Jane, My Lesbian Room Mate ~ 1962

When I struck up a conversation with this cute chick it never occurred to me that she might be a lesbian. That short hairstyle was very popular with the college girls at the time. We became friends. One night after she got into a bit of a spat with her girlfriend she was at my place visiting when suddenly the girlfriend showed up! After a bit of running around, jumping across beds, and a good amount of screaming, she escorted her girlfriend to the door. (see photos) They soon made up and were back together again.

Come wintertime and I was back in Boston. Jane and I stayed in touch and she knew where I lived on Norway Street. One extremely cold night about 11 PM I was making hot chocolate when there was a desperate knocking on my door! Jane wasn't really dressed for the weather and had just ridden her Vespa motor scooter the couple of miles from near Beacon Hill to my place in the South End.

My household furnishings were typical "beatnik pad", a few chairs, a couple of tables, and a double bed matress on the floor with pillows, sheets, and blankets. It was always cold in there, so after the hot chocolate we were soon under the covers. I wasn't dating anyone at the time, and it looked like Jane wasn't either. We decided to share the place for awhile, just room mates. We went and got her stuff, moving it into my apartment. We were living together for several months. She invited me to be her "date" at a big Christmas party. There must have been close to a hundred people there. She knew them all, and they all knew her. And I was the only straight guy there!

As we circulated around the party she acted like I was her trophy, bragging to the girls that I had I had something (chuckle, chuckle) that their girlfriends didn't have, and telling the guys "Ooooh, I bet you wished that he was YOURS!"

I don't know if it was the drinks, the smoke, or just being around all those chicks, but when we got home she announced that yes, she had occasionaly had sex with a guy, and that once in awhile it was nice to feel something alive inside of her. She easily convinced me to supply the "something alive". I let her put it inside. We did it just that one time. A week or two later she moved out. Some things just aren't meant to be.

The Witch Of Provincetown - 1962

That wasn't her name but that's what we called her. Every day you'd see her walking up and down Commercial Street carrying that big straw purse. She looks to be at least late sixties with her jowels and throat beginning to sag a bit and her slightly hunched over posture. She ambled along with a slow shuffle. She had a good head of thick hair but the reddish auburn color no doubt came out of a bottle.

She was always the properly dressed lady. She wore short heels, the seams in her nylons were always perfectly straight, the skirt covered her knees by a few inches, and you never saw her without hat and gloves. She did wear a bit too much make-up though. Eye liner and eye shadow had yet to become fashionable but she was made up straight out of a nineteen thirties movie. Plucked and arched eyebrows, rouge on the cheeks of her powdered face, and bright red lipstick.

She never seemed to talk with anyone. She just went about her business, doing a bit of shopping before heading back to wherever it was that she lived. I never did find out where that was, but then I didn't much care anyway. Nor did I know if she was widowed, divorced, an old maid or a lesbian. Over the course of the summer I shot a few pictures of her and liked this the best.

I was shooting Kodak Plus-X in a Canon II-S rangefinder with a 35mm f/1.8 Canon lens.