..SAPPHO RISING
by
mary vasiliades
Smashwords edition
published by Mary Vasiliades at smashwords
copyright 2009 Mary Vasiliades
All Rights Reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
CHAPTER 1
Women were standing three deep at the long mahogany bar that stretched like a runway toward a postage-stamp dance floor crowded with women dancing intimately with each other. The DJ tucked away in one corner of the room always managed to play a few dreamy numbers for the older dykes and women in love. Otherwise, the music was disco.
Strobe lights flashed blindingly with dancers frozen for a split second in illusion of suspended animation. Their faces were lesbian aboriginal masks painted with time and expressions of agony and ecstasy, agony and ecstasy. Their fat, thin, short, tall bodies moved rhythmically as if they were one creature with many parts, some jerking awkwardly, others moving with the grace of a beautiful lily in the wind.
Hillary Lambert sat perched on a bar stool, her knees thrust forward, her feet resting on the middle rung. She didn’t want to miss any of the action, no matter what it was. She was alone and he felt a little nervous. It was cruising time. Women trying to score with other women—who would make the first move? That was always the question in a lesbian bar.
Hillary was not shy and when she saw someone who looked interesting she would try to make eye contact or conversation. She was an attractive woman with a country look about her—clear blue eyes, even features, and naturally blonde curly hair. She was nearly thirty, but didn’t look it. She dressed casually in her Calvin’s and silk blouses.
Hillary searched out the faces of the women about her, feeling sure that none of them was the one she couldn’t find. The New York scene was an exciting mixture of racial and ethnic types: sensuous, sexy haughty women with tan and brown and black and yellow and white skin. They were big or petite, with muscles or birdlike, street-smart and hard, sweet and innocent, cunning and dangerous, slick and sensational, young and old, fun and boorish. There was always something for everyone in this grab bag community but Hillary was still searching.
Women loving women—the exhilaration of that never ceased to amaze Hillary. It was so natural, so fulfilling, so wonderful. It was hard to believe that only a small percent of the population understood that and shared her feelings. Her own parents never understood. When she told them that she was a lesbian, her mother cried and her father shouted: “It’s that women’s lib. I knew they’d make a queer out of you. You’re not a man. You can’t love a woman . . . not . . . not that way. My God, not that way—not the way a man can—my God.”
But Hillary had loved a woman that way—more than one. Her attraction for members of her own sex began in high school. She had lots of boyfriends, but her intense relationships were always with girls. She felt more at ease with them and trusted that they would understand her feelings. They would become very close and feel jealous and possessive of one another. Many of these relationships would end badly in petty squabbles.
In retrospect it seemed to Hillary that the angry battles with her girlfriends were a way of denying her lesbian feelings, something she never discussed with them and they never with her.
In the summer of her sixteenth year, Hillary had her first and her most thrilling and traumatic lesbian relationship. She lost her virginity with a girl named Iris Reed, who lived in a wood-frame house two blocks away from hers in a town on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.
She and Iris had never been very friendly until that summer. They had taken a modern dance class together and became very close, emotionally and physically. They often were partners in the class and would touch and put their arms around each other during certain dance routines. At first Hillary thought nothing about it but after a while she noticed she would feel a rush when Iris came near her.
Iris felt very attracted to Hillary and had a genius for thinking of ways to engage in physical contact with her. It was one of those times that led to their tragic affair.
Iris was a mirror image of Hillary. Her head was a mass of red corkscrew curls and her eyes were lime green. Her white, even teeth seemed to glow whenever she smiled, which was most of the time. She was a free spirit and full of love and adventure. She had invited Hillary to spend the afternoon listening to her new stereo and the details of her date with her latest boyfriend. They were sitting on her bed when she stared at Hillary and said impulsively, “There’s something I’ve always wanted to try with you.”
“What?” Hillary responded.
She giggled. “Something I heard about once . . . ah . . .” she hesitated and then blurted, “put your arms around me and pretend you’re my . . . my girlfriend-girlfriend. You’ve got to nibble on my ear and get all hot and bothered.”
“You and your silly games,” Hillary said as she started nuzzling Iris’s ear, which she really enjoyed doing though she would deny it at first. “I hope no one sees us doing this. They’ll take us away to the loony bin.”
Iris slid over to the middle of the bed and stretched out. “Lay on top of me.”
“This is crazy,” Hillary whispered as she lowered her body toward her friend.
“I have this urge to kiss you,” Iris said and pulled Hillary’s face toward her, planting a big kiss on her mouth, a comic kiss at first but then it became serious and lasted and lasted and lasted. After a while, Iris slid her tongue into Hillary’s soft, warm mouth, provoking a wild response in both of them. A burning desire surged through them, silencing any doubt or guilt they might have felt about what they were doing.
It seemed so right to touch each other’s breasts, peel away their clothing and explore each other’s bodies with their hands and mouths.
They had never examined another woman’s cunt before. “Yours is so tight,” Iris giggled. “It tickles my nose.” She kissed her there and found that exquisitely sensitive G-spot the magazine writers all talked about.
Hillary’s body seemed to explode as Iris engulfed her with passion and excited her so much she could barely breathe. Iris was everywhere, her hands and mouth never stopping. It was an experience Hillary would never forget and would relive year after year. This was her first real sexual experience, lesbian or otherwise. She had just necked and petted with boys she had gone out with, and only one had her permission to touch her G-spot, though the others tried and tried. Oral sex was totally new to her but obviously not to Iris. Hillary was a good student and learned quickly. She felt slightly dizzy from the sweet scent of Iris’ body, which seemed to be flavored with ginger and a drop of honey. She plunged into her and kissed and caressed until they both were gasping for air.
Iris spoke first. “God, Hillary, I can’t believe how you make me feel. A hundred boys have tried, but none has ever made me feel what you just made me feel. You’re unbelievable.”
Hillary kissed her hard. “Let’s do it again.”
They made love all afternoon and every chance thereafter. Sometimes they would meet in a remote part of the woods near their home and make love in the bushes. Other times they would brazenly go to a beach get under a blanket and hope no one realized they were both girls. The fear of getting caught gave their affair an air of excitement and adventure. Iris needed that more than Hillary.
They were on a perpetual high. Their affair continued all summer and through the school year. They would go out on double dates and arrange to stay at each other’s home. Their male friends never knew that the “date” was just beginning after their goodnight kiss. Their need for each other had a desperate quality, especially for Iris. She hungered for sex and affection, as if she were trying to make up for what she didn’t get from her parents.
Iris’s parents were hardworking and religious. They always said grace before every meal and attended church every Sunday. They hoped Iris would marry young so that they wouldn’t have to worry about her losing her virginity and getting pregnant. Abortion was unthinkable. Their major interest was their young son, Jerry. He spied on Iris and Hillary and watched them kiss and make love. He never mentioned it to anyone, but he did think it was peculiar for two girls to act that way.
The desire and passion that smoldered constantly between Iris and Hillary could never be satisfied. Once at a house party they slipped away from their dates, who had passed out from drinking too much, and locked themselves in a bedroom so they could make crazy, passionate love. “Someone is going to find us,” Hillary said, feeling scared.
“They’re drunk, asleep or gone,” said Iris. “Take off your clothes.” She put her arms around Hillary’s naked body and held her tight. “I love you so much,” she murmured. She could feel Hillary’s body respond to her caresses. Passion rushed through her and she felt an aching need to devour Hillary. She cried, “I want all of you.” Iris enjoyed every inch of Hillary’s body. She took charge and knew exactly how to play her love song.
Hillary forgot her fears and trembled with excitement. “It’s not fair,” she protested jokingly. “You’ve got your clothes on.” She hurriedly pulled at her lover’s blouse and unbuckled her jeans. Iris never wore underwear.
They stretched out on the floor, their naked bodies entangled in geometric positions that defied description. They had by this time mastered the art of simultaneous orgasm, and always reached a crescendo which left them feeling weak and disembodied.
“I love you so much, Iris, I wish we could run away and always be together.”
Iris sighed. “Let’s get out of here and go to my house, Hillary. My mom and dad and Jerry are visiting my uncle this weekend. They think I’m going to be at your house.” She grinned. “I lied.”
“My folks think I’m staying with you, so let’s go.” They pulled on their clothes and sneaked away, thinking their boyfriends were still sleeping in the living room.
The two young women drove silently in Hillary’s car, both of them feeling high from their lovemaking and the excitement of the evening ahead. The house was just a few miles away. They were in such a hurry they hadn’t noticed that they were being followed. Iris’s bedroom was on the ground floor. They were on the bed in a matter of minutes, arms circling each other, caressing, sending heated messages of passion as they explored each other as if it were their first time together.
Hillary broke the silence. “We must be jet propelled amazons.” She rolled away from Iris and took a deep breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever run out of energy when I’m near you.”
Iris laughed and grabbed her. “Me neither. I need another fix.” Her body moved with joy as she indulged herself in another unbelievable sensation, feeling as if she had reached the stratosphere of pleasure. She and Hillary moved as if they were one body, pushing upward, upward until they reached the heights together. Iris shrieked in ecstasy, then went limp in Hillary’s arms. They felt safe and secure in their love, until that split second when they heard angry voices outside the window, cursing them and calling them ugly names.
Life was never the same them after that night.
A rumor circulated in school that they were lesbians. It didn’t take much imagination to guess who had started the story. Their girlfriends stopped hanging out with them, and the boys were openly hostile.
A boy yelled as they walked to school together one morning, “Who is the butch?
Hillary gave him the finger.
They were treated like social lepers. Yet when they confronted their friends, everyone denied that they were avoiding them. But from that night on, they never had another date and no one asked them to the senior prom or their graduation parties.
Both Iris and Hillary were upset about the prospect of not attending their last high school dance of the year. One afternoon while they were sitting on a bench in the schoolyard, trying to figure out what to do, Iris jumped up and announced, “I’ve got it. Let’s go to the prom together. You be my date.”
Hillary laughed. “Do I wear a tux or a gown?”
Iris glided around in a dreamy trance, giggling. “I see us in white tuxedos, red bow-ties and dancing cheek to cheek.”
“Are you being serious?”
“Let’s do it, Hillary. We’ll go to the prom together.”
Hillary was more cautious. “I’m not so sure about it.”
“We love each other. Why shouldn’t we go to the prom together?” Iris insisted.
Hillary sighed. “What will our parents say?”
“Let’s not tell them until that night.”
Hillary sat quietly, trying to convince herself this was the right thing to do. She finally threw her hands up in the air, surrendering to her impulses. “I know I’m going to regret this, but what the hell. It’ll be fun, one way or another.
Iris was excited and happy they were not being ruled by stupid, conventional ideas. She joked. “Our coming out party. At last I’m a deb.”
The two young women were caught up in the excitement of doing something that would shock everyone. They fantasized about the facial expressions on their friends’ faces when they arrived tux and tux at their senior prom. Whenever their parents asked about whom they were going with, they stalled and answered mysteriously, “Oh, you’ll see. It’s someone you really like.”
The night of the prom Hillary came out of her bedroom dressed in her rented tux. She had makeup on and her nails were painted blood red. Her sexual identity was blurred but beautiful.
No wonder you wouldn’t let me see your gown,” her mother gasped incredulously. “You can’t go to a prom dressed like that? What will your date to say?”
“My date’s wearing the same thing. I’m going with Iris.”
Her mother was shocked. “You can’t go to the senior prom with your girlfriend.”
“Why not? We go to the movies together.”
Hillary quickly slipped away and hurried down the street to Iris’s house. She met her at the door.
“My folks say I can’t go without a date,” Iris cried.
“Didn’t you tell them I’m your date?”
“Yes, and they got real mad. My mom’s been on the phone with your mom ever since. I heard her say, ‘They’ll out grow it but we can’t let them make fools of themselves or us.’”
Hillary’s parents confronted them as the two girls left Iris’s house. Her mother said angrily, “You crazy kids, you can’t do this. People will think you are -- queer.”
Her father interrupted. “What happened to all your boyfriends?”
An argument ensued and the girls agreed not to go to the prom. They changed their clothes, borrowed Iris’s parent’s car and took off, ostensibly for a movie, but they headed straight for the nearest motel. They needed privacy and wanted to lie in each other’s arms and be comforted. Their lovemaking was less volcanic this time, their need for closeness and tenderness put an edge on their passion.
Iris rolled on top of Hillary and moaned, “What are we going to do? My parents are going to watch me like a hawk. I know them. They’ll try to break us up. They don’t understand anything. Love. Sex. Affection. Forget it.”
Hillary frowned. “I can’t live without you.” She paused. “Maybe we should run away together. Do you have any money?”
“Not enough. We’d need hundreds . . . maybe thousands of dollars. I have to get a job. We should move to New York or Atlantic City.”
Hillary nodded in agreement. “Let’s save every penny we can. Maybe in a year we’ll have enough money to get away.”
Iris moaned. “That’s depressing. I just can’t wait a year or two. I’d rather be dead. We’ve got to get money faster than that. Maybe we could borrow it . . .”
Hillary laughed. “Who can we ask?”
Iris frowned. “We could steal it. I’d rob a bank if I could.”
A twinge of fear rippled through Hillary. She knew how impulsive Iris could be. “Slow down, Iris. We’re not stealing anything or robbing a bank. That’s a stupid idea. I just know we’ll make it, someway, without ending up with our pictures in the post office.”
Iris hugged her. “I’ll become a hooker. There is a lot of money in that. We could get jobs in a massage parlor if we have to.”
Hillary grimaced. “Yuk. I’d throw-up. I couldn’t live with myself if you or I did something like that.”
Iris agreed that she would throw-up, too, if she had to be a hooker. “But we’re going to get that money. I’ll think of something. Just leave it to me, Hillary.”
“Please don’t do anything crazy. Promise me, you won’t do anything that could get us into trouble.”
“Okay, I promise. But I’m not going to wait two or three years to be with you. We’ve got to get away from our parents.”
Hillary laughed. “Let’s shut up and make love. It’s our senior prom, remember?”
Iris kissed her. “It’s been nearly a year since we discovered how wonderful making love with each other could be. I’ll never, ever want anyone to touch me after you.” She began kissing Hillary’s body.
“You feel so wonderful,” she murmured, continuing downward. “Now I know why men fight over women so much.”
“I’m beginning to think you’re a lesbian,” Hillary teased.
“I’m just a woman in love with a woman.”
“Will we ever get enough of each other?” Hillary asked. .
“Never.”
Their lovemaking started a new. They were remarkably free with each other’s bodies and created a magical feeling that protected them from the outside world, or so they thought.
“Sometimes I wish I were an octopus,” Iris said, “So that I could have more hands and arms to hold you.” She pressed against Hillary and it seemed as if she were in her body, deeper and deeper.
Just as they reached a climax together, they heard someone knocking at their door. It was their parents. The motel clerk had checked up on them and told their parents where they were.
They unlocked the door and their angry mothers and fathers, beet-red with anger, stormed into the room. “What have you two been doing?” they asked in unison.
Anyone looking at the rumpled bed and the glowing frightened young girls would have known the answer to that.
An argument ensued. Hillary yelled, “Don’t you realize I’m a lesbian.”
Her mother cried, “You are not,” and turned her back on her daughter.
Hillary’s father shouted and smacked her hard across the face. “It’s unnatural. You can’t love a woman like a man.” His faced seem tight and twisted with contempt. “It’s that women’s lib. It’s made a queer out of you.”
Iris’s mother chimed in. “God will punish both of you.” She grabbed Iris by the shoulders and shook her until Iris thought her head would fall off.
Hillary was frightened by her father’s violence and looked down at the floor, not in shame but in anger. Iris felt sicken by the way her mother reacted, like a wild animal. They hung on to each other in stunned silence while their angry parents lectured and denounced them. Their parents had to literally drag them out of each other’s arms to get them to leave. The two girls felt destroyed. They cried, declared their love for each other and then went limp and had to be partly carried and partly dragged out of the motel and taken home.
It was a nightmare for everyone involved. They were forbidden to see each other ever again. But they found ways. After graduation, they found jobs in their hometown. They didn’t earn very much for they had no office skills. They had planned to go to college. Now their only desire was to acquire enough money so that they could be together. Hillary found two jobs, one as a helper in a photography studio, the other as a baby sitter.
The lack of physical contact was unbearable for both of them, and they sometimes had jealous quarrels, each accusing the other of finding a new lover. The truth was, they hadn’t. Hillary had no free time, and for Iris, no one seemed good enough after having been with Hillary. Whenever possible, which wasn’t often, they would meet in the woods near their homes.
“It will take years to get enough money together,” Hillary moaned. “After I got my second job, my parents started charging me room and board. I think they can read my mind and are taking my money so that I can’t get away. But I’m going to fool them. I’m going to make it.”
“There has to be a better way than this, Hillary,” Iris cried. “I can’t stand being apart from you. It’s making me crazy.”
Iris had found a job as a checker in a supermarket. She was so pretty and eager to work the manager quickly hired her and put her out front. She was a godsend for him because company had been sued a few years before for not hiring women.
Iris became friendly with a Hispanic woman whose family had fled a tough neighborhood in New York City for this quaint New Jersey community. Iris and Josie lunched together among the boxes of food in the storage room. They’d always manage to have a jar of pickles, a bag of chips or cookies that they “borrowed” from the company.
“My mother says taking this food is stealing,” Iris said as she munched happily on some chocolate chip cookies.
“She’s too honest,” replied Josie. “We don’t get paid enough to worry about company profits. This capitalist system sucks anyway. We can’t rip them off as much as they’re ripping us.”
“I’d like to really get them,” Iris said. “A few thousand dollars would solve all my problems.”
“What would you do with that much money?”
Iris thought for a moment. Should she confide in Josie, she wondered. Would she reject her the way her other friends had? “I want to move away, and I need money.”
“You mean to run away with your girlfriend?”
Iris blushed. “How do you know about that?”
“It’s not a secret, is it? Everybody knows. Why do you think those guys who work here are always after you? Sure, you are good-looking, but you’re a challenge, too. They don’t believe you’re really gay. They say you’re too pretty to be queer.”
“I love Hillary. If that makes me queer, then I’m queer. You still want to be my friend?”
“Sure. I don’t care what you do. My boyfriend says it is okay, that’s all that matters with me.”
“Do you need a lot of money, too?”
“Maybe. You know how we can make some?” Josie responded.
“We could work in a massage parlor. I saw a woman on television who says she’s making a thousand dollars a week as a hooker.”
Josie made a pickle face. “That’s not for me. It makes me sick to think about it.”
Iris sighed. “Hillary would hate me if I did that . . . otherwise, I would.”
Josie smiled. “When I was a little girl, I wanted to be Jesse James and rob a bank.”
“Iris chuckled. “I’ve dreamt about that. It could be done. One robbery and my problems would be over.”
Josie laughed. “And a lot of new ones would start up fast.”
“I’ve really thought about this. I have a plan that is perfect. We can get away with it because it’s so unexpected.”
“We’d go to prison forever if it failed,” Josie warned.
“It’s perfect. Trust me.”
“Iris, let’s not do anything crazy. Let’s think about it.”
Robbing a bank would not be easy, Iris soon learned. On her days off, she would visit banks in the area. She didn’t have a car, so she’d take the local bus to nearby towns and check the security arrangements to see if it were possible to get in and out fast enough to avoid arrest.
Iris was caught up in a fantasy world. The challenge of getting away with something as difficult as robbing a bank appealed to her need to be on the edge. As far as she knew, teenage girls never robbed a bank . . . at least she’d never heard of it.
Eventually she found what she thought would be an easy target. The bank building looked like a colonial home. There were two tellers, a couple people at customer service and no armed guards early in the morning. Easy pickings. She couldn’t wait to tell Josie. She knew Hillary wouldn’t help but Josie was different; she might be persuaded.
The next day at lunch she told her friend what she had been doing. Her eyes glistened as she talked in a hushed, excited tone.
Josie listened incredulously. “You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, it’s my only chance.”
Josie frowned. “Count me out. I like my life too much.”
Tears welled up in Iris’s eyes. “Oh, please. I’ll kill myself if you don’t help me.”
Josie moaned. “Don’t do this to me. I don’t want to break the law. Even if we both were caught, you would get away with it but me—a Latina—they’ll put me in jail and throw away the key. No way.”
Josie would never discuss the matter again. Weeks went by. One day Iris found her friend in the ladies room, crying. She said her baby brother had a rare eye disease and needed an operation, which was still considered experimental. Her father’s medical plan wouldn’t pay for it, and he couldn’t borrow from the bank because he had no collateral. “What are we supposed to do, steal the money?” she asked bitterly. “Or go on welfare?”
Iris felt a lot of sympathy for Josie because she knew how much she loved her family. “Well, maybe now you’ll consider my idea.”
Josie cried even harder. “Never. Not that. I’m not getting into trouble.”
Iris started to walk away. “I understand. It’s dangerous. But I’m going to find someone to do it.”
You’re crazy girl. You’ll never get away with it.”
Iris laughed. “Just you wait and see. I’m not going to rot in this town and live in a prison.”
Iris never broached the subject again with Josie. However, a few weeks later, Josie mentioned that her brother’s condition was worsening; if he didn’t have the operation soon he would become blind. When it was time for their break, she motioned to Iris to follow her outside where she led her to a deserted place in the parking lot. She spoke quietly, almost whispering, “I’ve thought about your idea. I’ll do it. It is my brother’s only chance. To hell with it.”
Shortly thereafter Josie visited the bank to familiarize herself with the layout and plan their getaway. They decided they needed a third person to help, someone who could steal a car. They asked Terry, a young African-American woman who worked at the supermarket, to join them. She, too, was leery at first. Eventually Iris convinced her that stealing a car would be easy since people in this quiet little town still left their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition.
“It is a piece of cake,” Iris said. “My plan is perfect. You can use the money, can’t you?”
Terry sighed. “Of course. I could go back to school and make something of myself.”
The bank robbery took on a surreal quality. At first it seemed to be just another prank in Iris’s life, like going to the prom with a girl. Although she did not grow up in a wealthy family, Iris had the attitude of privilege that is so typical of the rich—as if they can do whatever they please, and no one should complain.
The robbery was set for the day the supermarket closed for inventory. The bank was in a community ten miles from their hometown, a place where they were unknown.
Iris’s plan was simple and uncomplicated. She would pass a note to the teller saying she had a gun and would shoot if the teller did not give her all the money in the drawer. Iris would be wearing a blonde wig and glasses. She would put the money in a shopping bag and the second she left the bank she would remove her disguise and give the bag to Josie, who would be waiting outside with a grocery cart filled with packages.
After handing Josie the bag, Iris would keep walking south where she would meet Terry in the stolen car. She had tools and old license plates in her backpack, which they would place on the stolen car. They would drive several blocks, pickup Josie and have hamburgers at McDonald’s. Then they would go to the post office and mail the money to Josie’s house. She had a jiffy bag addressed and stamped, waiting to be filled with cash.
Everything went according to plan until Iris reached the car. Terry was very nervous and fumbled with the ignition. “A patrol car just drove by,” she screamed as Iris climbed into the front seat. “I saw them look real hard at the car and me, as if to say, ‘Where did you get that car, nigger?’ I know they are going to come back. We better move fast.” No sooner had she said this than the police car approached. She and Iris panicked. Instead of sitting quietly, they got out of the car and quickly walked away.
A man’s voice ordered, “Stop. Come back here or I’ll shoot.” They started to run, and he started shooting like a crazy maniac.
Iris screamed, “You can’t kill me. You can’t kill me. I’m going to live.” She kept running.
Terry tried to surrender. She stopped running and waved her hands in the air and cried, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.” A stream of bullets cut her down. The coroner said later that she didn’t feel a thing.
The policeman who shot her said he thought she had a gun and was going to shoot at them. They had never had a case like this before, he said, and he was shocked and horrified to find that Terry was unarmed. In fact, this was the first time rookie Patrolman Hank Rogers ever fired his gun. He always would be haunted by the fact that he killed an unarmed teenage girl. He never forgot the case.
There was so much confusion that day. Hank thought he had shot both perpetrators, but there was only one body to be found. Iris had managed to escape. They searched and searched, but she was gone. And so was the money.
Josie was arrested shortly thereafter and confessed to taking part in the robbery. When the police asked about the money, she said Iris had circled back, removed the moneybag from the cart and vanished. No one ever saw her again.
Josie later recanted her confession at the advice of a public defender and pled not guilty. At her trial the love affair between Iris and Hillary became public knowledge. It was the reason for the robbery, Josie said. She testified to Iris’s love for Hillary and her despair because they couldn’t be together.
“I wish someone would love me that much,” she told a hushed courtroom. She also talked about her brother and how much she adored him. “I just had to try to help him,” she said tearfully.
The jury was not moved, and Josie was sent to prison for ten years for her part in the robbery.
The police tried to arrest Hillary but there was no proof she was involved. And Josie cleared her. No action was taken against Patrolman Hank Rogers. He was promoted to sergeant within the year for apprehending one of the bank robbers. He swore he would eventually find the other one.
The scandal was too much for Hillary’s parents. They moved away, but Hillary wouldn’t leave. She was sure Iris would try to contact her after a while. Days and months passed, but she never heard from her. Of course, it would have been too dangerous to try. She was still a fugitive from justice—her picture was on bulletin boards in post offices across the country.
The lesbian aspect of the crime and the subsequent trial focused attention on the case and reporters from all over the world came to town to interview Iris’s classmates, teachers and neighbors. Hillary was offered thousands of dollars to appear on television or to sell the exclusive rights to her story. She refused even though the money would have made it possible for her to start a new life.
Nevertheless, money began pouring in to her when the story made national television, especially the part about her parents leaving her alone to survive as best she could. Lesbians, feminists, gay men, straight women sent her money. By the time Josie’s trial was over, Hillary received enough money to pay for college and her very own apartment.
Iris’s family was mortified by all the publicity, too. They blamed Hillary for their daughter’s troubles and silently vowed that someday, someway they would get even. Periodically they would place ads in newspapers trying to contact Iris, but they never received a legitimate response, though many crazies answered the ad and claimed to be their daughter.
Hillary, too, would get mail and phone calls from girls claiming to be Iris or people saying they had information about her whereabouts. The FBI watched her for months, certain she would be the link to their most wanted bank robber and the fifty thousand dollars that was missing. They finally gave up, sure Iris must have died or spaced out on drugs. Fifty thousand would buy a lot of joints and coke for a teenager. They reasoned that if Iris were a lesbian then, ipso facto, she would be doing drugs.
Eventually Hillary moved to New York City and was able to enroll in college thanks to the generosity of strangers who read about her and Iris. The pain of losing Iris slowly diminished and thoughts of her faded from her conscious memory except on the anniversary of the tragedy. On that day she would receive a floral wreath with a note saying, “We will get you, you queer.” Eventually even her hate mail stopped and her life fell into a routine.
A part of Hillary died when Iris disappeared, the happy part. Now she always had a sad look in her eyes. The women who have loved her over the years, and those that she had loved, always commented on her sad, searching eyes. Her face had matured into a strong handsome woman, with a zest for life. But her eyes spoke volumes.
Hillary had become a photographer after four years of college. Her work had been published in fashion magazines, entertainment publications and on television. After she started doing photography for advertising agencies, she was able to buy a loft where she lived and had her studio. A part of her never stopped looking for Iris.
Hillary was still standing at the bar, suddenly aware of a very intriguing woman’s voice interrupting her thoughts.
“Welcome, stranger,” the woman said. She was standing next to Hillary and smiled openly. The woman was as tall as Hillary and had a stylish look to her. “You look as if you’ve been a million miles away.”
Hillary returned her smile. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I don’t remember your name. Have we met?”
“Not yet. You were so engrossed in your thoughts you didn’t even acknowledge my presence.”
“I’m Hillary. What’s your name?”
“Would you believe, Virginia?”
“Sure, why not?”
“It could be an alias. I seldom go to gay bars—I’m still in the closet. Not even my hairdresser knows.”
Hillary laughed. “Believe me, your hairdresser knew before you did.”
Virginia smiled playfully. “Well, he never told me. Not that it would have changed anything.”
Hillary did a quick inventory and liked what she saw. Virginia was very good-looking. Her brown eyes were wide-set and her mouth full and soft. Her ensemble must have come from Bloomies, Hillary thought. “Haven’t you heard of gay liberation?” she asked,
“Indeed I have. But it means nothing to me. I’m not liberated.”
Hillary laughed. “Stick around and you might be surprised. There is going to be a huge gay and lesbian pride march on Fifth Avenue pretty soon. Stonewall 25. Want to go with me?”
“Oh, sure,” she said sarcastically. “I’d march with a bag over my head.”
Hillary laughed. “Bag ladies are not my style.”
The two women had instant rapport. Virginia slowly dropped her defenses as Hillary told her about her work and her many friends. “I’m a legislative assistant for a state senator,” Virginia said quietly. “I…I can’t tell you his name—not now anyway.”
“You want to be sure you can trust me?”
“You bet. He’s homophobic and would fire me on the spot if he knew.”
“You’re brave to come here under the circumstances.”
“It’s a turn on, I think.”
“So are you.”
Virginia smiled self-consciously. “I should warn you that I’m married . . . ah . . . to a man . . . a minister.” She added hastily, “But we have a special arrangement. We don’t sleep together anymore.”
Hillary hesitated; she had heard that story before. “He doesn’t sleep with you? Is he crazy . . . or . . . ah . . . gay?”
“All of the above. But he only admits to crazy . . . never gay. Ours is a unique arrangement. We need each other, and so we stay together. That’s the deal.”
Hillary looked puzzled. “What exactly do you mean?”
“He needs me to keep his position, and I need him to make me a respectable lady. And our children need us both.”
“Children? Oh, my word,” Hillary joked. “An All-American mother cruising a women’s bar looking for . . . ?” She stared quizzically at Virginia.
Virginia felt uncomfortable. “That’s a good question,” she replied. “At first I was looking for conversation . . .”
Hillary interrupted. “And now?”
“I’m trying to decide what I want.”
Hillary stood up and held out her hand. She looked directly into Virginia’s warm brown eyes and smiled. “I know what I want,” she said in a very self-assured tone. “Let’s dance to this slow number while you try to figure out what’s on your agenda for the evening.”
Hillary and Virginia held each other tightly and swayed to the music sensually, no matter the beat. Their bodies burned as they pressed against each other.
CHAPTER 2
Frankie worked at her computer diligently. This was her first week at a new job and she was feeling a bit tense, not that she should. She was very qualified for the post. For the past five years she had been running the print shop for the Sisters of Grace, a small order of Catholic nuns with liberal leanings.
The founder of the order had been one of the nuns arrested in St. Patrick’s Cathedral during a demonstration protesting the Vietnam War in the 1970s. The media called them radical nuns; the church called them a disgrace because they supported women’s liberation, particularly abortion rights, and many women called them role models.
Their main convent had been in New Jersey but they moved to Brooklyn to help the homeless and arrange job training for homeless men and women who were willing to commit themselves to the rehabilitation process—no drugs, no booze, no sex until they secured a job and a place to live on their own. There was no shortage of applicants, and many of them moved on to a better life. That’s what kept the sisters going.
Frankie was their star. She had been one of those homeless, helpless people who turned to the nuns for sanctuary many years ago—ten to be exact. Then Frankie had red hair that fell in corkscrew curls to match her lime-green eyes. She had been a couple months under eighteen years old, worked in a supermarket as a stock girl, was friends with her co-worker, Josie, and lovers with Hillary Lambert.
Iris and Frankie were one in the same. Sometimes Frankie would wake-up in a panic, dreaming about being chased by the police. She would assure herself it was only a dream and then remembered that it was more than a dream. That she was a person the police considered dangerous, someone who planned a robbery that ended in the death of a young woman. It was all so unreal . . . sometimes she would try to deny to herself that it ever happened. Other times it was so real that fear and shame would grip her and she could hardly breathe.
Frankie often prayed for the dead girl’s forgiveness, and even now, ten years later, she could feel the pain of the bullets that cut Terry down, the sting of guilt burning into her very soul. Her troubled sleep was a sign of her troubled heart.
She also thought of Hillary. In the beginning, she would call her just to hear her voice on the answering machine. As years went by she would see her on television. She once read that Hillary was going to be a guest on a television talk show that was focusing on the problems of gay teens. She stood outside the studio and watched as Hillary left the station, her arm around the waist of a very pretty young woman.
Hillary and her girlfriend walked right by her and never even registered a drop of recognition. Frankie had become the invisible woman. She felt very depressed after that. She never again tried to contact Hillary. What was the point? Hillary was living her life to the fullest.
Frankie felt so forgotten, so unloved, so unappreciated. She knew then she had to carve out a new identity and a new beginning for herself.
The Sisters of Grace had helped her right from the start. It was a miracle that she was still alive. It must have been that the police fired first at Terry and then at her. Seconds before the hail of bullets started she had turned and had begun running away. She had heard a ping against her back and felt a thud. Later she found two holes in her backpack. Bullets had struck the head of the hammer in her backpack and were embedded in the steel license plates she was carrying.
It all happened so fast she was never able to recall all the details. She ran into the parking lot in the mall and slipped into the back of the first vehicle she could find that wasn’t locked. A middle-aged Hispanic woman was sitting quietly in the back seat when she opened the door.
“Is this your car?’ she had asked. The woman shook her head. “Do you speak English?” The woman shook her head again.
“Poco . . . poco,” she replied. “Who you?”
“I need a place to stay . . . to hide.” The woman became very agitated.
“Not here . . . not here . . . no politzia . . . go . . . go.”
Iris became very anxious and scared. “Calm down . . . I’m not going to hurt you. Don’t call the police.”
“No. No politizia. No politzia,” the Spanish woman repeated over and over. “No politzia. No politzia.”
Iris could hear sirens in the background. She saw two middle-aged women, one white, one dark-skinned, pushing a shopping cart toward the car.
“Who are they?” she asked.
“The sisters. The sisters. No politzia. No politzia.” As she spoke, the door opened and one of the women shoved her head in and practically pushed her nose into Iris’s face. Her gaze was hard and unforgiving.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I…I need a place to stay.”
“You mean, hide, don’t you? You need a place to hide?”
Iris nodded sheepishly. “Please don’t turn me in.”
The woman began chanting, “No politzia. No politzia.”
The dark-skinned woman slid into the sedan and took the seat next to the driver, who quickly maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and onto the highway. “Don’t worry. No police. We don’t collaborate with the police.”
The driver half-turned in her seat to glace at Iris. “Are you involved in that mess at the bank?” she asked nervously.
Iris nodded. “God forgive me, yes. I think they must have shot my friend.”
“A black girl?”
“Yes.”
The woman shook her head. “People were talking about it in the supermarket. One of the clerks knew her. “Her name was Terry. She’s dead. And she didn’t even have a gun.”
The dark-skinned woman turned and peered into Iris’s eyes, causing Iris to finally look away with shame. “You should be damn glad you’re white and good-looking. They must not have aimed at you first,” she said angrily.
Iris began crying. “I…I felt something hit my back.”
“Are you wounded?” she asked, her voice softening and concern showing in her face. “Do you feel any pain? Is there any blood?”
“I just feel numb.”
The Spanish woman ran her hand over Iris’s backpack and stuck her finger in a hole. “Mira. Mira,” she cried. “Look. Look.”
Iris removed the backpack and saw the holes. She unzipped the backpack, withdrew the hammer and license plates and found bullets on the bottom of the pack. She cradled them in her palm and cried.
“God was with you,” the dark-skinned woman said.
The Hispanic woman blessed herself and looked adoringly at Iris. “Miracle. Miracle. Just like me.”
Iris learned later that the woman was an illegal immigrant on her way to a safe house run by the nuns. They would get her a fake green card, find her a job and a decent place to live. They were not about to contact the police and tell them they had Iris in their custody because they didn’t want to jeopardize their network of safe houses. Besides, they were appalled by the way Terry was shot.
Onlookers later testified that Terry was trying to surrender when the police opened fire. Her family received nearly a million dollars in compensation from the town. The police were furious and would never give up looking for Iris after that. Officer Rogers left the department under a cloud of suspicion.
Iris lucked out. The nuns had resources and contacts to get her an entirely new identity. In a matter of weeks she had a birth certificate, social security number and everything she needed except for new fingerprints. She dyed her hair and wore glasses. Even her mother wouldn’t have recognized her. Her new identity shrouded her sexuality and zest for life in a routine of prayer, study and sacrifice.
The nuns never blinked when they learned of the sexual implications of her desperate crime. To them, Iris was a lost lamb of the church, too precious to be sacrificed on the altar of law-and-order. They put her life on the straight and narrow—not quite—but they did give her the opportunity to become well educated and to learn skills that would serve her and support her in the future.
Iris eventually went to college at a small Catholic girls school. She was known as Frankie Moran. Her high school records, the nuns reported, were consumed in a fire. Frankie was given an entrance exam to see if she truly was of college caliber. She passed with distinction. The nuns had seen to that. Not that they had given her the answers. That would have been unethical by their standards. No, they tutored her for nearly a year in math, English, French, and history.
She became the child they never had, the girl who took on a Huck Finn quality in their eyes—daring, outrageous, funny, and very sensual. She was also very smart and studied hard. Her carefree manner gave way to a serious, more sensitive side of her nature. She truly repented for misusing her influence over Josie and Terry and getting them to violate their own sense of right and wrong.
The nuns would often see Frankie praying alone on the grounds of their convent or walking along the beach of their summer retreat on the Massachusetts shoreline. She looked so beautiful, so angelic, so vulnerable, so appealing.
More than one of the nuns had to pray for forgiveness about the thoughts that danced through their minds when they read about trysts that Frankie and Hillary had had. They, too, yearned to give in to their impulses and experience the thrill of sexual fulfillment, the passion of flesh pressed against flesh. Several secretly wished that Frankie would teach them about that, the way they were teaching her to conjugate French verbs and write a thesis.
It wasn’t easy for Frankie to conform. At first she was so grateful for a place to stay and food to eat that she hardly ever focused on how she was feeling and what she would do with the rest of her life. She had celebrated her eighteenth birthday with the Sisters of Grace, then her twentieth and twenty-fifth.
As a college student, Frankie ranked near the top of her class. She had been orphaned and homeless, she told the few friends she had made, and then the nuns took her in and gave her a future. She majored in English and minored in art. After graduation, she had an opportunity to teach at a local Catholic elementary school but felt it might lead to situations where she might come in contact with law enforcement officials.
“It would just be my luck to have to report a child abuse case or something like that,” she said to the Mother Superior when she told her about the job. They were in the older woman’s office. “Who knows, they might even want my fingerprints for something. No, no, I’m not going to teach school.”
The Mother Superior agreed. She then told Iris that the sisters had plans to expand their work and publish newsletters and books on subjects of concern to low-income families and community groups working on housing and drug issues.
“We are going to need someone to take charge of the print shop and such,” she said. “Would you be willing to attend classes to learn about desktop publishing and computer graphics?”
Frankie was delighted. “Can I continue to live here if I say yes?”
The Mother Superior smiled. “Of course you can. But the day will come when you will want to leave us and live on your own.”
“I don’t think so . . . not ever. I feel very safe and very loved here.”
The Mother Superior smiled again. “And so you are. This is your home for as long as you wish to stay here. But there is much more to life for a young woman . . . husband, family, children.”
Frankie smiled. “Not this young woman. No husband, no family, no children of my own. I feel as if I am living on borrowed time, as if someday the police will catch up with me. I don’t want anyone else to be hurt by my actions.”
The older woman nodded. “I understand,” she said. “Your life has been very strange and different. God must have a plan for you.”
Frankie giggled. “And she is keeping it to herself. If you should get a sign, please let me know.”
“You will be the first to hear, I assure you,” Mother Superior retorted, repressing a smile at Frankie’s irreverent remark. “Meanwhile, here are some books about desktop publishing and a description of the courses you’ll be taking at the community college.” She handed her the books and gave her a hug. “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Frankie. Your progress and transformation have been amazing.”
Frankie left the Mother Superior’s chamber and went to her small, cheerful room. She tried reading the books but could not concentrate. Her mind slipped back into the past.
She wondered how her parents were. She wished she could contact them but knew it would be dangerous. Sometimes she would feel angry and resentful and blame them for all her problems—her messed up life, her separation from Hillary. Then she would feel guilty and blame herself. Slowly she accepted her fate. She prayed that one day she would see Hillary again, not that she would ever make love with her again. Sex was what got her into trouble in the first place and she had learned her lesson.
Still, she remembered the warmth of their love, the thrill she felt when Hillary kissed her all over. Her mind pictures of their sexual romps sustained her during her days in the convent, turning her on so much that she formed passionate feelings for several of the nuns who took her under their wings.
The first was Sister Irene, a French Canadian who had been orphaned as a child and grew up among the women of Sisters of Grace. They met at the order’s summer retreat in Massachusetts; she was visiting from her convent outside of Montreal. Her English was strained and so she and Frankie conversed hesitatingly in a mix of French and English. Sister Irene was much older than Frankie and had a controlled optimism about the future. Being a nun was not so much a spiritual calling as a vocation that suited her temperament and need to be with women.
They would walk along the beach, day and night, and talk about everything but the way they felt toward each other. They both loved swimming in the ocean, particularly when it was rough and challenging. They were exhilarated by their struggle with the powerful waves that crashed over them. They would help each other out of the water and hold onto each other, panting, laughing and squeezing each other tighter and tighter. They’d laugh, let go and then fall silent.
The sexual frustration was maddening for Frankie. She knew what loving a woman was all about and she wanted to experience it once again. One night when she and Sister Irene were sitting on the beach together, away from the others, she gently put her hand on Sister Irene’s outstretched arm and moved slowly down her tanned forearm, grasping her hand in hers and squeezing it, holding on even when Sister Irene started to pull away.
She brushed her lips against the nun’s fingers and felt her tremble. She slid her lips across her hand again, this time planting a long moist kiss on her palm. The older woman groaned and gently took Frankie in her arms and covered her with kisses, at first quick light kisses on her neck and eyelids and cheeks and then deep demanding liquid kisses on her mouth.
They could hardly breathe, their bodies ready to explode with the love and desire they felt for each other. Without a word, they got up and walked silently to the boathouse where they knew they would be alone. Frankie held tightly to Sister Irene’s hand, and when she felt the older woman hesitating as they stepped through the door, she squeezed her hand forcefully and led her into the room.
They were in semidarkness but they both knew the layout of the room by heart. In one corner there were several inflated rafts, which they wordlessly placed on the floor. Frankie was running on all cylinders, excited by the fear of getting caught as well as the thrill of being with Sister Irene, feeling her burning flesh and wet lips on her body. She pulled her down beside her and slowly began removing her wrap and bathing suit. The nun protested at first but then relaxed in her arms.
Frankie murmured endearments into Sister Irene’s ear as she kissed her passionately along her neck and thrust her tongue into her mouth. She kissed her soft white breasts and nibbled on her skin playfully. It had been a long time since she had had physical contact with anyone. She couldn’t get enough of Sister Irene.
“Oh, Frankie, you mustn’t do that,” Sister Irene cried as Frankie touched her private parts. She could hardly breathe and then she seemed to explode with passion. “May God forgive me,” she gasped as she laced her arms around Frankie and plunged into her flesh, the pleasure resonating and thrilling her very being.
They made love seemingly for hours, releasing all their emotions in a primitive, almost violent ritual. They both were naked and lay totally exhausted, wrapped in each other’s arms. Frankie rolled over and stretched her body over Sister Irene’s and kissed her tenderly. “I’m so happy. I’ve wanted this to happen for weeks but I was afraid you wouldn’t want me,” she whispered.
“It must not happen again,” Sister Irene said solemnly. “We have sinned.”