Impact 22: of the Überfrau

TRIGGER WARNING: The focus of this story is a love affair between two women. But just as I am not a gold star lesbian, Sarah has an impure past. She is remembering that checkered past in this chapter, but as always, the erotic focus is between women.

Thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for copy editing.

Impact of The Überfrau

"Sarah?"

I wasn't even aware that anyone was behind me on the escalator until I heard the unfamiliar male voice, seemingly above my head. A little startled, I turned around and stared blankly at the man looking down on me from two steps above.

"It's Jamal," he said helpfully. "From

Pentagram."

I was still staring blankly. The words were all intelligible but my mind couldn't make them fit to the face I was staring at.

"Oh my gosh! Jamal?" I finally sputtered, giving up on making sense of the disconnect. "I'm sorry I totally don't-

didn't

recognize you!"

That was an understatement, obviously.

I hadn't seen Jamal in... four years? The last time I'd seen him he was a super skinny club kid with a puffy little afro. The man below me on the escalator was a heavy-set balding hipster in oversized glasses with heavy black frames... after a discordant moment, the two images gelled into one I could almost recognize.

The change somehow suited Jamal.

He gestured behind me, saving me from a fall as the escalator reached its terminus. I turned and stepped off with all my bags, feeling awkward and overburdened as I moved to one side, and put down my things. Standing up straight to face Jamal, I tried to clear my head of the old dread.

"I almost didn't recognize you!" he squealed, gesturing at my body and my hair. "When did you..."

He moved in like he might hug me and I stepped backwards. There was an awkward moment in which he looked confused or maybe just nonplussed, and then he recovered his smile. He was really determined to make this work.

"...go red?!" he asked, his voice almost sing-song happy.

"Yeah, the red is new," I admitted, smoothing my hands over my waist with a snort that made his eyebrows jump in disapproval.

I flinched and he seemed to recognize what happened, waving his hands and smiling to erase the moment.

"You look aMAZing!" he gushed. "I can't believe it; running into you!"

"Me... too?" I agreed, somewhat less enthusiastically.

Jamal and I worked together. But we were never friends, never even friendly - or at least, he wasn't.

We'd interned together at

Pentagram

- one of the most important branding and design firms in the world. The timing of that internship had been... complicated for me.

It had been the summer after my sophomore year. The summer I "never came home," as Wes remembered it. I remembered it very differently... when I let myself think of it at all.

"Jody told me you're at

The Times?"

Jamal asked, his voice rising with excitement. He pointedly pronounced the capitalization, while simultaneously giving me and my outfit a suspicious once-over.

"Yeah, I'm not dressed for work today... I've been at

The Gray Lady

for about a year?" I told him, pointedly using the papers' dour sobriquet. I knew my voice sounded curt, but I didn't care.

"Hey," he said, suddenly concerned. "Have you been crying?"

I touched my eyes, horrified to have Jamal showing me sympathy.

"Oh- sorry... my mother," I said lamely, confusing him. "My father died. It's- recent?" I explained, hating that I was using my dad as an excuse. I blushed.

I couldn't help it, it embarrassed me to be opening up to someone who had been so vicious to me, it made me angry to see a pitying look in his eyes. I felt like a fraud. I closed my eyes and tried my best to push those feelings down.

"... ugh," I moaned, softening my tone. "Things are still really raw, I guess?"

"My mom died in February," he told me; real warmth and pain in his voice. "I still cry every day."

I could remember hearing Jamal talk about his mother, and how much he loved her and admired her. He had bragged openly about being a "mama's boy".

I had gotten the sense that she was his protector in the family, that his father and older siblings didn't understand or approve of him.

"Oh jeez," I said. Involuntarily my hand reached out for his. "Jamal, I'm really sorry. I remember she was important to you!"

He squeezed my hand and we both pulled back, embarrassed.

"The InfoPorn stuff was SO great!" he said, changing the subject and tone. "I about fell out of my chair when I saw the New York Magazine cover!"

"HA! Me too," I admitted, embarrassed that I knew NOTHING about Jamal. "How about you?" I asked lamely. "What are you up to these days?"

"Do you know Science magazine?" he asked, making a face. "It's a shitty rag, and they're such drama queens, but the title is Senior Designer," he said, again accentuating the capitalizations. "And it pays the rent!"

I knew the magazine he meant, from supermarket racks; really corny design, a poor man's Scientific American - I almost felt bad for him. But I hadn't seen it in years, maybe it was better?

"That's a great title!" I agreed. "I'm just a Junior Designer."

Feeling like I should press for more details, I asked, "Do you live in TriBeCa now?"

"No such luck! It doesn't pay

that

much rent - I'm still in Queens. I'm on my way to see some friends, and just picking up a birthday present," he said, holding up a bag from

Barnes and Noble.

"You?"

"No," I told him, "I'm in Hell's Kitchen, but I'm down here a lot though? I'm kinda getting a housewarming gift, I guess?" I told him, gesturing at my

Bed Bath & Beyond

bags full of hangers. "But for a... house guest?"

"Oh wow... that's... a lot of wood hangers..." he agreed suspiciously, looking down at my bags. "How many is that?"

"Honestly I think maybe sixty?" I said, pretty sure it was more. "I'm really not sure. I went a little overboard."

"You do you," he said charitably.

"Yeah, Well... good to see you Jamal," I lied, but then added more truthfully, "I'm really sorry to hear about your mother."

"Same, I'm very sorry about your dad - it sucks. If you ever want to talk- we should... uh... meet up. Are you on LinkedIn?"

We exchanged info and Jamal helped me catch a cab and load all my things into the trunk. As I sank into my seat my stomach was in knots.

'First I'd agreed to meet with Helen's fucking boss or whatever, then I snapped at my mother, and now I've fucking "connected" with fucking Jamal on fucking LinkedIn.' I thought, hating myself. 'I'm a fool and a bully

and

a wimp,'

But even as I thought those things I was trying to imagine what losing his mother had meant for Jamal and my self-loathing softened. My mom might drive me crazy, but just the idea of losing Amelia was too awful to hold in mind. I shook my head to dispel it.

I was already putting Jamal out of mind.

Unfortunately, I was doing it by thinking about

The Überfrau.

Her accent was almost cliche. I thought of the crisp precision with which she spoke, how much she hated to be misunderstood, and how impatient she became. I could feel my face growing hot at the memory.

I

think

Stephanie was actually East German - not because she ever told me about herself she never did, but because some of her phone calls were in German, others were in Russian. But that night when she answered the phone, I just knew she sounded youngish and German, and definitely female.

When I picture her, it's most often sitting at her kitchen table in her strange Eastern European underwear - viscose or cellulose, some sort of vaguely glossy artificial silk. All her bras and panties were that same translucent beige with black elastic. She walked around the apartment in them as if she were alone, her nipples and matted bush clearly visible, her fleshy pussy lips creasing the gusset.

She ate breakfast in her underwear. When she was hungover - which was a lot - she would drink tall glasses of whole milk in the morning rather than coffee. While Stephanie was much stronger than me, she wasn't muscular like a boy. She had the body of a swimmer, long lean muscles, and powerful thin limbs. Resting her elbows on the little Formica table she would hunch over showing off her ribs and bony spine. She would sit that way, totally unselfconsciously, knees splayed wide, the crack of her ass peeking above a thin black waistband. The strap of her bra biting into the pale flesh of her narrow back. Her skin was very white but it was covered in nebulas of tiny freckles and speckled with moles, like dark stars. She had wide thin shoulders, and a long swanlike neck with a raspberry birthmark on the nape that I mistook for a hickey the first week we lived together.

She was fair with straight black hair that had the telltale signs of being dyed. Her pale freckled skin looked taut, pulled tight across her sharp cheekbones. She held big grey eyes still. Her only imperfection was crooked incisors, which I didn't notice at first because she

never

smiled.

I started calling Stephanie The Überfrau almost immediately - but not to her face! I never even behind her back. I don't think I've actually said it out loud. She was

super

intimidating, physically strong, and had a "master race" beauty and authoritarian manner that cowed me.

Still cowed me. I was intimidated just remembering Stephanie.

It was Jamal's fault I ended up living with her... not directly, or maybe not even indirectly, but fairly or unfairly, I blamed Jamal. He worked to make my life miserable that summer, so I blame him for all my misery.

After living with Danny in the coach house the summer before - working at the pizzeria, and playing the part of the perfect girlfriend and daughter - I had gone back to school with the cast iron determination to never spend another summer in Buffalo.

With the help of Veronica Fitzpatrick, my Modern Culture and Media advisor, I applied to over a dozen summer programs and internships when I got back to school that fall. Most of them were journalism internships, but Veronica suggested

Pentagram,

showing me their website.

"It's a graphic design studio?"

"It is," she agreed. "But because of your Darfur project, I thought they might be an interesting possibility."

I was taking a web design course and had made a splash with my first assignment. I scraped pages of data from the University's investment office website and created an interactive site that used infographics to show students exactly how Brown's endowment was supporting the genocidal regime in Sudan.

But my graphics had been simple. Changing a lightbulb doesn't make you an electrician, my dad would say, and my self-doubt must have shown, but Veronica mistook it for skepticism.

"It's paid!" she assured me, smiling widely. I'd told her my family couldn't afford for me to support me, that I needed a paycheck - so my choices were limited. I'd also told her I'd like to be in New York...

"And it's in New York!"

We both laughed.

"You buried the lead!" I teased.

"Seriously, I know it's different, but your visual storytelling is really amazing. Why not spend a summer doing a deep dive?" Veronica suggested. But just like all the other programs we'd discussed, she was quick to warn me it would be difficult to get in. "All of these are competitive," she said gesturing at the brochures I'd set aside. "But I've heard Pentagram's internships are incredibly prestigious, and you're not a design student, so think of it as a Hail Mary."

As it turned out, I didn't even get into any of the less prestigious journalism programs I'd applied for, much less

Pentagram.

So as my sophomore year wound down I was financially depleted and depressed about my prospects generally.

I was deeply blue.

Making matters worse, because I had no prospects, my mother was pressuring me to go back to Buffalo for the summer, to save money by living rent-free with Danny again.

"He loves you for goodness sake!" she laughed when I protested.

That I had

gently

rejected a second, more serious, proposal from Danny was a sore spot for my parents, and I braced myself for my mother to bring it up, but instead, all she said was,

"They

want you there!"

She meant his parents, his whole family, that they all wanted me there. Which was true. Danny's mother and little sister had especially loved having me around the previous summer.

"I know I know I know... I like it there! I do! It's not that... it's not them!" I told her.

"No," she agreed, more seriously, "it's

you,

Sarah Beth."

"Muh

THER!"

I whined.

It was all I could think to say. She was right.

I just wanted to stay in Providence doing a summer job on campus, but jobs were scarce and what I could get didn't pay enough to offset my costs of living. I needed to save money for the next year.

She knew what I was thinking.

"No one is going to be around!" she told me, but what she meant was Kwasi would be gone. He had sublet his room to a grad student and was spending the summer in Italy.

I reluctantly gave in. With Kwasi's help, I almost immediately found another grad student to sublet my room for the summer.

"See?" my mother told me, "it was meant to be!"

And as it turned out, it

was

lucky I gave in, because it was just days before I was meant to go home that I got the call from

Pentagram

offering me a paid internship.

It had been a bolt from the proverbial blue.

I was never told, but I suspect someone more qualified must have backed out at the last minute, that they had to scramble to fill the slot. I didn't care that I wasn't their first choice, that I probably wasn't even their second or third choice. All I cared about was that I wouldn't be slinging pizza to linemen in Buffalo all summer.

I accepted without asking my parents or Danny.

When I told Danny about my change of plans, he was upset, but not surprised. He said I'd been hemming and hawing about coming home all winter, which I'm sure was true.

My mother surprised me.

I thought she would be angry. She wasn't at all. She did ask a LOT of questions but listened when I told her what an important opportunity the internship was, how prestigious it was etc. Her only reservation was that I'd be living in New York City on my own.

"It's all-inclusive," I lied. "They set everything up. I'll be fine, Mom."

She sent me three hundred dollars. I knew the money was dear to her, but the cash would end up being indispensable that summer.

"My sewing money," she said dismissively when I thanked her.

I packed light, and took the bus down to New York City, having never been there, no housing lined up, and knowing absolutely no one.

I did have a credit card, however.

I'd applied for it on campus my first semester and hidden it at the back of my desk drawer, and kept it hidden ever since.

'In case of emergencies," I told myself, looking at the still-shiny card. 'This is an emergency,' I thought, sliding it into my pocketbook.

My bus ticket was the very first "charge" I made. I can still remember how scary that purchase was.

"Debt is a slippery slope," my mother had warned me when I started school.

Because my scholarships wouldn't cover all my living expenses, I had to apply for loans. As a girl, in the aftermath of my father's stroke, I'd watched her battle her way out of bankruptcy. But growing up I'd also known she was paying off, longer-term, insoluble debts to the IRS. She had warned me that student debt was insoluble. I worked student jobs all through school too, but ended up having to borrow a lot of money.

It terrified me.

When I went to pay for my bus ticket the agent handed the credit card back to me, for an awful moment I thought it had been rejected. But it just needed a signature. It still had a sticker on its front, reminding me to sign the back. My hand shook as I signed my name, right there at the bus terminal, with a borrowed pen and the ticket agent looking on.

I felt like a criminal, like I was doing it wrong. I hadn't even gotten on the bus and I was already convinced I was a fraud.

I arrived in New York City counting on maybe one of the other interns needing a roommate or knowing someone who did. In the meantime, I got a room at

The Riverview.

I don't remember how I found it, but at $30 a night, it was by far the cheapest hotel I could find in Manhattan. It was an old brick building with a huge turret overlooking the Hudson River. It was on the very far west side of the West Village - literally, where the sidewalk ends.

I went in, braced for something seedy and gross. The lobby was empty, and not huge. It was a little seedy, but not at all gross. It had high ceilings dark wood paneling and green tile. There were animal heads and candelabra wall sconces... it wasn't anything like I expected.

My "room" was my second credit card purchase.

Calling it a "room" was generous. The Riverview had the most ridiculously tiny rooms imaginable. It was a capsule hotel a hundred years before the Japanese invented capsule hotels. My room was fifty square feet.

I measured it.

It was only two square feet bigger than the average US prison cell - I looked it up. Evidently, the rooms were designed to look like berths on a ship. The bed doubled as a couch and filled half the available space, head to foot. If possible it was even narrower than my little mattress at the dorm. Next to the head of the bed was the door, at the foot, opposite the door, was my little window. The wall between the door and window was a large mirror that faced the couch/bed and was just enough space to stand up and get dressed. There was a long shallow shelf above the couch/bed where I kept my bags and two shallow stone shelves that ran under the window where I kept my necessities.

Everything was paneled in honey-colored wood paneling or covered in old fashion wallpaper.

The biggest difference between my room and a prison cell - besides the whole incarceration thing - was my room had no sink or toilet. There were communal bathrooms down the hall - which was kinda like the dorms, except these were coed. But the toilets and showers in the hotel were private rooms with locked doors, which was a relief. As far as I could tell I was the only girl on my floor. The only other guests I ran into were gay men.

My mother would have shit herself if she knew.

I asked the guy at the front desk why the rooms were so small, he said The Riverview was built by a nineteenth-century benevolent society for "mariners", and that the turret used to be capped by a tall lighthouse.

"Which," he explained, "is why the rooms looked like berths, so the sailors would feel more at home."

"If I was a mariner," I told him, "I think the last thing I'd want, after living on a ship, was to come to shore and pretend to live on a ship."

He gave me a look like he was imagining me in a little sailor outfit.

"Maybe that's why the benevolent society went tits up," he said with a shrug.

He also told me the hotel was where the survivors of the Titanic stayed when they arrived in New York, which seemed a little too on the nose? He was fey and wry, and I began to suspect he might be bored and pulling my leg. I wasn't sure what to believe.

Whatever, I loved The Riverview. My room had a view of the Hudson. The neighborhood was posh, but the block it was on was super sketchy, and the hotel itself was kinda sketchy too I guess? But in a good way?

I felt weirdly safe there.

There was a gay cabaret show* and nightclub in the ballroom, but I never went in. The lobby and hallways and bathrooms were all gorgeous, if worn. And all the men were friendly and protective.

Every time I ran into the guy in the room across the hall, he called me "Dorothy" ...which was a relatively fair assessment of my situation. I

really

wasn't in Kansas anymore.