frenchy asked.
“Frustrated,” Pam teased, looking back at her.
“How has your week gone?” Frenchy was thinking about the dozens of lovers Pam might have seen in the past week.
“Lonely,” Pam answered, pulling Frenchy’s socks off slowly, and kissing the bare, tiny feet.
“Do anything exciting?” Frenchy asked, beginning to realize that this crazy woman was making love to her feet and she, Frenchy, was getting turned on.
“Not till right now,” Pam murmured, pausing to turn Frenchy’s feet so that she could reach her soles.
“Oh,” Frenchy gasped, as Pam’s tongue ran, dry, over her soles, one after the other. Frenchy leaned to pull Pam to her, but couldn’t reach her. “Pam,” she said, “Pam.”