Ethel's

by Terry Brewer

  She went to Boston University, refusing to remain in the Chicago area where she was raised, coming home only for the summers. They still called her “Scarface” when they saw her in her little town. The only person who didn’t was Eric, a high-school classmate who came out as a freshman at Cornell. He, too, left their little town. She came close but never told him she was gay. He remained her sole friend from those days and that little town.

  She did well at BU and worked for an insurance company in lower Manhattan. Her being out in Bay Ridge was a pain for Paula but the distance only increased the fervor of each rendezvous. With Angela now spending most of her time at Nicole’s, Connie spent most Saturday nights with Paula in Jackson Heights and the four often met for brunch there or in Astoria.

  The first time Connie spent the night was three or four weeks after they met. A Saturday. They skipped Ethel’s and had dinner in the neighborhood. Both knew what was going to happen. Over their (shared) dessert, having already split the check, Paula asked in as sultry a voice as she could summon whether she could show Connie her “sketches.” After Connie stopped laughing, she leaned in and asked, “are they nudes?” Paula grabbed the younger woman’s hand and they were off to find out.

  Connie was the far more nervous. She had never been with a woman. She masturbated to lesbian videos and lesbian stories for years and she knew what she wanted and could only hope that, (a) Paula would want the same, and (b) she could do it.

  Paula’s nerves were more specific. She did not want to fuck it up with this woman. She knew that Connie was a complete virgin, never having been kissed until they shared an incredible one on the Coney Island boardwalk a few weeks earlier. As they walked to the apartment, Paula promised Connie that “this is all about you, okay?” Connie nodded.

  Once inside, four nervous hands and twenty nervous fingers undid what had to be undone. The pair stood naked except for bras and panties next to Paula’s bed. They had gone straight there. They kissed and Paula unclasped Connie’s bra and Paula reached back and undid her own and they, the bras, were on the floor.

  “Ready?” Connie nodded and they each removed their panties and Connie lay down on the bed and Paula lay atop her. Paula leaned up and ran her left fingers over Connie’s right breast and across her nipple. She moved to her side and moved Connie so she straddled her leg. Paula pulled Connie’s left hand to her pussy and drew the fingers across herself and Connie moaned and began to take control of her fingers while Paula reached around between Connie’s butt cheeks till she found her lover’s folds and began to run her middle fingers up-and-down and right-and-left, then brushing across the vagina as Connie began to curse and rock, maintaining just enough concentration to continue her fingering, putting her middle finger into Paula. The two were silent except for increasingly anxious moans until first Connie and then Paula came in slow gradual orgasms.

  It was enough for both of them. They lay in each other’s arms on the bed and told each other how much they enjoyed “that.” In Connie’s head she wrestled with the emotions she felt, trying to get them under control. So simple, barely any penetration yet…She neared but kept from falling into tears. Then after she and Paula peed, they and lay back on the bed staring at one another.

  Paula reached over and ran a finger along Connie’s scar. She raised her head and kissed it. Putting her finger to it again, she said, “Tell me about it.” As she did, Paula cried and now it was Connie kissing her lover’s face. “You are wonderful.” Connie denied it, but she turned to let Paula spoon her for the first time and they were soon dead asleep.

  January: Crisis

  It was Sunday morning. Early. Very early. Very cold. The streets of Astoria had the eerie echo of emptiness, the low sun casting its long shadows and the Christmas decorations still hanging across the street, swaying in the slight wind.

  Paula had been walking for hours. She hadn’t slept until she dozed while sitting on the steps that led to Nicole’s building. An FDNY siren two blocks away woke her and she pulled her phone. 7:48. She hit speed dial 4, Angela. It was answered right before Paula thought it destined for voicemail.

  “Paula, are you okay?”

  “I need to see you. I’m downstairs.” And a minute later Angela rushed through the front door in her coat and gave a hug to her shaking friend.

  “I cheated. Angela, I cheated on Connie. I don’t know what to do. I cheated on her. I knew I shouldn’t but—” and she couldn’t go on, sobbing into Angela’s left shoulder. She was freezing.

  Paula was somewhat recovered after sitting down for a few minutes in Nicole’s kitchen and when Nicole offered to go for a walk, Paula thanked her and waited until she was gone to take a breath and begin telling Angela what had happened.

  She was one of the “wrong women” that Paula had told Angela about from her dark days. She’d come up to her in the ladies’ room at Ethel’s about a month before and whispered, “you have my number. You know how to find me.”

  Connie was spending the weekend at her family’s place in Sag Harbor. Normally they would be together, but Paula was alone in Jackson Heights. She thought about it and thought about it. Then she was in a cab going to an apartment on the Upper East Side. Then she was eating this woman and tasting this woman and in the end servicing this woman who, when she was done, let Paula take care of herself in a bathroom and told Paula to leave because “I’m meeting someone downtown at ten.”

  “I’m horrible. You were right, Angie, to stay away from me. I am a fucking asshole and I don’t deserve any of you. I don’t deserve Connie. I can’t look at—” and again she could not continue. The two friends were now on the sofa, the younger Angela holding the older Paula, whose chest was throbbing as she did her best to exhaust herself of tears.

  After some time, Paula was able to say what happened.

  She was in the ladies’ room at Ethel’s about a month earlier when the woman came in with a tall Russian-looking woman with long blonde hair and a choker.

  “paulie. Long time no see.”

  Paula hated the name and stared at the woman in the mirror.

  “If you need me, you have my number. You know where to find me,” and with that she and the Russian girl entered a stall and Paula fled, rejoining Connie and saying nothing.

  When Connie was in Sag, Paula got her phone and scrolled. Her name was easy to find: “M JULIE.” It was about 7:30.

  “This is paulie.” It was all Paula could say.

  “You may come to me in one hour” and Mistress Julie gave her address, on Park Avenue in the Seventies, and one hour later Paula was in front of the doorman at the desk.

  “You must be paulie,” and when Paula said she was the doorman said, “12C. The door is open. She is waiting for you.”

  After taking the elevator up, Paula found the apartment and opened its door. Locking it after she entered.

  She turned into the large living room. Mistress Julie was sitting on a chair. Very expensive ivory blouse and short, black jacket. Black silk stockings and a garter belt. Four-inch heels. Nothing else. To her right, paulie’s left, and perpendicular to her was the Russian-looking girl. She was kneeling with her ass on her heels. Her hands were on her thighs. She wore a two- or three-inch wide collar. She was otherwise naked, with her hair in a pony-tail and a gold chain connecting nipple rings.

  Mistress Julie said nothing. She looked to the floor in front of her. paulie removed her coat and put her bag down. She was wearing her best, black slacks and an ivory blouse, although much cheaper than the one worn by Mistress Julie. Three-inch heels, the tallest she had. Without a word, she stepped deeper into the living room and lowered herself to her knees. She ignored the girl as Mistress Julie spread her knees, revealing her shaved pussy, and, still without a word from anyone, paulie crawled between those legs and as if pulled by a magnet her tongue was moving gently up-and-down the shaved pussy and paulie’s universe was between Mistress Julie’s legs and paulie fell into it, exploring the pussy, the slit, the clit, the folds, th
e hole until the thighs she knelt between shook and the otherwise silent Mistress Julie’s breath reached paulie’s ears in a susurrus and paulie kept licking and poking and sucking and suckling until she felt a tap on her head.

  “You may take care of your needs in the bathroom down the hall. I have an appointment downtown at ten.” And with that paulie stood and backed out of the room and turned to the indicated bathroom where, leaving the door open, she rubbed herself to a deep, intense orgasm. She removed her damp panties and left them on the sink, folded delicately. Without changing the mess that had become her face or the mess that was on her face she left.

  When she reached the living room, she turned. Mistress Julie was standing, in tailored slacks that matched her jacket. The Russian-looking girl—Katrina as she was baptized—was still kneeling in the same position but had turned so that she too was facing paulie, looking at the floor.

  “katty needed to be punished. she called you a ‘slut’ after seeing you at Ethel’s. That was wrong. you are a worthless slut, paulie, but only I may so refer to you. katty has been punished. you may go.”

  paulie turned to leave and gathered her coat and her bag. When she touched the doorknob she turned and stepped back into the hall outside the living room.

  “Thank you,” not looking up, and she left.

  When Paula reached the lobby, she could not escape the smirk from the doorman. She rushed onto Park Avenue and walked south and east, working her way to the walkway across the 59th Street Bridge. She crossed and turned north towards Astoria and then randomly wandered in the dark and quiet until she reached Nicole’s. It was cold and very dark but she found the sounds-of-the-night a comfort as she sat. It was 4, 4:30, and she dozed off, wrapping her coat around her as tightly as she could and putting the woolen hat that was in her bag on her head.

  * * *

  What Paula said was completely outside of Angela’s experience and of everyone else she knew. The only person she could think of calling was Maggie Owens at Ethel’s. She called the bar and left a panicky voicemail saying that she “needed to talk to Maggie as soon as possible about Paula.” While they waited, their panic and confusion increasing as they waited for Maggie, Angela and Nicole kept a watch over their sleeping friend. They had no Plan B.

  The problem, of course, was that neither knew why a strong smart person like Paula if told by a particular person in a particular way to jump would ask “how high?” This was someone’s life they were talking about and they had no idea what was going on in her head. Worse, they feared that they could do or say something that would make things worse.

  Maggie got into Ethel’s about a half-hour after Angela’s call. She was used to early-morning calls from panicked customers. “In an Emergency, Call Maggie.” She should just put up a sign behind the bar. It was part of the gig though, being the den-mother for clueless butches and femmes and dykes of every description. Usually, all it took was a bit of hand-holding, often with a “you’ll get through this” and “we’ve all been there.”

  This message was different from the normal. Angela didn’t mention Nicole. She mentioned Paula. So when she got to the message, she closed her office door and called Angela.

  Over the years she’d only done it four or five times but she knew a phone call would not do. She was quickly in a cab to Astoria. She found Nicole pacing on the sidewalk waiting for her. After getting the basics, the two went upstairs. Paula was asleep.

  Maggie sat in the living room with Angela and Nicole.

  She knew of Julie. “She’s bad news. She must have come to the bar while I was out.” This was when she was told about Paula running into her, and her katty, in the bathroom.

  “There’s all this horror about Domme/sub and even Mistress/slave relationships. They really can work and be as loving and complete as more ‘traditional’ ones. We don’t get them that often, but I know plenty of happy couples whose roles naturally fall into one or the other side. But they are always fully consensual and the Domme always takes her responsibilities to her sub seriously and the sub can always elect to leave. It’s all about trust, communication, respect, and honesty.

  “This woman, though, doesn’t give a shit for her subs. Complete power trip. She’s with this katty and she decides for the hell of it to drag Paula into it and then just throw her out. That’s what you need to understand, a true Domme/sub relationship can have cruelty embedded into it but it is never gratuitous. She wanted, apparently, to punish her sub, which is fine, assuming katty was there voluntarily. But why fuck with Paula the way she did? Because she’s a horror, because it’s all about her.”

  Angela and Nicole were numb. They had equated that lifestyle with perversion, of one woman being forced involuntarily to suffer at the hands of another. Leather and whips. Maggie repeated,

  “It may be hard to believe but lots of women, and men, especially the strong and successful, crave giving up control to someone else for part of their lives, often in the behind-closed-doors part of their lives. In a crazy way, the sub’s the one who controls, or at least should control, the relationship because it is all about her limits and her desires. The Domme can only go as far as the sub will let her and no farther. All the sub has to do is say her safe word.” To the other two, Maggie explained that the “safe word,” if used, requires the Domme to immediately stop what she is doing without question. “A sub can say ‘stop’ until she’s blue in the face but the Domme may, must, ignore it because it is never the safe word. ‘Red’ is a good safe word or ‘orange’ for that matter. It’s all voluntary.”

  Maggie was now pacing and getting angry at what happened to Paula because she, unlike the other two, understood how bad this was, how horrible what this woman did to Paula was.

  Why, though, was it so horrible? Paula had gone there voluntarily and everything she did while there was voluntary. The servicing, the dismissal, the humiliation. She had a history with that woman. Sordid, perhaps, but it was there.

  Angela spoke. She’d known Paula for a lot of years and they didn’t get along for most of them. Paula had confessed that her only happiness in relationships came when she felt like an equal.

  Maggie ended it by saying that all she could do was point out that it is not necessarily wrong, that it all came down to what Paula wanted, and that they had no idea, ultimately of what that was.

  “Here’s the deal. We don’t know anything. She needs to talk to someone who does. I think you two”—looking at Angela and Nicole—”need to help her find someone, a professional. But until that happens, you cannot make her feel like a shit. Okay? This may be who she is. You need to help her figure out who that is.

  “That’s all we can do. It’s up to Paula.” Maggie left.

  Connie. What was to be done with her? She was coming home from Sag Harbor late in the afternoon. When Paula finally got up and came into the living room, Angela sent her to the shower and it was almost a new person that emerged. Paula asked about Connie. She had three or four calls from her while she slept and she did not know what to say. In the end, they agreed that she should tell Connie at her place in Bay Ridge but say nothing out of the ordinary until then.

  It was cold. Paula and Angela could not sit outside her building. They found a coffee shop where they could watch. When Connie got out of her brother’s SUV and entered the building, they got up. At the building, Paula hit her buzzer.

  “Con. It’s me. We need to talk.”

  To say Connie was freaking out when Paula and Angela entered the apartment would be an understatement. There was zero chance that this was good and Connie was panicking. Angela went to Connie and held her hands and told her to listen to everything Paula had to say. Angela and Connie sat on the sofa, Paula across from them.

  “I cheated on you.” Angela tightened her grip on Connie’s arm to quiet her; Paula needed to be heard out.

  “I missed you and I went to another woman I knew before I knew you. I went to her apartment and I serviced her”—Angela further tightened her grip�
�”and she threw me out and I walked all night and I don’t deserve you and I’m so, so sorry.”

  Before arriving, Angela made Paula promise that whatever happened she would not leave until Connie could react. So Paula sat there while Connie processed what her love had said. She couldn’t. She couldn’t understand. What did she mean by “serviced”?

  She mustered her courage and she asked Paula. Paula said she got on her knees and ate the pussy of a woman she knew from before and whose pussy she had eaten years before, that when she was finished the other woman permitted her to get herself off in the bathroom, that the woman then told her to leave, and that a naked woman was there the whole time, watching in silence.

  Connie sat transfixed. Completely outside of her consciousness. Gibberish. She had eaten Paula and Paula had eaten her, but it was part of their passion. It was never “servicing.” It was loving one another. She did not understand.

  After a minute, Angela felt that she had to interject herself. She turned to Connie and explained some basics of a Dominant/submissive relationship, tightening her grip even more on Connie’s wrists as she did. While this was happening, Paula sat like a mannequin, expressionless and still. Her whole life might turn on what was happening in front of her, but she could not be part of this discussion because she had no concept of what she was herself thinking.

  Angela explained the idea of one person surrendering herself to another. She said that it could be an aspect of love but that it could be an aspect of hate. After looking at Paula, she thought it best to go for a walk with Connie. After getting Paula’s assurances that it would be okay, Angela and Connie put on their coats and headed out to Fourth Avenue.