[sinclairfan]

Lorraine have had three tooth-and-claw brawls already--we're able and willing to scratch and punch each other like desperate women convicts.  But none of those prior three occassions were worknights, where we had to show up, presentable, in an office the next morning.

We both seem to sense fairly quickly that tonight won't be Round No.4.  We'rd going to catfight with words instead.

Lorraine goes first.
> Elena can't help you anymore, Lisa.  She's already [air quotes] "moved on" from P&G.

> Bullshit.  She's a lifer.  Her whole family is.

> Wrong, dummy.  The stock is up so much, they've cashed out.  Not completely, but mostly.  To Western & Southern Life Insurance policies.  They're putting it away before new federal tax limits kick in on how much premium can be paid into a policy.

> [Western & Southern is an old Cincinnati institution, just like Pogue's and all the downtown department store tea rooms Elena took me to for lunch last Christmas.  If Lorraine is lying, her lie is quite Cincinnati-specific.]  How do YOU know all about Elena??

> From her nidce, Jenna, dumb ass.  My Wheaton roommate???  Remember???

> Cheating with HER, two-timer?!?

> [Smirking]  Wouldn't YOU like to know.

> I think you're bluffing.  I'm reporting you to HR for holding up my intern review in turn for sex.

> It'll go no where.  TRUST .... ME.
 
> As opposed to our relationship??  It's going somewhere???  After this?

> Having you .... under my thumb .... is my turnon.  Haven't you figured that out yet.  We'll ..... FUCK LIKE ANIMALS .... once you get over your hurt feelings .... AND DUMP ELENA.

> And you'll funk Jenna, too?

> You don't worry your little head abour HER.  You're headed back to Miami [the university in Ohio, not the city in Florida] in a few weeks.

to be continued......

[sinclairfan]

The next night, with my summer internship time fast running out, I visited Elena at Jenna's parents' house--they were away in Camden, Maine on summer vacation, at a compound paid for by years of P&G profits--and, after an intense lovemaking session, I confronted her about her reallocation of her wealth out of P&G and into Western and Southern life insurance and annuities.

Elena tearfully disclosed to me a mountain of credit card debt from her addiction to downtown Cincinnati shopping sprees, mostly on clothes and shoes.  Pre-1986, she was able to deduct the interest payments from her personal income taxes, but the Tax Reform Act had eliminated this benefit, and she was in a countdown, albeit a slow one, to personal bankruptcy.

The changes in her portfolio were to buy her time.  And, an acknowledgment she would never be able to marry.

Because she wasn't straight.  And wasn't bi.

> I just like two things.  Sexually, I mean.

> What are those?

> Fucking girls.  And fighting girls.

> I've ..... never seen you fight, tho.

> Do you want to?

> Hell, yes.

> Why didn't you ask?

To be continued.....

[sinclairfan]

My last day in the office for at P&G, I found out that Lorraine had given me a 'Meets Requirements' review--good enough to get invited back for the next summer for another internship, but only because I was still only going into my sophomore year.  'Meets Requirements' wouldn't get me a full-time offer if that's what I got headed into my senior year. 

'Guess your butt-kissing of your advisor Lorraine didn't pay off,' was the snarky commentary I got from HR when they made me my offer for next summer (of 1987).  I accepted, but honestly I was tepid on P&G.  Who said I initiated with Lorraine???  Maybe SHE was harrassing ME. 

I decided I would spend next spring, intern recruiting season, putting out feelers to Mr Robinson's American Express.  He was a more impressive speaker than any I had seen from P&G all summer.

That's what all this summer's interns were doing anyways--getting 'P&G' on their resume, and leveraging it for a job somewhere else.

Let Lorraine and her bitch Jenna have P&G for themselves.  They cpuld have it.

It was a big world out there.  I'd go somewhere I was wanted.

Tonight I wanted to watch Elena fight.

All the girls on her life who might fight her on short notice were away on summer vacation.  Everyone from Cincinnati seemed to get the hell out of Dodge all of August.  How good could it be?

So we got dressed for a barfight.  And went to the sports bar where I had waited for Lorraine the last Thanksgiving Eve, where I let myself get picked up and plowed.

The Bengals were playing the Eagles on tv in an NFL exhibition game.  Elena put on Eagles gear (she looked sexy in it).  Maybe some asshole Bengals fan would start shit with her, and they would fight in the pool room.

And I could watch.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

In one of my high school tennis matches, probably in 1983 or so, I was playing a girl I really didn't like, and went down 4-0 in the 1st set.  It's basically impossible to come back from 0-4 down in a set, and any strategy book you read will tell you to save your energy and concede the set.  Anytime you see a 6-0 score in any tennis 1st or 2nd set, that's basically what happened.  The loser of the set was down 0-4, and saved her/his energy.

But something about the bitch I was playing that day told me, "No.  No way.  Don't give an itch to this bitch.  Whatever happens, let it happen.  But I'm not giving this bitch a 0-6 set."

I won the set, 6-4.  I won the match, 6-4, 6-0.

I don't know how.  It doesn't make any sense.  And yet it does.  It makes perfect sense.

I thought she was a bitch.  I stood up to her.

She folded like a cheap suit.

Every woman in my life so far (except my mom) had been a bitch to me.

My dad's girlfriend had been a bitch to me.

Lorraine had been a bitch to me.

Elena had been a bitch to me.

The textbook would say, for different reasons, to defer to them.

No way.

[sinclairfan]

I headed back to Oxford, OH for my sophomore year at Miami.  Elena came up the first weekend to have sex with me.  Although in 1986 the concept of an openly lesbian relationship was still out of the mainstream, especially at a nominally Catholic university, Elena's presence in my room, and in my bed, was surprisingly acceptable because of the age difference between us.  Elena was understood to be a 'sob story' who had been damaged in her early 20s by men, and who I was nurturing back to normalcy with college sex.  She and I would be back to me anytime, my friends told each other.  Let them have their fun.

Something that wasn't fun:  Elena swapping out her P&G wealth for a Western and Southern variable annuity.  She's get a quarterly statement, and check, instead of quarterly dividends.  It was more predictable than P&G stock, but certainly not stable, and the wealth felt less direct.

It didn't feel like fuck-you wealth anymore, like when she held shares of P&G.

And had 'pull' at P&G.

Ironically, if anyone had that now, it was Lorraine.  She was a manager in training.

I should have picked one or the other of them as a lover by now.  But I didn't.  I was keeping my options open. 

The option to play them off against each other.

The option to make them fight for me someday.

Because they both loved fucking me.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

Weekdays at my dorm suite at Miami of Ohio moved sssssoooo slow.  College life in the mid-1980s was nothing like it became in the 2010s.  The dining commons food wasn't that good.  There were no real coffee shops or other hangout spots--just old ratty 1970s couches.

And Hook-up Culture wasn't a thing yet.  Boys and girls might drink together, but it didn't instantaneously turn into them hopping into bed together.  And even when they did hop into bed, the sex was quick and embarrassing.

Not that I was doing much to change that dynamic.  One day I walked past the campus tennis courts, and saw two people hitting tennis balls back and forth.  It had been ovet a year since I had held a tennis racket.  And it had been over a year since I had sex with a boy.

Or even flirted with one.

Why were men so damn intimidated by my looks?  Was my heterosexual sex life as 'over' as my tennis career was?

Should I start initiating more with boys?

Did having an older female overnight guest make everyone think of me as not straight?

Was I straight?  I didn't even know myself if I was or not.

What a disappointment the sex part of my one straight relationship had been.  Because he was small, and passive, in bed.

Would it be better with a better partner?  The sex .... and the relationship.

I started flirting more in class.  Is this where college relationships started?

But wouldn't it be awkward sitting in class afterwards with a boy you had sex with?  Or broke up with?

My sophomore classmates wete talking about movong off campus for junior year.  None of them were asking me to room with them.

I was going to be stuck with immature freshmen in my dorm suite.

But I'd be getting a 'single' room.  More privacy--a 'swingle'.

I masturbated to the thought of sex with a boy I asked to my room to study.

Why was I thinking about boys so much?

Would the boy have a girlfriend?  Would she and I fight?

I always came hard at this part of my fantasies.

I really wanted to fight.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

In the fall of 1986, I had to wrestle with the sad, empty reality that Elena wasn't sexy to me anymore.  Her selling her P&G stock showed she wasn't just cashing out of corporate America and building wealth--it showed she was cashing out on living.  She was just resting on her laurels. 

That overconfident sentiment would be proven partially wrong 12 months later, when the stock market fell by 22% on a single day on October 19, 1987, and Elena's Western & Southern annuity kept pumping out its reliable monthly income.

But Lorraine was now the one building wealth for the future.  I wanted in on that for me, and I wanted in on her P&G success too.

Plus, Elena's knowledge of Pogue's and the downtown Cincinnati retail and tea room scene now just looked dated and stupid.  The downtown retailers wete dying, changing their names in a futile attempt to stay afloat, like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I missed Lorraine.

One day after class, I called her apartment number down in Cincinnati.

A strange woman answered.

> Hello?

> Oh, hi.  Is Lorraine there?

> Who the hell wants to know?? [The bitch was acting jealous.  Clearly she and Lorraine were lovers.  A rival.]

> An old girlfriend of hers wants to know.

> Then, no.  She's not here.  [My rival hangs up.]

Game on, bitch.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

Lorraine's betrayal of me, just mere weekes after my return to college, suddenly made Elena much more attractive to me.  I began to cum, still fully closed, just by having makeout sessions with her.  Her tongue kisses were wonderfully erotic.

Why was a 27 year old grown woman hanging out with a college girl like me?  Was it really so hard, in 1986, to meet a better-matched lesbian partner?

The internet, and dating websites, didn't exist yet.

There were dating services.... but only meant for straight people.

And they were expensive.

Elena was living on a fixed income .... her Western & Southern annuity.  She had to watch her spending.

Is that why she was living with me?  To save on living expenses?  To save on utilities and cable and groceries?

Was she using me?

It was ok--anyone who kisses like her can use me.

Fuck you, Lorraine.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

Way back in the Spring of 1985 (how long ago that seemed now), I had started flirting with (and propositiong) a boy in order to learn about sex.  But instead, 18 months later, all I had learned about was cheating and lying.

Lorraine lying about being the boy's girlfriend, and even about being straight.

Me lying to my family about fighting Lisa.

My lying to P&G about why they should hire me.

Lorraine and Elena betraying me, and me them.

Elena lying about where she was in her life, about having or even pursuing a career.

Was this what all relationships were like once you peered behind the curtain?

Or was it what I was like?  That I was doomed to a life of sneaking, and being sneaked on and around?

Or was the 1980s homophobic society forcing the three of us to sneak?  The Supreme Court had decided Bowers vs Hardwick, the anti-sodomy case a few months earlier.  I had assumed I wasn't affected because I didn't want to receive sodomy, and was unable to commit it (because, girl).

But now I wondered.  Did my choice to be bi haven't implications I didn't think of?

Was I even really bi?  Men still didn't approach me.  Could then tell I wasn't straight relationship material?

I wished I coild talk to someone about this.  Would my dad understand?  Would he be disappointed?

Should I have gone to an all-girl school like Lorraine?

Instead of Catholic Miami of Ohio?

And, .... why did I enjoy fighting so much?

To be continued.....

[sinclairfan]

On Saturday November 15, I was laying in bed with Elena in my dorm room.

November 15.  Dividend payment day on Proctor & Gamble stock.  And coupon payment day on some of their debt.  Elena still held some of her P&G bonds which were near maturity, clipping the coupons (even in 1986, many old-issued bonds existed in paper form--you brought the physical paper bond into the broker's office in downtown Cincinnati to redeem it when it matured) and bringing them to her broker next Monday.  But she had sold her P&G stock to get her W&S annuities, and wouldn't be collecting any dividends at the brokerage.

It sickened me that she had cashed out her P&G wealth.  She wss in her 20s chronologically, but sexually she was just an aging Cincinnati Old Maid spinster clipping coupons and having lunch in Cincinnati's dying tea rooms.

She wasn't a turnon to me anymore.  I wanted to argue about it.

> Elena.  You're kinda gross.

> How so, bitch?

> You're sleeping in a girls' college dorm with co-ed's 10 years younger than you.  If you were a male, you'd be a predator.

> And what else?  [How did she know I'd left the most hurtful part out?]

> The girls here are 10 times smarter than you, slut.  [My pussy was soaked, my nipples hard.]

> I think not, sweetie.  YOU're not so smart.  You slept with Lorraine to get a high rating at P&G.

> [I get nose to nose with Elena.  She smells sweaty.] Fuck you, whore.  I EARNED that rating.

> No one at P&G believes it.  Your future there is on thinner ice than you think.

> Lorraine won't go back on her rating of me.

> Because if she does, what?  You'll catfight her?

> You know you'd enjoy that.

> I'd enjoy her ripping your tits, off.

> If you'd enjoy it so much, do it yourself, bitch.  If you can.

> You know I can.

[The door next to us opens suddenly.  It's my suitemate.]

> Are you two fighting for real??  Because if you are, I'm calling the RA.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

At that moment, when my suitemates overheard Elena and I were having a lovers' quarrel on the verge of turning physical, I held Elena's future in the palms of my hands.  I was a college resident, while Elena was a guest.  If she was considered a threat to the campus community, she would have been thrown out by campus security ... AND been put under a lifetime ban from ever setting foot on campus again.

And, as I looked at Elena's semi-nude body next to me in bed, part of me wanted to get her into as much trouble as possible.  I knew full well that Elena dated other women behind my back, keeping a Rolodex of bi women in Cincinnati who would go shopping with her on her 1st of the month annuity payment dates.  I knew after a weekend in my dorm room bed, she was headed downtown the following Monday to cash in her P&G bond coupons, have lunch in a Cincinnati tea room with one of her companions, no doubt already decked out with Christmas decorations and music, and that the two of them would have sex.

I hated her for it. 

But part of me had Catholic guilt.  For calling Elena stupid and uneducated.

Because the fact was, thst was pure projection on my part.  Because I was feeling pretty stupid lately.  As a Catholic college, Miami's students had disproportionately attended Catholic high schools.  And in the 1970s and 1980s, many Catholic high schools didn't even bother teaching girls what are today know as 'STEM' classes--hard sciences, math, and computer science.

So many of my classmates at Miami were taking remedial, 100-level math classes, even now in their sophomore year.  For me, it was quite the comedown from what I thought would be my 2nd year at Notre Dame, Boston College, or Holy Cross; getting ready for the GRE or law school.

I was frustrated.  At myself, for not getting into Notre Dame.  Applying to BC or Holy Cross as backup schools was just dumb strategy on my part--BC and the Cross recruited nationally--as a local, I was at a disadvantage applying there.

It probably had nothing to do with my high school bathroom fistfight with Maureen.  I just picked dumb schools, with my transcript, to apply to.

And why was I even on a Catholic education track anyways.  I was obviously a lesbian ..... and as such, had no place in the 1980s Catholic Church.

How had I fucked up my life so much?

What would fucking up Elena's life help?  That would just be useless, petty revenge on an innocent third party.

So, I looked at my suitemate, looked at Elena [both of them anxiously awaiting my reply], and said:

> Elena and I were just having a lovers' quarrel.  Which was my fault.  I apologize for losing my temper.  But now we're going to have make-up sex.  If Elena is game.

> [Without hesitating] I'm game.  [Elena and I tongue kiss.  Passionately.]

We expect my suitemate to close the door.  She does, but with herself still in the room.  She asks us a question:

> Would it be perv-y if I watched you guys.

Elena answers:

> Little bit.  But .... you can watch.

Elena and I make passionate love for an hour, with my suitemate watching and masturbating the entire time.

When it's over, we ask her if she enjoyed it.

> Kinda.  I got turned it when you two were fighting.  I've never heard two girls fighting like that.

Elena and I look at each other and blush.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

The day after Thanksgiving 1986, on Black Friday, Elena and I went to downtown Cincinnati, did some shopping for winter boots and shoes, and had lunch in one of the Tea Rooms, surrounded by older ladies, pillars of the Cincinnati establishment, who had been doing the same routine since the 1950s, sometimes even longer.

They, and we, and no way of knowing it, but that Black Friday was the end of the Tea Room Era.

By the following Thanksgiving, in 1987, the October stock market crash had happened, destroying the stock price of even the untouchable P&G, the source of so much of the wealth of the Grand Dames around us.  And then, relentlessly, from 1988 to 1991, the great decay of America's downtowns, most particularly in medium sized cities like Cincinnati (and Providence and Boston) made gigantic department stores like Pogue's a useless millstone around the neck of mid-American retail. 

It was impossible keeping up the Tea Rooms.  And as inner city life got more gritty and violent, the Grand Dames stopped cpming anyways.

I say Elena and I had no way of knowing this bleak future in 1986.

But, at the same time, we could sense SOMETHING ominous.  Our 1986 Tea Room lunch was less ... joyful .... than even our 1985 lunch, just 364 days earlier.  Less sexy.

In 1985, we were touching each other under the table.  In 1986, we sat separated.

Elena looked older.  I mean, she WAS older .... but I could SEE it in her face.  The bags under her eyes.  The start of wrinkles.  Her feathered hair looking too thin to pull off the haircut she was attempting.  I had caught her coloring her hair in my dorm bathroom.  Was she trying to hide grey?

She had spent less at the stores this year than last.  With her annuities, she got a monthly income.  But it was a FIXED income.  Did she consider that when deciding what to buy today?  Everyday?

I was the one who was supposed to be the poor college student.

Poor.  Poverty.  The worst thing about poverty wasn't the lack of money.

It was that it's a turnoff.  A sexual turnoff.  It makes you want less sex.  Or sometimes no sex.

And that a damning indictment.

Elena busts me in the midst of my brooding thoughts?

"What are you thinking, Lisa?"

"I was thinking ..... I wish Lorraine was here."

"Lorraine?!?  That bitch, again??"

"Ya, her again.  You have a problem with her?"

"She's a bitch.  You know it.  I know it."

[It's my turn to talk.  But I can't--my pussy is wet and I'm aroused.]

"..... and if she was here, I'd tell her."

"Can we go to the car and fuck?"

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

For Christmas 1986, I didn't want to be anywhere near Lorraine, didn't want to be anywhere near Elena, didn't want to be in Cincinnati or anywhere in Ohio.

I wanted to be home with my Mom.  Or Dad.

I wanted my Mom and Dad wanted to be together at home.  Not separated.  And my Dad not near the skank girlfriend who enjoyed punching me.  And who enjoyed watching me get punched.

That's what my 1985-1986 downward spiral was really all about--my sadness over my Mom and Dad's split.  And my Dad being with a girl who had more in common with me than with my Mom.

That's what the draw of P&G was to me--the safety and security of a large corporation replacing the safety and security of my childhood home.  I missed my Dad so much.

Talking to him about sports.  Watching football with him.

Talking to him about the tension between me and my ex-friend Maria.  And whether Maria and I would catfight.  Or had already.  And if we had, the details of our catfight.

How I felt catfighting a best friend.  What girlfights were like.

What girls were like.  Being in his 50s and still learning.

Still learning about my Mom.  Even after separating from her.

Maybe if he understood her better the past 10 years, he'd still be with her.  And not with a slut who wanted to fight me.

I miss him.  I call home too see if I can stay with him Christmas Break.

SHE answers.  The bitch that wants to fight her boyfriend's teen daughter.

> Hey, bitch.

> Oh.  It's YOU.

> Fuck you, Lisa.

> Can I talk to Dad?

> No.  Yiu can talk to me.  Guess who wants to fight you?

> Ummm, you?

> Shut up.  No.  Not yet, at least.

> Maria?

> Good guess.  But no.

> Just fucking tell me.

> Maureen.  From high school.

> Liar.  She doesn't want to fight me.

> She's mad at you for going to Ohio and not telling her that you fucked Lorraine AND Elena.

> Well who the fuck did she learn that from??

> From me.  Suck it.

> Instigator.

> Prima donna.

> Slut.

> Chicken shit .... IF you don't come home to face her.

> Let me guess .... with you watching.

> With ME watching.

> Freak.

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

Every year at Christmas, I think of the 1986 fight my Dad's girlfriend instigated between Maureen and me.  I didn't particularly want to fight Maureen, and I don't think Maureen particularly wanted to fight me .... I think my Dad's girlfriend just wanted to see me get hit.  I think it turned her on. 

I think she was jealous of the bond my Dad and I shared, all the way until his death from a stroke in 1996.  He died way too young.

A few days before Christmas in 2022, the Pittsburgh Steelers running back Franco Harris died.  26 years after my dad died.

I thought back to 1975, when I was still a grade schooler, sitting with my Dad on the couch, watching the Steelers play the Cincinnati Bengals in a blinding blizzard.  The final score was 7-0--Franco Harris scored the game's only touchdown.

Little did I know I'd be living and working in Cincinnati just 10 years later.

We talked about my best friend Maria.

Little did I know I'd have a falling out with Maria before either of were done high school.  And that Maria and I would catfight in my Mom's backyard, with my Mom watching secretly from inside.

Why did she watch secretly?  Why did she let Maria and I finish that fight?

Little did I know my Dad would divorce by Mom soon.  I wonder if my Dad knew yet.

Little did we know my Dad had only 20 years left to live.  (My Mom died in 2015--still too young, but she was an old woman at heart by then.  Her divorce broke her heart.)

To be continued....

[sinclairfan]

Before spending Christmas Eve 1986 with my Dad and his semi-psychotic girlfriend, I visted my Mom.  Her house seemed really sad--she and I had coffee.  I think hers had Kahlua in it.  If it did, it meant she had taken to day-drinking.  I was mad at my Dad's girlfriend for having my Mom sink so far.

My Mom and I stared out the picture window to the backyard where Maria and I had fought a few years earlier, my Mom peaking at us from behind a curtain as Maria and I rolled on the ground for 20 minutes.  We must have been able to tell by our uncomfortable silence and body language that we were both thinking the same thoughts. 

My Mom broke the awkward silence first.

> Does Maria know you're back in town for the school break?

> If she does, she found out from Dad's girlfriend.  Not from me.

> You're not gonna meet up with Maria some time.

> I don't think that would be a good idea.

> That bad?  You two never reconciled?

> Nah.  I think she and I are past reconciling.   I never tried.  I'm not the reconciling type.  [Wait a minute, I think to myself.  Didn't I reconcile with Lorraine?  Whatever ..... that's WAY too complicated a topic to broach with my Mom.  Let's just discuss Maria for now.]

> Women can fall out and reconcile, you know.

> Have you ever fallen out with a friend the way I did with Maria?

> [My mom chuckles at something.  It's good to see her smile.]  I suppose not.  Why?

> I know you were watching Maria and I catfight that day.  Maria knew too, I think.

> Oh ...... it was a good fight.  Long.

> Did you think about breaking us up?

> No .... I mean, if she had started to cheat .... you know, picked up a stick or a rock or someting .....

> What if I had started to lose?

> I would have made you fight your way out of it.  [Is this my Mom talking, or the Kahlua?]

> Is that what YOUR mom made you do?  Growing up?

> Not my Mom.  But my older sister did.  Aunt Catherine. 

> [Aunt Catherine had spent every Christmas Eve with us growing up, so she wouldn't be alone that night.  She never married.  I decided years later she was a lesbian, when attractive unmarried women showed up at her funeral.]