On a cold Saturday in February, 1975, Michelle Hanley and Judith Weinberg went to see Bonnie and Clyde at a revival house, the Cinema Village on 12th Street. The two were sophomores at the City College of New York. When they came out, they decided to walk a few blocks to a bar.

Judy said, “How about the Cedar Tavern? It’s just a couple of blocks from here.”

“No, let’s go to Googie’s today. It’s a little more cozy, I think.”

Judy looked over at her taller friend and admired her gray knee-high boots. She had been having a growing infatuation with Michelle in recent months and hadn’t dared to make a gesture or statement hinting at her interest. As they started to walk down the block, Judy put out her hand and held the other woman’s left hand. Michelle briefly smiled at her and they continued on their way.

She doesn’t know what I really feel about her. She thinks of me as a friend - which I am, for sure - but to her this probably just appears as a girl crush at the most. Judy thought of her own brown boots and wondered about the public impression they were making.

“Do you think guys are noticing us?” Judy asked.

“I don’t know; what do you mean?”

Judy wasn’t entirely sure herself. “I guess, do they see us and think we’re a couple of desirable chicks?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Michelle already had a boyfriend named Paul back at City College and she seemed to be contented with him at the moment. Judy had never had a lover either male or female, but this winter, having passed her nineteenth birthday, she was acutely feeling the lack of one.

She had been hoping that Michelle would somehow give her advice or at least some clues about how she should proceed with her life. In the year and a half they had known each other not much information had been offered and Judy had been reluctant to push too much on the subject. Judy’s virginity was a topic that was assumed but not openly discussed between them.

In the bar they found a booth and they both ordered Irish coffees. “It’s a battle between the caffeine and the alcohol with these things,” Michelle said, a joke Judy remembered from the previous winter. Then, Judy steered the conversation towards the movie. They had both seen photos of the real Bonnie and Clyde, but neither had seen the film until today.

Judy said, “I admit, it turns me on to imagine being Bonnie.”

“So, you identity with Faye Dunaway?” Michelle could tell immediately from the expression on her friend’s face that she had said the wrong thing. Dunaway was tall, svelte and blonde, all things that Judy was not.

Judy decided to make light of it, “Well, not exactly with Dunaway; she's the ultimate shiksa. But the idea of being a gun moll, a gangster’s girlfriend - okay, it turns me on.”

“I think I get it. But these guys, the ultimate bad boys like Clyde Barrow or John Dillinger, they wind up dead or in prison. Usually pretty quickly too.”

“I know, but I can’t help it, the idea makes me tingle.”

Michelle knew what she was talking about because she felt it a bit herself. “So what do you want to do, have a gun, drive the getaway car?”

“All of that seems exciting. I wouldn’t just be along for the ride.”

Michelle had a hard time imagining her friend firing a weapon or handling a fast car during a chase. She had been with Judy when the latter was driving the family Buick Century sedan - driving it sedately up the middle lane of the Henry Hudson Parkway. She would go around it checking for dents if she had to park in the street for any length of time.

Michelle teased her a bit, “But, to get back to the main thing; it’s the gangster boyfriend that clinches it.”

Judy felt her face get warm, “Well, of course.” She wasn’t about to explain now how she imagined it, this guy who she could straddle in the back seat or maybe in a cornfield when she needed a good, hard fuck.

Michelle said, “We both have to be realistic. We have plenty to choose among the men up at City College. They may not be as exciting as 1930s mobsters, I will grant that.”

Judy felt she was being patronized although her friend may not have realized it. Judy noted the other woman’s straight brown hair and although she couldn’t see them, she thought about Michelle’s athletic legs and tight, compact backside. She’s a shiksa too, although an Irish-Polish one rather than a WASP goddess like Dunaway.

There were some complications in Michelle’s life that Judy knew about but didn’t mention very often. Paul had been involved with a couple of other girls, one of whom was still on a college newspaper with him even though she had dumped him a couple of months ago. The third woman was an older perennial student named Charlotte who generally kept her distance from Michelle.

Judy herself had been on a couple of dates with Paul recently. To qualify as a “date” in her mind these had to be off-campus, not merely meetings in one of the lounges or cafeterias at school. So far, these had been platonic in nature, but they had kept the dates secret from Michelle. If she could get her nerve up, Judy hoped to push her relationship with Paul up to a higher level.

She also speculated about sleeping with Michelle too. This is getting awfully complicated, she thought; how am I going to coordinate any of this? And yet she had a desire to finally not play it safe and take some chances in her life. It wasn’t quite a 1960s style free-for-all at the college (although Judy suspected that some of those stories had been exaggerated), but students had affairs readily outside of predictable monogamy. Unlike in Jane Austin’s time, people often had sex and then figured out the romantic situation as they went along. 

Judy said, “Wouldn't you like to be along on my fantasy? Sort of like Blanche Barrow?”

“I hope I wouldn’t be as annoying as she was.”

“You know, I’ve heard that Blanche is still alive and hates the way she was portrayed in the movie. But of course, no, I don’t imagine you’d be like that.”

“And who is the Buck Barrow in this? I can’t imagine it would be Paul.”

Judy felt a need to defend him, “Well, no, but that’s because he’s not the kind to rob and kill people.”

Michelle leaned forward and said, “And how do you imagine Clyde, your partner in crime?”

“Funny thing, it’s not Warren Beatty. He’s almost too good-looking. I think he’s - I mean the real Beatty - he’s probably kind of stuck-up.” She suspected that a guy like that - and famous to boot - wouldn’t give the slightest notice to a short, plump woman like herself.

Michelle said, “Maybe Beatty really is that way, but I bet he still gets more pussy than the local ASPCA.” She winced at her own bad joke, but Judy didn’t call her on it.

For a moment Judy wondered what went on within the Barrow gang. Did all of them ever get into bed for a four-way orgy? I mean, it was the 1930s, but they were outlaws; they wouldn’t follow society’s rules for personal behavior.

Judy could see herself in such a scene, except there were only three people in it. Michelle would be in bed, wearing a garter belt and stockings and nothing else; Judy would be on all fours, licking her friend between her spread legs. Her own skirt was up; Paul would be standing behind her, his cock sticking out of his pants, ready to penetrate her. This would be in the hot, dark bedroom of some shabby farmhouse in a place like Joplin, Missouri.

Michelle said, “Hey, Jude, come back to the present. Where is your mind, back in the 1930s?”

Judy swallowed her embarrassment. “Yeah, sort of.” She’s always been pretty good at figuring me out.

“That’s okay, honey, I get it.” Our Judy here needs to get some kind of love-life going, and soon.

Rather than change the topic, Michelle pushed it in another direction, “Do you know how to drive a manual transmission? That’s all they had back then.”

“I don’t; I’ve never even seen one.”

“That’s okay, I don’t know it either.” She had her own fantasy ready. “But I should learn. I’d love to have something like that Triumph Stag convertible.”  Now she went into her experienced-girl lecture mode. “Supposedly, it’s men who buy cars like that. They think all the girls will flock to them and get their panties damp looking at them in the car.”

Judy thought, my panties get damp at a lot less than that.

Michelle continued, “Well, I want to have my own Triumph. I’d drive up to Convent Avenue and say, ‘hi guys, anybody need a lift to the subway?’ I’d just like to see the looks on their faces.”

“Would you actually give one a lift?”

“Hell yeah, I would.”

“Also, would you teach me how to drive it?”

“Sure, but I have to buy it first!”

******

Over the next couple of days Judy worked out a Depression-era gangster fantasy in some detail. She wanted to play some version of herself, and she came up with the idea that she was a student, perhaps at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. That was indeed Bonnie Parker’s hometown, although she likely had never set foot on any campus.

Judy pictured herself as a part-time waitress in her father’s restaurant. Her dad was really an accountant, but she wanted to place herself on the social scale closer to Bonnie. She knew that Parker had held that job at times.

The boyfriend she imagined was not like Warren Beatty (too glamorous), but neither did he much resemble the real Clyde Barrow (too shabby and probably mean-spirited too). This imaginary lover was named Dwyane; he was basically a decent guy who was drifting into crime because of the economic pressures of the Depression.

He was a customer who patronized the restaurant a few times a week, usually for breakfast or lunch. He had a car, but he was a little vague about his means of supporting himself. After the second visit or so he would chat with her in a friendly but flirty way, something that Judy had rarely experienced with any man before. (Although in real life Paul seemed to be coming around to being warmer and more comfortable with her.)

This Dwyane person was obviously not the right choice for her, but that was part of his appeal. Judy pictured herself in the restaurant wearing a long dress and an apron, and she had white ankle socks and flat shoes. She was a smart and hard-working young woman but Dwayne saw something else in her. People see me a certain way, but underneath I’m a passionate woman and I think he can sense that.

In the movie, Bonnie had immediately abandoned her old life to run off with her new beau; Judy imagined her fantasy unfolding in stages. One day Dwyane asked her to go for a ride with him, and on that warm afternoon she took some time off for that. To Judy the Depression was always uncomfortable, either too hot or too cold. Well sure, they had little air-conditioning back then, and it wasn’t easy tramping the roads or living in a Hooverville.

At this point he was actually in her bed on the Upper West Side, late in the evening, but in her mind she was riding in a car along a back road in Texas. She knew something of what the car would be like because she had looked in a book to check on it. It would be a boxy old vehicle, something like a Chandler sedan she had seen in a photograph. As for Texas, it looked like whatever landscapes had been locations for the movie.

They parked somewhere hidden behind bushes and proceeded to have an intense make-out session in the back seat; that was followed by some heavy petting. I’m a good girl but not too good! Unlike the Deanie Loomis character in Splendor in the Grass, she wanted both parties to have some sexual satisfaction in the end. Hey, that had Warren Beatty too!

As they kissed she said, “I’ve been noticing you for some time now.”

“I’ve been looking at you too, Judith. Do you like going out with me?”

“Call me Judy. And sure, honey, I love going out with you.”

She delighted in planning just how far she would go with him on this first outing. She offered no resistance as he opened the front of her dress and then got his hands on the bra straps across her back. He had no trouble unhooking them; he obviously has done this before. Then his fingers and mouth were moving over her sensitive nipples.

In her New York bedroom Judy had lowered her nightgown and she fondled her breasts in tandem with the imagined actions in the car. This is so lovely; I sometimes think I could come just from my own boobs. But she decided not to prolong it tonight with an experiment and just go for the sure thing 

In the car Dwyane tried to work his hand under her dress and between her legs. She pushed back against him, but it was basically a tease.

“Don’t do that, baby; you know I’m a good girl.”

“Please, let me touch it, just a little. You’ll like it, I know it.”

“Oh, so you’ve done this with other girls, I see?”

He seemed a bit flustered, “I don’t know, maybe. You know I like you, Judy.”

“Really, you seem very fresh to me, if you know what I mean.” She pretended to think about it for a moment. “Ok, I’ll let you touch me down there, just a little.”

She let him do more than a little. His hand pulled aside the cloth of her underpants and she leaned back on the cushions of the car seat. What did women wear back then? Weren’t they called step-ins? In her dark room she put both hands inside her panties as she stroked herself. I’m a nineteen-year-old frump; I wear underpants to bed. I bet Michelle doesn’t, especially with a man there.  She put Michelle out of her mind and thought of herself in the back of the sedan. Her legs were spread wide and her arms were around Dwyane’s body.

She softly spoke to herself, “That’s it sweetie, oh rub my pussy; that’s it, you sure know how to do it.” Dwyane was using one hand but she was actually using both of her own to good effect, one circling her clitoris and the other moving in and out of her cunt. Do I need to get my hairbrush out? No, I’m doing fine without it.

Dwyane said, “Aw honey, you’re all wet down there. I knew you’d love it.”

“Oh yes, I sure do. Dwyane, please don’t stop.”

Did the Judy Weinberg of 1933 masturbate, had she experienced orgasms? She decided: of course she has; I would basically be the same horny person.

She considered having him lick her slit, but her orgasm soon arrived and that became moot.

“Oh my God, Dwyane, you’re making me come!” She moaned and rolled on the bed as the waves of pleasure went through her body.

Afterwards, as she leaned back, it occurred to her: oh, I forgot to get him off too. Well, I guess they did that a few minutes later. The bright afternoon in Texas faded away and now there was only the light from the streetlamps eight stories down. After relaxing for a little while, she got up and looked out the window. A few cars, mostly taxis, were still moving on West End Avenue. None of them are Chandlers; those are long gone.

She looked back at her bed and thought about Dwyane. A guy like that, he’d be trouble from the start – but it would be very nice to spend the night with him. Fantasies like this were like stories she unfolded in a sequence of different sessions. At times when she didn’t have classes, she had them when alone in the apartment during the day. I should get some kind of job instead of hanging around here beating off.

She thought about her real-life situation. I’m making moves on my best friend’s boyfriend; is that such a great idea?

She thought further about it. Hey, it’s a new era; everyone else is having flings with whomever they please. I’m going to get my share too.

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