Femme Friday – Literary Femmes: Torch Singer, Olivia Hill

Thank goodness for smut. And thank goodness for Best Lesbian Erotica, a series that will reliably yield juicy and delicious tales of queer nastiness. In 2015, the illustrious Laura Antoniou edited BLE, and chose, wisely, to include Nicole Wolfe’s hot and heavy historical story “Lovely Lady Liberty.”

Deep gratitude to Nicole for loving Olivia Hill onto the page, and for allowing her to love on one of the WASPs who definitely isn’t interested in those rowdy airmen at the USO show.           

            Janine and her fellow WASPs had crammed into the back of the crowd inside Hickam Air Force Base’s mess hall. The USO crew had cleared the hall of tables and chairs earlier and put up their portable stage….

Then came Olivia Hall, star of the newest MGM thriller – The Silent Laugh. She played the sultry, strawberry-blonde-haired-hourglass-shaped torch singer who pulled the detective into her web of deceit. She walked onstage in a sequined bikini designed like the American flag and held a burning silver sparkler. The Hickam airmen roared so loud that it wouldn’t drowned out air raid sirens.

“Happy Fourth of July!” she yelled to the crowd. The airmen exploded with catcalls, cheers and whistles. Justine could barely hear her singing a sexy rendition of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

Michelle, one of Justine’s fellow WASPs, shook her head as she watched the crowd. “You’d think those guys had never seen a woman before.”

Carla, Justine’s other fellow WASP, just smiled. “That’s fine by me,” she said. “That means we’ll have our pick of the litter after she’s done warming them up.”

Olivia Hill spanked herself with the sparkler, bringing wall-shaking cheers from the airmen. She finished her song, lit an airman’s cigarette with her sparkler and then disappeared behind a curtain.

for the rest of the story, apply to Best Lesbian Erotica 2015, ed., Laura Antoniou, Cleis Press, and enjoy!! Oh, and if you have a favorite literary femme, please let me know!!

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”)

 

 

Femme Friday – Kelly in “Tori’s Secret” by Andrea Miller

Oh, it’s so sweet to come across femmes in literature! Even better when one rears her luscious head in a collection of smut, don’t you agree? What a deliciously twisted revenge story this is, with a femme accessing her creativity and her inner butch to even the score…

Deep gratitude to Andrea for loving Kelly onto the page, for calling out butch bad behavior, for gifting us with such yummy butch and femme fuckery and for delving into the infinitely complex and wonderful femme sexual psyche!

…Tori (in her PS) left me with shit to clean up, too. “I’ll be by soon to get my stuff,” she wrote. “Maybe you can pack it for me.” And sure enough almost everything Tori owned was still strewn about the apartment. On the closet floor I found one of her T-shirts that still smelled like her – like men’s deodorant and cigarette smoke. I put it on and crawled into bed, looking for comfort in the cotton. But the clock ticked on without comfort or sleep. Forgetting I hated Tori, I’d lodge a pillow next to my belly and remember her sexy crooked smile and the deep indent her calve muscles created in her shins. Then I’d kick off the blankets and plot fantastical schemes for revenge.

Just about finished, the hairdresser’s razor hummed against my neck and his scissors snipped at a few rogue strands. I looked at my hair lying in clumps on the tiled floor. Then I looked in the mirror and sucked my teeth. Fuck, I wanted to blow a kiss to that sexy butch looking back at me. This was going to work. All I had to do was get the job and buy the cologne Jacqueline loved – the one Katie couldn’t stand and had always refused to wear.

— from “Tori’s Secret” by Andrea Miller, in Stripped Down: Lesbian Sex Stories, edited by Tristan Taormino, Cleis Press, 2005, 2012.

And a tip o’ the femme cock to Tristan, whose inspiring contribution to queer porn is unparalleled!

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”)

 

Femme Friday – Femmes in Literature: Grace from “Winner Take All” by Andrea Dale

There are so many twists and turns on the highways and byways of popular culture about which I know little to nothing. Things like hick-hop and “Game of Thrones”* and the contest in this story. Everyone has to touch the new truck, and the winner is the person who keeps their hand on the truck the longest; they get to keep the truck. That is weird. The story, however, is hot as hell, and Grace is a domme bomb.

Deep gratitude to Andrea Dale for taking a stroll into the world of weird contests and coming up with Grace, who knows that choice can be a very good restraint.

That innocent, breathy voice coming out of that pretty little blond form.

            Aren’t dommes supposed to be tall, imperious, stern, and wear black leather? Not petite, angelic, smiling, and wearing ruffly colorful fashion?

            Maybe that’s why she was affecting me the way she was. She wasn’t a cliché, wasn’t someone who used the tired old props.

            In other words, she didn’t need a dungeon to be a domme.

            The DJ called another scheduled time-out.

            Argh.

            The showroom had only one tiny ladies’ room, but Grace and I were the only two women left. She let me use the bathroom first, which was nice, except…damn.

            Damn if I didn’t want to plunge my hand down into my jeans, into my cotton panties, and stroke away the slick, needy urge she’d raised in me. A few minutes of privacy, that was all I needed. But I knew she was waiting outside. I knew she’d know what I’d been doing.

            And somehow, I didn’t want to disappoint her. It was crazy, I knew, and yet I also knew that if I got myself off, I’d be…disobeying, maybe?

            Grace hadn’t said a word about what I could or couldn’t do – and indeed, we’d only just met, so who was she to give me orders, anyway – but I instinctively understood what she expected of me, and I wasn’t about to let her down.

                                    –“Winner Take All” by Andrea Dale in The Harder She Comes: Butch/Femme Erotica, ed. DL King, Cleis Press, 2012

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”)

 *Which I actually started to read because one of my students asked me to since she loves it so much, but right on the first page it said the words, “Never trust anything you learned at a woman’s tit,” so that was as far as I got.

 

Femme Friday — Millie, from Trumpet by Jackie Kay

Darlings, I did not reread this beautiful novel for this post, as I did not have time, but I started it again, and was immediately drawn back in to this compelling, queer story. What had stayed with me was the sweet, hot love between this white femme and her husband, a passing woman, the black jazz trumpeter, Joss Moody, who she meets in Glasgow in the 50s. Have any of you read Trumpet? Tell me, talk to me! And while you’re at it, do you have a favorite fictional femme?

Deep gratitude to Jackie Kay for writing truth about Millie for all of us.

       It is dark now outside. The streetlamps cast their yellow light on the streets. A lot of us leave The Wee Jazz Bar at the same time. We look like people that have just been created out of the night, people who have just landed on the planet all at once together with the same pioneering, fierce look on our faces. We move along in our long coats with the collars turned up. It is windy. The wind blows a can along the street. Tonight is the night. Joss holds my hand tight as if he’s protecting me from something.

            He walks me right to my door. He goes to kiss me on the cheek, but changes his mind and kisses me full on the mouth. He grabs me up in his arms, sweeping my face towards his. He pulls me closer against him till my feet almost rise from the ground. His breathing is fast, excited. I open my eyes and stare at him whilst he is kissing me. His eyes are tight shut. He says my name as he kisses me over and over again. I feel like I am dying. I take his hand and lead him up the stairs to my small flat. I hope Helen is sound asleep, tucked up in her little bed.

            But when we get up the stairs, everything changes. Joss doesn’t throw me on my bed like I am expecting. He paces the room. ‘Sit down,’ I say. “Make yourself at home.” I’ve gone all shy. The intimacy of my own bedroom has made strangers of both of us. He sits down on the edge of my bed looking terrible, troubled. ‘What is it, Joss, what’s the matter?’ There is something he has to tell me. Something he should have told me ages ago, months ago, but couldn’t. He was afraid that if I knew I would stop seeing him. I feel sick. ‘Knew what?’ My mind is racing. Maybe he’s married; maybe he’s got one of those men’s diseases; maybe he’s committed a crime. I don’t know what it can be. I catch myself in the mirror. My hair is all out of place; my eyes look as wild as his. I can tell it is something serious, but I try to laugh it off. I ruffle my hands through his hair and kiss his cheek. ‘It can’t be that bad,’ I say. ‘Nothing is when you are in love.’ It is the first time I have ever told him this. It makes him more unhappy. He actually looks like he is going to cry. He tells me he can’t see me any more, just like that. I don’t believe this is happening. The moon is full outside the window, gaping in. The night is a lie. I want to go to sleep. I want to stop him talking and climb into my bed with him and fall asleep in his arms. I don’t care what he has done. I don’t want to know what he has done. He is saying he is sorry. The big moon gawps at me. It is strangely excited. I feel as if my world is turning mad.

            I knock my night cream off my dresser. Something in me just blows. ‘You can’t do that,’ I tell him and I find myself hitting him on the chest, crying. He gets angry with himself. I can hear him swearing under his breath. Then I hear him saying, ‘Forgive me.’ And he gets up to go. But I can’t have that. I grab him and pull him back. He is taller than me. I can’t shake him with my full force. So I shout instead. I don’t care about waking anybody up. I scream at him, ‘An explanation, you owe me an explanation. What’s the matter with you? Are you sick? Have you killed somebody?’ The strange thing is he already feels like he belongs to me. My anger makes him mine. ‘You really want to know, don’t you,’ he says in a voice I can’t quite recognize. ‘You really want to know. I’ll show you then,’ he says. ‘I’ll show you what is the matter.’ He has a strange expression on his face, as if for a moment he is suspended, not quite himself.

            He takes off his blue jacket and throws it on my floor. He takes off his tie and throws that down too. His hands are trembling. I am trembling. I think maybe he’s changed his mind and he wants to make love. I think, shouldn’t he undress me first? I’m not sure. I try to remember what the couple of other boyfriends I’ve had have done. My mind goes blank. He is undoing the buttons of his shirt. He slows down now. Each button is undone so terribly slowly. Underneath the shirt is a T-shirt. He takes that off slowly too, lifting his arms up and pulling it from his waist over his head. He discards it. His eyes are determined. He looks at me the whole time. An odd look, challenging, almost aggressive – as if he is saying, ‘I told you so. I told you so.’ He pulls the next T-shirt over his head and throws that away too. He has another layer on underneath, a vest. His clothes are spreadeagled on my floor like the outline of a corpse in a move. The vest is stripped off as well. He looks a lot thinner now with all that off him. I’m excited watching this man undress for me. Underneath his vest are lost of bandages wrapped round and round his chest. He starts to undo them. I feel a wave of relief: to think all he is worried about is some scar he has. He should know my love goes deeper than a wound. ‘You don’t have to show me,’ I say. I feel suddenly full of compassion. ‘Did you have an accident? I don’t care about superficial things like that.’ I go towards him to embrace him. ‘I’m not finished,’ he says. He keeps unwrapping endless rolls of bandage. I am still holding out my hands when the first of his breasts reveals itself to me. Small, firm.

 –Trumpet by Jackie Kay, 1998

 Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. Suggestions welcome!

 

Published in: on June 23, 2017 at 5:17 PM  Comments (2)  
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Femme Friday – Femmes in Literature, Mary Llewellyn from The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

“All my life,” says Mary to Stephen, “I’ve been waiting for something.”

To me, this is a quintessential femme statement, or rather, the statement of a femme who responds sexually and romantically to butches and fucking finally gets to meet one. Brave, tough Mary, who has worked with Stephen tirelessly driving ambulances during the First World War. Mary, the orphan, Mary the true and loyal lover. Perhaps because she has so much less to lose – no Morton, no ice queen bitch mother, no horses, no family name – she is much more radical than Stephen, unwilling to accept the lot of the invert in the tortured, noble fashion of her lover. She insists they be around other queers, queers Stephen regards as almost entirely degenerate while Mary has a more compassionate and worldly view. Stephen’s limited understanding of Mary as a pure innocent drives her into poorer and poorer behavior, culminating in an act of supremely craven betrayal.

We had to wait for novelists like Sarah Waters, Isabel Miller and Ellen Galford for happier endings for our fictional historical ancestors, but Mary (and Angela and possibly even Puddle) live and breathe as historical femmes and give us a window into the lives of those ancestors.

Deep gratitude to Radclyffe Hall for loving Mary Llewellyn onto the page!

 

Mary said: “All my life, I’ve been waiting for something.”

            “What was it, my dear?’ Stephen asked her gently.

            And Mary answered: “I’ve been waiting for you, and it’s seemed such a dreadful long time, Stephen.”

            The barely healed wound across Stephen’s check flushed darkly, for what could she find to answer?

            “For me?” she stammered.

            Mary nodded gravely: “Yes, for you. I’ve always been waiting for you: and after the war you’ll send me away.” Then she suddenly caught hold of Stephen’s sleeve: “Let me come with you – don’t send me away, I want to be near you….I can’t explain…but I only want to be near you, Stephen. Stephen – say you won’t send me away….”

            Stephen’s hand closed over the Croix de Guerre, but the metal of valour felt cold her her fingers; dead and cold it felt at that moment, as the courage that had set it upon her breast. She stared straight ahead of her into the sunset, trembling because of what she would answer.

            Then she said very slowly: “After the war – no, I won’t send you away from me, Mary.”

 

 Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. Suggestions welcome!