Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

By Amanda

1791 – Philadelphia Pa.

I was a seventeen-year-old girl alone on the streets of Philadelphia when I stepped off the coach in late evening. The big city after dark is a dangerous place for an unescorted lady. I hurried through the streets in the gathering dusk, desperately looking for a boarding house.

It was more than an hour later and not less than three solid swats on my buttocks before I found what I was looking for, a room priced so that I could survive on my savings until I could get work. I could sew and mend and cook, and certainly in a city such as this I could find someone in need of that.

Yet, after three weeks I was down to my last six pence. That was enough to pay rent and nothing more. I was greatly disheartened by my failure to find work, but as the nuns had once taught us, if you seek something earnestly enough, eventually you will find it.

I found work the day before my rent was due. A tailor shop. I was hired to help the proprietor’s wife with the mending, but he created the clothing he sold himself. The good man’s wife convinced him I seemed trustworthy and that it was safe to advance me my week’s rent.

I worked for a dollar a week, six to twelve hours a day. The days I was fortunate enough to leave early I roamed the streets, learning my way around town. I was looking for something, though at the time I did not know what.

I roamed, visited taverns, definitely not places for a lady, but somehow I felt I should be there. Perhaps I did not consciously acknowledge it then, but I know now what it was I really wanted. I was looking for others like myself. The good Mister Baker had told me I was not alone in the world of today, and that intrigued me.

I was not looking for love. I was sure I would never love again. Molly had crushed that from me. She had destroyed me. No, I sought others for companionship. Someone who understood what I felt and why.

Six months ran to a year, and I had found nothing of interest. My rent was always paid ahead, my work done with great care, and my free time spent in this relentless search.

It was a summer day like any other when I chanced upon a French cafe. I felt compelled to sit at a small table just outside its door, and a moment later a young girl of perhaps thirteen stepped out and offered me a cup of tea. I asked for a madeleine as well and she went inside, returning moments later with the tea and pastry.

I paid her with a brand new penny and told her to keep the half penny for herself. It was a generous tip indeed, but I was feeling quite happy sitting on the sidewalk, watching the carriages and riders pass.

My tea was cool and nearly gone when a carriage stopped across the road and someone I took as a man stepped out, reaching up to pay the driver. He turned toward me — and that was when I found, much to my surprise, that this was no man but a woman. She wore a simple shirt and a handsome vest, and most shocking of all she wore breeches. With a confident smile she strode, head held high, across the street to the cafe where she sat several tables away from me.

I was in awe and could hardly stop looking at her. She wore her brown hair tied back in a black ribbon as a man would do. Her clothes, her shoes… this was the most unusual woman I had ever seen.

I’ve no idea how long I sat captivated by her presence, but it was long enough for her to notice. She met my eyes and half smiled before returning to her glass of wine.

After she finished the glass she got up to leave, placing a coin on the table for the girl. She hailed a cab and soon was gone, leaving me in absolute wonderment.

When I finally noticed that it was dusk, I stood and left the cafe. I made my way home quickly. Nighttime was no time for a lady to be out alone. I went up to my room and waited for supper, all the while looking out the window. What had I seen, I wondered, how could a woman ever dress so and get away with it? Perhaps if she had wanted to be taken for a boy that would be different, but she appeared to make no effort at all to hide her true sex.

Why, it was positively indecent for a woman to stride about in such a way, and knowing that somehow made her even more interesting to me. I had heard of tom-boys only since coming here to the big city, and I wondered now if that was what she was. It would certainly suggest that she worked and gave no thought to a husband or children. But did that also mean her hunger was for her own sex? Because she dressed and walked like a man, could that mean she loved as one too?

When at last the house mistress called supper, I went down, still too in awe to talk, or even to think of anything but the woman I’d seen.

The meal was all but finished when I could stand it no longer. “I saw the strangest person today.”

This was hardly noticed by the other women of the house, but two of them did look politely at me, waiting for me to go on.

“I was enjoying a tea at this cafe not far from here. I saw a woman there. She stepped out of a cab. I took her for a man at first, as she was dressed every inch that way, but she was indeed female.”

“Surely that’s not true,” one of the boarders exclaimed as she laughed, “you’re teasing us!”

“No, I swear it,” I responded.

“Stay away from that sort, girl,” the mistress warned. “You’re young and naive, but that type will bring you only misery and misfortune. They have a kind of madness, I think.” Her confidence in what she was saying suggested she knew much more than she was letting on.

“That type?” I asked, almost under my breath.

The mistress only nodded her head. The other girls giggled and whispered to each other. It seemed they knew something that I did not. And to this day I wonder what it was.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a boy too young for a mustache?” one of the girls asked.

I shook my head. I was very sure that she was indeed a girl. She was young, yes, and slightly disheveled as it seemed she worked. Her hands had been dirty as were her knees.

The mistress snorted before getting up to collect the plates. When she left the room, I was suddenly made aware of how transparent I was. I must have given something of my thoughts away in my face, as Mary leaned across the table and whispered to me, “Push her from your mind, Liz. No matter how she dresses she will always be a girl.”

The others broke out in fresh giggles, but I found nothing amusing about this near accusation. Besides, it was arrogant for her to assume that I did not find that very thing about her so enticing. Arrogant, but good. Surely I’d have been run out of the house and even perhaps out of the town were anyone to know what things I thought.

But young and naive I certainly was. Philadelphia was a city with a dark side known only to those so brave as to venture into its darkened streets and alleyways at night. It was another city altogether after the sun went down, and I would learn at least a part of this in due time.

I went back to the cafe every day for a month hoping to see her again. I watched the ladies and gentlemen walk by, the carriages, the vendors. All the while I searched intently for her face amidst the throng. I had to meet her.

The next time she came I would speak to her, I decided. She was a woman, after all, and such a thing would draw only the slightest attention. Besides, all eyes would be on her, I told myself, not the young girl she was with. I would have to say now, however, looking back on it, had anyone taken notice it certainly would have been of the young and, dare I say, lovely girl making eyes at this oddly dressed woman. I would hope not to sound too vain, but in my youth I was blessed with a pretty face, straight teeth, and delicate skin.

As I sat watching all the people walk by, a new thought came to me. I had been so naive as a girl. It was not until I was shown the world I now so desperately sought that I had understood myself. I wondered, as I watched the ladies escorted by their sweethearts and husbands, how many of them might share my own desires and just not know it? Or, not have any imaginings of how they might fulfill their desire? We women, we are doomed to a lonely lot in life, unless, like I, great fortune simply falls upon us.

Little by little my world came to seem less bleak to me. I was still alone in the big city, but at least I could entertain such hope of knowing a woman’s touch again as I waited patiently for my lady in breeches to come back.

Still she did not come. Every day at work I could hardly bear to be there, and when I was dismissed all but ran to the cafe in hopes of seeing her again.

It was a cool fall day when it suddenly dawned on me that she might never come back. But I was not going to give up completely. The girl that filled my tea cup and brought me madeleines, perhaps she had seen the woman before. When I arrived at the cafe, I took my regular seat and the girl was soon at my table side. I failed to muster the courage to ask after the woman at first, but when she returned with my tea I spoke, almost as if someone else were controlling me.

“I saw a woman here once. She wore breeches and a handsome blue vest.”

The girl tilted her head slightly and gave me the most curious look. “Mademoiselle?” the girl said in her heavy French accent. “Do you mean Madeline?”

“Is that her name?”

The girl nodded.

“Does she often come here?”

Again a silent nod.

How fortuitous, I thought, that I might find Madeline here while eating cakes of such a similar name.

“I would not have thought a lady of your refinement to ask after her, though.”

This statement was so strange to me that I hardly comprehended it. Refinement? Me? Yet it seemed by what the girl said that she would expect another type of lady to ask about the woman all the same.

“I’m but a simple seamstress,” I offered.

“Oui, mademoiselle,” the girl shrugged, then said, “She comes mostly after nightfall. She has her supper here with us nearly every evening.”

“She does?” I nearly shouted.

Again a nod.

“But why, I wonder?”

“Perhaps because we would not shoo her away.” The girl turned to leave but I caught her arm.

“And why would anyone?” I asked.

The girl raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She looked as if she thought she had already said too much.

So that was my answer. For weeks now I had just missed the woman, leaving before sunset to escape the risk of being on the street at night while she had no fear of it at all.

Now the question I posed to myself was whether or not I should take the risk of waiting to see if she would come this evening. In the end, though, I did indeed choose to stay.

As time passed, my fear was rising. It would be a long walk to my boarding house in the dark of night, and it was growing very late. I was about to give in to my fear when a cab stopped across the street and out stepped the woman in breeches. Out stepped Madeline.

Again she strode across the street and took her table only a few paces from where I sat. I had, I reckoned, until she finished supper. Yet all I seemed able to do was sit and stare at her. The little French girl brought the woman a plate and a glass and then left her, glancing over at me as she did.

It was dark. I could not walk the streets alone. I had to speak to her, if nothing else so that I might have an escort. Surely she would be willing to help a young girl and see her home safely.

From where I gained the strength, I do not know. But somehow I stood up and walked to stand at the side of her table.

She looked up at me with a pleasant smile.

“May I join you?” I asked.

Immediately she wiped her lips and stood, pulling out a chair for me. Just as a man of any breeding would have done. When she sat back down, she sipped her wine and looked me over carefully.

I looked closely at her as well. I guessed her age near twenty-five, and she had to be a full inch taller than I. Her hands seemed to have seen hard work, and her eyes were wrinkled at the corners from many hours in the sun every day.

“As you’ve guessed, I am sure, I am not a man,” she said. “So I’ll forgive you if you wish to leave.”

I said nothing in reply.

A moment passed, and she raised her eyebrows. “Why breeches?” she asked, taking my part. “My father was a farrier, and when he died I inherited the barn, the tools, and the clients.”

A farrier. That meant she had work from which she could make quite a handsome living and that would afford her latitude.

“Your father taught you?” I heard myself asking her.

“From the day I could walk. He did not want his legacy, as it were, to pass out of the family.”

“And you’ve no brothers? No cousins?”

“My father was the only surviving child of his parents, as I am of mine.” She smiled and took another mouthful of food. “Good fortune, I suppose, in that I am free. I don’t imagine I could ever have achieved the refinement that is required to be called a lady… but you?”

“I am a seamstress,” I answered.

Compared to hers, my life was so unexciting. But she, she met travelers from all around the colonies and perhaps the world. She determined her own destiny. She had power and that made her more beautiful than anything else.

For an instant her eyes narrowed. Not in anger but something else. Something that I had seen in Molly’s eyes before we first made love. I was sure I understood the look. I was sure I had to be right. She was more than just a woman with good fortune.

We were interrupted by the servant girl. She filled Madeline’s glass with wine, then looked down at me in a knowing way.

“Mademoiselle?” she asked. Her tone seemed different now.

Madeline set her glass down. “Of course, Isabelle. Bring her a glass and anything else she wants.”

The girl turned her attention from me to Madeline and back again.

“Wine will be fine,” I told her.

Madeline seemed disappointed with my request but said nothing. She sat looking at me for a moment before sipping from her glass. There was something in her eyes. Did she know what I was thinking? Had she seen the girl’s knowing glance? I became so nervous I could no longer look at her.

At last she spoke, relieving some of my anxiety. “You certainly are a brave sort, aren’t you? You walked right up to me, and how could you be sure I was not a man?”

I could not respond, but I looked up, able to meet her gaze again.

“I like brave ladies,” she said. “Life is certainly too short for etiquette.”

I gave a nod, but as for myself, I liked etiquette. I loved being a lady, having chairs pulled out, doors opened, and everything else that went with it. I wished only that I had more freedom to determine my own destiny. For at that time, I still completely relied on others for my future.

Isabelle, whose name I had learned only that night, returned with my wine and set it before me. She looked long at me, evaluating me for something I could not be sure of.

“You must tell her, Madeline. You know what happens…” she said, turning to the woman.

“Hold your tongue, girl,” Madeline snapped. “I do not need a child to tell me what I must do.”

Isabelle bent her knee in a casual curtsey and quickly walked away. I watched her curiously. Tell me what, I wondered? But I already suspected what the child’s looks meant, and I had only to wait patiently for Madeline to tell me. I returned my attention to the woman across from me, but said nothing.

“Forgive me, ah… I just realized I don’t know your name.”

“Elizabeth.”

“Lovely,” she said. She took my hand across the table. Her palms were rough and worked. But when she pressed her lips to my fingers they were as soft as I remembered Molly’s.

“I am Madeline, at your service, m’lady,” she said as she stood and bowed at the waist.

At length she finished her meal and her wine, then waited patiently for me to finish my glass. I did not want to rush, though. She had become a hero of sorts for me and I was basking in her presence. But all too soon my glass was drained dry.

She stood and offered her arm to me. “Come, Elizabeth, it wouldn’t do to have you walking the streets alone at night.”

“And you? What will you do when I am home?”

Madeline only smiled at me as I took her arm. I pointed in the direction of my home and she nodded, leading me forward.

She left me at the door, and though I’d have thought I was alone I was not. Mary and her sister, who shared the room next to mine, had seen me approaching.

As I stepped inside, they rushed down the stairs giggling. “And who was he, Liz?” they teased.

I only smiled and went to my room, leaving them no doubt greatly disappointed.

The next day I was released from my duties early and I rushed to the cafe. I was quietly sitting and reading a book I had bought a few days before when Isabelle boldly sat down across from me. I marked my place and looked up at her, a bit put off by her forwardness.

“I mean her no ill will, mademoiselle,” she began. “But Madeline, she is not just an unusual woman. I was once like you, fascinated by her. I thought her a hero but she is not like you and I.”

The girl trailed off and looked away for a moment, then went on. “This is a very big city, and all manner of people come and go here. You are young and naive… where did you come from?”

“Harrisburg.” I was fascinated that this girl, this child, would see fit to impart wisdom to me, seeing as I could be no less than five years her senior.

Isabelle nodded her head. “She will want more than friendship from you. She has some money and is very charismatic, but don’t be drawn in by her. She wants terrible things, perverse things.”

I said nothing at all. My smile never faded. Perhaps it had even grown. “She only wants what we all want, child. She wants to be loved.”

“But not by a man, mademoiselle.”

“And you know this for certain?

Isabelle blushed and nodded her head. “I do know.”

“And your father still serves her?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“I’ve never spoken of it to him. He would not understand. And I would not know where to begin.”

I smiled to myself. I had a companion. Someone who might understand me. I did not know what our future held, but for that moment I was relieved.

Isabelle noticed that I did not seem scandalized by this most shocking news, but instead sat smiling with a distant gaze. “You knew this already,” she said quietly. “But how?”

I could only shrug. I could not explain how such a thing might have occurred to me. It was like an instinct, though indeed her dress was at least some hint. Perhaps not to everyone, but to someone who was looking.

Someone who was looking. Again the nuns had been proven right. I had so earnestly sought a woman like me, someone to understand me. And I had found her now. I prayed that Madeline would fancy me, at least as a friend.

I was drawn away from my own thoughts when Isabelle sighed.

“But you’re a lady,” she said. “You show all the hallmarks of good breeding and refinement.”

I giggled, “Then you have not often seen ladies of refinement or breeding. My dress is worn and I am poor. I live in a boarding house and work for a mere dollar a week. No, I am not refined at all, I think, and truthfully I would not want to be.”

“Mademoiselle Elizabeth… I wish you well, but please do not make the mistake of letting my father see even a hint of romance between you. He could not abide such a thing, and I like Madeline, and you as well.”

“Isabelle, I like you too. Do you understand, though?”

“I think I do. In a way. Surely such a lady would be lonely. And damned to bear this secret having no one to share it with… but you must be ever vigilant. No one else would be so forgiving as I.”

“And why are you?”

“Because it wasn’t horrible, if I must be honest,” she answered with a blush. “It should have been but it wasn’t.”

I tried to press but she would say no more. Soon after I gave up trying to glean the story from Isabelle, she stood and returned to her duties.

I waited quietly for Madeline, sitting boldly at her usual table and reading as I sipped tea.

When at last she came, she did not hesitate to sit with me and we ate together, making small talk and sharing knowing glances. I doubted we had to say anything more. I felt certain that she must know what things I was thinking, as I am sure she suspected I did. It was that secret language, known only to us, to tom-boys. Tom-boys? Was that what I was? Was that the proper word? I did not know for certain, but for then it was sufficient.

And so for a time we ate together and spoke our secret language. Isabelle performed her duties quietly, and only once felt compelled to warn us that we were too clearly showing our intentions.

Each night Madeline escorted me home on her arm, and then Mary and her sister begged the details of my romance. It was the first day of our third week that I had my first surprise. A pleasant one indeed, but it left me anxious and gasping for breath.

As always, Madeline walked me home. But when we arrived on that dark street which had no benefit of lighting, she stopped and turned me to face her. She hesitated only a moment, looking into my eyes, before she learned forward and pressed her lips against mine.

It was all I needed. I fell into her arms and opened my mouth, waiting anxiously for her tongue.

We kissed, there on the doorstep of my house, in the night, creating a positively scandalous spectacle for anyone who might be looking. At last Madeline stepped back, and I looked up at her with all the admiration and hope of a young girl in love. Love? No, perhaps not that, but whatever it was, for that moment it was exquisite.

She smiled and I went slowly into the house, my gaze on her until the door was shut. Inside I turned to find the mistress of the house glaring at me from the sofa where she was mending a dress. I looked away, ashamed but confident that she did not fully know just how truly awful I was.

I was wrong. I’d hardly closed the door to my room when she banged her knuckle against it, startling me and gaining the attention of Mary and Elsabette. I opened the door to the house mistress’s scowl.

“What you do away from here is none of my concern, girl, but that display was simply indecent. Your passions made you look like feral animals!” She growled at me.

I was immediately ashamed. I cast my eyes down and felt the heat of my blushing cheeks. Behind her the sisters giggled. They were amused thinking I had a sweetheart, that I had a man courting me.

Finally I lifted my head and looked at the mistress. “I am sorry, ma’am. I won’t ever…”

“No, you won’t.” She stepped closer to me and I could hear her teeth grinding. “I told you to stay away from the likes of that woman. But you chose not to hear me and now look at you.”

She spoke quietly, but not quietly enough, as the gasp from behind her told me that this part of our conversation had not remained private.

“I should cast you right out of my house tonight for such a display, but you’ve been a good tenant otherwise, never troubling me over the rent.” She shook her finger at me. “But I will not have such behavior from you again.”

Turning to leave, she added, “And I urge you, forget her before it’s too late. Before you do something you cannot undo.”

She hissed something at the other girls when she passed them, and they stood quietly staring at me in shock. The mistress mumbled as she descended the stair, “And to think my William joined the minutemen for this…” What more she said I could not hear.

Ashamed, I closed my door, thinking the incident over. But they would not let it alone. The sisters knocked at the door, and despite my repeated attempts to shoo them away, they finally opened my door and stepped into my room.

“What?” I asked them. “What should I say?”

They looked at one another and then at me.

“Should I deny what you’ve heard? Tell you she was mistaken?” I shook my head, and again they exchanged a glance. “Well take a good look at me then, will that satisfy you? Look hard at the tom-boy, get your fill, and I’ll hear no more of it!”

“It’s true then?” Mary finally said.

I nodded my head. What else was I to do? Lying was against all of the virtues with which the nuns had raised me. Even when the consequences could be dire, as they were with this.

I expected a titter, a giggle. I expected something, but they stood in silent awe. “Do you love her then?” Elsa finally asked.

I only shrugged. I did not love her, I didn’t think. Not then. Not now even. But I liked her, and I felt a closeness with her that I could not have felt with anyone else. She understood me in a way others could not.

“She is kind and gentle. She pays attention to only me when we are together, and she understands… she understands things that no one else could.”

The girls were naive, or perhaps they simply were not very intelligent. What should have been a terrible scandal of perversion and indecency was instead a point of fascination for them. They were young though, fourteen, maybe fifteen.

“When Jacob holds my hand, I feel as if I’m floating,” Mary started. “I feel safe and sure of the world and my place in it. Does she make you feel wonderful like that?”

I nodded.

“And not a boy?”

I shook my head. There were tears in my eyes now. I was so ashamed. I knew that I was a perverse and indecent woman, but I walked like a lady and dressed like one. I conducted myself in such a way that others might not know what really lurked behind my smile.

Mary sat down at my little desk and glanced over my quill and papers. I was the only girl in the house who could read and write with any proficiency, and this had gained me a sort of admiration.

Elsa soon sat across from me on the bed. They both looked curious, intrigued by this new thing.

“How could you ever…” Elsa finally asked, breaking a heavy silence.

She could not finish the question, but I understood. The question was too terrible to answer, but at least the awkwardness in the room had passed. Elsa pressed me though.

I held up my hand and wiggled my fingers. “Surely you’ve had a good frigging at least once in your life,” I finally said, exasperated.

“I should think not!” Mary exclaimed, but Elsa’s silence told a different story for her, and this did not go unnoticed by her sister.

“Ohh, you scandalous slut,” Mary laughed. “You must tell me everything and don’t leave out a single detail!”

Although I wanted to hear too, the long silence from Elsabette told me that this story would be shared only between the sisters.

I could have told them everything, given them the details of every terrible pleasure I had given and had received. But this was enough. They need not know any more. Of course my limited knowledge of all the things two women could enjoy would have left the story only partially told. I was yet to learn of so many things I would never have dared dream.

Continue on to Chapter 3