Zami: A New Spelling of My Name

Audre remembers the overwhelming loneliness associated with being a young, black lesbian, and especially how no one seemed to understand why female relationships were so important: “During the fifties in the Village, I didn’t know the few other Black women who were visibly gay at all well. Too often we found ourselves sleeping with the same white women” (177). Audre remembers Diane, who was incredibly witty and sharp-tongued, and was surprised that she was also an Uptown student, as there was a distinct divide between the gay scene and the college crowd. Audre thought she was the Village’s only black lesbian until she met Felicia—Flee—who brought her and Muriel Siamese cats. Flee and Audre decide they are sisters and discover they went to first grade together for a few months. Audre remembers young Flee as a skinny girl who pinched her.

Flee and Audre have a platonic relationship, cuddling sometimes but mostly finding common ground in the fact that they do not abide by the butch/femme dichotomy. Flee tells her about the married wealthy black ladies who come to the Village while their husbands are out “to find a gay-girl to go muff-diving” (178), but the only woman that Audre has ever encountered like that brought along a too-eager husband, and Audre declined their offer.