Ethel's Read online

  Ethel’s: A Lesbian Bar in NYC

  By Terry Brewer

  Copyright 2020 Terry Brewer

  ISBN 9780463088128

  Copyright © 2019, 2020 Terry Brewer

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover Photo by Rian Adi on Unsplash (https://unsplash.com/@palimirmoadi).

  * * * *

  Ethel’s: A Lesbian Bar in NYC

  By Terry Brewer

  Author’s Note

  Introduction

  Part 1: Angela & Nicole

  Angela Johnson

  Four Months Later: January

  One Month Later: February

  Two Months Later: April

  Two Months Later: June

  One Month Later: July

  One Month Later: August

  One Month Later: September

  Twelve Hours Later

  Part 2: Paula & Connie

  October: Outside Ethel’s

  One Day Later: A Party

  January: Crisis

  April: One Wedding

  July: Sag Harbor

  Friday: Shelter Island

  Saturday: The LIE (Long Island Expressway)

  July: Two Weddings

  July: And A Party

  Part 3: Michelle & Val

  Everyone Else Is So Fucking Happy

  Cindy

  I’m Not the Groveling Type

  Don’t Leave a Message at the Tone

  It’s Estelle

  Lunch with Connie

  The Waiting Was the Hardest Part

  Take Two

  I’ve Seen Her Do Horrible Things

  Author’s Note

  This story contains explicit scenes of consensual sex.

  This was initially published as three related parts but I received a criticism that part 1, at least, “was terrible/all over the place/skipped around/didn’t make sense/too many open ends/was really bad.” Since some of the confusion may have been that there were some loose ends in that part, I decided to put all three of them together. The stories are, however, chronological.

  But I make this note to forewarn. I encourage readers to comment. I hope that by putting the parts together, some of those barbs may be resolved.

  Also, part 2 contains a scene involving a consensual Dominatrix/submissive relationship.

  Finally, part 3 includes a brief appearance by the main characters in London ‘Honeymoon.’

  Introduction

  Ethel’s is a bar in Manhattan’s West Village, just off Hudson Street. It sits on a corner. When you enter there are tables to the right—the ones in front are at the corner—and up the wall as well as some on the left towards the front. The bar itself extends along the left wall, with the entrance to the kitchen in the left-rear corner. The restaurant offers typical pub-fare, well prepared, and top-notch desserts (and fresh bread) from a bakery around the corner, and the bar offers a surprisingly large selection of vintage wines. Ethel’s is subtly but tastefully lit. The music tends to get loud on Friday and Saturday nights but it is softer the rest of the time, the playlist leaning towards guitar-centric alternative, often in the Brandi Carlile vein—a picture of her taken when she was at the bar hangs, signed, in a place-of-honor—but always including songs people can dance to.

  The bathrooms are at the back to the right and though it is infrequently used there is a men’s room. The ladies’ room has three stalls—there are certain “understandings” about their use—and three sinks. It is clean and regularly and discretely checked by a staffer.

  In the restaurant/bar, there is a small dancefloor to the rear and a small stage, capable of holding two guitars and a bass but not much else. In winter, a small foyer is created so that one needs to open two doors to get in, protecting everyone from the invasion of frigid air.

  When Alice Johnson, who you’ll meet shortly, walks into Ethel’s for the first time, it was well after the early-Fall-semester rush. That’s when groups of four, five, or six grad students just starting at Columbia or NYU come down on Friday or Saturday nights for a “taste.” Invariably these groups are a mix of women, often in the Big City for the first time, who fall into three categories. There are those who, as the Brits say, are taking the piss and it is a lark. There are women genuinely and honestly “curious,” who may later come back without the piss-takers. And there are the women who are more than curious and hopeful of finding a place where and, better, a person with whom they can feel themselves. The regulars are always on the look-out for this last type (although some of the pretend-piss-takers are of this type), always discrete in their approaches (one of the “understandings” about the ladies’ room being its use as a safe-space). Many were in the same boat in the same place themselves and they sometimes develop Big-Sister relationships, providing guidance and protection—Ethel’s is not free of predators—and in three or four cases those relationships have evolved into marriages.

  There was no “Ethel.” There are varying stories, legends really, but the one with the greatest currency is that Alice Jenkins and Shirley Evans founded the place in 1990 and named it for a “Cheers” episode involving Sam Malone boasting of having danced with Carla like a modern-day “Fred and Ethel.” Whether this is true will never be known, Alice and Shirley both having gone to the Open Lesbian Bar in the Sky, Shirley shortly after she was able to marry the woman she loved for 45 years.

  The place is now run by Alice’s niece, a Smith BA/Columbia MBA butch called Maggie Owens, named after Alice’s long-time lover and partner in a tacit bit of solidarity between Alice and her sister, Maggie’s mother, who told everyone (including for a time her husband and parents but never Maggie) that it was and still tells everyone that it is “simply a name I liked the ring of.”

  Maggie and the staff make quick but polite work of gawkers who enter or stand with their noses against the windows hoping to see…something and ultimately Ethel’s is itself a safe space for everyone who comes in. The stage is used on Tuesdays for an open-mic for the local LGBTQIA+ Community. And LGBTQIA+ Karaoke Thursdays!

  Part 1: Angela & Nicole

  Angela Johnson

  Angela Johnson and Billy Wilson met in high school, got close in college, and became lovers when they shared a two-bedroom apartment in Jackson Heights, Queens with Josh Elder, a fellow Vassar grad. Each was a poor intern and each needed a cheap place to live while working in Manhattan. It was rented by Josh’s brother and another guy and when they moved out the three moved in.

  The men shared one bedroom while Angela took the other. Within six months, though, Angela and Josh swapped after she and Billy become lovers. About six months later, Josh was gone, moved in with a girlfriend he met at work. Since they could then afford it, the remaining two kept the second bedroom as a spare.

  About a year after that, they were guests at a wedding in Westchester County, north of New York City. The groom was one of Billy’s college buddies. Black tie, so she needed a gown. Angela found something nice at a consignment shop in the neighborhood. It fit her. It was rust-colored.

  After the ceremony and after the dinner in the large but fancy barnlike structure, Angela went down a long hall and down a few steps to the ladies’ room. She heard from one of the stalls, “Fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME.” Then a squeal. Angela was standing by the sink in shock when the stall door opened and two women emerged, both flushed and one holding—were they?—they were: blue silk-panties. As the two left, holdin
g hands, the woman who presumably still wore her silk panties smiled and said simply, “she lost the bet.” The two were gone, adjusting their gowns as they went, the sillage of expensive perfume in their wake.

  Angela stood where she was when she heard the “fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME,” her hand still gripping the sink and her eyes locked on the newly-vacated stall. She entered it and imagined where they, the two women, were and what they were doing there. And who the hell were they? Both were attractive. The taller of the two, the apparent bet-winner, was dark-skinned and tall, perhaps five-nine, and rail thin with small boobs, her jet-black hair done into elegant strands of braid. She wore a long green gown that was complemented by her emerald earrings and necklace, and the colors all complemented her smooth skin, narrow face, and wide, almond-eyes.

  The loser-of-the-bet was fair-skinned with a round face and well-defined cheekbones. She was shorter than her friend by about four inches or so and was far from thin with short, blonde hair and a pleasing degree of cleavage in a sparkling blue gown, complemented by sapphires with diamonds in her earrings and necklace.

  While Angela was in the stall, someone entered the ladies’ room. Angela smiled and quickly closed the door, now where the black woman had just fucked the blonde. Angela lifted her gown and lowered her satin panties to do what she had come to do. After the other woman was gone, she took a few moments longer than she normally would to wipe herself before flushing, exiting, washing her hands, checking her face, and rejoining the reception.

  It had moved downstairs and the bride and groom were enjoying their first dance to an instantly forgettable and instantly forgotten song that purported to be clever and witty but was neither. As she heard it from the stairs, Angela thought, meanly, why can’t they just go to one of the classics?

  When she entered the reception room with the dancefloor and band, she surveyed the crowd, searching for the emerald and blue gowns. It was difficult because it was dark with small lights providing the only illumination except on the dancefloor. Angela tapped Billy on the shoulder and said she was doing a lap of the room and she left when he said “fine.” About half-way around she saw them, sitting close to one another at an otherwise-empty table for six. Suddenly the blonde whispered in her lover’s ear and pointed at Angela. The black woman came and asked Angela to dance.

  Angela looked and saw the pretty blonde smiling. She realized that she, too, was pretty. It was a slow song. The black woman put her right hand around Angela’s back and her left in Angela’s right hand, leaving Angela to put her left hand over the other’s shoulder. They danced.

  Angela was wet in the ladies’ room. It was not just urine she wiped away as she sat there. She was wet again. It had been a while. She had nearly as many girl lovers as boys, perhaps more over the years. They were, all of them, young and immature and irresponsible. Just girls and boys.

  She liked the feel of a dick inside her. She liked what it did to her and what a boy’s mouth, with a tinge of a beard, did to her clit and pussy. She liked to feel what she could do to a dick and came to like the taste of a boy’s cum. And while she never squealed she was usually satisfied, except for the rare occasions when prematurity required self-satisfaction.

  She liked the softness of a girl’s lips and tongue and fingers and the hardness of an aroused clit between her lips. She liked the taste of a girl’s cum on her own tongue and how it felt on her own fingers. And, once, she felt it all, when a woman visiting a friend in her dorm fucked her with a strap-on, an experience she never dared ask any of the girls in the dorm to share with her, giving or receiving.

  That “phase” ended when she graduated from college and roomed with Josh and Billy and when she graduated to sharing a room with Billy and now going to a friend’s wedding as Billy’s girlfriend.

  In the Uber on the way home, Angela felt different and was starting to feel differently. The rain was heavy as they crossed the bridge. If he noticed her dance, he didn’t say anything. She was quieter than usual, staring out the window and listening to the beat of the wipers. Not clutching his hand, as she had on the way north. At the apartment, she robotically removed her gown and her matching panties and bra, failing to do the striptease for him that she planned. It was like many other nights; she got into bed after brushing her teeth and peeing and removing her makeup. He was horny and quickly discarded his tux. He waited for her to finish in the bathroom before getting himself ready for bed.

  When he entered the bedroom, he took a condom from the dresser and slipped it on his dick. Then, as he often did, he entered her and she directed him inside before she pushed him away. “Touch me first. I’m not wet enough.” When she was wet enough, he restored his dick inside her and resumed his rhythm. He mumbled her name as he came. Rolling to his side, he reached his fingers over her slit but she stopped him. It didn’t happen often, but it did that night. He knew enough to get up and clean himself off before returning. She did not bother to finish herself.

  Angela was happy being Billy’s girlfriend. Now, three years after graduation, they shared the Jackson Heights apartment, both with paying jobs in the City. Although marriage rarely came up, it was always lurking. And the sex? The sex was good, sometimes very good. There were compatibility and comfort and they kissed when they parted on the subway each morning. They kissed whenever the second to get home walked through the door.

  Most of all, each told the other, “I love you” and they each meant it when they did. They knew each other’s families and had since high school and nearly everyone liked nearly everyone else. Except for Billy’s sister Paula did not like Angela and Angela did not like Billy’s sister Paula. There was nothing specific. It just was. Maybe Paula—three years older—did not think Angela good enough for her baby brother. Maybe Paula did not think Angela good enough, full stop. Angela was no friend of Billy’s sister so the mutual animosity worked for them both.

  Four Months Later: January

  Billy was in Killington, Vermont, skiing with a bunch of college friends. When Angela thought of “boys” in thinking of sex in college, it was guys like Billy’s friends. Several lived in New York, at least two at their parents’ houses. She was getting increasingly unhappy about the time Billy spent with them. They worked for banks or insurance companies in the City and spent most Friday nights in their suits and drinking IPAs at some microbrewery in some recently-gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood. Billy often stumbled into the apartment after midnight, peeing and collapsing into the bed still in his suit. It counted for something if he got his shoes off.

  Angela didn’t know whether he was doing anything different or whether her increasing angst about him since that wedding came from within herself. She knew it was there.

  It was Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend. She neither skied nor wanted to be with Billy and his friends so she was alone in the apartment on late Saturday morning, browsing her phone. Among her messages, way down, was a “917” number she didn’t recognize. When she opened it she saw a picture of her dancing with and very close to a tall black woman, the woman in the emerald gown. The text with the photo had come from “Tracy.”

  Tracy must be the woman in the blue gown, her blue panties in the black woman’s small purse sitting on the table. She must have gotten Angela’s information from a mutual friend. Angela hadn’t noticed the text when it arrived months earlier. Looking at the photo Angela recalled that when the dance ended the black woman whispered softly, “that was lovely but I better get back before that one gets jealous” and then gave Angela a brush of a kiss on her neck. She had not thought of those words or of those lips since the ride home from the wedding. Her left fingers went to the spot where the lips touched her and she held them there. With her right thumb, she hit the CALL button on her phone.

  The woman answering it was laughing as she said “Hello.”

  “Um, I don’t know if you remember me but we, um, met at Edie and Tony’s wedding in September, in West—”

  “Oh my god, you’re the one who caught
us” and Angela heard her shout to someone, “Sher, holy shit, it’s that gorgeous brunette you won’t shut up about” and then, back to Angela, “this time I win the bet. Sherrie said you’d never call.”

  Angela found this endearing. “Yeah, I’m that girl.”

  An hour later, Angela was sitting with the couple at a restaurant in the West Village and on her second mimosa. An hour after than the three were doing a boutique run along West Broadway and Spring Street and seven hours after that the three were sitting at a small table at Ethel’s, a lesbian bar in the West Village, each with a tomato-bisque soup, bread, and glasses filled with Cabernet.

  Angela had returned Billy’s call at about six, saying she was hanging out with friends when he gave his ski report. She kept it short. She’d never been in a lesbian place before. It was nice, not having to deal with boys, especially those who hit on her as she went to the bathroom after getting up from a table where she had just been sitting with Billy. The guys with Billy were just variations on the same stupid theme.

  At Ethel’s, Angela had a nice dance with Sherrie and two very nice dances with Tracy and several very, very nice dances with unattached women who were friends of Sherrie and Tracy and who sat, at varying times, at their table. One, a five-six redhead named Nicole Taylor, whispered that she’d like to “share something with you.” For some reason—likely a combination of horniness and attraction—Angela went with her to a stall in the ladies’ room. They kissed, hard, and Angela wanted more, wanted Nicole to fuck her with her fingers in one of the stalls but wet as she was she would not cheat on Billy. That would be cheating. For now, it had to be enough that she loved being in Nicole’s arms and sharing Nicole’s tongue. They stayed like that for three or four minutes until they were interrupted and headed back to their table.

  They spent the rest of the night talking until Nicole put her number in Angela’s phone and with a final, torrid kiss whispered “good night” into Angela’s ear, and with a wave to Sherrie and Tracy, she was gone.