Lesbian Billionaire

by Olivia Hampshire

  An only child and always an admirer of the latest thing that was trendy, Nancy talked a lot about going to Smith College. She had heard the East Coast was super cool, and it was sort of a right of passage (as it continues to be today) for San Fran kids to head over to an East Coast liberal arts college for four years, just to get an air of culture and a taste of different coastal air.

  Harriet had never really thought much about a specific college that she wanted to go to. She knew she wanted to learn from her father and take over his jewelry business one day and be an upstanding member of the community and a role model for women everywhere. She thought that would be really groovy and she would be fulfilling women's rights as equal in the work force. But, she did have to go to college somewhere, and since her sister Jennifer was set on attending a local community college in the Bay Area, Harriet figured it might as well be Smith.

  One night when she and Nancy were seriously stoned off some powerful grass, in retrospect Harriet wondered if it hadn't been sprayed with something because as she remembered that night she was practically tripping balls with a slight but strong edge of paranoia. They were talking about college and all the great opportunities and all the boys that would be there.

  "Have you ever seen a penis?" Harriet asked, curiously.

  She had no male siblings and although she certainly must have caught some glimpses of her dad's ding dong when she was a little babe, she certainly didn't remember it.

  Nancy laughed, "Of course, Harriet. Don't be a blockhead!"

  Harriet confessed that she was actually scared about seeing a penis.

  "I know my sister hangs out with a lot of older guys, but I don't know. Something about the thought of it just creeps me out. It's like a naked, eyeless snake…" Harriet shivered, feeling the weed creep up on her bad and getting a nasty visual in her head.

  "It's not eyeless," Nancy laughed hard, almost falling off of her bed.

  Harriet looked at her confused.

  "It's the one-eyed monster, you dum dum! Jeez, you really don't know much about sex, huh?"

  Harriet confessed her ignorance. She had grown up without a mother, and no one had even given her 'the talk.'

  "Well, maybe we should do a little sex ed class right here, right now," Nancy proposed. She was giggling as she pulled down her tube top, revealing her large, creamy white breasts with peony pink areolas.

  "These are boobs," she said, jiggling her titties up and down.

  Harriet rolled her eyes. "I know that! Come on, Nancy."

  "Okay, okay," her friend laughed, getting undressed. "And this is a vagina," she said, removing her underwear. She lay down on the bed and spread her pussy lips wide. "These are the labia, and there's the clitoris right on top. The clitoris feels real good Harriet. Lots of guys touch me on my clitoris. Do you ever masturbate?"

  Harriet blushed a bright, deep red.

  The paranoia was kicking in hard now, and Harriet wished she was back at home or at least sober enough to get a hold of the situation. She could feel her cheeks on fire and she prayed inside her head that her mother in heaven wasn't looking down on her and judging her right now.

  "I'm going to guess by your face that's a yes," Nancy laughed. "There's nothing to be ashamed about, we live in a sex positive society. Our bodies ourselves, Harriet. Nothing to feel bad about. Why don't you get naked and show me how you do it?"

  Harriet was trembling, but she was also feeling quite turned on by her gorgeous, naked friend laying on the bed playfully rubbing her clitoris. So she got naked. She was surprised by how wet her pussy was.

  "Dang girl, come over here," Nancy laughed. They made out on her bed, whispering to each other words of sweet nothings. Then Nancy introduced her to her purple vibrator.

  For the rest of high school Nancy and Harriet had a secret, closeted lesbian relationship. They spent a lot of time together and they tried out different toys and different positions. They read the kama sutra and attended sex workshops sponsored by some of their favorite head shops. They got really good at fucking and they were really into it. Harriet spent a little bit less time at her dad's shop and a little bit more time with Nancy each year.

  Then it was 1963. The girls were hanging out together naked on Nancy's bed, exhausted from their latest romp between the sheets. They had decided to skip school that day after drinking too much the night before. Nancy didn't care much about her classes anymore and Harriet had mostly study halls on Friday. They both had a bad case of senioritis. They were smoking a joint and watching some silly cartoon, still feeling groggy and hung over. The weed alleviated the head ache, but it certainly didn't help with the lethargy. Suddenly, the broadcast was interrupted.

  "Oh lame," Nancy muttered, but their thoughts and expressions quickly changed when they heard the news. The president was dead. It was November 22, 1963, and 35th President of the United States John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been assassinated at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX.

  "Oh those shitbag Southerners!" Nancy exclaimed.

  Harriet was too shocked for words. Tears were rolling down her face. The two girls hugged each other, suddenly jolted out of their haze. Their hearts were pounding. What would this mean for their country? For life as they knew it?

  Well, the country recovered and went on, as it always does. And life went on too. But the friendship didn't. Something happened to Nancy that day, something Harriet could never understand. She fell into some sort of depression, like a dysthymic disorder, and she closed in on herself. She stopped hanging out with Harriet, took to going to the bars by herself late at night and hanging out with increasingly older men, and never finished any of her college applications.

  So when Harriet got her acceptance letter to Smith College, the moment was bittersweet. But hey, hadn't most of the moments in her life been like that anyway? Her birth had been no real occasion for celebration, so why would this important milestone be either? Why would the progression to adulthood be a big deal for a young woman like Harriet? She was feeling more than a bit down, to be honest, and she had no one to celebrate with anyway. Her father was at work, although she knew when she told him the news he would give her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and suggest they all go out for a fancy dessert to celebrate.

  Her sister was off cavorting with some wealthy trust fund fellow that she had met at a memorial gala for JFK. Jennifer was never one to keep up with politics, but she had a sort of crush on the president (she probably secretly daydreamed about becoming his secret lover one day and getting paid big bucks and living a glamorous life in exchange for a fuck or two every year), and she had been somewhat grieved by his death. The gala proved the perfect opportunity to meet a wealthy patron of the temple of Jennifer's vagina, and since she had met Patrick she had shown little interest in much else. She was barely passing her classes and hardly at school, and she appeared to have given up on her dream of attending community college. I guess Patrick was the one and she needed to look no farther.

  When Harriet heard Edward opening the front door that night, she grabbed her acceptance letter and headed downstairs to greet him with the good news. On her way down, she bumped into her sister.

  "I have something important to tell Daddy," Jennifer said, pushing her way ahead of Harriet and opening her arms in a wide hugging gesture, saying "Daddy! You're home!" in a saccharine sweet voice.

  "Yes, good to see you girls. I don't usually get such a warm greeting from you, Jennifer. What's going on?"

  Jennifer smiled, "well daddy, I have something to tell you. Something big."

  Her dad gestured for her to go on.

  Jennifer took a deep breath, "I'm pregnant!" she announced.

  Her father just stared at her blankly, not knowing what to say.

  "It's Patrick's baby, daddy. He wants to keep it. He asked me to marry him!"

  Edward gave a long, resigned sigh, and then, recognizing that marriage by baby to a wealthy young socialite was probably the best Jennifer would ever do anyway, he gave her his congratulati
ons and blessing.

  "Harriet, my dear," he said, turning to his other daughter who was still on the staircase, "how are you? I have been missing you down at the store."

  Harriet nodded. She had hid her acceptance letter behind her back. "I've just been busy, daddy. I'm sorry. Anyway, congratulations, Jennifer."

  Then she excused herself back to her room. She pulled out small nip of vodka that she kept hidden in her childhood jewelry box and drank it in one shot. Then she lay down in her bed and stared at the ceiling until she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 4, North Hampton Mass

  Smith College was not anything like what Harriet had expected. She had dreamed of a liberal paradise full of knowledgeable, self-affirmed young lesbians. She had pictured dorm room pow-wows where they discussed the latest liberal agenda while they snuggled and sipped hot toddies. Boy, was she wrong. What she found instead was that most of the girls were not lesbians, although many of them would engage in bi-curious escapades that were strictly cut off at graduation. Not only that, but most of them weren't very concerned with worldly matters or politics. They were kind of like Jennifer, very stuck on themselves.

  Harriet majored in economics, and although she was deeply interested in social justice and racial and economic equality, she found little of that discussed or practiced at Smith. Still, she did learn a very important lesson about the two types of money that existed in this world. There was old money, which was meaningful, powerful, and eternal, and then there was new money, which was weak and fleeting and meant very little to most of her peers. Harriet's father was new money. And so she mostly got ignored.

  It didn't bother Harriet too much. She found most of the girls to be incredibly boring. There was something about the upper crust of New England that was incredibly white bread and it was just dreadful to be around. Especially for a girl accustomed to the party scene in San Francisco. There were some big parties in the 5 College area, and there was definitely a lot of binge drinking, binge eating, and bulimia to be found (these things all seemed to go hand in hand), but pot was difficult to get ahold of and anything beyond that next to impossible. It just wasn't Harriet's scene.

  However, there was one girl amongst the many cookie cutter students that excited Harriet. She had met her in one of her Econ classes, but she had not really been able to strike up a friendship yet. She was a slim, athletic girl with an adorable short haircut and beautiful eyes. Her skin was naturally a bit tan, and she had the most charming, bright smile Harriet had ever seen.

  She introduced herself to Harriet as Marylynn Legrange. Judging from her responses in class, Harriet thought she was a very like-minded individual, but when she mentioned her name to one of her dorm mates they gawked at the fact that Harriet would even bother talking to someone like Marylynn.

  "You don't know the Legrange name?" her roommate asked her, marveling.

  Harriet shook her head no. "

  Uhhh, she comes from an extremely long line of wealth, dating way back to the 16th century. The Legrange family has owned coffee plantations in South America for a long time, and Marylynn will inherit her family's coffee fortune one day. I would be surprised if a girl like that wanted a thing to do with you."

  And even though something deep inside Harriet balked at the idea, she resigned herself to that truth and she decided to just observe Marylynn from a safe distance. It was like a high school crush or a celebrity obsession, but it would take Harriet a long time to work up the nerve to have a sit down talk with Marlynn.

  One day, during her sophomore year, Harriet got a letter in the mail from her father. It was a stock certificate for a thousand dollars in a company called McDonalds. That thousand dollars would multiply into over $5,000,000 by today's count, but Harriet had no way of knowing that back then. She hid it inside her desk drawer, but when her roommate went snooping and found it she showed it to the other girls in the dorm and they all laughed at her.

  "That's a burger company," they sneered, "how low class can you get?!" They all had a good laugh at Harriet's expense.

  Harriet was pretty 'low class' by their standards. And she proved it by holding a part time job during her college days. She worked at the school library on the night shift, putting books on the stacks and working at the circulation desk checking books in and out and assigning late fees to patrons. Occasionally she got to check a book out to Marylynn, and her heart always swooned as she made small, idle talk with the beautiful young woman.

  The library job was cushy and it was a lot of fun for Harriet. In addition to the random encounters with her crush, there was a black woman who worked there, colored was the term they used back then, named Roberta, and Harriet and Roberta really hit it off.

  Roberta was a young cleaning lady, not that much older than Harriet, but she did not have the opportunity to go to college. Still, she learned a lot just being a part of the college environment, and she got her own library card that she put to full advantage. Harriet knew she was one of the most conscientious of patrons, always returning her books in good condition and never incurring a late fee. During those often empty hours of the night shift Robert and Harriet would chat, and Harriet found Roberta to be a very positive, open, free, and happy individual.

  One night when Harriet was particularly bored she went to Roberta's supply closet to borrow some dust rags to clean under the circulation desk. When she got to the supply closet, she found Roberta dancing around energetically amongst the cleaning supplies and toilet paper. She was listening to James Brown's "Papa's got a Brand New Bag." Harriet liked the song. It reminded her of some of the good music she had heard performed in parks and civil rights' rallies in San Francisco. To Roberta's surprise, Harriet began dancing along. They had a grand time, and Roberta extended an invitation for Harriet to come chill with her sometime at her North Hampton apartment.

  "I got reefer," Roberta whispered. Harriet agreed it would be worth the trip.

  When Harriet returned to the circulation desk, totally forgetting the dust clothes, she was met with a frowning library director.

  "It's not like you to leave the desk unattended, Harriet. Someone could steal a rare book with you acting all loosey goosey like this."

  She gave Harriet hard glare over her eye glasses. "I've been noticing you spending a lot of time gabbing with that Roberta. I don't think I need to tell you that Smith girls do not interact with the coloreds. Especially not the help staff!"

  Harriet frowned, but she didn't talk back. She was looking down at the floor feeling thoroughly scorned. She didn't know that Roberta was watching from the sidelines, and she never noticed because when she looked up she saw Marylynn standing there, looking irritated as she waited for Harriet's conversation with the director to end so she could return some books. When Harriet saw Marylynn she flushed a bright red and hurried to help her, gazing at Marylynn with an embarrassed longing.

  That weekend when the library closed on Sunday night, Harriet headed over to Roberta's apartment. It was the first time she had some good pot in a long time, and she and Roberta drank, ate some good soul food, and listened to good music. At some point, Harriet asked Roberta if she had a boyfriend, and Roberta told her, "Oh yes, baby. I got a boyfriend and he is a mighty fine white man. A rich white man!"

  They both laughed hard. It made sense, Harriet had been wondering how Roberta could afford such a nice apartment on a custodian's salary.

  "Don't you have any problems being an interracial couple? The white people around here don't seem all that friendly," Harriet asked.

  Roberta told Harriet that no one knew about their relationship, but she wouldn't give a darn if they did anyway.

  "I don't give a flying fuck what anyone thinks. I fuck this boy's eyes right out. When I'm done with him, he look around, and he don't even know if he's in North Hampton or Timbuctoo, all he knows is he got a good nut off and he gives me a very big sum of money and he is on his way. 'Course, if his parents ever found out what was going on, oooooh boy," she chuckled. "Anyway,
I don't care what anybody thinks. I live the way I want to live. I'm not like you."

  Harriet frowned when she heard this last statement.

  "What do you mean you aren't like me?" she asked.

  Roberta told her, "you know what I'm talking about. I seen those goo goo eyes you give Miss Marylynn all the time. That rich, hot white girl. You know you want it, but you scared to make a move for it. You scared someone might say something. Well, I don't live like that. I don't hold back just because someone might say something. You need to grow up girl, get real with yourself. If you like girls, like girls. Be yourself, be bold, be brave, and have some fun!"

  Harriet felt like she had heard those last words before…

  "Anyway," Roberta added, "colored people have been fucking white people for ten thousand years, and boys been fucking boys for twenty thousand, and girls, honey, they have been eating pussy for thirty thousand! So go on, honey. Be yourself. Why hide it?"

  A year later, Harriet finally took Roberta up on her advice. The movie Who is Afraid of Virginia Woolf was shooting at Smith. It had all of the students, including Harriet, very excited about the possibility of meeting movie stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in real life. Harriet won a raffle to be an extra and attend an evening shooting of the film. She was allowed to bring one friend, and she knew right away who she would ask.

  She and Marylynn had a blast at the shooting. They got to shake hands with movie stars and there was champagne passed around after the shooting and everyone got pretty tipsy. When the evening wound down, Marylynn suggested that Harriet join her back at her off campus apartment. Harriet was delighted to agree.

  When they arrived, Harriet was taken by pleasant surprise when Marylynn shut and locked the door behind them. She slid off her jacket and let it fall to the floor. "Look, Harriet, in a few moments I am going to kiss you. And if I like it, then I'm going to do some more. And it's going to be really, really good. But there's a catch. Whatever happens between me and you is something that nobody ever gets to know about. Do you understand?"