Rill kicked her jeans off with a happy, childish, exuberant movement. She laughed as they flipped through the air and landed on a shelf of books behind the bed.
Then she opened her arms to me. I quickly unbuttoned Owl's shirt I was wearing and slipped it off. I tossed it away, too, and found myself giggling as it settled onto a shaded, unlit lamp on the floor nearby.
I was naked, too. I crawled into Rill's arms and we kissed. Her mouth was marvelously warm and soft and sweet. It was a loving mouth, an accepting mouth, a giving mouth. Her lips yielded and opened and seemed to enclose mine in sweet, erotic movement and sensitivity. We both closed our eyes. Out bodies melted together, soft flesh against softness, heat against heat ... .
I was too conscious for a few seconds, of Zeke, barely inches away, reading his last page. And a trigger up-tight word-lesbians-popped into my mind, then was dismissed, because Rill and I didn't fit that mold. We were giving love, accepting love, and we were not exclusive. It simply didn't matter that she and I were both women. We were tribe. Square world categories and judgments weren't accepted.
CHAPTER ONE
David pulled one of my bikini top strings as he followed me into my folks' modern beach apartment. I felt the tug, the slip of the bow knot and the loosening of the green nylon cups on my breasts.
I put my right arm across my chest to hold up the halter. "Oh, David, for God's sake!" I turned and disgustedly shut the apartment door. I pressed the lock button just in case. I knew he wanted to make out and I wasn't sure I didn't want to. I took off my round sunglasses and tossed them on the sofa. I zipped my door key back into the little pocket in my bikini.
David smirked. He had seen the lock business. He put a big sweaty hand on my belly and tried to draw me close for a kiss.
I brushed strands of my long blonde hair away from my face and let it happen. Why not? I like kissing and he wasn't bad. But I didn't like his whole approach to sex. For a twenty-six-year-old senior in Engineering at USC he acted too much like a sniggering, dirty-minded little boy.
He had to hunch over slightly to kiss me because he's six feet and I'm only five feet four. But it was a good kiss. David has full lips and he knows how to keep them open and loose and moving softly on a girl's mouth. And he has the courtesy to keep his eyes closed. AND he knows how to use his tongue!
Funny squiggly shivers go through me when I'm kissed that way. It turns me on faster than anything.
I went up on my toes and tightened my left arm around him. Then I didn't give a damn anymore and put my right arm around him, too. My breasts felt loose and free. The halter slipped down a little.
Dave kept on kissing me, fluttering his tongue in my mouth, making me moan. One of his hands moved around to my front.
His hands are big and his palms always seemed to get clammy when he sexed up with me. His hands pushed my halter out of the way and fondled my smallish breasts. I'm not built like a cow, but I've got enough to make a good dent in a 34-B bra.
He started playing with my nipples. I instinctively pressed closer to him and his hand was caught, imprisoned between our bodies. He pulled it free and cupped his hands on my rump and pulled me tight against him down there.
He had a big erection and he wanted me to know it. I knew it all right! I could feel it through his blue trunks against my belly.
I pulled my mouth free of his lips and tongue. "Don't get your hopes up. I only came back up here for a quick shower."
"Why'd you let me feel you, then? It's been a couple weeks since we did anything."
I pushed away from his not-quite-pudgy body. He reluctantly let me go. I liked David well enough, but he was so square! You know: crew-cut dark-blonde hair, and he dressed up to the playboy hilt all the time. We both had groovy tans.
I didn't answer him. I went over close to the big front window and peeked out from the side at the wide Venice beach. I saw my mother and dad where David and I had left them sitting in beach chairs out by the water.
David came around behind me and hugged me. His fingers tried to worm into my bikini bottom. He said wheedlingly, "Come on ... you like it as much as I do...."
Which was true, but I didn't like him telling me so. I twisted away and said, "I'm taking a shower!" I threw my halter at him and dashed into the bathroom. I locked the door. I turned the water on. It took about thirty seconds to get hot. I stepped out of my bikini and rinsed it in the warming spray. Then I gathered my hair and pinned it up.
I looked at myself in the sliding medicine cabinet mirror. I'm nineteen years old and I look a satisfactory sixteen or so. I have straight hair that reaches past my shoulder blades, except it's naturally brown and I had to dye it all the time. But half the college girls I knew dyed, too. Blonde! All God's chillun gotta be blonde! My shade was Wild Honey.
I brushed a few grains of sand from my shoulders. Nice even tan. Not quite all over. My breasts were horizontal ovals of white skin, sort of saggy. Not pendulous, you know, but ... I made a face at them in the mirror.
I'm not a raving beauty. I'm low-waisted, thick-hipped and sort of stumpy in the legs. And I'm about five pounds over what I should be.
I adjusted the hot shower spray and stepped in.
A warm shower makes me feel sexy. Maybe it's having my hands all over myself, sliding soapily over my breasts ... over my brown-curled mound, up my inner thighs ... I guess I'm monoerotic too.
I hummed one of my songs as I soaped.
I started playing with my breasts. My nipples were out as far as they could go ... little red wrinkled cones ... and tiny hot tickles made me feel more sexy as I rubbed my soapy palms over them.
I was beginning to dig the idea of making it with David. He had a layer of fat on him-there was a half roll of flesh above his bathing trunks' waistband-but he was in good enough condition when it came to making love. At least he didn't stick it in and go off two seconds later the way some girls say their men do.
David always lasted long enough for me to come at least once. Sometimes twice.
I leaned back against the warm tiles and let the water beat on my breasts and belly as I pressed a finger into myself down there between my thighs. I played with my clitoris. After a few seconds of that I was sure I was going to let David make love to me.
I rinsed the soap all off me, turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. I grabbed one of mother's big, imagine fringed towels and dried myself. I let my hair down, shook it out and ran her ivory-and-aluminum comb through it a couple of times.
Then I held the towel on my front, unlocked and opened the bathroom door an inch, held the towel with both hands and nudged the door open further with my right foot.
David was sitting by the window, looking out. His erection had gone down. I said, "It's all yours if you want to use it."
"The towel?"
"The bathroom!" I backed modestly toward my bedroom.
He smiled that evil smile of his, came toward me and made a grab for the towel. I squealed and ran the remaining few feet into my room. I let him see my naked rump and back. I knew he'd follow me in. He did.
I said, "You stink! You can just forget every dirty thing you've got on your mind unless you take a shower first."
He grinned. "It's a deal!" He was getting that big erection again. He turned right around and headed for the bathroom. I giggled.
David came out of the bathroom five minutes later, naked, dripping water. "Hey, can I use your towel?" He walked into my room, grinning.
"Sure." I tossed it at him.
"Want to dry me?"
"I'm not your slave." I watched him rub. He was getting big again. I sat up on my bed and clasped my knees to my breasts. "David, can you feel the blood go into your penis when it's growing like that?"
He was suddenly modest. He turned away so I couldn't see it. "Jesus, what a question!" He bent over to dry his hairy legs.
"Well, can you?"
He scowled. "No. You ask the damnedest questions!" He turned farther to dry his thick patch of dark-blonde pubic hair. He was very mature, physically.
I shrugged. He always got embarrassed when I showed any real interest in his genitals. He liked to show off and use them, but I don't think he thought it was nice to talk about them.
He finished drying himself and stretched out beside me on his side.
I uncoiled and lay flat on my back. I turned my head and watched him. He reached over and started plucking at my nipples. I saw his penis get large. It hung out from his groin like a smooth ear of corn. It jumped slightly every second with his heartbeat. I was fascinated.
David saw where my gaze was and leaned over further to kiss me. I sighed when his tongue entered my mouth. His right hand was on my left breast, squeezing, molding, pinching the nipple gently.
When I'm turned on sexually I can't stay still. It's like I've got all this sexual energy building up in me and it partly shows itself in small, restless stirrings.
I reached with my right hand and touched David's penis. It was hot! and hard! I could hardly get my fingers around it.
He stopped kissing me and said huskily, "You're sure curious about it."
"I don't stop you from touching me."
"That's different. Girls aren't supposed to be...." He frowned. He couldn't say what he meant ... or didn't want to. Then he smiled his dirty smile. "If you're a nympho why don't you suck it for me?"
"Is that what you think I am? A nymphomaniac? Just because I'm curious?"
He backed off. "No ... of course not ... it's just the way you get all hot and bothered ... all wild and crazy when you make it. You do everything but fly apart when you come."
I said coolly, "Is that a crime?" He had touched a nerve. I couldn't hold back when he was pounding his big thing in and out of me. I did go kind of crazy. And it bothered me that I enjoyed it so much because all the other girls I'd talked to didn't admit liking sex that much or having climaxes that intense. And mother-she didn't like sex at all! So I secretly felt like some kind of freak ... ashamed and guilty.
David said, "No ... I guess you're lucky. But I would like you to do it ... suck me. Just for a minute."
I looked down at his penis still in my hand, throbbing with blood. The head of it was pretty big. I wasn't sure I could get it into my mouth. ... if I decided to try it.
I licked my lips. I said, "Nope." I was curious what it would be like to do it, but ... not with David. "I don't like you well enough."
"Huh? You've let me fu-make love to you six times."
"That's different."
"Have you done it for any other guy."
"That's none of your business." I smiled just' to get his goat.
He actually pouted.
I brushed his crew cut with my other hand. "Maybe some day I will." I had a thought. "Why don't you go down on me?"
His face changed subtly, like he was hiding fear and disgust. "Not my style, I guess I'm old-fashioned. Besides, if you won't do it why should I?"
"Maybe I will ... if you will."
He looked at me. He swallowed. He shook his head. "I guess I'm old-fashioned." He put his hand on my mound. He smiled weakly. "You get enough kicks as it is." He kissed me again. We closed our eyes.
I let him go ahead in spite of being mad at him.
I began pumping his penis with long, slow strokes. I gripped him tightly. His tongue came deep into my mouth. I fenced with him. He pressed his middle finger into me down there and discovered I was slippery and ready. He pushed his finger deep. My hips pushed against it. His finger withdrew and began sliding wetly over my clitoris. I inhaled sharply. God, it felt good!
After a few minutes my hand began to pump him faster and faster. He had to stop me. His breathing was erratic. He pulled his mouth away. I opened my eyes. I was hungry for air. I had to breathe with my mouth open.
My insides were weak and syrupy, charged with want. I whispered, "Put it in."
David moved over me, a huge bulk of man, and held himself up off me with one thick arm as he peered down between our bodies and tried to guide himself into me.
I lay with my knees up and wide and held myself open with both hands, trembling inside, waiting, a little afraid of that first massive penetration. He didn't go in slowly: he liked to push it all in fast. The first time it had hurt.
I felt him poking around. I breathed, "Lower...."
The head of his penis pushed inside. He sighed and let his weight down on me as he drove deep. I gasped. My thighs reflexively closed to keep him from thrusting it all in. He gave a satisfied little grunt and pulled back a little. He plunged again. Little by little I relaxed my thighs, let them open further and further, and felt him pushing deeper and deeper into me.
There's something weird in feeling a big penis that far in. It scares you a little; you feel the size, the pressure inside and a funny kind of pleasure that's different from the clitoral sensation. It's a kind of total involvement pleasure, a body-knowledge that you're being a woman! And it's part pride, part a feeling of power, part astonishment that you're actually taking all that!
He was heavy on me, pressing me down into the bed, covering me with his sweaty, pudgy body. It was hard to breathe. I was helpless but I didn't care. I loved the incredible jolting sparkle of sensation that broke through me with each lunge he made. I braced my feet on the bed and thrust up to take him as he plunged. Lord, the feel of him going in like that, stretching me the last inch, grinding it in, then pulling out almost all the way, then slamming back in!
I started to come after about a minute. I was panting like crazy, working my hips, making little whining noises, holding him, digging my fingernails into his shoulders, blind with my eyes open, boiling inside like a special kind of volcano.
I went crazy and didn't care ... couldn't care! The things I said..."Oh, God ... oh, fuck me!" And I found his open, wet mouth, gasping with effort, and kissed him ... just merged my mouth to his ... and had to tear it away for air! Air! I was somewhere in heaven, burning, floating, exploding all at once, moaning and going out of my skull it was so good.
Then the sensation sharpened, like a pain almost, but good, and not so strong or I couldn't have stood it, and started to fade out and glow in me, all over, even while David was still slamming into me, not a numbness, just a sort of emptying of the nerves so that another sex charge could be built up.
David's weight became oppressive. Little hurts and irritations came into existence for me with the exhaustion of my pleasure. He was really laboring on me, rasping air in and out of his lungs, eyes closed, splotched in the face and chest, sweat running on him ... on me ... his hips rubbing abrasively on my inner thighs....
He started to get a shaky edge to his breathing, and he began to thrust into me a little faster, a little harder. He was making it. He gasped, "Jesus ... " His breathing came faster and faster.
I could actually feel him getting bigger and harder in me. His full weight came down on my chest as he gripped my shoulders tight ... tight ... . and he jolted into me with big, fast, long plunges.
I was beginning to sparkle again but I knew I wouldn't have time to make it again. He was there! He gave a kind of pain cry and went uncoordinated, gasping, spurting into me.
And thank you, Dad, for making Mother take me to Dr. Grainger last year and getting me those Enovid prescriptions! I don't mind itching a little or feeling dizzy once in a while as side effects.
David sighed deeply and buried his face in the bedspread next to my head. He sighed again.
I let him rest on me for a long minute. I could hear the ticking of his Gruen near my right ear. I said, finally, "Can you reach the towel without pulling out?"
"I think so." He reached back over the edge of the bed. He brought up the towel. I could feel him getting soft inside.
I took the towel and said, "Raise up." I slipped it under my rump. "Okay, now you can get off."
"I could do it again in a few minutes."
"So could I but we've been here long enough. They'll get suspicious." I pushed at him. "Off! You weigh a ton."
He got up on his knees. I held the towel tight against myself down there and carefully got off the bed. I went into the bathroom.
Five minutes later we were trudging across the hot, littered sand toward my mother and dad. Venice beach is endlessly wide, especially when the sand is burning your feet. The sun had almost all day to heat each little grain.
I saw a group of people-hippies, I supposed-sitting in a circle on the sand about a quarter mile north of us toward P.O.P. pier. There were colorful banners and flags flying from a pole and crosspole stuck in the sand in their group. The wind carried music from them ... . drumbeats and maybe a guitar as they sang. I couldn't make out the words.
David asked, "Hey, you want to see a movie tonight?"
"Maybe." I watched the hippie group. They were clapping and a chick was now dancing to the music. It looked like they were having a groovy time.
Mother looked around as David and I approached. Dad had abandoned his beach chair and was lying face down on his woven beach mat. He looked up, squinted, smiled lopsidedly and lowered his gray head again. He had gotten a pretty fair tan in the week and a half we had been in Venice on his vacation. His skin glistened with Coppertone.
Mother looked disapprovingly at my wet bikini. I had rinsed the halter free of clinging sand in the shower, too, and the sun hadn't yet dried the thin, green nylon. It clung too closely to my breasts to suit her. My nipples were showing. If David hadn't been present she would have chewed me out about immodesty and making an exhibit of myself. As it was she said, "You two were gone forty minutes." It was part suspicion, part accusation.
I said, "David took a shower, too." I smiled at her.
She firmed her lips and the tiny grooves in her upper lip showed. She was only forty-one but she had let herself go. She wore a stupid, tight, black, one-piece swimsuit that showed every pound of her fat. The lightly tanned flesh was pushed out in bulges that accented her sloppy, pendulous breasts and doughy, blue-veined legs. She wore a wide, floppy-brimmed white hat and ornate, prescription sunglasses.
She is a bit shorter than I am, has a puffy double chin, and her hair dyed to hide increasing numbers of gray hairs.
I looked at her and I saw myself in twenty years if I didn't watch my diet. She was repulsive.
Dad said, "Think I'll take another swim. Good for the old ticker." He thumped his thick chest.
It was a signal for mother or myself to say, "Oh, you don't have to worry about your heart. You're in perfect shape." And he is. Dad keeps trim with regular sessions of swimming, squash, golf and tennis. He's a stocky man, forty-six, prematurely gray, and terribly afraid of death. But he didn't nag mother about her excess weight and awful nutrition. I think he secretly wanted her to develop some fatal degenerative disease. But that was before they separated and he filed for divorce.
But neither of us said the words that time, and he said after a pause, "Want to join me? Juli? David?"
David said, "No, thank you, Mr. Lund."
I shook my head. I sat on his beach mat and looked briefly over toward the hippies. The girl was still dancing. It looked like she was colored, but I wasn't sure.
Dad said, "Younger generation!" He smiled and his laugh-lines crinkled nicely.
As Dad started running toward the surf, David called, "Watch out for sharks, sir!"
Mother waited until Dad was in the water before she sighed and struggled out of her chair. She wheezed as she bent to pick up her bag. She said, with elaborate casualness, "It's just too hot out here for me. I think I'll go in now. Tell Robert, Juli."
"Yes, I will." I put a little extra emphasis on will. I knew she was going in to start her drinking. She knew I knew it, too.
She glared at me. David couldn't see the look. Then she moved slowly away toward the Ocean Front Walk and the big white-brick building where we were staying.
I watched Dad plunge through the surf. David asked, "You want to go see the new Bond picture at the Crest?"
"I'm sick of those things ... and all the imitations."
"What do you want to do tonight, then?"
"Right now I want to go over there, listen to the music and watch that girl dance."
"Where?" He looked in the direction I was pointing. "You mean those hippies or whatever they are?" He was contemptuous.
"Yes, those hippies!" I wanted to meet them and ask them questions. They fascinated me. I stood up and walked toward the surf.
David asked, "You going in?"
I ignored him. I waded out to knee-deep water and waved at Dad. He was facing the incoming waves in water to his chest. He bounced and bobbed, arms wide. When a wave came in he bounced up to meet it and slowly moved out farther.
I called, "Dad!"
He turned and raised his arm, beckoning me toward him. He grinned. "It's great! Come on in!"
"Mother went back to the apartment! I'm going to walk down the beach!"
He nodded and smiled. A wave nearly smothered him.
I smiled, waved and waded into shore. I headed toward the group of hippies. David got up from Dad's chair and caught up with me. "Hey, what's the matter? You mad at me?"
"No." I kept on walking. The sand was really scorching hot! "I didn't think you'd want to come along."
"Well, I'm not going to let you go over there alone."
"Oh, David!" The truth was he didn't want to be left alone. He thought of himself as my "steady" with obligations and rights. He had driven out all the way from Pasadena that morning to spend the day with me.
CHAPTER TWO
As we neared the hippie group I saw there were about a dozen people sitting in a rough circle. They were dressed hippie-style. The colorful flags and banners on the pole billowed and snapped above them in the sea breeze.
The young woman who danced freely and sensuously was tall and her long mahogany-red hair blew in the wind and her large breasts swayed and jiggled under a faded, gray, short-sleeved sweatshirt. A large silvery ankh, the Indian life-symbol, dangled from a long silvery chain around her neck. Her compact hips and long thighs were encased in old jeans. She was barefoot but ankle bracelets of tiny bells tinkled as she kicked up small fluffs of sand when she moved in slow circles, arms gesturing gracefully, in a sort of tribal dance.
David said, "She's something!"
I sat cross-legged in a gap in the circle. He sat close behind me and a little to my left.
I couldn't take my eyes off the woman. She wore no make-up at all, yet she was lovely.
Her dance wasn't erotic, just sensual, because you knew from watching her that she loved her body and the way it obeyed her.
David breathed, "Man..." When she twisted to face the breeze, the sweatshirt was molded briefly against the full, sloping size of her breasts and her large nipples stuck out.
I glanced briefly around at the others in the circle. My gaze was caught by a folded wheelchair lying on the sand next to a small, thin girl wearing a long, wildly colorful cotton shift that appeared to be hand-painted. Her eyes seemed huge in her child-like face. Her brown hair was cut very short. A silvery ankh symbol hung from a silvery chain around her neck, too. She saw me looking at her and smiled unaffectedly, lovingly. I felt instantly that she was happy and content. I smiled in return.
I glanced across the circle at the young black man who played a set of bongos nestled between his thighs. He had let his hair grow out bushy and fuzzy. I realized he was staring at me and grinning. I didn't know how to react at first. Then I thought, he's only a boy with black skin ... and I might like him more than I liked David. So I nodded to him and smiled to show I liked his playing. Over his bare chest he wore a short serape made of an old white bedsheet that had been splashed and spattered with a dozen colors of paint. The pattern at first appeared haphazard and senseless, but the more I looked the more I liked it. He, too, wore beads and a silvery ankh symbol. His Levis were stained by salt water. He was barefoot.
As I looked around the circle I saw three others with similar ankhs dangling from silvery chains around their necks. The first was a skinny young man with long blonde hair whose rimless glasses perched on a prominent nose over a weak, scraggly-bearded chin. He wore only a pair of paint-dribbled and smeared old pants cut off raggedly at mid-thigh.
The second person with an ankh was the old, grizzled, white-haired man who played the guitar. His hair was long, too, almost to his shoulders, and he wore only a dirty, blue, unbuttoned vest and dirty, rope-belted, baggy, gray-striped pants, obviously from a suit twenty years old. His vest was festooned with buttons: MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR! BAN THE BRA; I'M MANIC-DEPRESSIVE BE WARNED; REAGAN FOR DICTATOR; PORNOGRAPHY IS FUN; PLUCK THE FUZZ; PRAY FOR SEX; WANTED A CASSIUS FOR LBJ. His skin had been tanned nut-brown and his face was fascinatingly wrinkled and creased. His vivid blue eyes peered sharply around as he played ... at the circle of young people ... at the people on the Ocean Front Walk a hundred yards away ... at the sea....
The third was a young, chunky, big-busted colored girl who sat on her heels next to the old man and swayed rhythmically with the music. She cuddled a brown baby in her lap. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, singing softly to herself. She wore a man's loose shirt, tails out over her faded blue jeans, that had been decorated with swirls of green and orange paint. Her ankh nestled outside the shirt in the deep valley between her moving, unhindered breasts. Hints of brown skin showed through spots of unpainted white cloth and her nipples poked out sharply. A jingling bracelet of small bells hung on her left wrist and fascinated the baby she held lovingly against her belly.
The dancer seemed to tire. She simply stopped and settled down on the sand next to the old man. No one else got up to dance. The young black man kept on playing his bongos. He seemed self-absorbed, concentrated. The old man put aside the guitar.
One of the other onlookers said, "Your turn again, Sparrow."
The colored girl grinned. "No, man, I got to go to work in a little while. Got to have some energy left to wipe those old white asses."
A girl with long stringy black hair said, "Why ya wanta keep a stinkin' gig like that?"
"I do what I can for the tribe. I don't have no talent like Robin or Owl."
The black-haired girl asked, "How much do they pay you up at that old people's home?"
"Oh, they generous. I get a dollar thirty a hour."
"Just to wipe up shit?"
"Oh, yeah, man. Those old women shit in their beds twenty-four hours a day. They got no control at all!" She laughed infectiously.
I laughed, too. David nudged me. I glanced back at him. He whispered in my ear, "Look what the red-haired chick is doing!" I looked at the young woman who had stopped dancing a moment before. She was leaning against the old man, resting her head on his thin, bony shoulder. His right arm was around her waist. Her eyes were closed, her face was at peace, and her hands were under her sweatshirt, on her breasts, moving in slow self-caresses.
No one seemed to notice, or care. I looked away.
A long-haired boy in a plain white t-shirt and tan levis said, "Hey, Zeke, you heard what the fuckin' narcs did last night? They busted--"
The old man shook his head slowly. His deep voice cut off the boy with, "I heard, Greg. I don't want to put you down, but I wonder why you use that plastic American word all the time?"
"What word?" The boy was puzzled.
"Fuck. It's a lousy word. It's a four-letter symptom of the Establishment hang-up. It's sick, square language. It's part of the uptight sex scene that's helped make this country what it is."
"Yeah, but "
"Think for a while on it sometime. Fuck is a put-down word. You just used it that way: 'the fuckin' narcs.' And it means making love, doesn't it? And that's how most people unconsciously equate it fuck is dirty, and it means having sexual pleasure. People absorb this when they're kids and it warps them."
Behind me David exhaled a small breathy snort of dismissal.
The old man ... Zeke ... continued. "Fuck is a swear word! A word meaning a way to make love is indecent language. And yet people wonder why they all have sex problems!"
A lot of the kids in the circle were nodding. I agreed with Zeke totally. I blurted, "And it's the same way with words that name sexual parts of the body."
Zeke shifted his gaze to me. I looked into his wise blue eyes and I wanted to please him and be liked by him. He said, "Yes. Name some."
Everyone was looking at me. But it didn't bother me. I said calmly, "Oh ... cunt, cock, hole. . . " I wasn't embarrassed. But I saw David from the corner of my eye. He was visibly tensing up. But the hot sun beat down on me and I felt good.
Zeke smiled. "And the medical terms are almost as repulsive, aren't they?"
I nodded. "But there's nothing else to use."
A tall, horsy girl in a white bikini to my left said, "You can make up nice sounding names ... like ... fun box, or love rod."
Everybody laughed. She flushed.
But Zeke said, "She's right, though. Even fun box and love rod are better sounding and have better vibrations than cunt and cock."
The colored boy had stopped tapping on his bongo drums. He was looking at me again. He said, "Don' matter what you call it, just so you do it and like it." His black eyes challenged me.
His intense gaze made me a little uncomfortable. I could feel his eyes on my body. I had never been looked at so directly and sexually before by a black man, and he was a man ... at least in his early twenties. I didn't consider myself prejudiced but a shiver went through me anyway. He had very negroid features.
I didn't look away. I sort of shrugged and smiled, mostly at Zeke, and said, "I like it fine."
The colored girl with the baby smiled widely and said, "Good. Thass a very good sign."
Zeke said, "We haven't seen you around Venice before."
"No, I'm just here for a few more days, actually. My dad-likes to stay at the beach part of his vacation every year. This year he chose Venice."
"You have a healthy outlook on sex. What's your name?"
"Juli Lund."
He smiled and his wrinkles and creases spider-webbed his deeply tanned face. "Greetings, Juli. I'm Zeke Belkin, sometimes called Eagle Zeke by the members of our tribe ... " He pointed to the small, thin girl beside the folded wheelchair. "Robin Vedlow...."
We said "Hi" to each other and smiled again.
". . . Owl Wayne..." The boy with the long blonde hair and glasses said hello.
". . .Sparrow Jackson and her little fledgling, Tommy."
I said, "Hi. He's a cute baby."
"He oughta be. Took me ten long hard hours to get him out." She laughed and cuddled the child to her breasts. He plucked with his small hands at a button of her shirt.
Zeke gestured to the young black man. "This is Blackbird Winter ... "
Blackbird said, "Good meetin' you, Juli."
I nodded and smiled. Then Zeke nodded at the young woman who had danced and who still rested her head on his shoulder and continued to fondle herself. "This lovely autoerotic creature is my wife, Rill."
Rill opened her eyes and appraised me for a few seconds. She said solemnly, "Also known as the red-headed sap-sucker."
Blackbird grinned, "Yeah, man!"
I asked, "Why do you all have bird names?"
Robin answered, "It started with my nickname, Robin. Then Sparrow came to live with us and that was the way she ate, like a sparrow at first "
Sparrow said, "Now I eat like a horse!"
". . . so Zeke started calling her Sparrow. We started calling him Eagle ... and pretty soon, when Lew joined us we had to call him Owl ... "
Blackbird slapped his bongos in an explosive, swift rhythm. "Then I came on the scene and named myself!"
Zeke said, to sum it up, "We're the Bird Tribe."
David leaned close to me and whispered loudly, "Sounds like a pretty fowl situation." He snickered.
The boy on my right looked at David with disgust.
I shared that opinion.
Sparrow looked up, smiling, as she checked her baby's diaper for moisture. "Love Tribe'd be a better name 'cording to the way we cozy up in our nest."
I asked, "You all live together?"
Sparrow nodded. "Sure."
The boy named Owl said suddenly, "Bird House ... that's what we call it."
David asked, "You sleep together, too?" The way it came out he sounded dirty-minded and disgusted.
I hated him for asking that. I wanted to shrivel up. I was ashamed for him. I looked down at my hands in my lap.
There was a short silence. The flags and banners flapped overhead in the breeze. The surf thumped and swooshed. A helicopter buzzed angrily toward us from the direction of Santa Monica.
Zeke answered, "Sex is a part of everyone's life."
"Sounds like it's a major part for you people."
I couldn't stand it! I stood up and walked around the circle to Zeke. I glared at David. I knelt beside Zeke and asked, "May I play your guitar for a moment?"
He smiled. "Of course." The kindness and tone of his words told me he understood my move and feelings. He handed me the instrument. It was an expensive, older Goya.
I ran a few chords, then started singing one of my songs. I write songs as a hobby; words first, then I try to find a melody to fit. I don't play the guitar well, but I manage.
I have a fair singing voice, though. I sang my favorite song: the one I call "Where It's At."
"The hippie lives in the one true world
Of love and respect for man.
The hippie lives in the one true world
Where the straight ones never can.
"That's where it's at. That's where it's at.
"The old ones moan of our drugs and sin While they pill themselves to death. The old ones moan of our drugs and sin While they drink themselves to death.
"That's where it's at. That's where it's at.
"We want to be free to build our new life; Free of cops and wars and fear. We want to be free to build our new life; And the time is near. The place is here!"
Everyone clapped. They called, "Great."
"Real fine."
"Super groovy."
"Out of sight!"
I flushed and smiled and bobbed my head. "Thank you."
Zeke put his arm around my waist. "You are now an honorary member of the tribe. I name thee Lark."
I kissed him. "Thank you." I felt as if I was one of them. I belonged. But I noticed that David, sitting on the fringe of the circle, was scowling.
Owl asked, "Did you compose that yourself?"
I nodded.
Zeke said, "Sing some more."
Sparrow said, "Ohh, it's time. The time is here." She grinned. She looked at a nurse's watch on her right wrist. "I got to get back and change into my uniform. Them ol' bedpans is calling."
, Zeke looked at the low sun. "Rill and I should get back to the house, too."
I handed back his guitar. "Do you and your tribe come out to the beach every day?"
"Usually only a few of us. But today is special. Today is Robin's birthday." He smiled at her.
Blackbird stood up and slung his bongos over his shoulder by means of a carrying strap. Everyone shifted and moved. I stood up, too.
Zeke gathered the flags and banners, uprooted the pole, and said to me, "Would you like to see our house?"
"Yes, very much!"
I saw Blackbird kneel beside Robin, scoop her into his arms and lift her up. She clung to his neck willingly. Owl picked up the wheelchair and carried it on his head. Sparrow led the way across the sand toward the paved Ocean Front Walk.
Rill, Zeke's beautiful wife, had stopped caressing herself under her sweatshirt. She stood beside him. She said to me, "You're welcome. I dig you."
I wanted to go with them. But David walked over and I had to cope with his squareness again. I asked Zeke, "How far away is it?"
"Four blocks."
I gestured at David and walked away a few feet to talk with him. Zeke, Rill and the others in the tribe moved away toward the Walk. The others, the half-dozen hippies and high-school kids who had gathered to watch and listen, drifted off, too.
I said to David, "I'm going with them. Will you tell mother and dad I'll be back in a few hours?"
"I'll go with you."
"I don't want you along. You don't fit."
"Thanks!" He turned sullen. He turned his head and watched the tribe for a second. "You really sucked up to them with that song, didn't you?"
"So what?"
"Well, hell, when I drive all the way out here from the valley to spend the day with you I kinda expect I don't expect you to ditch me for a bunch of lousy nipples!"
"I'm sorry. I didn't ask you to come see me today, David. So for all I care you can hop into your nice new red Mustang and drive right on back!"
"I will. And fuck you!"
"You already have. That's really what you drove out here for, anyway, wasn't it?" I turned my back to him and walked swiftly after the tribe.
A few seconds later he called, "Hey ... Juli ... ? " But I ignored him. He didn't follow me.
I caught up with the group as they reached the Walk. Owl opened the wheelchair and I saw the plastic leather seat and back had been decorated in bright, psychedelic colors, too.
Blackbird lowered Robin easily into the chair. Rill pushed her as we walked slowly along the walk to Brooks Avenue.
I found myself walking beside Owl. He seemed shy and bashful. I had noticed his paint-dribbled cutoff pants, so I asked, "Are you an artist?"
"I hope so." He smiled tentatively. He brushed his long blonde hair away from his glasses and glanced at me with quick, nervous looks. "Hey, I liked your song."
"It says what I think."
"Yeah. I wish I could say what I mean in my paintings. They end up all ... confused."
"I'd like to see some of them."
He smiled wryly. "You will. They're hanging all over the house."
We crossed Pacific Boulevard and headed down to Main Street.
Sparrow's baby began to cry. She was walking with Blackbird behind Owl and me. She patted him and cooed to him but he wouldn't stop. She said, "He hungry."
Blackbird said, laughing, "Feed him some tit."
"Got no milk left ... but I guess it would pacify him."
I looked around and saw her unbutton the second button on her shirt and pull the shirt to the left so the gap was over her large brown breast. She exposed a big purplish nipple which she gave to the crying baby's mouth. The child began suckling contentedly.
I must have stared because Blackbird asked me, "You never seen a baby eat tit before?"
I shook my head. "I've lived a sheltered life, I guess," Owl said, "Me, too, till I came out here to go to UCLA, got kicked out of school and found the tribe ... only it wasn't a tribe then, just Zeke and Rill with Robin living with them."
We had crossed Main and were cutting across the curving intersection of two streets with Main and Brooks. I noticed people in cars watching us, looking, gawking ... I was proud to be with the tribe and happy to be thought one of the group ... a real hippie.
We continued along Brooks Avenue. I suddenly realized we were walking into a Negro neighborhood.
I began to feel a little funny about walking around the streets with only a brief bikini on. I asked Owl, "Why'd you get kicked out of school?"
"I wouldn't follow the rules in art class. The art professors are all hung up on procedures." He gestured violently. "Do this first, then you can do that. Bunch of crap!" He pushed his glasses up his nose and took my arm to steer me around a broken beer bottle on the sidewalk.
Rill turned Robin's wheelchair up the walk of an old, rundown two-story house. The street number, three ninety-nine, had been painted in flowing, orange and green psychedelic numerals above the door.
The door itself, the front window frames and the porch steps were all wildly alive with color. I said aloud, "Oh, I dig it!"
Owl smiled, pleased. "Wait'll you see the inside."
Zeke unlocked the door. Blackbird carried Robin inside and Owl carried in the wheelchair. Sparrow handed her baby to Rill and went down the hall to a back room.
The front room was a happening! Two walls were covered by Indian blankets. A handmade multi-colored glass shade covered the overhead light fixture. The floor was bare boards except for two hand-woven rag rugs. There were half a dozen psychedelic posters taped to odd spaces on the remaining walls. The furniture consisted of two old sofas and two old club chairs. Neither of the chairs matched the sofas in style, upholstery or color. A big, walnut-veneered old-fashioned Philco console radio stood in a corner with a Buddha incense burner on its top. But what caught my eyes more than anything were Owl's paintings, unframed, which hung on the walls like weird windows into another world.
I pushed my sunglasses up to the top of my head. I said, "Oh, wow!" and walked over to one of the larger canvases. It was done in a sort of dribble technique ... tiny drops of paint that formed faces, figures, objects, landscapes ... and the color was magnificent! The scenes glowed with life. I looked and looked and looked!
Owl came up beside me. He examined his work critically. "That one came off pretty good."
I looked at him with a ton of new-found respect. "It's beautiful!" I glanced around the room ... at Robin's wildly colored shift ... at Blackbird's patterned serape ... and I said, "You decorate the tribe's clothes, too, don't you?"
He grinned. "Um-hmm. Some of them anyway."
Blackbird was lounging in one of the chairs. He was reading the latest issue of the Free Press.
Robin had rolled her psychedelic wheelchair down the hall and into another room.
Zeke asked me, "Lark, will you eat with us?"
I felt a surge of identity and happiness and gratitude at his having used my "tribe" name. I said, "Yes, thank you."
I went along the walls with Owl looking at his paintings. I said,"You must have talent overflowing out of your ears!"
He shook his head. He brushed his long hair back. "No. Most of my stuff doesn't make it. I'm still trying to find the handle." He abruptly smiled and asked, "You want to see the rest of the house?"
"Yes."
Blackbird said from his chair, "You want a drag of this, man?" He was smoking a small, thin, hand-rolled cigarette.
I knew it was pot. I'd seen a girl in my college dorm smoke a tiny "roach" once in my freshman year. Owl said, "Sure." He took the little cigarette and sucked air and smoke into his lungs with a long hissing inhalation. He held his breath for a long moment, then slowly exhaled. He nodded and smiled. "Good stuff."
Blackbird nodded at me. "Try it." He was half-grinning. His eyes drifted down over my body.
I had never smoked pot before. Owl asked, "You want to?"
I nodded. My mouth was suddenly dry and my belly felt icky. But I carefully took the marijuana cigarette and tried to imitate Owl's inhaling technique. I took in a deep lungful of air and smoke. I held it in, smiled, and handed it back. Owl took another drag and handed it back to Blackbird.
I exhaled slowly. I didn't feel any different. I was disappointed. Owl took my arm. "I'll show you our money factory."
We started down the hall. The panels of a door on the left were decorated with drawings of impossibly colored fantasy flowers. I instantly knew it was Owl's work. I started to say something about them.
But the door was opened inward suddenly and Sparrow, totally naked, came out. It was the bathroom. There were a few drops of water on her shoulders, in the deep valley of her big, brown, fully-fleshed breasts, and in her tightly kinked patch of black pubic hair.
Water gurgled in the bathtub. A waft of steamy air followed her out. She smiled and walked on down the hall, unashamed, her chunky brown buttocks quivering and rocking with each heavy step.
Owl smiled and said to me, "Quite a chick." He looked into an open doorway on the right. "Hey, Robin, you mind if I give Lark the guided tour?"
Behind us, in the front room, Blackbird or Zeke must have turned on the radio. A fast-speaking announcer's voice swiftly built in volume: ". . . instant sound, instant communication radio! Now hear the classic by Jefferson Airplane!" The music began and I recognized the opening sound of "White Rabbit."
Robin's voice, sweet and small, called, "Come in. I've got something for her."
We entered a bedroom that was mostly a handcraft workshop. Robin, thin and child-like, sat in her wheelchair before a work table scattered with tools and small electric buffers and grinders. She smiled when I entered. She handed me a silvery chain bracelet with tiny bells and peace symbols attached. "I enjoyed your song very much. I hope you enjoy this half as much."
I was astonished and overwhelmed. I knew I had to accept it; I couldn't refuse. It was a love offering. But it was obviously worth at least ten dollars in a hippie shop.
My throat tightened and I felt close to tears. I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, very much. It's lovely." She smelled of a delicate perfume, her enormous brown eyes closed briefly and her small hand rested lightly on my back for a moment.
I straightened and slipped the bracelet on my left wrist. As I fastened the clasp Owl said, "She's the real artist in the tribe, I think. She's won some awards with her things. Her jewelry really sells in the shops on Fairfax."
Robin touched his hand. "But you're the genius. Poor mixed-up genius."
He tousled her very short brown hair. "I'm not poor as long as my folks keep sending me a hundred dollars a month."
I said, "You're lucky. My mother and dad wouldn't do that for me."
He shrugged. "They think I'm in a special art school. Eagle made up a letterhead and conned them along."
Robin said, "Eagle is wonderful. He took me in. He bought me all these tools ... he saw that Owl needed desperately to live and work here where there's love and freedom ... and he accepted Sparrow when she showed up one night with her baby and no place to go. Nobody else wanted her."
Owl nodded. "He's something else."
I reached out and touched the ankh hanging from Owl's neck. "Did you make these, Robin?"
She smiled. "Yes."
Owl said, "She doesn't make them for sale in the stores, though. There are only six."
I said, "One for each of the tribe." I wished I could have one. I wished I could be a member of their tribe.
We looked at a startlingly beautiful portrait of Robin that Owl had done, then we went out to the hallway.
Sparrow called from a room a few feet further on. "Owl, baby? You help me a sec?"
We walked into her room. The walls were papered with cartoons from magazines. One whole wall was "Reserved for Ron Cobb" according to a sign that had Owl's style. Sparrow had apparently cut each Cobb cartoon from the weekly L.A. Free Press and taped it up. There must have been five dozen.
She stood by the bed in white panties with a white bra cupped over her big breasts. She shook her head when we entered. "Can't make it with these hooks."
Owl helped her fasten the bra in the back. It was tight. The straps pressed into her smooth, buttery shoulders and back.
She gave him a brief kiss on the lips. He ran his left hand over her belly. It was a casual, affectionate, mutual act, completely unselfconscious.
I thought it was fine, really groovy, that there was such naturalness between them as male and female, without the race thing intruding. But it was sort of jolting for me because I'd never seen it done before. And I felt a little jealous, too. I liked Owl. There was something about his manner, his talk, the way he looked at me, smiled, touched me occasionally, that struck a me-too chord in my heart. I dug him and I dug his art.
Owl took my hand and we went back into the hallway, heading toward the front room. I asked, "Where's your room? Where do you paint?"
"Upstairs. I'll show you."
We entered the main room. Blackbird was lying on his back before the big old Philco, his head propped against the speaker grid, eyes closed, totally with the sound of a Beatles' song that poured over him at near top volume.
Zeke was lying on one of the sofas, smoking an ordinary long cigarette. He was reading a thick book. I couldn't see the title.
Owl towed me through an archway into the dining room which held a big old wooden table surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs. I had a glimpse into the kitchen. Rill was standing by a gas stove. Sparrow's baby lay cradled in her left arm nursing on a bottle. Rill stared down at a large pot she was stirring.
Then Owl and I started up a narrow stairway just inside the dining room archway, on the right. The stairs were worn and splintered.
There were three rooms upstairs and a small bathroom. Owl's room was on the right over the living room. The bass notes from the radio came up through the floor. I laughed and clapped my hands when I entered. "It's such a perfect artist's shambles!"
He smiled. "Yeah ... I'm not very neat."
"You don't have to be neat. . . and don't apologize." I touched the tips of dozens of brushes in paint-dappled pots. I inspected a caked palette board and drifted around the cluttered room to the half-finished painting on the easel that stood close by the double windows.
The painting was of a nude blonde girl lying on a bed made of arms and hands that were all over her body, touching, stroking, seeking her loins and breasts. It was done in the droplets-of-paint technique.
I stared at the unfinished painting for a long time. It affected me in a weird, hypnotic way ... I felt akin to that naked girl. I said, "She doesn't want to leave the bed, does she?"
Owl was beside me, studying it, too, as if he hadn't created it. "No. She-likes it. That's why she bought it and sleeps on it."
I studied it some more. One of the hands seemed to have fingers in her body. It was hard to be sure.
Owl put his arm around my waist. His other hand touched my belly. I was very conscious for a second that I wore only a thin, two-piece bikini. He said, "I like you." Very simply, truthfully, openly and I knew he wanted to kiss me. It was what I wanted, too. I turned and accepted his mouth. I shivered and trembled as his tongue came into mine and played tantalizing games.
I melted in his arms. I wished he had dozens of arms and hands like the bed he had drawn. I was lost behind the sparkling darkness of my closed eyelids ... lost in his mouth, in his arms, in his wanting, and in my own wanting. A sweet, wet urgency, hot and coiling, came alive in my womb ... in my breasts ... in my heart.
I was astonished and afraid and happy. I was turning on like crazy for Owl! I moaned and wanted him to touch me. . . stick a finger in me! ... but I knew I'd stop him if he tried. It was too soon after my time with David that was another world and only, barely, an hour and a half away in time ... and I wasn't a nymphomaniac! I didn't go around laying for just anybody! I liked sex but I wasn't an addict!
My thoughts whirled like a cyclone. I wondered what he was thinking she's a slut? An easy lay? A chick who's playing at being a hippie?
I pressed my belly against him to feel his erection. It was there, naked in his cut-off pants, stiff and long under the paint-smeared material. Then I pulled back, ashamed, because I couldn't be so bold I didn't know him well enough! I did, but ... it was too soon! I wanted ... but....
I pushed myself away from Owl.
He was puzzled. "What's the matter?"
I couldn't answer. I looked at the paintings on the easel. I couldn't face him. I couldn't say, "I'm not that kind of girl!" because I was!
I said, "Show me some of your other paintings." And I almost added,". . . first."
"Sure." He had stacks of canvases leaning against the walls. He squatted with me and showed them. Most were in his new technique. Most were people, or weird other-world animals, or wild, impossible landscapes, not of this earth.
After twenty minutes I asked, amazed, "And the Art people at UCLA didn't like these?"
"A couple did, but I'm pretty arrogant when it comes to painting, I guess. I don't take instruction very well. I hate to be told! They said I was a 'perverted Pollock.' So I quit school."
"You said before you had been kicked out."
"I was! When I should have been in History of Art classes I was painting. When I should have been in some stupid Psychology class I was painting. So..." He shrugged.
I stood up and returned to the painting on the easel. It fascinated me. He stood close and watched me. I became very self-conscious.
He said in a soft, hesitant voice, "Hey, Lark..." He took my in his arms and kissed me. I didn't resist. I caved in and opened my lips. I was quickly all hot and bothered again, turned on, wanting his hands on me, unable to get enough of his mouth and tongue.
After a moment I began to get weak and breathless.
Owl ended our kiss and said, "I want to make love with you."
"With me ... not to me. We stood belly to belly, thigh to thigh, his hands resting on the small of my back, our chests slightly apart. His gaze was honest and candid.
I nodded. I suddenly was ashamed of myself for thinking like an up-tight square, a sex-denying little prick-teaser! Sex is good! It doesn't matter how often you enjoy it if you're with someone you like and trust. I said, "I want to make love with you, too." My voice shook.
He took off his glasses and put them on a nearby table. He took my sunglasses from their perch on my head and put them on the table, too. His eyes, without his glasses, were gray-green and kind of out of focus and baffled looking.
Then he left me to close the door.
I asked, "Aren't you going to lock it?"
"It isn't necessary. If it's closed it means 'privacy wanted' and it's respected.
We kissed again and all barriers went down! I felt free to show my lust for him. I ground my belly against him and rubbed my breasts on his chest. I gasped and moaned during the kiss because I wanted to. I didn't need to repress anymore, not with Owl, because he wouldn't think I was too passionate to be decent and respectable;
I felt him pull the string on my bikini halter bow knot in back. I slid my mouth from his mouth and stepped back. I pulled off the halter and let it drop. I could feel my nipples sticking out. I hoped he would like my breasts even if they did sag a little and weren't as big as Rill's or Sparrow's.
I pushed down my bikini bottom and let it slide down my legs to the floor. My heart was thumping away like crazy.
Owl simply took my hand and drew me to the low, double bed in the corner. The bedding was rumpled and sour smelling but I didn't care. I pushed him down onto his back and undid his belt. I wanted to take his pants down and see how big he was.
I've always been curious about boys' penises. I don't care if they're big or small. I just like to see and touch. They're always different.
I unzipped him and tugged his pants down off his hips. I saw his patch of curly blonde pubic hair first, then the white-skinned tube of rigid flesh was uncovered, more and more, longer and longer, until the head of it sprang free and it flopped up and to the side, still getting longer, the smooth violet tip pushing out of the white skin sheath.
It was longer than David's, but thinner, and it curved slightly to the left. I closed my fingers around it and pulled the skin down. I asked, "Do you make love a lot?"
Owl began playing with my breasts. "I don't know ... sometimes. Depends." He shifted closer and sucked on my right nipple.
I closed my eyes and began pumping him. He was using his teeth on my nipple, scraping it lightly, sending shivers of pleasure dancing through me, down to my womb.
After a minute he pulled my head down and kissed me. His hand slipped down to my thighs and stroked me there, and wormed fingers into me, to my stiff little clitoris, and I had a spasm of pleasure when he made a contact that nearly blew my mind.
We were both breathing heavily, both restless and aroused. Owl stroked my back ... my buttocks ... my thighs ... He kissed my throat, my ear, and breathed, "Want to sixty-nine?"
I had never done it, but there were no boundaries for me with him. I wanted to try it, to find out, to experience it. I gripped his long penis in my hand and wanted to finally know what it was like to put one in my mouth and suck.
I whispered, "All right."
He moved around and arranged us on our sides, facing each other's loins. He opened my thighs and rested his head on my lower thigh,-as if it was a pillow, and with both hands gently opened the lips of my vagina, and moved his face closer ... I could feel his breath there.
His long penis was before my face, inches from my mouth, throbbing slightly. I held it in my hand and stared at it.
Owl pressed his mouth to me down there! I inhaled sharply as he began licking me. "Oh. Ohhh...." I made little coital moves. I licked my lips, closed my eyes and took the head of his penis into my mouth. It tasted salty at first, then there was no taste. It felt rubbery and velvet-smooth to my tongue. I wasn't disgusted or revolted. I actually liked it ... It was like suckling a huge nipple as a baby. It was giving Owl pleasure. It was being unashamed and hip and having a healthy outlook. It was discovering that I was mature enough emotionally to do it.
I existed in two worlds: I was going wild from his licking and tonguing of my clitoris, and I was experimenting with ways to suck the long, hard rod of hot flesh half in my mouth, half in my hand's grasp. Owl's hips moved slowly, instinctively, to push more in.
I moaned and rushed air through my nostrils and plunged as much of his penis into my mouth as I could, partly into my throat until I gagged. There were still inches left. I retreated and licked the tip. I plunged my head forward again, straining to see how much I could take.
I vaguely heard Owl gasping, panting, whistling air through his nose, sobbing, making wet noises, as I was, as he seemed to glue his mouth to my vagina and flick his wonderful tongue faster and faster against my slippery clitoris.
I began sucking his penis voraciously, greedily, as my pleasure increased, as an orgasm built its explosive tension in my loins. I went golden hot inside my belly.
All but one thought was driven from my mind as the exquisite sensations suddenly triggered and surged through me. Owl's hips thrust toward me with new, quick urgency, and I was afraid he would shoot in my mouth...
Then I was enveloped in a blinding, convulsive blaze of orgasmic pleasure. I whimpered and thrashed against his mouth ... his lashing tongue ... and was mindless, beyond any restraint as I drove my head faster and faster, slobbering saliva, moaned and grunted with urgency, as I plunged his long, rigid penis deeper and deeper, against the back of my throat, gagged but was beyond caring, driven to give him what I was experiencing and with joy heard his deep gasps, felt him tremble, received the animal thrusts into my throat, felt the huge spasms in his loins, the spurting of thick fluid ... I swallowed and didn't care! It tasted slimy, like raw egg and I didn't care! A closed-off, square,up-tight corner of my mind screamed in shock and I didn't care!
We rolled onto our backs. I lay panting, eyes still closed, glowing, enjoying minor spasming inside, and the shock seeped further into my mind at what I had done. I wanted to spit. I couldn't swallow. A considerate host would provide handy after-suck-off-mints....
Owl murmured, "That was out of sight ... " I heard him moving around. I was astonished when he kissed me! How could he bring himself to do it? I had to swallow finally, and the taste wasn't so terrible. I've tasted worse toothpaste. And I realized he didn't think what we had done was evil or dirty. He really didn't! I had been intellectually in agreement, but deep down I had had my mother's attitudes imbedded in my value system. Society's values. Puritan anti-sex values.
It was a sweet, brief, passionless kiss, one of gratitude and happiness and love. I opened my eyes and smiled. I whispered, "I've never made it that big before. Oh, wow...."
"Me neither." He sighed deeply. He reached over and cupped my left breast in his palm. It was a gesture of possession and togetherness. I ran my fingers through his long blonde hair.
Owl said, "I wish you "
He was interrupted by a soft rapping on the door. I tensed! Blackbird's voice said, "Hey, man, supper's on the table."
He didn't come in. I relaxed as Owl answered, "Okay, thanks."
I left the bed and picked up the parts of my bikini. Owl pulled on his pants.
A few minutes later we went down the stairs hand in hand.
The meal was a sort of slumgullion stew, a cabbage and fresh peach salad, and coffee. It wasn't imagine but there was plenty of it. I noticed there were a lot more chairs at the table than tribe members. I asked Zeke why.
He stopped spooning stew, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, "We get some kids in almost every day who are hungry and need a place to crash. We feed them and sleep them. We'll get a couple later on tonight, I imagine. We always do."
Rill ate quietly. She didn't say a word during the meal. She brought in more food and coffee, and usually kept one hand under her sweatshirt on her breasts.
Sparrow had already left for work. Robin sat in her wheelchair next to the table. Blackbird smiled a lot. I think he was high. The radio continued to blast rock music.
Afterward I helped Rill clear the table and wash the mismatched dishes, bowls, cups, mugs and silverware. We worked silently, yet I didn't feel I was an intruder or unwanted. She simply accepted my help and smiled when I leaned over impulsively and kissed her cheek when the kitchen had been cleaned up and everything put away. I said, "I envy you, Rill."
She said, "It's a good life. As long as I have Zeke."
We went into the living room. Robin was working in her room. Blackbird had gone out. I joined Owl on the porch. We talked, watched the few passersby, and he introduced me to a hippie couple when they fell by to see Zeke. The girl was almost lost in cast-off men's pants, shirt, and large, shapeless sweater. Her long black hair was a tangled mass. She was barefoot. Her man was heavily bearded, dressed similarly, and barefoot, too. He was simply John. She was Peg.
We went inside a half hour later and I noticed them sitting at the dining room table eating some of the left-over stew.
We went upstairs again and Owl did some work on the painting while I watched and read an old copy of The Oracle.
We talked about everything.
Then I glanced at my watch and was amazed. It was almost midnight!
Owl walked me home. He let me wear his sweatshirt. He wore an old red jacket. On the way he said, "Why don't you split your folks' scene? You're old enough. Nineteen."
"I'm tempted." We held hands as we walked. "But I'm tied in. I go back to USC in three weeks ... registration."
"You really want to buy the square bag?"
"I'm not buying it. But getting an education is important."
"For what? A life like your folks have?"
We halfway argued all the way. I was torn up more and more. I knew he was right ... yet I couldn't just ditch two years of college and my future. I was still hanging on to parts of the square value system. I didn't realize I couldn't live half-and-half.
We kissed in the alcove of the apartment house. I went syrupy and weak again and pressed tight against him. We both wanted sex again. We promised to see each other the next day.
I unzipped the little pocket in the side of my bikini and took out my door keys. I was going up in the elevator when I realized I still had on his sweatshirt. But I didn't think it mattered I'd give it back the next day.
CHAPTER THREE
Our apartment door was unlocked. That meant they were waiting up for me.
I entered and saw mother in a pink wrapper, her dyed brown hair up in curlers, sitting by the open window. She said ritually, "Thank God you're back safe."
"Oh mother!" I snatched off my sunglasses and headed for my room.
"Just a minute, Miss Show-off. I want to talk to you." Her voice was slurred. I saw the half-empty glass dangling in her hand.
The apartment was quiet. I asked, "Where's Dad?"
"Your father is out making his rounds of the local topless bars. As usual."
She brought her glass to her lips. Her eyes flickered and she lowered it without drinking. She said angrily, "Where've you been all this time?"
"With friends."
She snorted. She looked up at me with resentful, dead eyes. "David told me what kind of friends they are. Dirty, sex-minded beatniks!"
"They're hippies."
"Bums and little whores! Is that what you want to be, Juli? A little two-bit slut who sleeps with anyone who happens to wear old clothes and a beard and spouts 'Peace' and 'Love' all the time?"
She made me furious! "That isn't the way it is at all! Just because you're getting old and fat and never enjoyed your life you don't want anyone else to have any fun or act any different."
We were enemies, mother and I. Absolutely alien to each other. She couldn't ever see anything good about me.
She paled and her eyes turned mean. "I don't want you getting mixed up with those awful freaks! Before you know it you'll be taking dope. You'll wind up in an insane asylum!"
"I suppose you and Dad don't take dope? Your purse is full of pills. Wake-up pills, energy pills, tranquilizers, sleeping pills, diet pills, and that isn't enough-you have to get drunk every afternoon and night, and Dad has to work and exercise like mad and go out to bars to keep himself distracted because he's afraid to slow down and face himself and you and this junkie life of yours!"
"How dare you call me a junkie!"
"You are and you know it. You couldn't give up any of those pills. You'd go crazy!"
"I wouldn't!" There was genuine fear in her eyes.
"Then do it! Stop drinking all the time! Stop depending on those things! Stop being a slob. Lose some weight. Try to be a real wife for Dad, and a real mother to me. If you'd-"
Her face twisted. "Shut up! I don't need advice from my own daughter on how to behave! If I acted like you I'd go around practically naked all the time, tempting men, having no respect for anything or anyone--"
"I respect those who earn my respect."
She drank from her glass. She swallowed heavily. A thin, unnoticed trickle of liquid went down her chin and dripped on her wrapper. She finished the drink. She smiled pathetically. And complained, "You expect me to be perfect. You've got to learn to be tolerant. I love you, Juli, even if you don't love me. You're all I've got."
It was hopeless but I tried once more to make her see. "Mother, you're trapped in a way of life that doesn't make any sense. Dad manages an appliance store and sells plastic junk to people just like you who don't need nine-tenths of that stuff. They buy it because they're told to buy it on TV and in magazines and newspapers."
"If people didn't buy those things your father would be out of a job."
"Good! Then he could do something productive and really useful for society!"
Mother shook her head. "Dear God! Listen to her! Nothing we do is good enough. All she can do is criticize! We raise her, we spend all kinds of money on her, send her to college so she can earn a good living if she doesn't find herself a likely man to marry and she spits on us and acts like a little whore! She runs around all the time with God knows who in that bikini that shows everything she's got!" Mother glared at me. "Where did you get that dirty old sweater?"
"A friend lent it to me because it was chilly out."
"Take it off. It's probably full of fleas and lice."
"If it is I've got them by now anyway, so it doesn't matter."
"Go take a hot shower. I've got some disinfectant soap you can use."
She was serious! I said, "Go to hell!" I ran into my room and slammed the door.
I took off the sweater, my bikini, put on a robe, opened my door and slipped into the bathroom. Mother didn't look around. I took a quick shower and returned to my room.
I went to bed naked.
I couldn't sleep.
I felt so sorry for Dad. I couldn't understand why he had stuck with mother all these years. Did he enjoy being denied and put down all the time? Did he get some kind of weird subconscious masochistic kick out of living with a woman like mother? Hadn't he known what she was when he married her?
I only knew for sure I wanted out! I wanted out of the society and culture which had produced our "normal" family in our "normal" house in San Marino ... and which provided me with David Krayne as a "normal" boy friend.
I wanted Owl and Zeke and the others in the tribe. I wanted them to be my family!
I had a weird feeling of not-belonging, of being in the wrong place. Mother, and even Dad, had been strangers to me for years. More and more I had the sensation of being alien to them.
I wasn't happy with them. I didn't care about college if it only led to a marriage like the one I had observed all my life ... to a big, over-priced thirty-year monument to a mortgage bank ... and to the kind of inner and outer life that would drive me to seek escape in pills and a bottle. I wanted out!
I had a weak, sick sensation in the pit of my stomach. My heart thudded in my chest. I got out of bed and went to the window of my room. I stared out at the beach ... the Ocean Front walk ... the parking lot.
I heard a tambourine being shaken somewhere near ... young voices ... Then I saw three hippies, two boys and a girl, all barefoot, strolling along the Walk. Fog was rolling in from the ocean, but they didn't care. They were happy and content.
I watched them until they passed out of sight. I smiled. I had made a decision. I went back to bed and fell asleep immediately.
CHAPTER FOUR
I knocked on the psychedelic front door of the tribe's house at seven forty-five the next morning. It was quiet. There was an early morning chill and the air was clean and pure. Smog hadn't built up in the atmosphere yet from a million cars.
I licked my lips and swallowed and felt icky in my guts. I tried the door. It was unlocked.
I stepped inside. The air in the entranceway had a funny smell, a sweaty, sour, food, smoky combination. I heard somebody snoring.
I put down my small red Samsonite suitcase and shut the door behind me. Part of me wanted to run back to the apartment house. But I walked quietly into the house and looked into the living room.
Two boys were sleeping on the sofas. Two girls were on the floor in cheap sleeping bags. The boy on the purple sofa was snoring. He didn't have any covering-just a heavy jacket. The other boy had an old, ratty, pink blanket wrapped around himself.
They were hippies who had come to the tribe's house for a place to crash.
I wanted to talk to Owl. I had to find out if he really wanted me, or if he had just been making noises the night before.
I picked up my suitcase and went up the narrow stairs to the second floor. Owl's door was just slightly ajar. I could see the bed. He was cuddled under the bedding with his knees drawn up close to his chest. His long blonde hair was awry, all over his face. He was so quiet! I could barely see him breathe.
I pushed the door open and it squeaked. He didn't stir. I went into his room and lugged my bag to the side of his bed. I wasn't barefoot and my shoes seemed to me to make a terrible thumping on the bare, paint-spattered wooden floor. But Owl kept on sleeping. I wondered if he was drugged. "Owl?"
His eyes opened. He stared at my light blue stretch pants, then looked at his old sweatshirt I was wearing, at my face. He smiled. "Hey ... Lark."
I nearly burst into happy tears. "Hi." I was awkward and hesitant. "I decided to join the tribe."
"Great. I dig that." He brushed his hair away from his face and reached out for my hand. He pulled me down to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He rolled onto his back. His arms and shoulders were uncovered. He didn't wear anything when he slept. He didn't let go of my hand. He said, smiling, "How come? What made you decide?"
I reached out with my other hand and played with his scraggly little goatee. "You ... and the tribe, and my mother last night ... and just ... things that have been building up for a long time."
He stared at me, sort of content and happy, and I looked back and wanted to kiss him. Then he asked, "You just walk out on 'em?"
"I just sneaked out. I left a letter, though. They were asleep."
He noticed my suitcase. He grinned. "Goddamn!" He squeezed my hand in his. "That's great." He pulled me closer until I had settled onto his chest. His hands slipped up under the sweatshirt onto my bare back. He discovered I had worn no bra. And we kissed.
His mouth wasn't sweet and his breath was a little bad, but I didn't care. I liked it in a way. He wasn't so terribly afraid of offending like David who globped on the aftershave, rolled on the Right Guard, and chewed breath mints.
Owl's kiss heated me up. His hands caressed my back, then his fingers edged under the waist of my stretch pants and pushed down till his hands were cupping my buttocks and rubbing me there.
I was meeting his tongue in my mouth, beginning to breathe hard, beginning to squirm a little. I could feel him getting a hard-on under the blanket and sheet.
I broke the kiss and whispered, "Should I close the door?"
He nodded.
As I got up from the bed we heard bare feet in the hall and suddenly Blackbird was in the room, stark naked, surprised at seeing me, then grinning. "We got us a early visitor." He was tall! Slim and lithe, and black! With his fuzzy, bushy hair and flat nose and wide, thick lips, he was frightening.
I was rattled. I felt myself blushing violently, not because he had caught me with Owl, but because I was seeing him naked ... and I couldn't keep my eyes from his genitals. His penis was as dark-skinned as the rest of him, but not as long as what I had expected, from stories, from whispered, giggly speculation among girls. "Niggers" were supposed to have big ones, bigger than white boys, and they were supposed to be "animalistic" and very virile, and so on. They raped a lot.
Blackbird just stood there in front of me and said, "Owl, got any cigarettes?" He saw my suitcase. "Hey, you plannin' on joinin' the tribe?"
I nodded. I tried desperately to be cool, to recover from my initial reaction. The shades were pulled and the light was dim in the room. I hoped he hadn't noticed my flush.
Owl said, "They're in my pants." He pointed toward his ragged, spattered Levi's on a chair.
Blackbird moved unselfconsciously to the chair and found a pack of Viceroys. He took two and used a book of matches on a table near a full ashtray to light up. He said, "You gonna have to talk to Zeke. He got the final word." Blackbird took a deep drag on the cigarette. "I'm all for it, though." He looked at me. "Be nice to have another chick around."
Owl said, "We'll talk to him later."
"See him now. He'n Rill 're awake. I was just in there askin' for a smoke."
Owl sat up and threw the covers aside. He had half an erection. He said to me, "Maybe we should. He'll be busy later. Some guys from the Peace and Freedom Party are coming over, and things pile up during the day." He reached for his pants.
I was scared. The sinking feeling was in my belly again. "What if he says no?"
Owl didn't answer. He stepped into the Levi's. Blackbird said, "Lots of hippies want to join us. But ol' Zeke is real choosy. Got to be a limit. Can't take everybody. No room."
That made me almost ill. I hadn't thought about being refused. I couldn't go back to mother and dad. Not now!
Owl took my hand and we left his room and went down the hall to the third room on the second floor. The second room's door was wide open. It was Blackbird's. I glanced in and saw huge poster-pictures of Stokeley Carmichael and Cassius Clay on the wall over his rumpled bed. A corner was littered with parts of a machine, and a table held something that looked like a carburetor from a car.
There was a small bathroom opposite his door-just a toilet and a washbowl-that Owl had obviously decorated. The inside walls were alive with purple vines and little, furry green animals with five legs. I only got a quick look then but I went back later.
Zeke's door was slightly ajar, as had been Owl's. I guessed it meant he was available. Owl called, "Hey, Zeke?" I was aware of Blackbird's nakedness behind me. Too close.
"Come in." Zeke sounded sleepy.
We entered the room. It was all books and papers and paintings. There was a big, old-fashioned rolltop desk by the window. It was littered with papers. The walls were hung with brackets and pine shelving loaded with books, more papers, boxes ... Above the rows of books were framed paintings. I recognized some by Owl.
Zeke and Rill were in their double bed. It was just a mattress and a set of box springs on a low steel frame. There was no headboard.
They lay together under a single patchwork blanket, a crazy thing of sewn-together bits and pieces of a dozen old blankets, as if nothing was ever thrown away in their world, if a hole was worn in something it was patched or cut up to be used another way ... I saw this in the shelving that looked like it had come from the sides of an ancient, torn-down house, and in the rug, which also was a sewn patchwork of half a dozen others, colors clashing.
I admired this self-sufficiency ... or scavenging. I realized that a certain percentage of the population could live off the throw-aways of the rest. But it took skill and talent to do so. It was not shameful. The shame was in the waste.
Zeke was lying with his right arm under Rill's back. His hand was on her right breast, moving slowly under the blanket. Their shoulders were uncovered. Rill's right hip and right leg were bare. A fringe of her mahogany-red pubic hair was visible. There was no attempt to show it or keep it covered. That was simply the way the blanket had folded and that was all.
Rill was running a brush through Zeke's long gray hair. Lovingly.
Zeke smiled when he saw me. "Lark." His wise old eyes took in Owl and Blackbird, who had followed us in. He said, "Will you eat breakfast with us?"
I said, "I want to very much ... and I want to stay."
He nodded. "A great many young people want to stay with us."
Owl said, "She's different. She'd fit in. Everyone-likes her."
Zeke said, "We don't add units, Owl, we add parts of a whole." His gaze shifted gently to me. "We have no more bedrooms."
Owl said, "She'll share my bed."
"But she cannot be yours. We are a tribe, a whole, not a group of couples." His blue eyes held me. "Your love must be for all of us."
I nodded quickly, but held Owl's hand. "I know. And I do already. But I love Owl in a special way ... more."
"That's natural. But we are a sharing group. In everything. We share our bodies as we share our food and money and time and skill. The self is not submerged, but it is linked." He spoke calmly and softly. "We are all individuals, yet our individuality is limited in the tribe to those areas of life where it does not harm or interfere with the unit, the whole. That, at least, is the ideal." There was a tinge of sadness and wry knowledge of the imperfectibility of man and woman in his voice.
I said, "I think that's a beautiful ideal."
"But can you even attempt to live by it? Do you realize what it means."
"I think so."
"Do you love Blackbird? Are you willing to make love with him? If he asks you to go to bed with him ... will you?"
Zeke's voice was still kind, still calm, but he had jolted me again. I involuntarily looked around at Blackbird. He was grinning. I looked into Owl's face. I felt wide-eyed and pale. An icy partial thought glittered in my mind-fucked by a nigger!-and I saw myself under him, and he was grinning triumphantly down into my face, his wide, thick lips close, and his black penis was inside me, slamming deep-I wiped it out!
Owl was saying something. ". . . tribe way. I make it with Robin and Sparrow and Rill, too. That doesn't mean you can't prefer one to another, but you can't shut somebody out completely, or be exclusively mine. That's the square hang-up. That's what fucks up life for them."
I said weakly, "But I don't know Blackbird. Not well enough to...."
"You will. But if this is beyond your acceptance ... then we can't let you join us."
I nodded in understanding.
Zeke added, "There are other requirements. You must be a productive member of the tribe. You may not live here and contribute nothing. Nor may you simply coast on savings and do nothing, even if you contribute your share. You must complement us. You must be something and someone we need."
I searched in myself for something I could do that would be of value to the tribe. I clung to Owl desperately.
Rill said, "She is a poet and a songwriter. She helped me last night in the kitchen willingly, without being asked. I could use her help in the house. It is too much for me and what little time Sparrow can give."
Zeke said, "Lark, the contribution is seventy dollars a month for each of us. That is for rent and food."
I had some money in a savings account. Over two hundred dollars. I asked, "Until I get a job ... can I pay from money I have in a bank?, I was suddenly eager, because he seemed to be about to accept me. He wouldn't have mentioned the money thing otherwise.
"Of course. But you must understand that you will not really be one of us until after we see, and you see, if you like it, if you really can live happily the tribe way, and if you can give up the square values you have lived with all your life. They go deep and are not easily left behind."
"I know. All I ask is a chance."
Rill shifted slightly. The blanket fell away from Zeke's hand on her right breast. The breast was big and full. His thumb and forefinger held the large dark-red nipple and continued rubbing it gently.
Zeke said, "Then you are now provisionally one of the tribe. We'll all show you our way. We'll all answer your questions."
I said, "Thank you. I have a stereo record player, a good portable, in my room in my family's house. And some money out there, and clothes. Could Owl and I drive out there so I can get my things?"
Owl said, "I don't drive."
Zeke asked, "Are you free to live with us? What about your parents?"
"I'm nineteen. I'm old enough to do what I want. And my mother will be glad I'm gone!"
"Do you have I.D.? "
"Yes. In my suitcase."
"I believe you. Do your parents know you've left and what you intend doing?"
"Yes, by now, I think. I put a note on their bedroom door when I left this morning."
Zeke nodded. His white hair shone from Rill's constant brushing and stroking. He said, "We'd better get up now. You can help Rill with breakfast, Lark. And later Blackbird will drive you to your house for your things."
A funny, half-scared feeling blossomed in me. I still hadn't come face to face with the certainty of sex with Blackbird. I still hadn't accepted it.
I looked at him again. He drew a lungful of smoke from the butt of his cigarette and looked boldly back at me. My heart was still pounding. He was so black! I told myself he was only a man. Rill had accepted him. And Robin ... her, too? I could do it. I wasn't hung up on the race thing! I wasn't!
I realized Zeke had deliberately given Blackbird the task of driving me to the valley. It would be a long trip. We would have about two hours to talk, to get to know each other, and I could find those parts of him which I could relate to; I could get past the color of his skin and discover he was human, a person. It was a test.
I realized Zeke was watching me. I smiled. "That'll be fine. We can get to know each other."
Owl said, "Let's go down to the kitchen. I'll help you start things, till Rill gets down."
CHAPTER FIVE
After breakfast Zeke came into the kitchen where I was helping Rill. I was using Comet and a Wet rag on the grease-dripped side of the old gas stove. The ivory enamel was chipped but looked a lot better as I scoured it.
Sparrow was sitting in a chair by the ironing board. She was letting her baby suck on her left nipple while a bottle warmed. It fascinated me to watch the little mouth take the swollen, purplish nipple. I was envious of Sparrow in a way. She was a mother, a whole woman.
Zeke said, "Lark, Blackbird's out in the Volks, ready to go."
"Okay, thanks." I got up, made sure I had my house key and ID, and went out. I looked for Owl on my way through the living room, but he wasn't around. I was a little disappointed. But I supposed he was upstairs painting.
I went out onto the porch and saw the Volks! like, it was weird at first. It was a mini-bus, but with every inch of it except windows and headlights painted in wild, swirling, psychedelic designs. It was overpowering. I just stared at it in delight.
Blackbird had the rear panel open and was doing something to the engine which was idling. He had it rev up and then slow every few seconds.
I went around to look. He was tinkering with the carburetor. I asked, "Will it get us to San Marino?"
"That where you live? That's an hour on the freeways both ways." He turned an adjustment screw a tiny bit and revved the engine. He listened critically.
I asked, "Will it get us there and back?"
"Oh, shit yes! I got the magic touch. This motor purrs for me." He grinned with pride and knowledge. "I got a touch for motors. That's what Zeke say, and Conez, down at the station."
He shut the back panel and wiped his hands on a rag. He put his screwdriver in a back pocket of his tight jeans. "Climb in."
I went to the front passenger side and got in. There were no seat belts. Dad had seat and shoulder harnesses in the Pontiac. But dad knew he was mortal. Most kids don't think they can die.
Blackbird turned on the car radio. He backed down the driveway with a casual skill and roared the engine once, critically, before shifting gears and starting us on the long trip.
The radio came on loud. It was an Aretha Franklin record and she was shouting, which I don't like much. I just don't see the skill in it. But I didn't say anything. I watched the other cars and wondered what the drivers, and the people on Main Street were thinking when they saw us a colored boy and a blonde white girl in a hippie wagon. Why is she lowering herself like that? Do niggers fuck that good? I wiped out those thoughts.
After a few minutes I said loudly, over the noise of a chattering dj, "Okay if I turn it down? I'd like to talk a little."
"Sure!" Blackbird turned it off. He grinned. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Oh ... the tribe. There's a lot I don't know about it."
"Sure is. I was zonked when ol' Zeke let you in. But you only a second-class member, like us blacks in this country."
I didn't want to talk about race. "Do you like living the tribe way?"
"Shit, yes! I get more-" He laughed a private laugh. He glanced at me. "Ol' Zeke's strict on some things, to keep the Man outa our hair, but he's got the right idea. I only wish I could make more money." He scowled.
"You make enough to pay your way in the tribe, don't you?"
"Yeah, but that's about all. Four hours a day down't the station. But I make it in the tribe keeping this ol' heap purrin', and fixin' things. I got magic fingers."
"I wish I could do something besides help in the kitchen and things like that. I can't even type or take dictation. I won't be able to get much of an outside job."
"You don't have to worry. You white and you got everybody on your side."
"Well, I don't want to be 'white' and get special treatment."
"You can't help yourself!" He had turned up to Fourth Street to reach the freeway entrance. He turned again and we were speeding down the access road. He easily fitted the bus into the traffic. We were doing sixty-five. The engine in the back roared.
It was too noisy to talk much. We had to practically yell. He turned the radio back on.
One time a dark-blue Jaguar swerved in front of us in order to get to an exit coming up. Blackbird got very angry. "Goddamned rich mother-fucker!" His hands tightened on the wheel and he glared. "Goin' home to Beverly Hills! No blacks allowed to own in there!
I kept silent. He made me uneasy. Not because he was black but because he was so obsessed with it himself. A half an hour later we got off the freeway at Pasadena and I directed Blackbird south and east into San Marino a few miles away.
The familiar streets made me feel funny. When we turned into Madison Drive, our street, and I said, "That's it ... the brick front with the green trim," it really hit me this was my home and I was leaving it, casting it out of my life. That familiar icky sensation settled in my belly.
Blackbird drove right up into the driveway. That offended me for a second. I got out and led him into the backyard.
"Damn, you got a pool 'n everything." He looked at the blue-green water, the diving board, the bathhouse further on next to the big triple garage, and looked at me. "What you want to leave all this for?"
"It isn't mine. It isn't even my dad's. He's got fifteen years left to pay on it. He'll probably die before it's all paid off."
"So what? You using it till then."
"I'm just not happy here." I noticed a drapery move in the window of the Rands' place next door. I unlocked the back door of our house and smelled the hot, stuffy air of the closed, all-windows-shut interior. It seemed strange.
I led the way through the gleaming, white, gadgety kitchen, down the hall to my room. I went in and the room wasn't mine. It was the same as I had left it almost two weeks before Joan Baez and Dylan posters on the wall, neatly made single bed, record racks, desk, bureau, the sliding door closet, the frilly curtains insisted on for the windows it was all the same but I felt oppressed by it. I didn't want it. The room, the house, the pool, it was all tied together with mother and dad and David and their worrying about money all the time while going deeper in debt, my knowing open secrets about people but pretending I didn't. . . their always pretending ... always living in their fake world, my awareness of the hate and fear and cesspool minds behind smiling masks. The people in San Marino had everything, but they were afraid! Anything different, any change scared them. They knew deep down they were living on quicksand and any movement ... social, cultural, even scientific made them hate and fear.
Blackbird looked around my room and said, "Man, most of the people down in Venice would sell their black souls to live like this, and you willing to walk out of it?"
"It's the things that come with it that count. This is really a refined kind of a hell, in a way."
"I'd like to try it."
"Then you don't really belong in the tribe."
"What you mean?" he scowled.
"If you want this, then you can't be satisfied with the tribe's way. You can't have them both."
"Who you tellin' about the tribe? Who're you? You not really in yet and you flappin' your mouth about me not belongin' in the tribe! You got to prove yourself first before you can talk. Talk's cheap." His expression changed subtly. "But you're scared of me. You're scared of going to bed with me."
"I am not."
"Sure you are. I seen the looks, like in Zeke's room when he told you, you'd have to fuck with me. You got all up-tight inside. Shit, girl, I can read you like you got printing a inch high on your face."
"Well, that was because I didn't know you. You were a stranger, and..." I shrugged and tried to smile wryly and be cool but it didn't go. ". . . I've never done it with a colored boy, and besides I'm hung on Owl." I went to the bureau and pulled open some drawers. I knew what he was thinking. I knew what he wanted to ask. I was dry-mouthed and jerky in my movements. I was frozen inside. I went quickly to the closet and slid it open. I pulled down a suitcase, a big one, and my yellow and blue ski jacket. I was very busy. I couldn't look at him. I said, "You could unplug the stereo and carry it out."
"You ain't givin' me orders!" He was close behind me. "You got to remember who you are now. You Lark." His arms came around me. He pulled me tight to him. He felt my tension and resistance. "All you can think is color!"
"No..." I had to let him. I knew it, but not so soon! I had expected to get used to seeing him around, to know him as a person, and to let it happen in the tribe house where I'd feel free and easier about it.
"Then let's do it, Lark. I want to make it with you. I dig you. An' I can make you feel good. I can make you feel good as Owl." He had a rhythm, a sing-song quality in his words, a ritual line he was feeding me, to justify and force me to agree.
His hands were on my belly and his right hand started edging under my forearm, under Owl's sweatshirt to my bare skin. I wasn't wearing a bra. He knew it. He had seen the loose movement of my breasts, and seen the bumps made by my nipples.
"Not now. Tonight."
"Why not now? This is a better place. I won't hurt you. We got real privacy here."
I saw he was right. I didn't really think he'd hurt me or get freaky or anything. And it was a better place. There wouldn't be anyone to hear us, or see me right afterward, or before, and if I did it now, I thought, it would be over with, the first strange, awkward, up-tight time.
I tried to wipe out his blackness in my mind. It didn't matter! He was a tribe man and he wanted sex and he wanted me, and he had a right to me. And I had no good reason to refuse. I was tribe Lark. I had to be or I had to forget being a hippie and living with the tribe and Owl. I might as well just stay in this room ... call mother and dad and apologize.
I relaxed as much as I could. I let my arms drop. "All right."
Both his hands went up under the sweatshirt to my bare breasts and squeezed and explored and got to know them, and found out how big, and what shape they were and what kind of nipples I had...
He kissed my neck and said softly, "Ummm ... nice ... hot skin..." He laughed softly. "You got hot tits. You hot like this all over?"
"Sometimes." He was pushing his loins against my orange stretch pants, rubbing his erection against my buttocks.
I saw him in my mind's eye as he had been that morning, in Owl's room, naked, a beautiful body, proud of it, arrogant in little ways of gesture and movement. Willing to be naked in front of me ... any girl ... to show off.
He was tall. He turned me and I wasn't prepared for his kiss. His wide, thick negroid lips were a physical shock coming down at me warm and ugly and hard and I closed my eyes to shut out his gloating eyes, challenging eyes, staring.
The fear thing was fading out for me. The more he touched me with hands that were like other hands, and breathed loudly and pressed tight ... he was only a young man with a hard-on...
I was in possession of myself again. A film slipped away in my mind and let the curiosity come up through the fear and strangeness. I loosened my mouth and let him push his tongue in my mouth. His hands still held me tight as if afraid I'd run.
He urged me over to my bed. He ended the kiss. He was aroused. He was breathing hard. We sat on the bed and he pulled my sweatshirt off. I let him. I unzipped the side of my stretch pants and pushed them down, aware of him undressing next to me watching, and he was trying to be cool he was trying to be casual!
I realized it meant much more to him in a positive, ego-pride-status way than it meant to me as a square-value put-down and humiliation. I was Lark! I wasn't losing anything! I was gaining! I was learning, really opening my mind and accepting something new!
He pushed down his tight jeans and it wasn't as big as David's, or even Owl's. Blackbird had a beautiful body.
He had already pulled off his sandals. I had come barefoot. I was nervous and could feel my heart whamming away. I took my panties off, too, and started to lie back.
Blackbird sprawled out beside me, pressing against me, his hard penis burning against my hip, his hands sliding all over me, down into my crotch to rub and then up to my breasts ... and back again.
He said huskily, "You got a nice body."
"You've got a better one." I touched his shoulder.
He grinned, pleased with my compliment, and lowered his mouth to my right breast. He sucked my nipple but the sensation was weak. Everything I felt was sort of thinned out.
He was working a finger into me when he asked, "You like straight fuckinT' I nodded.
"You not very wet yet."
"I will be. Go ahead."
"You gonna like me, Lark. I take a long time. Robin go crazy sometimes when I been fuckin' away in her for a hour or so." He was bragging, smiling.
I just couldn't picture thin little Robin, with her wasted, atrophied legs wide, taking him, liking it. . . 'going crazy.'
Blackbird rolled onto me and I opened myself for him, knees high and wide, fingers holding myself apart down there while he pushed inside, half dry, rubbing the sensitive pinkness with his rigid black penis, pushing it deeper, while he snorted and let his weight down on me, and curved his hips into my hollowed loins and pressed in farther.
"You nice'n tight."
I didn't answer. I didn't like it. Why did I have to do it if I didn't like it? He was moving, a swift rhythm, with his head next to mine, his breath warm on my neck, making little grunty satisified sounds, while his hips, arched and pressed, arched and pressed, in and out ... bringing a little glow of feeling when he compressed my clitoris with his body at the end of each inward thrust.
My juices were flowing, oiling his way, erasing the dryness and pain.
It went on a long time like that. Every few minutes he raised his head and kissed me, tongued me, and asked, "You like it? Gettin' anywhere?"
I nodded. He lowered his head and I chewed my lower lip and worked with my hips to make him come sooner.
I was slowly getting a small glow, a ripple of pleasure from it, after about twenty minutes. But then the pleasure that had been building inside me faded away. I became a machine.
After a longer time he began breathing quicker, more deeply, and began exhaling strongly. He said, "Can't hold out no more ... "
I moved with him, took his quicker plunges and met his jolting with my hips, and felt him quiver in his body.
He groaned and his hands tightened on my shoulders. I was panting with effort to make it good for him in spite of it not happening to me too. I was Lark. And I got a kind of thrill out of giving, out of experiencing his deeper thrusts and holding him tighter in my arms and feeling the shuddering spasms that shook him ... and hearing words torn from him in his climax: "Je-sus, you good! Uhh...."
Then he was sighing on me, flopping away onto his back, face slack, empty, at peace for a moment, and I had to cup my hand against myself to keep from leaking and dribbling on the bedspread and the carpet as I got off the bed and went into the bathroom.
I washed and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked down at my wet pussy and back to the mirror. I watched the reflection of my sloping breasts and still erect nipples. I whispered, "You are now Lark. You're a different girl."
I hoped the Enovids were working.
God, if mother could have seen ... I giggled a little hysterically.
About ten minutes later Blackbird carried out my portable stereo, a hundred twenty dollar V-M, and I followed close behind with my suitcase filled with spare under things, mostly, and blue jeans, pedal pushers, some sweaters. I carried my guitar, too.
I saw old dumpy Mrs. Rand, squinty in the sun without her sunglasses, standing next to our driveway by the low cinder block wall that divided the properties, watering her flowers there with a green plastic hose. She was all eyes.
I tried to ignore her. But she said, "Hello, Juli."
"Hello, Mrs. Rand." I followed Blackbird back into the house.
When we emerged again, each with an armful of records, she said, "Moving."
"Yes."
"I thought Ruth and Robert and you were only staying at the beach two weeks?"
I wasn't taking anything more. I had locked the back door. She kept looking at Blackbird, at the decorated Volks, and then at me. Her eyes sparkled with the things she was going to say to friends in a few minutes on the phone. I said, "They'll be back tomorrow maybe." I opened the passenger door of the minibus and climbed in.
"Won't you be with them?"
"No. And please tell them not to worry, will you?"
Her eyes were wide with growing shock. Her eyes darted from Blackbird to me. "Juli...."
Blackbird started the engine, revved it, and backed swiftly to the street. I waved at Mrs. Rand and leaned my head on Blackbird's shoulder. It was a terrible thing to do to Mother and Dad, but I was exhilarated and suddenly free. I had really burned my bridges.
CHAPTER SIX
Two days later, in the afternoon, I sat by the window of Owl's room and practiced on my guitar while he painted. I liked the painty smell. I liked being with him even if he ignored me for hours. I watched him peer at his canvas through his rimless glasses that were always dusty and fingerprinted. He worked by dipping a toothpick into semi-liquid paint, applying the point to the canvas, depositing the small drop...
I put aside my guitar and said, "I'm going down to help Robin." The stereo was playing below us, one of my Bob Dylan records.
Owl went, "Mmmmm." He brushed his hair aside and smiled at me. "The flowers look good in that light."
I was in a flood of hot sunlight. I looked down at the weird purple and yellow and orange blooms he had painted on my white pullover sweater. The design was a purple stem that split to each breast area, and the flowers, like alien sunflowers, were rounded and made alive when I moved my naked breasts underneath. I loved it. He was doing some of my other clothes, too. But I was self-conscious about wearing the sweater out of the tribe house. I had worn it only twice. The paint was still tacky in places. I had to be careful when I put it on and took it off. Some orange and yellow smears had even appeared on my breasts. I dug it.
I said, "Flower child, me." I passed close by him and touched his front for an instant, feeling the soft length of his penis. We had made it the night before, five times, and it had been so utterly good and sweet and fine I was afraid to start something again for fear of wearing him out and making him think I was insatiable. And I was afraid he would refuse me, so I had to let him decide when and how many times.
Owl slap-caressed me on the rump as I passed. I went downstairs and saw Rill and Sparrow sewing in the front room. Sparrow's baby crawled naked on the floor. Zeke was on the other sofa, reading again. I never had seen a man read so much.
I called, "Rill! Let me know when you're going to Safeway." She nodded and smiled.
Bobby Dylan's voice cried from the stereo, "No, no no, it ain't me, babe? it ain't me you're lookin' for, babe...."
I walked down the hall and stepped on the head of a nail sticking up from one of the hardwood boards. It didn't pierce the skin of my foot because I had some good tough calluses. I had been going barefoot a lot all summer, not just while I was with the tribe.
I went into the kitchen, got a hammer from the tool drawer and, returned to the hall and pounded the nail down good. No one asked what I was doing. I put back the hammer and returned. I went into Robin's room. Her door was wide open.
She was sitting at her work table, twisting a piece of silver with small needle-nosed pliers. Her arms emerged thin and white from her pale yellow cotton shift. She was very slim, skinny, actually, but there was a lot of strength in her. She was wiry.
Robin looked around at me with those big brown eyes of hers. She smiled and said, "Lark," in welcome. "Anything I can do?"
"Yes, you can cut some chain into certain lengths for me." She patted the wooden bench. "Better get a pillow."
I took a corduroy throw pillow from her neatly made bed and sat beside her. She seemed tiny next to me, and frail, and so child-like. Her short haircut made her look boyish. But there were small pointed naked breasts under her loose shift that proved her a girl when she leaned back and her dangling ankh and chain nestled against her chest.
She handed me a spool of thin silver chain and a pair of polished steel wire cutters. "Measure off and cut six nine-inch lengths. Then six eight-inch pieces, then six seven-and-a-half-inch pieces."
"Okay." There was a steel ruler screwed to the edge of the table. I began. I was careful because the chain cost about a dollar a foot.
Robin said, "I've got your ankh made, but I can't give it to you. Zeke has to decide when you're ready."
"I love being with the tribe. How long will it be, do you think?"
"At least two weeks."
"I can hardly wait."
She smiled and looked at my painted sweater. "I like what Owl did to that. You ought to have him paint flowers on your breasts like he did on mine a month ago."
"He did?"
She laughed. "Umhmm. Want to see?"
"Yes." I was curious and intrigued and a tiny bit jealous.
Robin pulled her shift up her legs, then wriggled and rocked to get it under her narrow rump. I saw her legs for the first time. Her right leg from just above the knee down was in a shiny metal brace. Both legs were like matclisticks. They hung down like dead things.
She said, "I expect you're curious. I was born this way. The nerves and muscles didn't develop. I can put a little weight on the right one and use my crutches to get from here to the bed and the bathroom, but mostly I use the wheelchair." She smiled and shrugged to show she accepted it and didn't mind talking about it.
She freed her shift and pulled it up without a trace of shame or hesitation. She wore white cotton panties, the plainest, cheapest kind, and no bra. She bunched the thin cotton under her chin.
"See?" She smiled and looked down at her little breasts.
They were lovely, exuberant, shaped like small ripe pink-and-white pears. They stuck out firmly, and her nipples were tiny stems of deep pink with a cast of green in the wrinkles and with other colors on the white skin and areola tinted faintly in the outline of flower petals.
Robin said, "He used vegetable dyes and nontoxic paint. I was beautiful for a while, but it's mostly been sucked and licked off."
I said enviously, "You have beautiful breasts. I guess they get a lot of attention."
She nodded happily and lowered the shift. She picked up her tools and went back to work. "But it isn't because people are sorry for me, and are giving charity in bed. My legs don't make any difference."
I asked curiously, "Robin, how old are you?"
"Twenty-two? What are you?"
"Nineteen." I snipped off a length of chain. I asked, "Alone you alone? I mean, do you have parents somewhere?"
"I was an orphan. I guess my real mother and father threw me away. The state trained me to do this-jewelry work. They even got me a job with a big shop downtown, but I hated it. It was all repair, fix, and like that. They didn't want me to create or do anything original. So when I saw some of the stuff the hippies were doing I knew I could do better, and then I met Zeke and Rill ... "
Robin's voice took on a deeper tone of love and warmth when she spoke of them. She obviously worshipped Zeke and his wife.
I said, "You do beautiful work."
She made a face. "Some of it is good."
I helped Robin for an hour. She showed me how to do simple filing and shaping. We talked steadily. I liked her more and more.
Then I went with Rill to Safeway and helped carry groceries. I helped in the kitchen-made the salad myself and everyone complimented me on it at supper. I knew I was fitting in. There was a groovy contentment in me, a bubbly glow that's hard to explain because I think very few people ever really experience it once in their whole lives. It's a sense of belonging, a knowing that you are accepted and loved and needed and useful and a part of a good thing.
That night about ten I was lying on the bed on my stomach trying to write a lyric for a song while Owl sketched me on a big pad from a chair a few feet away. He was using colored pencils. The stereo was booming away beneath us in the living room.
Abruptly he flipped the pages angrily and stared at the new, black sheet. He closed the drawing pad. "Fuck it."
"What's the matter?"
He brushed his long hair away from his eyes. "I don't know." He picked at loose threads at the cut-off part of his paint-stained Levis. He frowned."I think I need a trip. I feel stupid and ... sort of out of it ... lost. There's something tickling in my mind I can't find. Something trying to tell me I'm doing something wrong in my painting. But it won't come out! Almost words ... almost thoughts ... " He angrily broke a flesh colored pencil and threw the two pieces out of the window. "Fuck it."
I was anxious. "Where would you go?'. '
Owl stared at me oddly, then laughed. "I mean an acid trip, inside."
"Oh." He had never mentioned taking LSD before. "Want to trip with me?"
"I don't know." Smoking a little pot was one thing, but taking LSD was something else. I was scared of it.
He said, "You've been reading all the horror stories."
"I guess I have. But it is kind of dangerous, isn't it? Bad trips do happen."
"Oh, sure, but here, with me and all the good vibrations from the tribe, you know, you wouldn't have anything to worry about."
"Well ... I don't think I should if you do. I mean, isn't there supposed to be somebody around who isn't on drugs, just in case?"
"I've been on lots of trips. About a dozen. Alone, sometimes. I never freaked out or anything."
"Well ... I think I should just watch you the first time."
"It'll be a long time ... just watching me. Eight hours at least-till morning."
"That's all right. I don't mind."
"Okay, little chicken. But you'll be missing something!" He went to a corner of the room and pried open the metal case of a water color set. He took out something, and pressed the top of the case together again. He returned and showed me a foil-wrapped cube. "Sugar. Just like in the papers." He unwrapped it an put it in his mouth. "Good-good."
I smiled. Then I got off the bed. "I've got to go to the toilet. I'll be right back."
I did have to go to the toilet, but I went down the hall to Zeke's room first. There was nobody there. I went downstairs into the sound and found him sitting on the porch on a pillow. He was sitting yogi style and was talking with Blackbird. Rill was beside him. Blackbird looked mad and was saying as I came near, ". . . no dictator or anything! We oughta vote on it!"
Zeke said, "We did vote on it three months ago, before you came to us." He saw me and said, "Yes, Lark?" It was a cut-out of Blackbird, a sort of put-down, to dismiss him and talk to me right away.
Blackbird must have been furious. He shouted, "You fuckin' white mothah! You think jus' because-" He broke off an said, "Shit!" and jumped off the porch. He walked away fast, toward Lincoln Boulevard.
Zeke sighed. I saw him put his arm around Rill's waist. She was fondling her breasts under her sweatshirt. I was used to seeing it. It seemed natural.
I said, "I'm sorry I interrupted.. " I sat before him on the wooden boards. "I want to ask you about drugs. I don't know the tribe rules."
"There are no rules. I am against all drugs except as a medicine. Pot isn't a drug. But I know Owl uses acid once in a while, and so does Robin. That's their business. I only ask that they ... any one of the tribe ... be careful and discreet. That goes for pot as well. We all have to be careful. The police would love to have an excuse to bust us all."
I nodded. "I asked because Owl just took a dose of acid and wants me to do it, too."
Zeke said, "It wouldn't be wise for you. I believe you are stable enough, but I think Owl is marginal. His talent drives him. Maybe it is good for him to have visions ... I don't know." He put a warm hand on my arm. "Go up and stay with him."
"I was going to."
He smiled and squeezed my arm.
I leaned forward impulsively and kissed him on the mouth. "Love you." I went inside and went to the toilet.
When I returned to the upstairs and entered the room, Owl was stretched out on the bed. The light was out. He had lit a candle. He asked, "Why'd you go downstairs?" He had taken off his glasses.
I said truthfully, "I wanted to talk to Zeke about it."
"And he said don't do it." Owl nodded and closed his eyes. "He's scared, too."
I wanted to argue, but decided not to. I sat in the chair Owl had been sitting in when he had been sketching.
After a few minutes Owl said, "Hey ... you don't have to stare. Just be near. Come over and lay beside me. Play for me."
I got my guitar and sat next to him with my back propped against the cracked veneer headboard with a pillow. I started picking out Lord Randal. I sang softly.
I played and sang off and on for two hours. Then Owl whispered, "Stop..." I stopped and waited. He didn't say anything more. I watched him but he didn't seem any different. But I did notice in the dim, flickering candlelight, his corneas, under his closed eyelids, moving quickly in little jerky moves. I wondered what he was seeing, inside...
I waited, then eased off the bed and took off my black hip huggers and sweater, not the decorated one, and my panties, and crawled back into bed. I moved under the covers. I wanted to cover him, too, but didn't know if I should.
Then he rolled over, almost onto me, and began to make small protesting sounds. But that stopped and he was quiet.
It was getting chilly in the room. I finally pulled the blanket and sheet free of him and covered us both. It was late about one o'clock.
The candle had burned down to a pool of wax. It guttered and went out.
I listened to the sounds in the house.
After a while the stereo beneath us was turned off. Talking quieted. Zeke and Rill came up to go to bed. Blackbird didn't come up that night.
The house became quiet. Sparrow's baby cried for a few minutes. I heard her moving around.
Quiet....
Quiet....
I had almost drifted off to sleep when Owl stirred and whimpered. He touched my hip with his hand and rolled toward me. He nestled against my warm, naked body and began to cry softly. I didn't know what to do. I put my free arm around him and kissed his cheek.
His left hand slid to my breast and clutched the right one ... but so gently. After a while he stopped crying. He sighed deeply five or six times. Then he whispered, "I wish you were with me, Lark."
"Are you still ... tripping?"
He nodded slowly against my shoulder. Then he moved away and opened his Levis and pushed them down . . .down under the covers ... and pushed them free of his feet, and thrust them out to drop to the floor. And he returned to me gently, to my body, with his warmth and love.
He touched me differently that night, when he was high. He touched me so lightly, so delicately ... so sensitively. I was aroused quickly, just from his touching of my breasts. I could feel his penis hot and long against my left hip, actually throbbing with his pulse, and I wanted it in me so badly, but I didn't know if I should do anything.
He whispered, "I love you...."
I kissed him. "I love you."
He sighed again, "It's so beautiful up here. Your skin is hot polished marble that's soft." Under the covers his hand slid on fingertips and thumb pad down to my belly and moved in slow circles around my belly button ... then lower to the patch of my pubic hair ... and lower still to the wet lips of my vagina.
I was trembling slightly. I opened my legs. I turned my head and kissed his hair and wished his mouth was there for me to have.
One of his fingers curled into me. It slid into my heat and slipperiness, down into my vagina as far as it could easily go, then out slowly, wet and nice, to slide its length upward over my vibrant clitoris.
I moaned.
The finger went in again and I wanted the long, hard, burning flesh that was alive against my hip. I wanted it to fill me. I whispered, "Oh, darling ... "
Owl said, "You're so alive inside ... it's where you really live...." He lifted his head and kissed me.
I swam into his mouth with my tongue. I put my arms around him. I made small passion sounds in my throat that I couldn't help. His finger was still in me, still sliding in and out slowly, tantalizing me, making me restless and syrupy and hotter than ever.
He took his mouth from mine and said in a wanting, soft voice, "Get on top of me...."
We had done it that way once the night before, and I knew he liked it. It had advantages. I could control things. But deep down I wasn't content with the position, as a woman. It was too linked-up in my mind with domination and masculinity. I didn't want to be the master. But once in a while it was okay.
I moved over Owl, over his hips, and straddled him with my knees. The covers fell away from our naked bodies. It was chilly and dark in the room. I reached down between us and grasped his long, hot penis. I raised myself a little more and brushed the velvety glans against the lips of my vagina, and lowered on it and felt it sink into me. I wanted to stop and take it little by little, but my insides were already on the edge of a climax-clutching with seething tension needing to feel him deep, needing the sensation of him all the way in. I couldn't help letting my weight slide his penis up and up! I gasped and leaned forward to get maximum penetration. I ground myself against his pubic bone. I could feel my vaginal lips crushed against his wiry hairs, and could feel the size of him in me, and could feel the itchy pleasure-pain of pressure against the mouth of my womb deep, deep in my belly.
My breath came and went in whispery, trembling gasps. My hair hung down the side of my face and brushed my breasts as I moved.
He said, "Slow ... do it slow ... "
I tried, but it was so good! I lost control after a minute and was in a golden bubble, my whole body! And nothing existed but us and our love and my pleasure! I was taking him and taking him and taking him! Just wild and crazy and shuddering spasming inside, all molten and shivery. And as my bubble faded I heard Owl sort of wailing and felt his fingers digging into my buttocks and felt him very big in me, almost too big, and he was pushing into me and spurting ... spurting ... It made me feel so complete and melting warm with love for him. I relaxed on him and felt his heart beat as he felt mine and we kissed and breathed fast.
Owl whispered, "That's where God is."
"Yes." I was still glowing.
We slowed down. I knew I was heavy on him but I didn't want to move. Finally I slid sideways and molded to his side. I pulled the covers up over us. We were messy but I didn't care. I drifted off to sleep.
I came awake hours later, at dawn, and in the cold gray light Owl's face was beautiful. I wondered what he had experienced during our lovemaking while the acid was affecting him. I decided next time he wanted to trip, I would, too. Once wouldn't hurt me. I wanted to know what it was like, to be with him and to be "in."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Two days later I stepped out of one of the phone booths outside the Safeway in Venice and said to Rill "No answer. I guess mother's out somewhere shopping.' It was ten-thirty in the morning.
Rill nodded. She picked up one grocery bag. I picked up the other. She said, "It would save money to write a letter to tell them you are safe and well." She smiled. "You don't have to argue and answer questions."
"You're right." I had checked the beach front apartment house they had left on schedule. They had to be back at the house. In a way I felt abandoned. Maybe subconsciously I had expected them to call the police and make a big fuss ... Maybe I was testing their love.
I felt kind of let-down as Rill and I walked back to the tribe house.
When we entered the house I noticed a well-built young man sitting on the floor in the living room talking to Blackbird over the radio sound. The stereo was being given a rest until we got a new needle. He had on oil-stained jeans, an old white dress shirt and worn sneakers. His sandy-blonde hair was cut short and neatly trimmed. I caught part of what he was saying as we passed on the way to the kitchen.
". . . was holding, man. I'm from Riverside. There's a going little underground there."
"Yeah? Who in it?"
"Oh ... I don't know too many names...." The young man looked around at us. He looked intently. He appeared about twenty-five years old.
We continued on into the kitchen. I didn't see anything of the two teen-age girls who had slept on the sofas and eaten breakfast with us.
Sparrow was in the kitchen with a big laundry bag stuffing in the old dish towels we had on the racks beside the sink. Her baby, Tommy, crawled on the floor by her feet. She winked and said in a whisper, "Blackbird think that one's a narc."
A little tremor of fear went through me. "Why?"
"He can smell 'em. He just know. He always right, too." She pulled the bag's drawstring and picked up Tommy. She swung the bag over her shoulder. The action pulled her painted blouse tight against her big, loose breasts for a second. "Be back in a hour and a half." She walked out of the kitchen, her sturdy brown legs showing one-third of her thighs beneath a plaid mini-skirt one of her outside friends had given her. Her buttocks flipped solidly.
I helped put away the groceries, then went into the living room. Blackbird and the young man were still there, still talking. I watched him sideways as I asked Blackbird, "Is Zeke upstairs?"
"Was a few minutes ago."
The man had clean fingernails. And his wallet, in his back pocket, was thick stuffed with a pack of celluloid card carriers I noticed that easily. What was a hippie doing with a raft of cards; probably business cards or credit cards and so on? And maybe the bulging wallet held a bulky steel badge! He looked up at me and said, "Hi. What's your name?"
I got cold inside. "Lark."
"No, I mean your real name. I'm Jack Fitch." He smiled. He glanced at his wrist.
"Just Lark." I noticed his right wrist showed the white bank of skin from a constantly worn wristwatch, no longer there. And his third finger left hand showed the mark of a wedding ring. I said to Blackbird, "I want to see him about something," meaning Zeke, and I turned around and went upstairs.
I was reminded again that I had left my own watch upstairs in the bathroom on the low end table beside the washbowl, and I had been doing the same thing glancing at an empty wrist.
I heard talking in Owl's room as I got to the top of the stairs. The door wasn't closed. I had to walk in. The two girls were sitting cross-legged on the bed looking at drawings in a sketch pad. Neither one of them was more than fifteen. Owl was by the window, working on a painting.
I asked him, "Is Zeke in his room?"
Owl shrugged, irritated by the stupid question, and irritated by the two girls who were looking at sketches of nudes, some of Sparrow and some of Rill. But suffered them.
I went down the hall Zeke's door. It was barely ajar. I peeked in and saw him sitting at his old desk. He was pecking away steadily on a portable typewriter.
I decided to wait a few minutes. Besides, I had to go to the bathroom. I was just entering the bathroom when the two young girls came out of Owl's room, one saying, " ... yeah, wow, but if you can't ... " They went down the stairs.
My watch wasn't where I had left it. I looked around, didn't see it, and decided Owl or somebody had taken it for safekeeping. I felt an urge to urinate, so I pulled down my clothes and sat on the pot.
A few minutes later I was outside Zeke's door again. I waited till he sat back a little and stopped typing for a few seconds. "Zeke, can I see you a minute?"
"Of course, Lark." He stretched and pushed away from the desk as I entered the room.
I said, "There's a man downstairs in the living room Sparrow say Blackbird thinks is a narc. He's trying to pose as a hippie, but he's got a wallet full of cards in plastic holders, you know? like my dad's wallet. And "
"I know. Sparrow told me a few minutes ago. I'll go down in a while and ask him if he's hungry. If he is we'll feed him. If he isn't I'll ask him to leave."
"Why don't you throw him out now? He's asking all kinds of questions."
"Blackbird can handle him. We've had them in before. They think all they have to do is wear old clothes and use our words." Zeke smiled wearily.
"I didn't say anything to him. He wanted to know my real name and I just told him Lark."
"Good."
I chewed my lower lip for a few seconds. I used a finger to push hair strands from my face. "There's something else."
He waited. "You are free to say anything."
"Well ... it may not be anything, but this morning Owl and I were fooling around a little in bed and I squeezed him and ... pumped him a little ... and a drop of greenish pus came out, and he said this morning it burned when he went to the bathroom."
Zeke nodded. I managed to go on. I would never have been able to say such things to my dad, or mother. They would have gotten all up-tight and tense and nervous ... "And I noticed a discharge myself just now." A wild, incredulous thought came to me could David have infected me?
Zeke said, "Thank you for telling me, Lark. Thank you for not hiding it and not being ashamed. I'll make an appointment at the health clinic and we'll all go over tomorrow to get smears taken. If one or two are infected it doesn't take long for all of us to pick it up. It's happened before. It'll happen again." He said it calmly, matter-of-factly. Then he smiled and said warmly, "You are becoming one of us very quickly. I like the way you are helping and doing things."
I felt so happy I was close to tears. "Thank you."
A minute later I left his room and went down the hall to see Owl. He was still painting. I told him about the man downstairs and about the suspected infection.
He made a face. "That damn Blackbird. He screws around, gets a dose and spreads it here! Now I'll lose two or three hours tomorrow waiting over there for the tests and getting shot."
"It might not be his fault." I felt kind of funny: if Blackbird had infected me, and I had infected Owl ... I had a crawly sensation on my skin.
"He's always the one with the worst case, meaning he got it first."
"Oh." I watched Owl return to his painting. I said, "Did you take my watch from the bathroom this morning? I left it there and it's missing."
"No. I haven'-t seen it. Why did you leave it?"
"I took it off to wash, then forgot it till just now
...and it wasn't there."
Owl frowned. "Nobody in the tribe would take it. Blackbird's a bastard some ways but he doesn't steal." His face cleared. "Those fuckin' teenyboppers!"
"Those girls that were here?"
"Yeah, they used the bathroom a couple times." He put down his pallette board and headed for the door. "Come on, let's find them."
"It was only a sixty-dollar watch." I followed him downstairs.
Just to be sure, Owl asked Blackbird, Rill and Robin if they had seen my watch. None had. The young man who we thought might be a narc sort of blew his cover when he said, grinning, "Hippies steal from hippies?"
We ignored him. Owl took my hand and we went out to the sidewalk. There was no sign of the girls. He said, "The closest hock shop is over on Windward, by the beach."
We walked over there as fast as we could and asked the owner if he had taken in a watch like mine in the past few minutes, but he hadn't. We told him our story so he wouldn't buy it if the girls came later. We walked along the Ocean Front.
We were just passing the Pavilion when Owl's hand tightened on mine at his side. "There they are."
I saw them then, coming toward us. I said, "I can't just accuse them!"
"I can." He pulled me along. This was a new side of Owl I hadn't seen before.
The two girls saw us and stopped. They acted nervous and talked close together. Then they angled out into the beach.
We walked out on the sand, too, heading to intercept them. They saw us and knew it. One of the girls was talking hard to the other. They waited for us.
They didn't say anything as we approached. One of them, the smaller girl with ratty brown hair and a sort of puckish, snubnosed face wouldn't look up. The other girls looked sullen.
Owl said, "We missed a watch after you left."
The sullen girl jabbed the other with an elbow. "Give it to 'em. Come on, Barb!"
The other started to cry. She reached into her jeans and threw my watch down into the sand. "I don't care!"
Owl stooped over and picked it up. I was uncomfortable. I asked, "Why did you take it?"
The girl only sobbed louder. The other one said, "She's broke. She ran away from home and she wants to go back."
"Can't you call and ask your parents for money?"
Barb sobbed, "They don't have it. They don't give a shit if I come back anyway."
I watched her cry and I saw myself, myself without Owl and the tribe. I realized how lucky I was. I asked, "Don't you have any place to go?"
The other girl shook her head. "We're just bumming. I know a place but the boys make you put out. I don't mind, but Barb's still a virgin."
I stepped close to Barb and put my arms around her. She huddled against me and her sobs had the hopeless, despairing sound of the totally unloved and unwanted. It was terrible. I asked her, "How much do you need?"
"T-twelve dollars for a t-ticket ... "
I looked at Owl. He shrugged. I dug into my pocket and took out my money, some crumpled bills and some change. It amounted to sixteen dollars and thirty-five cents. I impulsively pressed it into her hand. "Here. Go home."
Owl squeezed my waist when we headed back to the tribe house. He kissed me on the cheek. "You're a fine chick."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The entire tribe was in the mini-bus Friday morning, coming back from the Public Health Clinic on Venice Boulevard. Zeke drove.
We had all been there three hours, from eight-thirty till eleven-thirty. We were all sleepy, but the appointment had been for then, so we had had to go. Owl, me, Sparrow, Robin, Blackbird and Zeke had tested positive for gonorrhea. Only Rill had been clean. Nobody had syphilis. We all had needles jabbed in our bare rumps and big doses of penicillin injected. Even Rill, just to be on the safe side. We all had to go back for shots, at least twice more. We girls had to have five shots, one a week.
The penicillin made me jittery. I sat beside Owl on the narrow second seat from the front. Blackbird was grumbling bragging to Robin behind us. "You see the way them white nurses look at us?"
"Not especially."
"They lookin' at me, then they check out Sparrow and they wonder if we all making it together, then they look at me again and I wink at 'em and smile real slow, and then they know!" He laughed triumphantly. "Hey, Owl, you see that little redhead look at me with those wide green eyes? I bet I could have her if I get her alone."
Sparrow had taken Tommy along. The house had been locked up when we left. She said, "You better stop gettin' into all this outside stuff jus' because it's willin'. Jus' 'cause it's white!"
"Who you tellin' what to do? White chicks want some black cock ... I'll give it to 'em."
Owl said, "And that makes you a big man."
Robin said, "Some of the girls aren't girls. like that awful old thing you dragged up to your room last week. She was a wreck. She must have been forty years old!"
Sparrow said, "She strung out on speed. I could see it. You give her some, too, to get sex. Jus' 'cause it's white."
Blackbird was furious. "What you all jumpin' on me for? I'm free! Ain't no rules stoppin' me from fuckin' anybody I want!"
Zeke said, "That's true, but you're not very choosy and when you get a disease we get it too. You're hurting the tribe."
"So what? Clinic's free."
Robin said, "It isn't that, it's ... irresponsible ... and immature. And it's a lot of bother and it's humiliating to have to go to that clinic every month!"
Blackbird turned sullen. "That's just tough shit!"
Zeke turned into our driveway and nothing more was said, but there was a bad feeling among us about Blackbird and he knew it.
He carried Robin into the house and into her room, and they had an exchange of yelling in there. He came slamming out and left the house.
After lunch Zeke left in the mini-bus on his usual rounds of the head shops where Robin's jewelry was sold. He collected money and placed new things.
I went to Sparrow's room down the hall and looked in. She was sitting on her bed in her panties and garter belt, drawing on her white nurse's stockings. She was bent over and her big brown breasts hung down and jostled up her upper thighs. Her nipples were as big as concord grapes, purplish, and wrinkled.
Her baby, Tommy, naked, brown, crooning to himself, sat on the floor by her feet. He watched her solemnly.
I said, "Knock knock."
She looked up and smiled. "Hi, Lark."
I entered her room. It was simple: her bed, a bureau, the baby's crib, and the wall of Cobb cartoons. But there were clothes scattered, a litter of Free Presses, baby powder, a stinky bag of diapers, Kleenexes, a cut-out picture of some cute kittens....
"Sparrow, I'm going to have to get an outside job pretty soon, at least for a few hours a day, and I was wondering if there's anything open at the place where you work, the Pico-"
"Pico Resting Place. You wanna try bein' a nurse's aide?"
"I suppose. Or work in the kitchen, maybe. I'd like that. Maybe I could help a few hours when they make the meals."
"That's an idea. You want me to ask before you go up and apply?"
"Would you? It would save a lot of time and carfare."
"Sure." She fastened her stockings and reached for her big bra.
I said, "Are you going to work now? It's early yet."
"Yeah, but I traded with Mary Lou so I could get Sunday off. I ain' gonna miss the Love-in out'n the valley. Thass a tribe scene and I'm in the tribe!"
I nodded. "You know I've never been to a real Love-in before. I've read about them in the Press, and I tried to get my old boy friend to go to one once, but he didn't want to." David so afraid of being contaminated.
"They're fine. 'Course this one in the valley ... I don't know ... thass enemy territory. They all up-tight about hippies out there. But all the tribes're goin', so we bound to blow some minds clear to the moon!" She laughed. "Ol' Orange County gonna turn purple we all show up in the bus in our tribe clothes."
I laughed too. "Where is it?"
"I think Zeke say Canoga Park. Some place there." She had fastened her bra on backwards and now pulled the big white cups around to her front. She tugged it up and adjusted her breasts.
Tommy must have sensed she was going away. He began to whimper. Sparrow smiled and picked him up. "Hey, little black bug. Don't you cry now. You got Lark and Rill and the men to keep you." She kissed him. "I'll be back. Momma'll be back." She hugged him tight. He stopped crying. He clutched with tiny fingers at her bra. Sparrow said, "He wants to suck my tittie again." She said it proudly. "Got no more milk but he-likes it anyhow. I like givin' it to 'im, too." She handed him to me. "Let him suck on yours for a while. Rill does. I got to go!" She kissed him on his little brown nose, picked up her purse and went out.
I was left with fifteen pounds of baby in my arms who was beginning to whimper again. I looked down at him. I had been startled by Sparrow's suggestion. There had been a first instant rejection of the idea, but then it intrigued me. Why not? If she didn't care.
I was wearing a pair of light blue pedal pushers and a white shirt-blouse hanging loose. Owl had painted some weird, intertwining patterns on it with red, blue, green and brown crayons, then I had ironed it in. The colored wax had been melted into the tight weave. But I couldn't wash the blouse in hot water.
I shifted Tommy to my left arm and unbuttoned. I pushed the shirt away from my right breast. I didn't wear a bra. I hadn't worn a bra once while I had been with the tribe. The only reason Sparrow wore one to work was because it was required. And she hated it.
Tommy was wailing, beginning to be really unhappy. Tears washed down his cheeks. I turned him and held him so his mouth was next to my nipple. His breath was warm on my skin. He felt the softness and warmth of my flesh and patted it with his tiny hands.
My nipples were peaked out. I really wanted him to do it. I guided my right nipple into his little open mouth. He made a funny little sound and started to suck automatically. I made a sound myself, a breathy "Ohh ... " It turned me on. Emotionally, not especially sexually, though that was part of it, too.
The little devil surprised me with the sucking power of his mouth. It sent itchy shivers through me. I cuddled him and wished I had milk for him. I wished I had a baby ... I wondered when I would ... would it be Owl's? Would it be simply the tribe's baby, with no idea who might be the father? Might it even be black?
I didn't dig the idea of having a brown baby ... Blackbird's child. I didn't like him.
And the tribe ... how long would it hold together? I had done some thinking about it and I had no intention of stopping taking birth control pills. Not till I knew a lot more about myself. Everything was so impermanent. Society, the world, the tribe, even my own personality sometimes seemed hung together with paste and wire clothes hangers.
I didn't know enough about Owl, either. From things he had said, and comments from others, I guessed he had been tripping on acid more and more. Where could that lead? Would it help his art and help him find solid rock in himself, in his mind? I hoped so, but I couldn't depend on it. I didn't even know if he was thinking of a long-term relationship with me.
I backed up and sat on Sparrow's bed and enjoyed Tommy's suckling on my breast. I felt all warm and maternal and sort of complete. He felt good in my arms, warm and content and pacified with my nipple.
I heard steps in the hall and Owl peered in. He smiled. "One way to keep him quiet."
"I'd better go into the kitchen and make him a bottle, though. I can't hold him forever."
Owl came in and sat on the left side of me. "You'd make a good mother. You hold him with love." He pulled my shirt away from my left breast. He lowered his head and sucked the nipple. His left hand slid up my leg.
I just sat there and enjoyed it. I started to get wet and hot between my thighs. It was a weird sensation. I arched my back. I could see Owl's penis getting big and long in his cut-off pants, stretching down his leg till it almost showed at mid-thigh where his jeans ended.
He lifted his mouth. "Who does it better?" His right lens had been smudged by my breast. He took off his glasses and used the sheet from the bed to polish them.
"You're both very good. If Tommy doesn't lose his touch he'll make some girls very happy."
"Including you and Rill and Sparrow." Owl tossed his blonde hair back. "Hey ... you still scared of acid?"
I started to deny I had been afraid at all, then stopped, because I had been afraid, and why lie? I said, "Not so much. I'd like to try it sometime, if it'll help me find out about myself."
"It will. It opens you up to yourself. There's some things in your mind that'll maybe freak you out, but some things that are beautiful. Everybody's a monster and a saint."
"I know."
"Willing to trip with me tonight? I just scored for two cubes."
"All right." I felt fluttery inside but I wanted to do it. I owed it to myself to try LSD once. I was pretty sure I wouldn't lose my mind or anything like that.
Owl kissed me. "Fine." He played with my breast. Tommy was still sucking away at the other. Owl said, "Make him a bottle and come upstairs and we'll shut the door for a while."
I was breathless. I glanced down at his pants. His penis had surged and hardened until a good inch of the glans was sticking out of the ragged leg. I went weak in the pit of my womb. "All right. I'll be up in five minutes."
CHAPTER NINE
It was that night, after supper, after a sort of community time in the living room when we all discussed the coming love-in Sunday, what we wanted to do, what we wanted to take along...
Now Owl and I were upstairs. The door of the room was closed. A tall candle was lit in a deep red knobby-glass bowl. Murky red light leaped and flickered on the walls. On the ceiling over the bowl a golden circle of light pulsed in the center of the red dimness.
Owl said, "Let's get undressed."
"Why?" I didn't object, but we had made love for two hours that afternoon and I wondered if he wanted to go again, while high.
"Clothes are a drag. They're a bad scene. . They don't belong ... your body doesn't want them during a trip. At least mine doesn't." He dropped his pants, his one garment.
I took off my pedal pushers, shirt blouse and skinned down my panties. I was naked with him. I climbed on the bed. It squeaked and complained. It had done a lot of complaining earlier. The bass notes and a little of the melody from a Fudge record on the stereo came up through to us.
Owl came to the bed with foil wrapped sugar cubes. He settled beside me, on his back, and handed me one.
I unwrapped it and looked at it. "How big a dose is in this?"
"About two hundred mikes."
"Mikes?"
"Micrograms. It's kind of a low dose for a first tripper. You might not make it over your acid threshold."
"Oh," I didn't know what that meant exactly. It sounded like I had a small, safe dose in my hand and I felt reassured. "Do I just eat it?"
"Umhmm." He popped his into his mouth.
I did, too. It tasted like pure sugar. Then something occurred to me. "Will the penicillin we had injected this morning affect us now some way with the LSD?"
"I don't think so. I never heard of anything like that." Owl rolled to face me. "Don't worry. You'll have a good trip. You're one of us. You're my chick." He kissed me. "Mmmmm, sweet lips."
I laughed. "You, too."
He molded himself close against me. He didn't have an erection, though. He trailed a finger in circles on my breasts. He said, "It'll be at least fifteen minutes before you'll know if you're going up or not."
"What happens if I don't go up?"
He smiled. "Then you stay on the ground. It'll be like a pot high for you."
"Oh." I had never really been high on pot, either.
We talked about the trouble with Blackbird for a few minutes, then about Rill, and about my parents ... and all the time I was waiting in my mind for something to happen. I looked at my watch a lot.
Then Owl said, "I'm going."
"Goodbye."
We smiled. I swallowed and I could feel the saliva going down my throat. I became very conscious of it in the next few minutes. I told Owl.
He nodded. "That's one of the first signs."
A few minutes later I could feel the air rushing past the lining of my throat and bronchial tubes as I breathed. I sought Owl's hand and held it. I could feel myself going higher and higher with each breath.
He reassured me ... soothed me....
I could feel the weight of my hair pressing down gently on my skull. The blanket under my naked body became intricately textured and sensual to my skin.
Owl asked, "See colors yet?"
"No..." I waited expectantly, like I was waiting for the next bit of magic in a show. After another minute, I think, the flickering red candlelight began to pulse in a different way, and the room seemed to expand.
My hearing was affected, too, by the waves, the vibrations of energy that permeated me, my body and mind. I began to get an out-of-control feeling, a fear. It was weird and frightening. I gripped Owl's hand tight. I heard him whisper, "I'm with you, Lark. You're safe..." But his voice was distorted too loud and then it faded into silence, I couldn't hear him at all, but I did hear the stereo below us in the living room, and it was clear as a bell, not muffled, and it sounded as if the Fudge were playing down there, live, in person! I could hear them breathing as they sang and played!
And my vision it was like a crystalline, million-colored light show was going on in the room, superimposing itself, film-like, over the red and golden candlelight. It was astonishingly beautiful. But all these sense impressions were nearly overwhelming me.
My sense of touch sharpened ten times over. I was delighted. I could feel each slight shift of muscle tension in Owl's hand, and I could feel my body, inside and out, feeling good. It was like each nerve ending in each cell was sending a "feeling fine" message.
Owl's voice came back to me and I heard a hundred fine distinctions of intonation and shading of meaning in his words. I knew that it would be possible to understand a person totally, to psyche them out, just from hearing them speak a few words, if you could maintain this acute sensitivity for long enough, and could map out the significance of each infinitely fine shade of sound. No one could lie successfully, or be insincere, or hide schemes if a person trained to listen was near....
Owl's body close to me attracted me. I loved the sensation of skin against skin. I had never really felt before. I wasn't as afraid as before. I was more secure inside. I freed my hand and I think I smiled the most loving, beautiful smile in the world as I looked into his eyes and saw the love for me there. I was in a world of vibrant color and sound and sensitivity. I put my hand on his chest and touched the few little blonde hairs there, and the smooth skin and the warmth and the surge of his beating heart.
Everything had become supremely sensual. I was glad we had stripped. I couldn't have endured the tightness of the pedal pushers and panties on my skin. I'm sure a bra would have driven me crazy with rage.
Owl put his hand on my belly. It felt golden and alien and good and ticklish all at once.
I looked at my watch. It pulsed, too, and amid the distorting waves of color I saw that an hour had gone by magically. So quickly. But as I watched the sweep second hand it seemed to take an incredibly long time to go from second to second to second...
I wondered what my mother was doing ... and I saw her clearly in my mind, vividly, in the kitchen, alone, sitting in the breakfast nook, drinking her gin and Seven-up. I could feel her swampy self-pity and hatred for me and father. For a while I was her.
I began to sob.
Owl soothed me.
I swam out of her, in my mind, and was in the room again, the comforting, flickering, rippling room with the stereo below so real, and Owl holding me in his arms, so strong and loving.
I asked him, "How can they live that way? Why does everything have to be so rotten? Why is everything hate and take?"
"It isn't, it isn't. We're different. The tribe is different. Good vibrations, Lark ... good thoughts ... we'll change it. The tribe way. We'll spread our way and our love all through the young generations and the world will change. The shuck system will just die away. The old ones will die off and so will their way. Don't sweat it, darling. It's what's happening."
He was right. I could see it. A world based on honesty and love, real love based on self-respect and wanting to help people ... If the tribe could make it, why not other tribes millions of tribes?
Owl was stroking my thigh. The blonde fuzz on my skin was like thousands of tiny, sensitized tendrils contacting his hand, and the effect on me was erotic. I wanted him to suck me all over, to touch me all over, to fuck me and kiss me and I wanted to do it all to him, pleasure, in this wonderland of body-mind.
I couldn't hold back and pretend. My voice would have told him. Naked honesty was the only way for me, I knew it, and I accepted it. I said, "Let's make love."
"We're making love. We always will." He kissed my throat lightly. His fingertips drifted to my loins, to the opening into my body, and traced the vibrating, incredibly sensitive surfaces of those lips between my opening thighs, and ruffled the curly brown fuzz with the palm of his hand.
My own hand touched his body in brief contacts of awareness belly, tension of thigh muscles, the satiny heat of his penis, blood hot, full and hard and so wonderfully long ... long enough to reach into my womb, and beyond. The size filled my soft hand as I grasped it gently and lifted it into the sky of my mind.
I didn't lose contact I was on the bed, in the tribe house, high on LSD, seeing a transparent overlay of kaleidoscope color and rhythmic, pulsing energy. But the vibrations were leading me, taking me, guiding me to give my love, my soul.
I moved and it was a symphony of sensations to move. I opened my mouth, cavernous, wet and pink and hot and his mauve and white penis slid past my welcoming lips to my magic tongue, more and more, until my mouth was filled with velvet-skinned bulk and heat. I made of my mouth a tight, muscled, tongued vagina, alive and moving to give and give....
Owl accepted and groaned and let me worship as I wished.
Then he moved a myriad of time later and I felt the warmth of his breath on my breasts and the textured slipperiness of his tongue licking my erect nipples. And I accepted, and groaned as he opened me with gentle thumbs and delicately fitted his open lips, open mouth, to the wonderfully aroused center of my body, and his tongue ... his tongue ... his tongue!
Ripples of intense pleasure surged and broke like surf. I writhed in fast-slow ecstasy. I was in climax, in orgasm, continuously, burning, uncoiling a giant spring of pleasure that would never lose its power.
My belly rippled and spasmed. My breasts heaved and I needed more air for my body than there was air in the world. The pleasure shook me and jerked me on the bed and yet I demanded more ... in my primitive need ... the woman's instinctive plea for penetration, for the jetting of seed into her belly, and I gasped my need ... "Fuck me ... fuck me ... fuck me...."
He moved again, and his face was holy, and we kissed, and he entered my sparkling wetness. And oh, God, it was so much, so huge a feeling of completion as his penis slid deep and deep and ... oh ... God ... We were one, moving, fused and molten and wild in a sea of acute touch and smell and sight and hearing and love.
Owl ... wasn't Owl. He was part of me. I wasn't Lark, nor Juli Lund. I was part of him.
We groaned and gasped as he plunged and I took. The rippling, pulsating patterns of colors and sound faded before the growing intensity of our seething emotions and responses.
I was weeping and crying, "Yes yes yes yes yes ... " each time his wonderful length went in and the head compressed the violently sensitive mouth of my uterus. Each time a spasm tore through me and each time I wished he could push in more!
He moved into me more and more quickly, his flesh in me was rock hard, and his flesh under my hands, in my arms, was tense and slippery, hot and flushed. He was panting, taking short gasping breaths, driving in and in, slamming my wide open loins, sending his beautiful thing deeper still, distending me deep inside, tearing groans of pure inexpressible pleasure from me.
Then he cried out. He went crazy. He curled fingers under my hips, into my buttocks, and pressed in ... in ... more than ever before ... pulled me tight ... and inside Oh God an impossible thing happened! I felt it! Every organ was known to me. I felt the head of his penis pressing against the uterus and the mouth spasmed opened! It enclosed the glans with a fluctuating, soft agonizing suction that paralyzed us both with a sensation so impossible to describe ... Yet in my delirium I felt his sperm spurting into my womb! I felt his loins convulsing inside, shooting his seed into the heart of my woman's body...
And I knew I was dead there. I had refused his love by not being ready. I could not conceive. The pills had prevented it ... would prevent it....
Our act of love and union had been holy. I had blasphemed.
I rolled away from him and was ashamed! That perfect thing would never happen again and I had not been ready! I wanted to die! I didn't deserve to live!
I went into hysterics. I was screaming, twisting, fighting Owl. He had me by my wrists and was holding me down, keeping me on the bed as I thrashed wildly.
Then my energy gave out and I went limp. I hid my face from him. My body was wracked by huge, convulsive sobs.
Owl said over and over, "It isn't your fault, darling. It isn't your fault ... "
I didn't believe him.
I heard Zeke come into the room. I didn't look. They talked and Zeke called Owl a fool. Rill came to me and held me close. She was naked. Her big breasts were soft and warm.
I rolled away and said in a watery voice, "He's not! I am! I'm not a woman. I'm just a thing." I blinked fresh tears down my, face and began sobbing again. Some of my hair had worked into a corner of my mouth and I automatically fingered it aside and spat it out. It seemed to want to work its way down my throat, as if it was alive. Snakes. I clawed at my cheek to get the hairs away.
Rill took me into her arms again. "It's the acid, Lark. It's the acid. Remember it's only the acid ... You'll be all right. You'll be all right soon."
I clutched at her for comfort and security and love. I regressed a lot in those minutes. She was my mother ... a mother I never had ... and I was an infant like Tommy. I found myself sucking one of her big, long, teat-like nipples, bigger than Sparrow's. Rill stroked my hair and soothed me.
Zeke and Rill stayed with Owl and me for another three hours, till almost dawn. Then they went back to their room. I was calm by then and back down on the ground and resolved never to take acid again.
I had taken a trip, and I knew the territory, and I didn't want to go back up ever. The audio-visual-sensual show was fine, a groove, but the intensified emotional world the eruption of fears and hang-ups from dark corners and layers of the mind was too much of a price. I didn't want to pay it again.
CHAPTER TEN
We arrived in Canoga Park around one in the afternoon. We must have been quite a shock to the squares as we drove through the streets in the psychedelic microbus, all of us in our colorful tribe clothes, shouting "Love!" and "Peace!" as we passed anyone.
The parking lots and side streets near McBride Park in Canoga Park were chock full. It looked like there were thousands of people at the love-in already. Zeke had to park half a mile away next to a Hancock filling station. There were a lot of uniformed cops around.
We set up close to the platform near home plate where a so-so rock group was blasting away. They were the February Stencils. Blue Honey was scheduled next.
We attracted some attention when we arrived and Zeke stuck the tribe poles in the ground and unfurled our banners and flags. We set out the jewelry, bracelets and things for sale, laid out the oranges and cookies and dates we had brought to give away, and we sat in a circle facing outward, accepting life and the wandering people who came our way.
It was a hot day. Somewhere in the nineties.
The baseball field was sprinkled with small groups and clusters of families having a picnic, tribes, friends ... and a constant arriving, a movement of hundreds of others. There was a thickening of the crowd near the band platform. There were a couple of uniformed cops standing close by, but they were sort of digging the scene. They smiled, too.
Sparrow was eye-catching in a wild pink and blue and white caftan that swished the ground when she walked. Her loose, bouncy breasts underneath and her beautiful smile made people look and smile in return.
Owl wore his same cut-off Levi's and old paint-dappled green cardigan sweater.
Zeke had on his button-decorated vest, Rill wore her sweatshirt, and belled ankle bracelets, jeans. Robin wore her hand-painted cotton shift. Blackbird wore his colorful serape and thumped-tap-tapped on his bongos.
I wore my flower-painted white sweater and some brocaded black toreador pants that had been Too Much for San Marino and mother's delicate sensibilities. I wasn't even self-conscious about not wearing a bra under the sweater, in the first place because I was getting used to it and dug the feeling of freedom, and secondly because hundreds of other chicks at the love-in were swinging free, too.
I had helped carry stacked trays of handmade rings and necklaces, so I had had to leave my guitar behind in the bus. Everyone else had been loaded, too.
I got the keys from Zeke and started back. Owl had his sketch pad open and was oblivious of me as he drew an oriental baby who was sitting, laughing, next to his mother a few feet away from us.
I cut across the field on the way to the bus. I didn't know anyone was following me till I heard bare feet behind me on the sidewalk a block from the bus. I looked around and it was Blackbird. His hair was frizzier and fuzzier than ever. It looked like a growth of black cotton candy on his head.
He said, "Hey, Lark." He caught up to me with long strides.
"You forget something?"
"Could say, could say." He laughed and tapped his bongos.
We reached the tribe's bus and I unlocked the right front door and climbed in. My guitar was in the back. The air inside the Volks was already stifling.
Blackbird got in after me and slammed the door shut. He locked it. The interior of the bus was hot and private because all the windows had been locked and the drapes had been pulled closed when we left earlier. That was because there were valuable things still inside, on the seats, on the floor, and Zeke thought it wise to cut off the view from curious and maybe thievey people. Zeke was realistic.
But. now I was alone in the bus with Blackbird and I could almost smell what he wanted. I got my guitar and turned. He had me cut off. He had put aside his bongos. He said, "Pretty hot in here."
"Then let's get out." I tried to get past him. He put his hands on the flowers on my sweater on my breasts. I jerked away. "Blackbird-"
"We got a minute. Let's have some fun." He put one hand under my sweater and fondled me with a sweaty hand. Pinpoints of sweat were forming on my skin, too, from the oppressive heat inside the bus. I felt my nipples responding automatically.
I tried to pull away and dislodge his hand. "I don't want to. Not now!"
"Why not? We got time. Nobody gonna come. Nobody can get in." He tried to kiss me.
I avoided his big lips. "Blackbird!"
He got mad. He shoved me away and I fell backward into a seat. I almost broke my guitar. He growled, "How come? Jus' how come? If I was Owl you'd have time! You'd have your pants off and your cunt open so fast You know you s'posed to be tribe! You s'posed to be mine, too! So how come when I want you, you too busy or somethin'? "
"Maybe I wouldn't be 'too busy' if you behaved halfway decent! I just don't like you, and it isn't because you're black. It's because you act like-"
"It is! You think you too good to fuck a black man!"
"I don't either! I don't make it with races! I do it with individuals! I wouldn't matter if you were green, or the King of England I still wouldn't do anything with you if I didn't like you and respect you as a person."
"Oh, don't give me that shit, girl! That's shit! You racist and you makin' up all these imagine arguments but you know you tryin' to hand me shit!"
"Think what you want. I don't care! I'm not going to do anything with you now and I'm not going to stay in this oven and argue with you!" I glared at him, angry myself, and waited for him to let me by.
He unzipped his jeans and pull out his penis. It was hard and the dark skin was peeled back from the purple glans. "Come on, Lark."
"No, I said!"
"Don' be that way. It won't take long. Let me fuck you for jus' five minutes."
"No!"
"Then you blow me! You suck me!" It was a command.
The thought made me ill. He could be diseased again. He wasn't clean. I could see little white smears of white stuff below the glans.
"Let me out!"
"You got to do it! You got to be tribe!" He advanced on me and crowded me further back into the seat. He was hunched over by the low roof.
I drew my legs up and prepared to kick him if I had to. "Stop it! You're the one who's not being tribe! You're supposed to ask, and if the tribe girl is agreeable, fine, but if she isn't, you're not supposed to force her!"
He saw my feet ready to lash out and I guess he saw in my eyes I'd do it. He knew it would be too much of a struggle and might lead to all kinds of trouble if he really tried to rape me.
Blackbird backed off. "I'll get you thrown out!"
"Maybe." I waited for him to retreat more. He had to make threats to save his pride and ego.
Finally, after another minute of bluster and grumbling and pleading, he stuffed his penis back into his pants and climbed out of the bus. He took off right away, with his bongos.
I was more angry than scared. I got out with my guitar, locked the Volks and started back to the park.
When I rejoined the tribe Blackbird wasn't with them. I settled down during a period when there was a change of rock groups on the band platform. It took them twenty minutes to a half-hour sometimes to change amps, speaker systems, mikes, to make adjustments, test their equipment, tune up...
I sat cross-legged and started singing and playing. I sang a new song I composed a few days before. It goes like this:
"Bird tribe ... bird tribe ... is love in a tiny place.
Bird tribe ... bird tribe ... where love is a way of life.
We have a scene that isn't mean, that makes it with the truth.
We have a scene that isn't mean, that makes it with the truth."
I sang three stanzas, all I had written, then started all over again. All the kids around were listening, crowding in close, digging the song, the message, and digging our circle and the love we were putting out.
Robin and Sparrow and Rill were smiling and handing out cookies and fruit.
A lot of them asked questions about us when I finished singing. Some bought Robin's handcrafted things. They were, a lot of them, square valley kids with a strong yearning for Something, a new society, a way out of the awful life they saw all around them. They knew it was all based on lies and greed and they knew they were probably trapped. So they envied us and wanted to be part of us, even if the only way to do that was to buy a symbol of our way from Robin or Zeke.
In five minutes after I sang I had sold two bracelets for fifteen dollars. Those kids had money and spent it easily, sort of casually, and contemptuously.
I didn't tell Zeke or anyone what had happened in the bus.
A super groovy group started wailing from the platform nearby. Sparrow started getting the beat. She grinned and stood up. She started to dance. We widened the circle for her.
The TV crews nearby got interested and started filming. A lot of snapshots were taken.
Sparrow had a jerky-fluid way of moving that was beautiful. Her hands and arms and feet and knees jerked and waved, but her body flowed ... it was sinuous and smooth moving. I don't know how she did it. It was sexy, too, with her nakedness underneath the thin, colorful caftan her big breasts bobbling and jiggling, and the material tightening momentarily here and there on her body to show her nipples and the smooth line of her thigh, or the firm roundness of her buttocks.
Then Rill got up, too, and danced her way, with her ankle bells tinkling, her long dark-red hair rippling and shifting and swaying in time with the free movement of her breasts, too, under her sweatshirt. Her nipples were very prominent. The slipping of the sweatshirt material over her nipples seemed to drive her faster and faster.
A few girls and boys outside our circle started to dance, too, but Rill and Sparrow were the stars. Cameras whirred and flashbulbs went off all around.
The rock group was really blasting, really freaking out as they got involved with the crowd and our dancers and their own thing.
Rill started moaning as she gasped as she danced. I think she was in a kind of self-hypnotic trance, really with it! She suddenly pulled her sweatshirt up and off in one quick, graceful motion, and there she was: white skin, beautiful breasts naked to the sun and sky and the music.
The kids around us went "Ohhh..." appreciatively, and clapped in approval. There were a few sniggers and "Take it off's" but mostly the crowd understood and were with Rill in her purity and beauty. The camera bugs went crazy.
Even the cops grooved and didn't interfere, until a girl apart from us who was also dancing decided to strip all the way. She was skinny and kind of frantic to compete, I think. She pulled open her shirt, then dropped her miniskirt. She got her pink panties off and was jumping around, flushed and daring, showing her thin brown muff, but two cops shouldered forward and broke it all up. They made the group stop playing and made Rill put her sweatshirt back on. She would have anyway, once the beat stopped. The other girl was hustled away with a coat around her. The kids booed and yelled at the cops. But they were under the gun because of the TV and press cameras. They had to "uphold the public morality."
Things settled down soon after, though, and we found ourselves talking with all kinds of people, a lot of them older, in their thirties and forties, who seemed genuinely interested in us and the way we lived. They bought things sometimes, sometimes accepted a love offering, and sometimes gave us things. It was beautiful, simply beautiful.
Once, though, a young man who looked hip to me came close and asked if I was holding. I said no and he asked if I knew anyone who was. He was very anxious to make a buy. He wanted to "score some grass." He asked for Blackbird.
I said I was sorry, I couldn't help him, and he eventually went away after trying Owl and Zeke. When he had gone Zeke leaned close to me and said, "That was a narc."
"He was? How could you tell?"
"Just a feeling. And he was too anxious."
Owl asked Zeke, "Is Blackbird dealing?"
"I think so. It must stop!"
About an hour later, as we were eating lunch, a young couple walked over to us. The boy carried an old leather suitcase, but it was in good condition. The leather was supple and clean. He wore a thin leather shirt dyed deep green, cut off levis like Owl, only his were off-white, and beautiful handmade moccasins. His hair was long, like Owl's but dark brown, and he had a flowing handlebar mustache instead of a goatee like Owl. His name was Paul and he had somber brown eyes I liked and trusted immediately. He was about twenty-five.
The girl was lovely. She was Cheryl. Her hair was as long as mine, past her shoulders, and a natural white blonde. She was slim, not scrawny, and wore a simple minidress of dark-green jersey that clung to her body and showed her lithe curves. She had very little bust and didn't wear a padded bra to fill herself out. She wore matching dark green boots that had a quality, handmade look about them. She had clear blue-green eyes and seemed about my age.
Paul knelt before Zeke, who was sitting beside me, and he said, "We've heard about the bird tribe. We'd like to join you."
Cheryl knelt beside Paul, and she kept silent, content to let him speak for them both. I noticed that she wore a simple gold wedding ring, and that he did, too.
Zeke said, "We have many who wish to join us, but we have no room. I don't want the tribe to be too large."
Paul nodded. "Could you recommend a tribe to us? We're living in our car now and it isn't good for more than a week at a time. We're both craftsmen. I work in leather.
...He opened the suitcase and we saw samples of finely made sandals, shoes, moccasins, boots, belts, and a beautiful girl's chamois vest dyed red that I fell in love with.
Zeke studied the articles as Paul continued, ". . . and Cheryl designs and makes clothes. She made the dress she's wearing, and I made her boots. My shirt is hers, too."
Zeke said, smiling, "Skills like yours ... are too good to pass by. We'll make room for you. We may have to move to a bigger house, but I want you and your wife for the tribe . . if you want us."
"I'm sure...."
"No, listen. We are a tribe! Not simply couples and singles living together on a communal basis. We're a unit." He went on to describe our life together. He introduced us. We all smiled and talked. They impressed us all as a sweet, fine couple, and we all wanted them in with us.
We exchanged information. They had been married a year before in Detroit and came west. There had been too much interference in their lives from their parents who had opposed their marriage and wanted Paul to be a lawyer in spite of his dislike for it, and his love for handicrafts, especially leatherwork; and Cheryl's folks had almost gone to court to keep her from marrying a "dirty commie hippie."
We shared our food with Paul and Cheryl. Then Zeke frowned and looked around at the people and asked, "Anyone seen Blackbird since we arrived?"
I said truthfully, "He followed me to the bus when I went to get my guitar, but that was the last I saw of him."
"What did he want there?"
I said simply, "Me."
Owl looked at me. I shook my head slightly. Zeke caught the exchange but said nothing. He said to Paul, "If you have things to sell why don't you set up a display here with us?"
Paul said, "I'd like that." He left his suitcase with us while he and Cheryl went to get things from their car. Sparrow went with them to help.
Zeke turned to me. "What happened at the bus?"
I told him exactly what had happened. I didn't feel I was "telling on" Blackbird or anything like that. I simply refused to lie.
Zeke nodded. Owl said, "He shouldn't be in the tribe if he's going to act that way."
Zeke nodded. "I agree. I'm going to go look for him. We have to talk." He got up and walked into the crowd.
A few minutes later another rock band started up and Rill got up to dance. But then a commotion started near the end of the right field foul line of the field and we stood up to see what was going on. We could hear powerful cycle engines over there vrooming up and down.
I couldn't see anything except a kind of rippling in the crowd there and a flow of color through tiny gaps. Then we heard the hooting of a police car and saw one approach through the trees. Then another came rushing over. We could see the red lights flashing on their roofs. After that, things settled down over there.
Sparrow and Paul and Cheryl came back from that direction a few minutes later and said the police had arrested two members of the Devil's Hands for running their big hogs in the park. Sparrow also said, "I heard one cat say they's twenty or thirty narcs here and they busted at leas' ten hippies so far for possession."
Paul made a face. "Why can't they leave us alone?" He laid a shoe rack on the grass and set up a display of sandals. Cheryl quietly unzipped a plastic clothes carrier and spread some colorful minidresses on white tissue paper. She was quiet and soft-spoken. Withdrawn, and self-contained, but warm, too. I had a feeling she would open up more once she got to know us better.
Blackbird approached our circle and appeared out of breath. He squatted down in a hurry and ducked out of his colorful serape. "Hey, Rill, trade with me. I need somethin' square. This too visible."
"Why?"
"I need your sweatshirt! Ain' got time to argue!" He looked over his shoulder. He shoved his bongos into one of the cardboard boxes we had used to carry food in. "Come on!" He was almost frantic. "The narcs are after me!"
Rill's face set. "Blackbird, you were warned...."
"Ohh..." he wailed and leaped away. As he did he snatched up a beautiful man's shirt, made of blue wide-wale corduroy, that Cheryl had just laid on tissue on the ground, and ran all-out toward the street.
A young man in duck pants, sneakers and a plaid shirt sprinted toward us. Past us, then he stopped because Blackbird was out of sight. The men walked back to us. "What's that colored boy's name?"
None of us said a word.
"You know him. That's his watcha-callit there! What's his name; Where did he go?" Sparrow said, "Who you?"
He gritted his teeth and pulled a flat wallet from his back pocket. He flipped it open and showed a badge. "Police officer." He glared at us. "I asked who that colored boy was!"
"What you want him for?"
"Suspicion of possession of narcotics. Now do I get some information or do I arrest the whole lot of you?"
Paul asked quietly, "On what charge?"
The plainclothes cop centered his gaze on Paul. "If I shook you down there's no telling what I'd find, buddy. You with this group?"
"Yes."
The cop took in Paul's sandal display, his neat, high-quality clothes, Cheryl and her clothes. "Listen, I saw him grab one of your shirts here. That's aiding and abetting."
"He took it without permission."
I said, "That's right." Owl and the others nodded.
Another plainclothesman, young, trotted over. "You got anything on him?"
"Took a blue shirt and ran that way." The first cop pointed.
"What about these people?"
"Flower children! Let's go!" He started off toward the street. The other cop looked us over and followed.
Sparrow breathed deeply. "Hoooeee."
Owl said, "We could have been busted so easy...."
I asked, "How? We didn't do anything."
Sparrow said, "Don' matter. They think o' somethin'. So we have to hire a lawyer and spend all kinds of money we ain' got, and bail ourselves out and then they drop the charges fo' lack of evidence."
Paul nodded. "I've seen it happen in Detroit a lot. When they arrest you for a little thing they search everything looking for drugs. If they find anything you're up the creek."
I looked at Owl and wondered if he had any LSD cubes hidden in our room in the house. Zeke returned. "What happened?" We told him.
Zeke sat down and fingered the buttons on his vest thoughtfully. He rubbed his gray-stubbled face for a few seconds, then said, "That's it, then. Blackbird isn't tribe anymore. Everything he's done lately has been self-oriented completely. This is the final proof. He's endangered our tribe, he's running with people I don't like and he's spending all his time away from us now."
Sparrow nodded. "I go with that."
Robin hadn't said much. She had simply enjoyed the day, sold her jewelry, talked to people, and been serene and accepting. I think her presence saved us from arrest, though. I don't think the cops could face the prospect of the ribbing they'd have gotten if they'd arrested a crippled girl in a wheelchair. The Free Press would have roasted them, and the TV people would have filmed us. I think that's what really stopped them.
But, anyway, Robin said, "He's changed a lot. He's talking black nationalism all the time now. That's all right if he wants it, but it doesn't mix with the tribe way. He'll have to make a choice."
Zeke said, "He's made a choice. He was tribe but he's moved away from us emotionally and psychologically."
Owl said, "What do we do?"
Zeke said, "It was inevitable that there would eventually be some of us who would grow away from us or prove wrong for the tribe. The only thing to do with Blackbird is vote him out."
Robin said, "I don't like him anymore. We're so close in the tribe that it sets up a terrible strain if somebody changes and goes sour and isn't liked. The tribe can't work with someone like that in it. The love scene doesn't work."
Sparrow nodded. "For sure!"
Zeke waited for more comment. There was none. He said, "Hands against Blackbird." Rill, Robin, Sparrow and
Owl raised their hands. I couldn't vote. I wasn't an ankh-wearing member yet. Zeke said, "It's unanimous."
A different rock group started doing their thing on the platform then, and things settled down to a familiar routine.
Owl and I left the circle and went for a walk, hand in hand, through the crowd, among the small groups of hippies and pioneers and playing kids. I took some cookies and gave them out as we went, smiling, trying to wipe out the Blackbird incidents from my mind.
We got back in half an hour just in time for the worst thing of all!
Cheryl was selling a cute aqua mini-dress to a teenybopper it would have been a fifteen dollar sale when three vicious high school boys started running through the crowd squirting hippies with water pistols filled with red paint!
We didn't see them coming or realize what was going on until they were running past us, squirting us and our things.
It was awful! They spattered Robin and me and Sparrow! All of us! They pumped streams of red paint all over Cheryl and her beautiful dresses and things!
Zeke's white hair was dripping, as if he had been clubbed or shot.
Owl and Paul leaped up and chased after them but couldn't catch them.
The uniformed cops were no place in sight and of course the plainclothesmen in the crowd wouldn't reveal their identity.
Cheryl was weeping, clutching her ruined dresses to her red-spattered front. Sparrow and I tried to help, but it looked hopeless ... I really didn't think they could be cleaned well enough to make them saleable again. I had an idea how much time and work she had put into those dresses and things. I held her close and said, "We'll take them to a dry-cleaners right away, before the paint dries."
Zeke nodded. "Everybody pack up!
Rill and Sparrow started to gather things together. Robin hadn't been squirted, luckily, and her jewelry and things hadn't been touched.
A man nearby had seen what had happened and laughed.
Zeke withered the man with a look, then turned away to help Robin.
Paul and Owl came back. We talked and packed.
Zeke invited Paul and Cheryl home with us. They accepted. We walked out of the love-in. It was breaking up anyway.
We drove to a nearby dry cleaners and managed to save most of Cheryl's clothes, but it cost nearly five dollars.
We drove home with Paul and Cheryl following close in their old, heavily loaded Chevy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When we pulled into the driveway Zeke said, "Now what?"
I asked Owl, "What's the matter?" There was a man sitting in a new Volvo ahead of us in the driveway.
He said, "It's the landlord."
Zeke said, "Rent is due-was due yesterday."
He twisted around to Robin. "How much did we take in?"
She opened a small zip bag hanging from a shoulder strap and handed a handful of bills. "Seventy-four dollars."
I felt good about that total, because I had drawn customers with my singing, and had personally sold sixteen dollars worth of our merchandise.
We all got out of the bus. Owl took over the task of carrying Robin. I dragged out her wheelchair.
Paul and Cheryl had parked by the curb out front.
The landlord was a fat, middle-aged man who wheezed when he struggled out of the Volvo. "Mr. Belkin, Mr. Bel-kin. ... "
Zeke added to the jewelry sale money with some from his wallet. "Mr. Greelen, here's the rent. Sorry I wasn't able to come by your office yesterday."
"Mr. Belkin, I've been waiting two hours, and I took a look inside this property. It doesn't give you any right in the lease to run a boarding house. You've diminished the value of the property with all that painting, that weird decoration inside and out."
"Making it livable. Art is a good thing, Mr. Greelen."
"For museums, Mr. Belkin! Not for rented houses!" He watched us as we piled out of the Volksbus and started for the porch with our things. "Are all these children living with you?"
"They're not children, Mr. Greelen." Zeke was mocking him, but not so obviously that the man realized it.
"I don't know now..." He watched us. "Be very difficult to rent the house if you leave it in this condition. Have to have painters in. ... "
"If we leave we'll leave it as we found it, Mr. Greelen."
"Well, that's what you say ... Got some complaints from your neighbors, too, saying you play your radio all night ... hippies coming and going at all hours. ... "
"We'll be more quiet."
"I'm very close to asking you to leave, Mr. Belkin." The fat landlord examined with distaste Zeke's button-festooned vest and old, gray, baggy, rope-belted pants.
"Let me ask you this, Mr. Greelen: How much is the selling price of this house?"
I didn't hear any more. Owl and Robin and I went inside. Zeke had given Owl the front door key.
A few minutes later Zeke backed out of the driveway to let Mr. Greelen out. When he came in he said, "Safe for another month."
I asked, "Are you really thinking of buying this house?"
"No. It's falling apart. Eventually we'll have to make the move to the mountains, or far out into the country."
Rill nodded. "Where we can be free."
Zeke said, "We'd have to set up a subsistence farming economy. Completely different from our life here."
Sparrow said, "Okay with me. Pioneers did it."
Rill and I went into the kitchen and started supper. Sparrow helped Paul and Cheryl unload part of the stuff from their car. They stored most of it in Sparrow's room. There was an implicit understanding that they would take over Blackbird's room.
Owl helped Zeke carry in the trays of jewelry and things.
After supper wash-up-and Cheryl helped us without being asked, a very good sign, I thought-I went upstairs and found Owl lying on the bed with a sketch pad.
He didn't want to talk. He mumbled, "Leave me alone, will you, Lark? I've got a design I want to work out?"
"Okay." I didn't feel put-down or rejected. He needed to be alone a lot when he was drawing and painting. I went downstairs and played the stereo, talked with the others, and wondered with the others if Blackbird had been caught. I got to know Paul and Cheryl better. Cheryl's white blonde hair fascinated me. It was beautiful. I could see it wasn't dyed. I was very conscious of my own fake honey blonde. The roots were just starting to show brown.
I confessed I wasn't natural to Rill and Robin in Robin's room. And I said, "I don't think it would be honest to dye it back to my natural color, either. That would be too artificial and fake in a different way. I'm just going to let it grow out and people can think what they want for a year."
Robin said, "You could cut it short. There wouldn't be that much to grow out, then."
Rill said, "But Lark Wants to show people she is free. She wants the growing out to be a badge. She wants people to know she is rejecting the artificial life."
I looked at Rill with new respect. She had cut right through to my true motives. That had been a long speech for her. I hugged her and felt the warm softness of her breasts and the hard thrusts of her nipples through the sweatshirt, and through my own blouse. I'd had to take off my sweater in the bus because of the red paint on it.
I said, "It'll be a constant reminder, too, of what I was, and of the plastic life I left, every time I look in a mirror."
Around eleven I made sandwiches for everybody. Then I went upstairs with some for Owl and Zeke. Owl was at his easel, painting, using the brush technique. He looked up. He smiled. "Thanks. Could you bring some coffee up? I'm going to go all night."
I looked at what he was doing-a picture of myriad, intertwining vines with blue leaves and chartreuse flowers, and a naked boy and girl in the vines, partially revealed. It was going to be a marvelous picture. I got a creepy feeling in my spine just from seeing it one tenth completed.
I kissed him. "You're a genius! Coffee will be right up!" Then I went down the hall to Zeke's room. It was open so I went in. He was lying on the low Hollywood bed, reading a book titled "The Naked Ape.". I held out two wrapped sandwiches. "Cheese."
"Thank you." He accepted them.
"I'm going to bring up a pot of coffee for Owl. He says he's going to paint all night. Do you want some, too?"
"Yes, please." Then he grinned, because Rill came in just then with a pot of coffee and two cups. He said to her, "Lark said Owl is going to paint all night." Then he asked me, "Would you like to sleep with us?"
"Oh, yes!" It would be crowded on the double for three, but I didn't care. It was a further acceptance into the tribe.
Zeke asked, "Will you make love with us?"
"Of course." There was no hesitation. I admired both of them tremendously, and was curious, too. Whatever happened I knew it would be gentle and good.
Zeke said, "Come back when you are ready, then."
I nodded and left their room. I went downstairs, got some coffee for Owl and brought it up to him.
He was deeply immersed in the painting when I entered. I put the pot and mug on a table next to his easel. I watched him paint for a moment, then said, "I'm going to sleep with Zeke and Rill tonight. They asked me."
"Umm. Good. You'll dig what Rill does for you."
"What's that?"
He smiled and kissed me. "Go have a ball" He turned back to his painting and I no longer existed for him in the room.
I went down to the bathroom and took a bath. Then I came up, stripped, put on one of Owl's shirts, and walked naked in it down the hall to Zeke's room. The door was ajar. I went in.
Zeke was still reading. Rill was naked to the waist, her hands on her breasts, caressing, listening to a transistor radio through an earpiece.
Zeke said to me, "Close the door, Lark."
The privacy signal. A tiny trickle of scaredness dripped into the pit of my stomach. I shut the door and walked to the low double bed. I sat beside Rill and didn't know what to do or say. I watched her stroke her nipples. She seemed to enjoy it so much! I wanted to suck on her nipples again and give her pleasure.
She looked at me and took the radio listening plug from her ear. She turned off the transistor radio and put it on the floor. She looked at Zeke. She tentatively caressed his bare chest, for he no longer wore his vest.
Zeke said, "Two pages. I'll join you two then.
Rill smiled and opened her jeans. She did not wear panties. I watched her thick triangle of mahogany-red pubic hair come into view ... and her long thighs....She is a beautiful woman, physically as well as spiritually.
Rill kicked her jeans off with a happy, childish, exuberant movement. She laughed as they flipped through the air and landed on a shelf of books behind the bed.
Then she opened her arms to me. I quickly unbuttoned Owl's shirt I was wearing and slipped it off. I tossed it away, too, and found myself giggling as it settled onto a shaded, unlit lamp on the floor nearby.
I was naked, too. I crawled into Rill's arms and we kissed. Her mouth was marvelously warm and soft and sweet. It was a loving mouth, an accepting mouth, a giving mouth. Her lips yielded and opened and seemed to enclose mine in sweet, erotic movement and sensitivity. We both closed our eyes. Out bodies melted together, soft flesh against softness, heat against heat ... .
I was too conscious for a few seconds, of Zeke, barely inches away, reading his last page. And a trigger up-tight word-lesbians-popped into my mind, then was dismissed, because Rill and I didn't fit that mold. We were giving love, accepting love, and we were not exclusive. It simply didn't matter that she and I were both women. We were tribe. Square world categories and judgments weren't accepted.
I was like an infant in its mother's arms, yet I was becoming aroused by the kiss and the soft body and the soft hands on my back that moved slowly to my hips, and buttocks and thighs.
The kiss continued, and became tongue flicking against tongue in the hot cavity of my mouth. The exciting contact generated a subtle body electricity that sparkled its way to my breasts and made them achy with want, and to my womb where a sweet tension was born, and erotic need for completion.
Rill's mouth was a seething, tonguing, moist pit of pleasure that I couldn't abandon. I heard myself moan and heard her answering moans.
I was enjoying her hands on my body and wanted to caress her, too, but could only stroke her left hip and long flank. I heard Zeke turn a page, then close his book. I opened my eyes and saw him put the book aside and begin to untie the rope that belted his old gray pants. I wondered what he would do ... what he would want, then didn't care. He was good and he wouldn't hurt me.
I closed my eyes and gave myself to Rill's wonderful mouth. I tried to imitate her lip activity, her tongue movements. What she did wasn't deliberate skill or obvious, obtrusive technique. It was completely natural, open, uninhibited loving.
I was aware of Zeke's movements, then felt another hand on my body, moving on the inner surfaces of my thighs, and I knew it was his hand, and I shivered and opened my legs to let him reach my center. My vaginal lips were wet and willing.
Zeke kissed my back, my shoulder, pushed my hair aside and kissed my neck as I was submerged in Rill's mouth. His fingers touched my crotch, tantalizingly traced the sensitive outer contours of my pussy. Pussy is a better word than the medical terms, and better than the crude ones. It was a happy, smiling, joyous sound and emotional color for me.
I was trembling. Rill knew I was aroused and knew Zeke was touching me. She moved her tongue deep into my mouth in a slow imitation of intercourse. Zeke dipped a finger into me and sent it deep. I was slippery; ready. I involuntarily pushed against his hand to send the finger deeper. Then he slid in a second finger, and a third. I was filled, at least halfway, and more excited than ever. He seemed to twist his fingers in me, to work his hand in a corkscrew motion, and then his thumb came to my hard clitoris in a slippery, circular caress that caused me to inhale sharply and open my thighs wide.
The combination of his moving fingers and thumb, and Rill's mouth and tongue, was more than enough to make me come. I couldn't get enough air through my flaring nostrils. I had to tear my mouth free of her mouth. I whimpered, "Ohh ... Ohh..." as the pleasure mounted in a blazing, honeyed fire in my body, and then I gasped as the climax hit and seemed to ripple my insides with waves of intense pleasure.
A moment later I reflexively tightened my thighs on Zeke's hand and he knew I wanted him to stop the plunging, twisting movement. His hand withdrew and I relaxed on the softness and warmth of Rill's body, with her arms still around me.
I whispered, "Thank you ... It was wonderful." I kissed Rill in gratitude and I was smiling, only a little with embarrassment. I turned to Zeke and kissed him, too. I saw he was naked, too, and had a white, thin, bone-like penis in erection, about five inches long, and was circumcised. His body from the waist down was stark white, in sharp contrast to the deep tan of his chest, arms, neck and face. His legs were skinny and there was a subtle oldness about the skin-and the hair on his testicles was gray. But I didn't care.
His kiss was strange, until I realized he had taken out his teeth. But it didn't repel me. I found it fascinating. He said, "You enjoy pleasure well, and you respond quickly. That's good."
I said, "I'm kind of a nympho, I think."
"No, you know better than to talk that way. You're young and healthy and sexually awakened. That's good. The square world thinks an awakened girl is oversexed and evil. Don't let that sick, anti-sexual bias control your self-image."
"I won't."
He fondled my breasts.
I wanted to give him pleasure, and Rill, too. I saw she was caressing herself again. Her big, teat-like nipples were fully extended as she twisted and rolled them between her fingers. Her breasts seemed more full and round, beautifully large and contoured.
I put my hand on her mound. Her eyes opened and she shook her head.
Zeke said, "She doesn't like to be touched there. Only on her breasts, and her nipples most of all."
I asked, "Don't you have intercourse?"
Rill shook her head. She smiled. She said, "I want to be sucked." She cupped her breasts with her hands and offered them to Zeke and me. "This is all I want. I do the rest."
Zeke smiled and said to me, "Let's make her happy." He moved to the other side of Rill and took her right breast in his hands. He sucked the long nipple into his toothless mouth.
I started, licking her left breast, especially the puffed areola, and the hard, finger-like nipple.
Zeke was sucking hard at her. Rill began to tremble. I took "my" nipple into my mouth and sucked as hard as I could, even scraping the sensitive flesh with my teeth a little.
Rill's trembling increased. Her breathing deepened. Then I half saw, half felt her hands move to her pussy. I was able to turn my head a little and watch. The middle finger of her right hand worked between her lips down there to the first knuckle and obviously moved in fast little circles on her clitoris. Her hips began to move sensuously. She began to pant. She began to pluck at her clitoris and I saw it swell outward like a miniature penis, a pink swelling with a small, darker pink knob the size of her fingertip.
Then she actually took her clitoris between thumb and forefinger and began to masturbate like a boy.
I was astonished. I hadn't dreamed a woman's clitoris could get that big, or could be handled that way without hurting. But she was very wet and slippery there and her fingers moved on her clitoris with blurring speed.
Rill gasped, "Suck ... SUCK!"
Zeke and I sucked her nipples as hard as we could. A few seconds later she gave an agonized "AHHHH..." and thrashed and flopped around while we tried to keep on sucking. Her fingers kept on rubbing her clitoris at a fantastic speed.
She cried out, "ZEKE!" and her voice keened high as the orgasmic pleasure sharpened to the pain threshold. Then her hand stopped and she went limp.
Zeke and I stopped mouthing her nipples. Rill lay gasping, mouth open, eyes closed, her breasts rising and falling in high surges. Muscles in her inner thighs were twitching. Her belly spasmed every few seconds.
Zeke kissed her and smiled and stroked her hair.
I put a kiss on her belly. She smelled musky and sweaty. I asked, "Can you make it like this very often?"
She nodded. "With two sucking ... it's wonderful."
Zeke said, "I envy you girls. I'm down to once a night. And not every night at that."
I had guessed that since Rill wouldn't allow intercourse, that meant she went down on him. I felt I owed him something, and I wanted to show my love for him. So I said, "Let me." I leaned over Rill and kissed his belly, near the fringe of his gray pubic hair and trailed my tongue through the curly fuzz, and up the still-hard white bone of his penis. He smelled and looked clean I had no hesitation in licking around the narrow, circumcised glans.
Rill said, "She is one of us. She is tribe."
I said, "I love you. Both of you."
"We love you." Rill caressed my breasts as I knelt over her and licked Zeke. Then she said, "Let me move ... " She crawled from between us.
Zeke moved to the center of the bed. He said, "I take a long time."
"I don't care." I knelt between his open legs and licked his testicles. I was doing all kinds of things I'd never done before, little things that occurred to me, that I promised myself I'd try on Owl, too, the next time we made love.
Rill watched me as I took his testicles into my mouth and sucked them. I wondered if she resented me doing it. I closed my eyes and licked his penis again, and finally took it into my mouth. It wasn't salty at all, as Owl's frequently is, but was simply rubbery and hot in my mouth, and much smaller than Owl's.
I sucked Zeke with all the skill and enthusiasm I possessed. But he said, after a minute, "Slow down, Lark. You'll get tired too soon."
I did as he wished. He knew best what he needed and liked. I knelt comfortably between his spread legs and rested my arms on his hips and belly and settled into a slow up and down motion with my head. My lips were tightly compressed on his thin penis, and I was able to take all of it down to the base.
Minutes passed. I heard Rill moving on the bed. Then I felt her hands urging me to raise my buttocks. And Zeke said, "She wants to give you her mouth, Lark. Lift your rear."
I obeyed. I felt Rill sliding her head under me, resting the back of her head on my lower calves, and I opened my thighs as far as I could within the limits of Zeke's opened legs.
Rill's hands were still on my buttocks. I felt her urge me down. I lowered and felt her face fit itself against me. She wriggled a bit further and her breath was hot and ticklish and breezy on my pussy. I was sitting on her upper chest.
It was a weird situation. Sort of ultra-sophisticated and wild. I was a little bit shocked. Sucking Rill's nipple with Zeke while she masturbated was one thing, but this was ... too elaborate and technical, I guess, and too new. But I didn't stop her, and I didn't stop sucking Zeke.
Zeke must have sensed what I was thinking. He stroked my hair and said, "She wants to give you pleasure, Lark. This isn't degrading or degenerate. It's only different from what you've known. Accept it. Enjoy it."
I made an "umhmm" sound and nodded my head. The truth was that sucking him had made me want another orgasm, and as Rill started licking me, I was eager for it to continue.
Rill was fantastic. Her mouth took my inner surfaces and her tongue flickered like impossible velvet lightning in my vagina, and over my quickly distended little clitoris.
I began moving greedily against her mouth, and simultaneously sucked faster and faster on Zeke's penis. He didn't stop me. I became involved in the interplay of eroticism of my mouth and the incredibly delightful sensations I received from her mouth.
I could feel, too, that Zeke was near. His stomach was tense under my arm and hands. His breathing was faster, matching mine. I was glowing, just about there, hanging in mid-heaven, working my pussy for more tongue, more of the pleasure, wanting blindly to achieve release, yet wanting to enjoy this ecstatic limbo a while longer....
But Zeke was going. I heard him panting and felt his hips thrust his penis hard into my mouth. He was more stiff, a little longer, and there was a tiny sensation of vibration in the rigid flesh. I bobbed my head faster for him and pressed my lips to the base of him and worked my tongue and forgot for a few seconds the glorious sensation in my own body as he jerked in my mouth and spurted a few drops of thin fluid.
I was vaguely aware of a faintly soapy taste as I sucked feverishly. But then my own orgasm swept into my brain like a giant fist closing and squeezing out all other knowledge, all other perceptions.
I knew Rill had both hands on my buttocks and was forcing her mouth tighter and tighter to my spasming center. Her tongue was driving me crazy. I was gasping raw pleasure sounds around Zeke's penis in my mouth. Then I had to let it slip out because I was afraid I'd bite it. I was going out of my skull. Rill's mouth and tongue didn't stop! I reared back on my haunches-on her chest-and with shaking hands pulled her head tighter to me. My fingers dug into her scalp. I was sobbing with the continuing ecstasy ... it was pure rapture, and it was draining me, using up all my nervous energy, I couldn't stand it and yet I wanted it to keep blazing on and on. ... "
Finally my clitoris was too sensitive and I had to fall away.
We kissed each other, all three of us, and talked, and I opened up to Zeke and Rill and told them things I hadn't even told Owl. Secret hopes and fears and opinions ... .
Later Rill wanted us to suckle on her nipples again and we did and she rubbed herself to another intense orgasm. And Zeke went down on me and I went off again with Rill sucking one of my breasts ... .
It was all good. It was all right and loving and honest and healthy. I felt wiser and more whole and a better person when we finally drifted off to sleep, side by side, under the patchwork blanket. I loved them more, and they moved me more. We had shared pleasure and thoughts and were closer because of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was awakened by something loud. I found myself in Rill's arms, cuddled close, my face nestled between her big, soft breasts. She was awake, too, as was Zeke, who was sitting up. The light was still on. Rill had to have light when she slept.
Zeke said, "I think...."
"HEY YOU ZEKE!" It was Blackbird! He opened the door and barged in. His shirt, the blue shirt he had stolen from Cheryl, was wrinkled and sweaty. He had a wild, mean look in his eyes. His hands were fists. He took us in and yelled, "WHAT SPARROW MEAN I'M OUTA THE TRIBE?"
Rill and I sat up. I gathered my legs under me. Our nakedness didn't matter.
We heard steps coming up the stairs. Zeke said, "That's right. We voted you out. It was unanimous."
"I didn't vote! What you mean 'unanimous'? " He advanced to the bed. He towered over us.
Sparrow and Paul appeared in the doorway. Paul wore only his white briefs.
"Andy, you're out. Get your private things out of that room, please." Zeke reached for his pants.
"No! Why you think you kickin' me out?"
"We don't want a dealer in the tribe. This has been building for a couple months...."
"Thass a bunch of shit! I ain't dealin'! Who been lyin' about me?"
Zeke drew on his pants. "You nearly got us all busted at the love-in. You've been moving away from the tribe for a long time. You're not one of us anymore, Andy."
It was the first time I had heard Blackbird's given name.
It was a sign of his changed status. Zeke was telling him and us that Andy wasn't to be called by that tribe name any more.
Andy glared at us all. "You don' want to hear what happened, do you? Man, you so eager to get rid o' me!"
Sparrow was standing just inside the door. She had on a pink chenille robe that was too small for her. It was belted tight to her body but a two-inch gap showed the deep hollow between her breasts, her prominent belly button, and the shadowed blackness of her loins. She spoke up. "It ain' just you dealin'! It's the way you actin' in other ways, too!"
I saw Owl enter the room. That left Robin and Cheryl downstairs.
"What ways? What you talkin about?"
Zeke said, "Andy, you've been thinking too much of yourself and too much of race. It colors every...."
"You fuckin' right I have! Race the number one thing today. The black man got to think race and got to see what the honkies have been doin' to him!"
Sparrow said, "But that ain' tribe! That's what we mean!"
Andy turned on her angrily. "Wake up, girl! YOU BLACK! You always all you life gone be wipin up white shit! Unless you learn to demand your rights!"
Zeke sighed. "Andy, you see? You're out in the square world fighting in their race bag. We don't want that scene in the tribe. We can't have it!"
"You got it, baby! Ol' white Zeke! You want a nice tame house nigger, but you got a black man on your hands now!"
Zeke said, "This isn't getting us anywhere. The tribe can't exist, it just can't work with someone in it who is disliked and not wanted. We're a small, intimate family group. I'm sorry, Andy, but you have to leave."
"I AIN' LEAVIN'! " Andy glared at Sparrow. "What you takin' their side for? You gettin' to like havin' white meat slammin' in you black cunt? That make you feel white?"
Sparrow gave him a look of pure contempt. "You never was tribe, you talk like that now. You sick in the head!"
"NO, YOU SICK! YOU CRAZY if you can't see what goin' on here! This new white cunt come in and I got to get out to make room! Lark got to have her own nest! She the one not tribe!" He pointed to me. "She got all up-tight about fuckin' me you saw how she turn pale when Zeke tol' her! So she workin' to get me out! That's okay, thass fine! She white and what she want she gits!" I said hotly, "That's not true!"
Zeke touched my arm in a 'keep quiet' gesture. I glanced at my watch. It was twelve after four in the morning.
Zeke got up. He said again, "You'll have to leave, Andy."
"I'm paid up. I jes' give you my money las' week!"
"We'll give it back. I'll have it for you when you're packed up and ready to leave in the morning."
"Jus' like that? Four-five hours notice? You expec' me to sleep on the beach?"
"There are lots of rooms for rent around here. You can always stay with one of your outside friends."
Sparrow said, "Go practice your black power someplace else. See how they like you dealin'! "
Owl said, "If you've got anything stashed in the house you'd better get it out of here!"
"Huh! I ain' movin'! Not till I git good an' ready! An' you can shove that up you ass, ol' man Zeke, and trip on it!" He turned and started for the door.
Sparrow shoved him. "Get out! Leave us alone!" She is a solid girl and shoved with authority. He lurched, off balance, against Paul, who pushed him roughly aside.
Andy whirled and crouched. He pulled a switch blade knife from his pocket and clicked it open. His eyes darted around. He centered his hate on Sparrow. "I'm gone cut you!" He moved toward her, still crouched low, eyes fastened on her face. "I'm gone cut off you nigger tit and stuff it up you nigger cunt!"
Sparrow backed away. "You stupid mothah! You touch me with that blade...."
Zeke had moved quickly to his big roll-top desk. He reached into a drawer on the left side and pulled out a revolver. He said sharply, "ANDY!" He pointed the gun at Andy and cocked it. The metallic double click cut through every other sound.
Andy looked and stopped. He stared at the gun and then at Zeke's eyes. Zeke's hand was steady. There was something in the way Zeke held the gun and his manner that told me he knew how to use it ... and would if he had to.
Andy got the message, too. He suddenly ran out of the room and down the stairs.
Paul said, "The girls!"
Paul and Zeke and Owl ran downstairs. Sparrow followed. I grabbed Owl's shirt from the lamp on the floor and ran after them. Rill simply wrapped the patchwork blanket around herself and came along. We didn't care about being covered because of modesty, but because it was cold in the house in the early morning hours.
I heard a shattering crash downstairs and felt a floor shaking thump. Cheryl screamed. There was shouting.
I almost fell down the narrow stairway. Rill was right behind me. I didn't bother trying to put my arms through the sleeves of the shirt I carried. I scrambled naked down the last few steps and dashed around to the archway of the living room.
The tribe's stereo was on the floor. The plastic case was cracked. One of the speakers had been thrown through the front window. There was glass all over. Owl and Paul and Zeke had Andy pinned to the floor. His cheek was cut. His knife was gone. He was swearing, calling them names.....
Cheryl was in the hallway with a sleeping bag clutched around her. Her eyes were enormous.
It was all over then. They tied Andy. Sparrow and Owl went upstairs and packed his stuff for him. Two boxes and an old cheap Thrifty suitcase. Zeke and Owl carried the things down the block to the corner. Then Zeke, still with his gun, took Andy to the corner and untied him. They had broken the handle of his knife.
The stereo wasn't ruined. Paul connected the ripped speaker wires and resocketed some tubes that had been jarred loose inside.
Zeke came back. He looked at the broken window, at the glass, at the damaged stereo. He shook his head. He said to Paul, "You and Cheryl still interested in joining our tribe? All you've had is trouble since you came to us."
Paul smiled. "We'll stay."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Four days later I was with Owl in our room. I was on my knees in the corner by the window, scrubbing the floor. It was coated with paint droppings and shellac and other goopy artist's combinations. Owl isn't neat. It was around three-thirty in the afternoon. Busy sewing machine sounds came from Paul and Cheryl's room down the hall. Stereo from below.
Owl came up the stairs and entered our room. "Hey, the fuzz caught Blackbird."
"His name is Andy Winter."
"Well, they got him. They stopped a car he was in with some other colored guys and found a roach in his pocket."
"Why did they stop them?"
"Who knows! A cat downstairs heard it from a guy in Hollywood."
"Oh." I continued scrubbing. I really didn't want to think about Andy. When I did I felt guilty and mixed up. I kept wondering if my dislike of him had been based on race. Should I have tried harder to be his friend?"
Owl walked over and watched me use Comet on the floor with a wet rag. "You're destroying the aesthetic effect." His bare feet left tracks on the wet floor boards.
I looked up. He was grinning. I said, "Is that your excuse for wearing those dirty cut-off jeans for months without washing them?"
He peered down at this paint-spotted, grimy, tattered Levis. He was usually clean, but those things. ... He ran fingers through his long blonde hair. "You're right. I'll wear them in the tub when I take a bath."
"Take them off and I'll throw them in the wash tonight when Rill and I go to the laundromat."
"Take 'em yourself."
I saw his penis begin to grow in the short right leg of the jeans. We hadn't made love for two days. I was eager and he was, too. I smiled. "All right, I will!" I dropped the rag in the bucket of water I had brought up and got to my feet. I was barefoot, too, and wore only an old black miniskirt and my white flower-painted sweater. I had gathered my hair back in a pony tail with a rubber band.
I reached out, smiling, and unsnapped his fly. His penis was creeping down his leg, lengthening, hardening, pressing out against the material in a long, rigid bulge. As I ran the zipper his curly blonde pubic hair came into view. I reached down and squeezed his erection. "Why did it get hard?" I put on an innocent, amazed, wondering expression.
"It wants to go off."
"It does? Where?" I went to my knees before him and tugged his opened Levis down his hips a little at a time. The first thick inches of him were revealed emerging from the pale curls.
I pulled his jeans lower, past his hip bones, and the only thing holding them up was the big hardness in his pants leg. I had exposed about six inches of it, and there was inches more. I got a weak, itchy feeling in my belly, in my uterus.
I pulled his Levis free and his penis, long, white, slightly curved to the left, sprang up and out at me. His jeans were gathered at his ankles but I had eyes only for the beautiful pulse-throbbing mauve-and-white thing before my face.
I wasn't smiling anymore. I was like a worshipper. I extended my tongue and licked the sensitive underside of the head. I had my hands on his thighs and felt the tightening of the muscles. I fitted my mouth over it and sucked the tip. I slid my hands around to his tensed buttocks and pulled myself closer, pushed more and more of the mouth-filling white hardness inside my lips until the head pressed the softness of my throat and I began to gag reflexively.
Owl said huskily, "Let's hit the bed."
I stood up and we kissed. We didn't press our bodies together so he had room to slip his hand under my sweater and fondle my naked breasts. I was turned on! I opened my skirt and dropped it. I stepped away a few seconds to pull my sweater up and off. I peeled down my panties, stepped out of them and my skirt and tossed them on a chair.
Owl had climbed onto the bed. The springs squeaked. He said, "You're something."
I looked down at my naked body. "I'm saggy and low-slung. You're the one who's beautiful." I climbed onto the bed beside him and took his dirty-lensed glasses from his eyes. I stretched and put them on the floor beside the bed. I reminded myself to clean them for him afterward. I loved him. I felt maternal toward him. And I felt good old-fashioned lust for him.
I kissed him as his hands came to my body. His right hand slid to my loins and a finger discovered I was wet and ready. It went in and slid out slowly, curved to eel over my clitoris, until his fingertip reached the hard little button and played in slippery circles over and around it.
I moaned with arousal and clasped his penis and pumped him in long slow strokes.
I noticed, after our kiss, in brief panting seconds before we kissed again and joined playful tongues, I noticed that he was blinking rapidly, and he seemed to be seeing something...
I asked, "What's the matter, darling?"
His eyes closed tight and he shuddered. He whispered, "Acid flare-up. I've been taking too much ... I go up when I don't ... want to."
"Is it bad?" I pressed close, to give him my warmth and love, to reassure him.
"Sometimes. I'll come down in a few minutes." But then he put his arms around me and began to sob. He pressed his face to my breasts and wet them with his tears.
"Oh, Owl, darling..." I stroked his hair. "It's all right. There's nothing to be sad about." I was puddling-up myself, weeping in sympathy, full of love for him.
I spoke softly, reassuringly, lovingly, for about ten minutes, and held him close to give him my warmth. He stopped sobbing and breathed quietly.
Then he moved his head slightly and took one of my nipples into his mouth.
My arousal had been in abeyance, set aside, but now it surged back and I wanted him more than ever. I trailed my fingertips along his now-soft penis and knew it was growing again. I clasped it and felt it fill my hand, lengthen magically, as if there was a long piston deep in his body that emerged and filled the wrinkled softness of his penis when he willed it.
Owl asked me, "Want to get on top this time?"
"Okay." We hadn't done it that way for a while. I dug it. I could control things, give him pleasure and take as much as I could stand before he came. A hot trembling feeling started in my belly. I was restless and squirmy. His fingers were slipping into me again, slow and deep, two of them, then a third, and I could have taken his whole hand to the wrist to the elbow!
I was panting, making small sounds I was both ashamed to make and proud to make, because while I had been with the tribe I had slowly learned to accept my sexuality, almost to glory in it, to let go and express honest lust when I felt it. But I was still a little self-conscious about moaning and writhing and letting my pleasure and delight and sexual needs surface uninhibitedly before my orgasms took me and blew my mind.
I rose up and straddled Owl. I rose high on my knees and held the hot, bowed, eight inches of him in my small hand and leaned over and kissed him, took his mouth with mine and nosed the narrow, pointed head of his thin penis into my slippery vagina.
Our tongues fluttered and played and my nostrils flared and I moaned in my chest and I sank down onto him ... and his heat and iron hardness slid up into me ... deeper and deeper until I had to tear my mouth free to breathe and gasp, "Oh, darling, if you were any longer I'd feel you in my stomach!"
I was tight against him, all of it was in me, and deep inside I was dilating; something was opening and closing, and the tip of him pressed against very sensitive tissue was sending weirdly intense sensations through me, like sheet lightning along my nerves. I had to raise up a bit, so acute was the pleasure-pain.
I began slow, deep moves to make that galvanizing contact with each heavy, greedy, downward thrust. A sparkle of pleasure came from my clitoris each time, too, as I ground myself against his pubic bone, then rose and drove all of it in again and again and again until I was spasming and clenching and going crazy, not caring about anything but the vibrant, electric, syrupy hot, shivery climax that was tearing me apart.
I made it big and was resting limp on Owl's chest, moving my hips slowly to savor the glow, the small pleasure sparks and diminishing sensation, knowing he was still hard and long in me, knowing in a moment I could begin again and next time take him with me and feel the added emotional-sensual jolt of him spurting in me, jetting his hot, thick sperm against the intensely sensitive mouth of my womb when we heard the sudden loud commotion downstairs, under our room. The stereo was turned off and the heavy rumble of several unfamiliar male voices came up to us. Then we heard Sparrow's angry voice yell, "You got no right to search!"
Owl stiffened under me. "Cops!"
We moved apart quickly. I left the bed to get dressed. Owl sprang up and crossed the room. He took apart a water color set and quickly unwrapped a sugar cube hidden inside. He popped it in his mouth.
I paused, with my panties half on, and asked, "Should you ... ? "
Heavy clumping steps sounded on the stairs.
Owl said quickly, "Rather have a bad trip than jail." He bent to pick up his ragged jeans.
I had my skirt on and was picking up my sweater as Owl yelled angrily, "What do you want?"
"Sorry to interrupt, kids, just checking for runaways."
The sewing machine and hand-tool sounds from Paul and Cheryl's room stopped.
I drew the sweater down over my breasts and turned to face them. It wasn't modesty that made me turn away, it had been reflex and a feeling that my body was for the tribe and not outsiders. Especially not the super square cops.
The man had his wallet open and was showing us his badge. I barely glanced at it. He was about forty and was giving out all kinds of up-tight vibrations. His eyes didn't like us, didn't like our way of living, and showed he was only too glad to interrupt our fun.
I asked, "Do you have a search warrant?"
"Don't need one." His eyes darted around constantly. He moved slowly around the room, looking, inspecting, delving. He asked, "What's your name, girl?"
I saw Paul and Cheryl emerge from their room and watch from the hallway. The cop and detective noticed them. I answered, "Lark."
"Last name?" He drew a notebook from his inner coat pocket. He checked a list of names. "Don't play games with me, honey. I want your full legal name. If you don't give it I'll take you in. It's a misdemeanor to refuse to identify yourself and answer reasonable questions." He looked up and waited.
I was a little scared and had an icky feeling in my guts. I tried to be calm. I said, "Juli Margaret Lund. I'm nineteen and I have a perfect legal right to be here."
He checked his list and read aloud. "Juli M. Lund." He looked at me with new interest. "You're it, Juli. You'll have to come with us."
"Why?" I was shocked. Then I knew mother and father!
He confirmed it. "Missing juvenile report from your folks. They say you're only seventeen." He looked me over again. "You look to me about fifteen!"
"Well, I can prove I'm nineteen!" I went to my small purse on the chest of drawers at the foot of the bed and took out my paisley patterned green leather wallet. I took out my driver's license. "See?" I handed it to him triumphantly. "Mother and dad are lying! They just don't want me to be a hippie and live the way I want to!"
The uniformed cop by the door snorted and said, "You call this living?"
The detective studied my I.D. and then tapped it with a finger thoughtfully. "Well ... why don't you come with us anyway. We'll call your folks and get them over to the station and straighten this out. Filing a false report can be a serious business." He handed back my driver's license. "Why don't you put on some decent clothes?" He gave Owl a raking, contemptuous, and maybe an envious glance, and went to the door. He motioned the uniformed cop out into the hall. "We'll check the other rooms. Don't try to run, Juli." He half closed the door when he went out.
I was suddenly near tears, and was furious as well. My fists were clenched at my sides. "Damn them!"
Owl said, "Cops are cops."
"No, I mean mother and dad!"
"Oh, Well, you're going to have to go with them."
"I suppose so. I wish Zeke was here." I moved into Owl's arms. "You shouldn't have taken that cube. Go downstairs and tell Rill after they've gone. Don't stay up here alone."
"I'll be okay. I've tripped alone a few times."
But I was worried about him. He'd just had a flare-up, and now was going up again in a bad scene.
We heard the policeman hassling with Paul and Cheryl in their room. Sparrow came upstairs and stuck her head in the door. "They find anythin'? "
I said, "Just me." I explained. I whispered to her that Owl was tripping. Then I put on a pair of pedal pushers and a loose blouse. I refused to wear a bra. I took my purse and went out into the hall just as the officers emerged from Zeke's room. Sparrow and Paul had followed them in there to make sure they didn't tear the place apart looking for drugs. Zeke had taken the microbus and was visiting a tribe in the mountains near Ventura. He would be gone most of the day.
Finally we all went downstairs and I was taken out to a police car.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I had to wait in a detention room on the second floor of the Venice police station for four hours! It was a bare little cubicle with a bench and a door. Nothing else. The bench was up against the bare pale green wall and was bolted to the black and white tiled floor. There was one small barred window.
I waited and waited and it got dark outside and I worried about Owl. I just knew he was having a bad trip. I wanted to be with him! I could help him.
An overhead grill-light came on. It glared down on me.
Finally the door was unlocked with a loud jangling of keys outside in the hall, and was opened. Mother walked in. A policeman closed the door but didn't relock it.
She said, "Oh, Juli, thank God you're safe. Your father and I have been worried sick!" She came toward me, intending to hug me, but I didn't get up. I just sat on that hard wooden bench and looked at her. She faltered and stopped. Her eyes had a funny empty look. I knew she was coked up on tranquilizers. Her fingers writhed on her big purple purse.
She was breathing fast from the unaccustomed exertion of coming up the steep stairs. She said resentfully, "That was a terrible thing you did to us! That note. That awful, insulting note. We love you, Juli. Robert and I love you!" She puddled up. She opened her purse and brought out a white laceedged handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes.
"Mother, why did you lie to the police and tell them I was seventeen?"
"I wanted to find you! I had to find you, Juli!" She looked around for a chair. She sat on the bench beside me. She put her purse on the floor and tortured the handkerchief with restless, cruel fingers that lived apart from her conscious mind. She reached for me and grabbed me. I was pulled against her purple dress, against the stiffness of her bra and the loose softness of her pendulous breasts, against the fat of her arms and into the perfumed, gin-breath, sweaty intimacy of her body aura. She moaned, "I need you, Juli. I need you."
"Mother...."
"You're all I've got left! I'm so alone...."
I struggled free of her and stood up. "You had no right to have me dragged into a police station like this!"
"But I had to find you!" In spite of the tranquilizers there was a frantic, hysterical edge to her voice. "You've got to come home with me, Julie. Robert has left me. Your father has left me! He wants a divorce!" She bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God. He doesn't want me anymore." She began to cry and it was real.
She was pathetic. I could only feel pity for her. But I couldn't blame dad for finally leaving her. I said, "What happened?"
Mother spoke through a watery whine of self-pity. "He c-came home one night ... you know how late he stayed out. He has another woman. I know it. He doesn't even try to ... I'm not pretty enough any more. I'm not sexy so he's got himself a young slug ... a wife can tell ... but he came home ... three days after we went back to the house, after you'd left us ... he was so shocked at what you'd done, he wanted to hire private detectives ... maybe if I'd let him find you sooner.. .I don't know, I don't know---"
"Mother, did he come home and just tell you he wanted a divorce?"
"Yes! Yes! He told me ... he came home and he could see I wasn't feeling good. I was sick. I had taken one of my powerful sleeping pills, the yellow ones, and it hadn't worked so I took one of the small ones, and I was so dopey. ... And he got mad for no reason. . . and he started breaking my things ... my medicine...."
Her "medicine" was her gin. She couldn't even think of an original pretense.
". . . and he yelled at me and called me terrible names and said he was through and he was going to get a divorce. When he said that, I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I got a pain in my chest and I couldn't breathe and everything went around and around. ... "
"And he moved out?"
Mother nodded and blubbered. "Th-that night. He p-packed his suitcases and I-left me."
"And he hasn't been back?"
"No, not once. He's got himself an apartment somewhere..." She was shaking. Her world had been torn apart. "Please, Juli. Please! PLEASE!"
And I was torn apart. I didn't want to go back with her. I couldn't! But I felt I had to! Pressure from a life of subtle social conditioning welled up in me ... she IS your mother ... you owe it to her ... you can't be so selfish ... she raised you ... she needs you ... obligation.....
I didn't know what to do! I stood there before her and tried not to see her cry and tried to twist off the hook of my conscience and tried to say something that would soothe her and reassure her ... And I hated her for putting me on the spot, for dragging me out of my wonderful new life and back into her sick mire of crippled emotional dependency.
"Mother, you have friends ... woman friends. They used to come over every day! Some are divorced. They know what you're going through. Maybe one of them will come live with you for a while."
"No ... you can't abandon me, too, Juli. You're my daughter! My own flesh and blood!" She raised a tear-streaked face beseechingly. Her eye make-up was running. She looked awful.
"But I'm really happy where I am now, Mother, with the tribe. I'm one of them now."
"You can't mean that, dear. This is just a phase, an infatuation, an idealistic..." She searched in her fuzzed mind for words. ". . . phase. Your real home is with me. Now that your father has stepped out of our lives we have to stick together." She coughed on phlegm and scrabbled in her purse for a small pack of Kleenex.
"No, I want to stay with my new family. I wish you'd come to the tribe house and meet them. I know you'd...."
"I won't go near that place ... that neighborhood! I won't allow you to go back there, either! You've been brainwashed or something, Juli, and you don't know it." She wiped tears and chewed her upper lip free of lipstick and asked fearfully, "Have you been taking your pills? I know you've been doing things with those hippies!" 'Hippies' came out coated with loathing and contempt. "I heard about you coming to the house in that painted foreign car with a Negro! Mrs. Rand told me you were inside the house with him for nearly an hour!"
"We were talking." I couldn't tell her the truth. Not because I was ashamed but because she couldn't have handled it in her condition.
"You haven't..." She chewed her upper lip again briefly. "You didn't let him ... do anything to you ... did you?"
"No, mother!"
"Thank God!" She wiped her eyes. "If you had any idea how I've worried!" She got to her feet. She sniffled and snorted and said, "I have my car outside. We can go right home. I shouldn't have driven with all the tranquilizers in me, but I had to come get you when the police called. But you can drive us home. We won't bother with your things where you've been staying. I'll buy you new things. We'll go down tomorrow and shop...."
"I'm not going back with you."
"Oh, Juli!" The stricken look twisted her face again.
"I'm sorry, mother." I shook my head helplessly and clenched my hands and found myself weeping, too. "I just can't!"
She closed on me. I was in her arms again. "Dear ... dear ... tell me the truth ... are you taking drugs? Are you hooked?"
I withdrew, angry, appalled and yet close to laughing. "Of course not! Zeke is against drugs. And so am I."
"But I need you, Juli."
I shook my head. I was miserable. I wished she would go away and not claim me!
She saw my determination, I suppose. She slumped. "I see. Your mother doesn't count ... you must hate me as much as Robert...."
"No, I don't hate you, but...."
"Will you see me again? Can we meet somewhere and talk? You can do that much! That's not too much to ask! Dear God "
"All right. All right ... I'll call you."
"No! I want to see you! Tomorrow. I'll drive in and pick you up somewhere and we'll have a long heart to heart talk. Woman to woman. I'll meet you in Santa Monica, at the Visitor's Booth on Ocean Avenue. You know, where we stopped that time and got out and looked down at the highway and the beach and the pier and everything."
I knew. I sighed and nodded. "All right, mother."
"At Noon? Is that a good time for you? Noon?"
"Yes."
She embraced me again. "Oh, Juli--. "
"Can I leave here now?"
"I think so. I'll tell them downstairs ... the truth...." She left the room.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The officer outside relocked the door. I had to wait again. About ten minutes later the door was unlocked and I was gestured out by a stocky, fortyish, scowling policewoman. She said, "You can go."
"Thanks!" I was sarcastic and she gave me a look.
I went barefooted down the stairs to the first floor and halfway looked around for mother but didn't see her. I walked up the hallway past the main offices and saw Zeke waiting for me in the small lobby. He was sitting on a curved wooden bench.
He smiled when he saw me. "Lark." His voice carried joy and love.
I melted into his arms for a few seconds. Then I asked, "How's Owl?"
"He's having a bummer. I left him with Rill and Paul." We walked out of the police station and I saw the micro-bus parked by the curb. It looked beautiful. He asked, "What was all that about in there?"
I told him. He nodded and made no comment beyond, "It's as hard for them to let you go as it is for you to break away."
"I can't just break clean, though. I can't hurt her that much, especially now. I think she does love me."
"Love, like that, can be as destructive and anti-life as hate and sadism."
"I guess so." I didn't quite know what he meant then. I learned later, in spades!
We were back at the tribe house in two minutes. I went upstairs and into our room. Rill was lying on the bed with Owl. She was naked to the waist and held his head against her lovely, full, white breasts. He was sobbing into her softness and warmth. The room was lit only by a small lamp. Paul sat on a chair beside the bed, watching, ready to help if needed.
I asked, "How is he now?"
Paul said, "I don't know. I'm not very hip when it comes to this stuff."
I heard Zeke coming up the stairs. Rill said quietly, "It's bad now...."
Owl stiffened and groaned, as if in pain. He clutched at her arms. He said, "Who is it?" He looked around. He saw me. He smiled and whispered, "Oh, man, am I glad to see you back! Oh, Christ ... "
Zeke came into the room and watched.
I sat on the bed and took Owl gently into my arms as he turned on his hip to me. I repeated what had happened and finished with, "Mother just got up-tight and hysterical. It's okay now. I have to see her tomorrow for an hour, then it'll be finished."
"Why tomorrow? You know what she'll do! She'll drag you back with her!"
"She tried that just a few minutes ago. But I didn't go. Don't worry, darling." I tried to cuddle him but he resisted and his eyes flared.
He spoke very swiftly. "She'll suck you back into that plastic world and that fink you were with on the beach will get in on it, and your dad, too, and all the fucking neighbors will come simpering around and say how nice you came to your senses because your mother needs you now and what the fuck can you do then? You haven't got the guts to walk out. I haven't! You haven't! YOU DON'T!" He panted with anger and apprehension. "YOUR FUCKING SENSE OF DUTY WILL KEEP YOU THERE!" He rolled back into Rill's arms and sobbed against her breasts.
"Owl ... darling...."
Zeke drew me away. He led me out of the room and down the hall to his room. He said, "You're not good for him now, Lark. He's hung on you badly and he's terrified of losing you. The acid is making it worse. I don't think you should stay with him tonight. We'll be with him. Don't worry. Rill and I have been through this before."
"What'll I do?"
"Go down and stay with Robin. You can sleep with her or Sparrow tonight. I'm sending down Paul. There should be a man down there before we lock up."
I swallowed sadly. "All right. I just wish he wouldn't take that stuff anymore."
"We all do."
I went downstairs and found Robin in the front room, sitting in her wheelchair, talking with some hippies who had dropped in. The stereo had been turned down out of deference to Owl, I suppose, but it was still loud by most "normal" standards.
Robin wore a long, white, ankle-length kaftan with Owl-painted swirls of green and orange down the front. She seemed holy and child-like in the priest-like garment, with her ankh nestling on her thin chest, but then not so child-like because her small, pointed breasts stuck out with sharp nipples on either side of the ankh.
One of the hippies, a boy with long, curly hair, wearing a myraid of beads, bells and leather fringe, was saying, ". . . six hundred balloons filled with helium. And we spent hours with colored marking pens and grease pencils printing peace slogans and political things on them. Ten of us. We'd print a balloon and just let it go and it would float up and head east, higher and higher. I'll bet some of them reach Denver ... even farther. New York, maybe."
Another hippie, a girl with straight black hair and acne, wearing jeans and a shapeless brown sweater, said, "Hey, can you imagine if one of 'em came down on the White House?"
Paul and Cheryl came downstairs to join us.
We talked about the religious movement in the underground and a withdrawal from the cities.
Paul said, "The trouble with that is we don't know enough about living in the country. There have been communal farms and like that before in this country, but they never really last."
"How about the Amish?"
Paul nodded. "But they're in self-imposed isolation, and even then they have hassles with the establishment over educating their kids."
"That's the way we have to go. It's the only way we'll be able to keep ourselves pure."
Robin said, "We have to make our culture strong and good and workable. Otherwise the plastic will creep in and we'll have lost."
We talked for over an hour. I kept worrying about Owl. Then Robin said to me, "You must be starved. They didn't feed you anything, did they?"
"No. But I'm not hungry."
"Come into the kitchen with me, anyway." She rolled her wheelchair into the dining room, and turned right into the kitchen. I followed. I thought she wanted to reach something down from a shelf for her. But she said quietly, when we were alone, "I'd like for you to stay with me tonight, Lark."
I smiled. "All right. Zeke suggested it, too, staying with you."
She became engagingly officious. "Now, you can't do anything to help Owl, so you might as well stop stewing about him. He's in good hands. Zeke and Rill are wonderful. They know how to help him the most. So you open the refrigerator and get yourself an orange and get me an apple and you make yourself a tuna fish sandwich!"
I had to obey. I couldn't refuse her. Robin's big brown eyes sparkled and her manner was so sweet and stern in such a loving way ... I made myself the sandwich, peeled an orange and ate both in the front room while listening to the discussion.
At eleven Zeke came downstairs and told us Owl was sleeping. Zeke had given him several high potency tablets of one of the B-vitamins, niacinamide, I think he said, and that brought Owl down and put him to sleep. I was relieved.
Robin and I went down the hall to her room.
I went to the bathroom, washed and returned. She did the same. It was painful to watch her dragging her legs as she used her crutches for the short trip.
When Robin returned she nudged the door shut and moved slowly to the bed. She held her white panties bunched in her left hand as she gripped her left crutch. I had already undressed and crawled in. She asked, "Do you mind if I keep a light on?"
"No."
"It's just a night light." She reached to the wall beside the head of the bed and I noticed two switches there. She clicked both. One turned on a small orange bulb that I only noticed in a small wooden base on the floor. The other switch turned out the 100-watt ceiling light.
I said, "I like it." The orange radiance that filled the room wasn't bright at all, but it tinged everything and cast long murky-black shadows. My skin was faintly colored in the gloom.
Robin pulled her kaftan up to her hips, rocked from side to side as she worked it under her hips, then pulled it up and over her head. One instant she had been covered, the next she was naked. Her white skin was orange now.
"How tall are you, Robin?"
"Four foot nine. I'm just a itty-bitty little thing." She folded the garment and put it carefully on a bedside chair. She began to unsnap things as she removed the steel and aluminum brace from her withered right leg.
"Does it hurt to wear that?"
"No. There really isn't much feeling in my legs at all." She positioned the brace next to the chair, within easy reach. Then she reached around, threw the covers aside, lifted her thin, dead legs up to the bed with one hand while bracing herself with the other. She flipped the covers over herself and turned on her hip toward me. She adjusted her pillow. It was a double bed with two pillows. She said lightly, "But I'm not paralyzed between my legs."
I laughed. "That's good!"
She turned onto her back. She pushed the covers down to her tiny waist. Her small, firm breasts poked up beautifully. She began fondling herself. She said, "Do you ever do this? I can see why Rill does. It makes me sexy."
"Once in a while." I pushed the covers down, too, and caressed my larger, but softer breasts. I asked, curious, "Do you masturbate a lot?"
"I do lately, since Blackbird left, and since you've been monopolizing Owl."
"Oh, I'm sorry." A blip-picture of her with Blackbird flashed in my mind, then with Owl. And I had to say, "But Owl's so long ... "
Robin nodded, smiling. "Isn't he? We have to do it on our sides, sort of at right angles, with my legs hanging up over his hips. It's good that way. He stuffs it all in me, too."
"He does? He's almost too much for me. You must stretch like rubber inside."
"I guess I do. It feels like I'm going to split sometimes, but I love it." She tweaked her little nipples till they stood up like orange-red stems. "Lark ... would you like to make love with me?" She had turned her head. Her big brown eyes, shadowed in the dim orange light, were candid and unashamed.
I didn't hesitate. "Yes." I rolled to face her and kissed her waiting, eager mouth. I discovered she has a trick of flipping her tongue in and out of her mouth real fast when she kisses, practically every time, and that she can do it for hours without getting tired.
Her little hands touched my breasts and began plucking my nipples gently. I did the same for her. When the first kiss ended I was getting that want feeling inside. My breasts were alive under fingers sensitive and pleasantly aroused by her touch.
I breathed deeper and asked softly, "How do you want to do it?" I knew enough from my night with Zeke and Rill to be hip to the ways girls can give each other pleasure.
"Anyway you want. I've even got a dildo we can use."
"Really?" I'd never seen one. "What's it like?"
"Just like a man ... " She turned to a bedside chest of drawers and pulled open the middle drawer. She took out a narrow, black cardboard box. ". . . except it's lonely. A lot of the pleasure with a man is being with him, giving and receiving ... you know..." ' She took the top off the box and took out a tissue-wrapped thing and unwrapped it. She handed it to me. ". . . but this is better than nothing if you want more than rubbing your button."
I examined it. It was of molded flesh-colored rubber, and it had a fleshy feel. It would bend and it could be squeezed. The molded part was long as Owl ... about eight inches ... but thicker than him. There was a knob-like handle on the end. It fascinated me. I wanted to try it, but it seemed so perverted! I asked, "Where'd you get it?"
"A butch gave it to Rill and she gave it to me. She'd never use it! But I do once in a while. Sparrow uses it more than me. She goes wild. You ought to see her get all lathered up when I churn away in her with it. We don't have enough men in the tribe. I hope Paul turns out. He and Cheryl are taking Sparrow into their bed tonight when she gets home from work, so we'll find out in the morning."
"Do you want to do that, sixty-nine?"
"Sure." Robin sucked my left nipple for a moment. "Why don't we do everything? I like variety, too. I don't think anything is wrong as long as it feels good. I don't believe in 'sin' at all, at least not in sex. I guess you feel that way, too, don't you?"
"Umhmm." I held the dildo in my hands and stroked its length. It had warmed up in my hands.
Robin noticed the way I handled it. "You want to try it, don't you? But you're a little embarrassed."
I nodded and half giggled.
"Give it here." She took it from me and threw the covers off us both. "Open your legs."
I thought she was going to put it in me, but she pushed herself down and across to inside my thighs and started kissing my belly. She whispered, "I'm going to get you all hot and bothered first."
And she did! She seemed eager to show what she could do, as if she had to prove she was the equal of anyone at making love and giving pleasure in spite of her small size and crippled legs. I got the impression she overcompensates, sort of gives more than she should because she is insecure and is in a way bribing others to like her.
She wriggled lower and kissed my inner thighs and licked my sensitive lips down there and opened me and pressed her mouth to me and sent her swiftly moving tongue against my slippery clitoris. I was squirming. "Oh, Robin!" I simply closed my eyes and enjoyed it. Her tongue moved like lightning, so fast! And I was fizzing inside almost immediately, climbing up to the edge of an orgasm quickly, gasping and panting and wriggling my hips in pleasure. I don't think two minutes went by. I felt the sweet tension gathering in my belly, in my breasts, my brain ... everywhere ... I was panting, moaning, "I'm almost there...."
Then her tongue stopped! Her mouth went away! "Don't stop!" I raised my head.
And felt her nosing the dildo into me. I flopped back and wanted it! She slid it deeper and deeper, more and more, and whispered, "Say when!"
It filled me. It was bulkier than Owl, Its size reminded me of David, and I didn't want to be reminded of him. I let her press it in until it touched my uterus. A weird shiver went through my body. "That's enough!" I raised up on my elbows and looked. I could see better than in the orange light. I could see the quirky little smile on Robin's face, her small hand on the handle of it, and a thick, round inch of the flesh-rubber projecting from my vagina. The rest of it was inside me!
"like it?"
I nodded slowly.
"Want me to finish you with it?"
I was still embarrassed. But the feel of it in me, like Owl, deep, tickling ... I could see that using it while alone would be a sad thing to do, but with someone present, with Robin, there was an interaction, an emotional involvement. In a way Robin was taking the role of a man, someone I loved, and it made a difference. She would be delighted to give me an orgasm this way. So I nodded again and licked my lips and watched as she drew most of it out and pushed it in again, deep! and the shivery contact was made! I caught my breath. She pulled it out. It was glistening. In ... out ... in ... out ... in.....
Faster!
I swallowed and was panting again, on my back again, writhing again, working my hips as she plunged it into me so fast I couldn't match the thrusts. I was beginning to spasm. My belly was clenching. I was rippling inside, loose, tight, wavy, burning!
Robin plunged it even faster! She knew I was coming. She was pistoning it, unable to control the depth, just slamming it, churning it in me! And I could feel it all in me!
A huge shudder jerked my body. A cataclysmic jolt of orgasmic pleasure seared through me. I gasped, screamed, "AHH! ROBIN! ROBINNN-N-N! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD!" I thrashed and flailed wildly. She didn't stop! I felt it in my womb! I felt her hand hitting my spread lips down there, thumping my inflamed clitoris! I couldn't stand it!
The pleasure was too strong, too acute! I was clawing the bed, sobbing, half-conscious. Then not even conscious, as a darkness closed in on me and I blacked out. It was only for a few seconds.
Robin was pulling herself up beside me. "Lark? Lark?"
"Yes ... ? " I clasped her to me and kissed her. I was still alive down there, inside, spasming, my belly jumping ... glowing and hurting, too. My uterus had taken a battering. I knew I couldn't let that dildo be used in me too often: I didn't want to end up with cancer of the cervix. But God! What an experience!
Robin pressed herself to me. "You react even better than Sparrow."
I pressed a hand against my lower belly, pressed fingers into the flesh. There were itchy twinges inside. I asked her, "How do you react?"
"I keep it all bottled up inside me I don't scream or anything. But I like it. I have a climax and all, but I don't show it much."
Someone entered the bathroom which was next to Robin's room. The toilet flushed. The stereo continued in the front room. The music was a constant background to our thoughts, words and activities. I had learned to tune it out mostly.
I saw the dildo still in her hand. What a big long thing it was! I was astonished that I had taken it all. I was vaguely ashamed and yet perversely proud. I don't think using it was dirty or a perversion ... it was simply one way of having sex; sort of like one of many possible meals you can eat. It was like Lobster Newberg, not something you want every night, but once in a while. ... I know this is a pretty casual attitude toward sex, but it's the way I feel. like, if you dig it, do it! As long as no one is hurt physically or emotionally, where's the harm? Most of the "harm" is in getting all up-tight about these things.
I asked Robin, "Do you want me to use it on you?"
"Yes, for a minute. Then, would you go down on me?"
"Of course." I kissed her again and stroked her thin little body and lowered my head to suck her tiny, projecting nipples. As I suckled she caressed my hair and whispered, "Oh, I like that."
After a few minutes I slipped down her orange-light-stained body, kissing as I went, trying to be "artistic" and sophisticated. I took the dildo from her hand and put it aside on the covers for a moment.
I put my palm on her small mound. Her brown pubic hair was like curly silk and very sparse. The lips of her pussy were clearly visible. I kissed the fringe of hair. Her legs were so terribly thin and emaciated! I asked, "Will it hurt if I move your legs?"
"No. Do anything you want with them. They're in the way all the time. Sometimes I wish I could have them cut off."
"Don't feel that way." I parted her legs and moved between. I did for her as she had done for me with her tongue licked the lips of her pussy, then used my thumbs to pull the lips open. I pressed my mouth against the exposed pink-orange flesh and fluttered my tongue into the opening. I searched with its tip for her clitoris. I found it immediately, a small firm button that hardened more as I licked it.
She didn't respond very much physically. Just a slight tremor in her belly, and a twitching of muscles ... but her breathing quickened and she whispered again, "Oh, I like that!"
I couldn't get over the smallness of her body. She was so much like a ten-year-old child! Yet she was twenty-two ... a woman.
I reached for the dildo and pressed it lightly against her belly as I continued to lick her clitoris. It was a question. She whispered, "Yes, in a minute ... when I tell you."
So I continued and knew she was approaching a climax. Her hands reached for her dead legs and pulled them up, knees wide and high, making it easier for me. And after a few seconds she said, "Put it in!"
I grasped the thing by the knob-handle and put the head of it in my mouth to wet it for her. I didn't want to hurt her. I pushed the head of it gently against her moist pussy. The lips parted under the slight pressure and the head eased in. I pressed again and felt the resistance of her vaginal opening as it stretched to encompass the size of the rubber glans. Then the head was fully in her and I pushed it deeper, curious to see how much she could take.
I did it slowly; in an inch, out an inch, in two inches, out an inch, in another two inches ... There didn't seem to be any bottom to her! She was taking it! As I pushed it in and out, deeper until only about two inches was left, it looked as if a giant was imbedded in her small body.
Her chest rose and fell swiftly. I could see her pert left breast tremble with her heartbeat. I had to ask, "Too much?"
"No ... go ahead."
I pressed it in until I felt resistance, until she couldn't take any more of it, and only a fingerwidth of the white-colored rubber base wasn't in her. It was almost lost in the thin body! I believed then she could take Owl! She could take anybody!
I turned it in her, experimentally, and she shivered. I pulled it out and plunged it back in, twisting it, spinning it by the handle. She trembled. I continued doing that, slowly increasing the speed, until she was gasping and whispered intensely, "That's enough!"
I pulled it out of her and fastened my mouth to her open pussy again. She made a sweet pleasure sound when my tongue fluttered against her clitoris again. When she came she seemed to pulse inside. I could feel it with my hand on her belly. She panted and touched my head with her hands, and made small, urgent coital moves with her narrow hips, then slowly relaxed and whispered, "That's enough for now ... "
I crawled up beside her and we sighed and talked about it. We both admitted we liked more than one orgasm, and we knew we'd be at it again in a half hour or so.
It happened that way, too. We talked about the tribe, ourselves, other hippie groups, the movement, the future, the country, all kinds of things.
Then Robin casually began touching me and I touched her ... we fingered each other, decided to put away the dildo for the night, and tried the 69 position. It was wild. I got tired before she did. I had at least four orgasms before we quit and went to sleep in each other's arms.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next day I tried to talk myself into not going into Santa Monica to meet mother. I slept late. I busied myself with tribe activities ... But I couldn't escape the clock, my awareness of the time, and my conscience. I had promised!
So at ten minutes to twelve I walked out of the house and headed for Main Street. I made a deal with myself. I'd wait until Noon exactly, and if the bus didn't come by then I was off the hook, and could go back to the house. I would have given fate and mother her chance.
The bus swept around the Venice Circle and wheezed open beside me two minutes after I reached the stop. I had to go through with it.
I found mother parked three meters away from the Visitor's Information Booth on Ocean Avenue. As I approached I saw her notice me. She had been sitting like a corpse. Her mouth widened too quickly into a smile. She reached over and unlocked the passenger side door. High noon on Santa Monica's busiest street, regularly patrolled, and she was afraid.
She was wearing her lime-green suit and white, lacey dickie. It was too warm and too tight for her. A dew of sweat was on her forehead and upper lip, and had dampened her hairline. The closed car was stuffy, and she was steamy, but she had even been unwilling to roll down a window.
I left the door open and sat on the outer edge of the front seat. I let my bare left foot luxuriate on the deep-pile aqua floorboard carpet. My right foot rested on the warm cement curbing. I wore only the same pedal pushers and blouse as before. My long blonde hair was clean and combed straight.
Mother said, as I settled onto the seat, "I was afraid...."
"I'm not going back with you."
She seemingly didn't hear me. Her mind was set up to run a course and nothing would stop it or alter its direction. "I had to take four tranquillizers this morning. They don't do me any good at all. I'm so nervous!" Her fingers were at it again, writhing like alien worms, out of her control. It was weird and frightening to watch her hands and listen to her.
I saw tears puddling in her eyes. "Mother--. "
"I'm having a nervous breakdown. I know it! I tried to call Robert last night but he wouldn't even talk to me! I can't sleep. I haven't slept for a week. I just lie there tossing and turning ... " She had been talking with her head bowed. She turned and beseeched me with watery, pleading eyes.
"I don't want to go back there, mother!"
She sobbed. Her beginning double chin wobbled. Her fat, sweaty body seemed to squish in its layered trap of rayon, cotton, nylon, dacron. I could smell her deodorant fighting a losing battle. "Don't you love me at all, Juli? Not even a little bit? Don't I mean anything to you at all?"
"Yes, but "
"You've got your whole life ahead of you! There'll be all the time in the world for you to play at this hippie business later ... but I need you now, for just a little while. Juli ... if you only realized ... if you only knew what I've been going through!" She couldn't maintain her composure. She cracked and wailed and clutched and pawed me close again. Huge sobs wracked her. "Oh, Juli, Juli, Juli ... "
I was twisted around awkwardly, holding her and being held, still trying unconsciously to keep one foot outside on the curb, outside in touch with freedom. There was nothing I could say except yes or no. I felt helpless, torn apart, on a terrible spot.
"Please, Juli, come home for a little while ... just a little while ... Oh, God, please ... I can't go on alone...."
"You'll be all right, mother. Dad'll come back...."
"No, he won't! You didn't hear him! It was terrible the things he said to me! He doesn't want me any more. And you don't either. I'm begging you, Juli! I'm begging you!
Dear God, what more can I do? You're holding my life in your hands, don't you realize that, dear? I can't face another night alone in that house! I can't!"
I couldn't get free of her. She held me like a vise. She held me with nineteen years of social conditioning. Maybe even instinct was part of it. My mother was begging me for help. Yet I sensed she was faking, putting on, exaggerating...
"Just come back for a few weeks, dear, please! Just two weeks. That's not much to ask, is it? You can give your own mother that much time from your life, can't you?"
How do you say no? Owl had been right the night before in his acid high. He had known ... had seen...
Two weeks...
"Juli ... " The hysterical, desperate edge I had heard the day before returned to her voice. Her fingers dug into my arms. She lifted her face from my shoulder and her eyes ... the look in them I'm afraid of being alone. I think about suicide. I was in the bathroom last night with a razor blade in my hand I came so close to doing it ... "
"No, you couldn't "
"I WILL!" She screamed!
It shocked me!
"YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME!"
"All right, I will. I will." There was no alternative. Not then.
"Oh, thank God!" She disintegrated into a welter of sobbing and weeping.
And I sat there with her head in my lap, feeling her tremble, feeling myself tremble, sick inside, wanting to take back the words.
Mother lifted her head from me and she was smiling through her tears ... triumphantly? ... and she said, "We'll be a good team, Juli, you and me, you and me and your father can go to hell! We don't need him as long as we have each other." She dug more Kleenexes from her purse and wiped her eyes and said, "I don't think I can drive, dear. Do you want to get your things. . . no! Leave everything! Don't go back to that house and those hippies for anything! I'll buy you new clothes, whatever you want! It'll be something for us to do!" She smiled and squeezed my hand.
I didn't care about clothes! I agreed to drive, and to drive directly back to San Marino, because I was a coward. I couldn't face Owl and Zeke and the others.
I went around to the driver's side and climbed in as mother slid over. A tiny dead feeling had come to me, and as I drove east the deadness grew larger and larger.
The freeway
San Marino...
The house.
The bright, forces chatter from my mother. The thousands of familiar things that made up my room-cell in the house-prison in the city-compound.
I sat in my room and rolled a sheet of paper into my pink portable and slowly tapped out: "Dear Owl "
The deadness was complete.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I went out to mail the letter to Owl and the tribe half an hour later. It was the most difficult letter I have ever written.
When I got back, as I passed through the kitchen, mother was humming, puttering in the Hotpoint, taking out lunch meat and cheese and milk. "What would you like to eat, dear?"
"I'm not hungry."
"Would you like a cheese sandwich? Salami? I can open a can of tuna fish."
"I'm really not hungry."
"Would you like some milk? I have apples, and oranges. You like them, I know."
"Mother "
"You've got to eat something, dear! How about a bottle of Pepsi?"
"I'll have a bottle of Seven-Up." An oblique little dig at her drinking.
"All right." Her eyes flickered a tiny bit as she opened it for me. As I took it, cold and dewy, and swigged as I turned for the door, she said, "Juli, I don't want to say anything, but now that you're living here ... Well, I know the hippies dress differently ... But here ... you know how people talk ... Well, you're not a small girl in the bust any more, and going without a bra is rather noticeable...."
I looked at her. She couldn't meet my gaze. She continued, "You know I don't care, but it looks sloppy. It isn't really nice, either, is it?"
"Mother, I'm here for two weeks. I'm not going to change back into a square just to suit you and the neighbors. I don't give a damn what they say or think about
She backed off. "Of course, I wouldn't ask you to do something...."
I left the kitchen and returned to my room. I knew she wouldn't give up. She'd keep picking at it, use all kinds of pressure ... In my room I was bored. I turned on a transistor and played it loud, but the rock music only made me homesick for the tribe.
I turned it off and flopped on the bed.
I swigged at the bottle and stared at the ceiling and was bored and resentful. I listened to mother leave the kitchen and walk through the house. She paused outside my door. "Are you sure you don't want a sandwich, dear?"
"Yes!"
"Well, there's apples and oranges if you want something to nibble on." She moved away. I heard her using the phone a minute later. Just a mumble.
I got off the bed and looked for something to read. I wasn't in the mood. I stared out my window at the backyard ... the pool ... I didn't feel like swimming, either. Two weeks! I finished the bottle and sat on the bed and stared at nothing and idly sucked on the neck of the bottle. Two weeks! She conned me! I began pushing the neck into my mouth as if it were a penis. It was sensual, in a way.
I flopped back on the bed and pressed the base of it against my groin. It was still cold. I closed my thighs around it. I opened my blouse and fondled my breasts, but it didn't do anything for me. Dead. Dead for two weeks.
I sang one of my songs and it made me sad enough to cry so I stopped. I looked at my watch three o'clock. Mother was still talking on the phone. Buzz ... buzz ... buzz ... I sat up and pushed down my pedal pushers and panties. I tried to push the bottle into me, the thick end, but it was too thick and blunt. I was afraid to use the neck end because I had heard somewhere the open end could create a vacuum and suck itself up tight against your insides and you couldn't get it out without tearing out your womb. I'd heard that had happened to a starlet once when a movie star pushed a coke bottle into her. She had bled and gotten infected and died. Not for me, thanks.
I said, "Oh ... shit ... " Two weeks...
I finally changed into a bikini and went out to lie in the sun.
Mother must have been busy on that phone.
Dad came by that evening. He came in smiling too much. "Juli!" He hugged me quickly in his strong arms. He was wearing a lemon yellow Ban-Lon knit shirt open at the neck, with slacks and Hush Puppies. Gray hair groomed neatly. Smelling of after shave. I was wearing a nylon knit pullover, too, with a mini skirt, no shoes, and when he hugged me and felt the warm softness of my loose breasts he sort of stiffened and let go as if he had been burned. He looked at my sticking-out nipples and his eyes skittered away. But his voice continued its automatic words;". . . to have you back. Your mother needs you now that we're breaking up...."
Mother sat watching, approving his song and dance to me, hating him, too.
"I'm only staying two weeks, so...."
"We'll discuss that later. I know you have friends in Venice now, but you do have a duty to your mother that comes first." He smiled. He kept his eyes on my face. "It's good to see you. About ready to sign up at USC next week? Creeps up on you, doesn't it? Bet you forgot it. Education's damned important. A little fling is great ... do it myself once in a while ... but there's a limit to dropping out. When it threatens your future "
"Dad "
"Listen, I've got something for you outside. When Ruth called and said you were back I went right out and got it. Know you've wanted one. Come on out you, too, Ruth truce for now "
We went out the front door and I saw a new yellow Honda 90 sitting in the driveway beside the station wagon.
"How do you like it, honey?" He grinned, patted the seat, dangled the ignition key in his fingers ... grinned ... sought my reaction ... tightened an emotional-begging vise ... until I was forced to smile and say, "It's beautiful, dad. It's really nice." And I smiled and tried to be grateful, but I knew he was trying to bribe me, and he knew it, and mother knew it.
She said, "That's just wonderful, Robert. Now you can ride to school on it, Juli. You won't have to take a bus anymore."
Dad reached into the back of the wagon. "One thing ... one thing I'm going to insist on, young lady." He brought out a white crash helmet with an amber bubble mask. "You've got to promise to wear this every time you ride it. Got to wear protective clothing, too. Shoes and a sweater at least ... "
"So many young people are killed on these things, Juli-"
I knew how to ride a cycle. They knew it.
"Got to think of yourself and the folks who love you. Owe it to us to protect yourself."
I stood there and nodded automatically. They were pathetic.
"It's all insured, honey. In your name." He handed me an envelope. "All I ask is that you be careful."
"It's a wonderful gift, Robert." An awkward silence developed. "Got gas and oil in it." He handed me the key. "Thank you, dad."
A pause. Glances. Mother: "Well, let's go inside."
"Can't stay. Only came over to ... "
"I wish you'd tell Juli to eat, Robert. She didn't eat a thing tonight at supper and I cooked all her favorites."
"Honey, you on a diet again? You're too young for that nonsense."
Inside the house. The focus moved away from me. Tension built up between them. They started jockeying for position: "Juli, wouldn't you like your father back in the house."
"Juli, your mother spends half her time thinking up ways to punish me for being a man. I don't have to--. "
"He's selfish, through and through! He wants "
The door chimes rang. I said, "I'll get it." Anything to get out of that crossfire. I opened the door ... and there stood David!
He grinned. "Hi, Juli."
"Hello." I left the door open and walked away, back into the living room. I heard David come in, close the door and follow.
I slumped into a chair and didn't cooperate at all when mother and dad tried to get me to be "nice."
Finally dad left. I had to thank him again for the Honda.
He put it in the garage for me before he drove away.
Then mother said, "I'll let you young people talk." And she went off into her bedroom.
David smiled. "Hey, you look good." His eyes were riveted on my nipples. I wished then I had worn a bra. "Your mother left word you were back."
"I'm sure."
"Hey, come on over to the couch." He patted the cushion next to him. "Nope."
He was hurt. "You still think you're a hippie?"
I sighed. "David, I'm only staying two weeks. Then I'm going back to 'being a hippie,' so I don't ... Why did you come over? I thought we'd broken up."
"Aw, that was just a little argument. I don't let my women get away that easy." He patted the cushion again. "Come on over."
I stood up and walked into the hall, into my room, and locked the door.
After a few minutes I heard David and mother talking. Rumble-rumble, buzz-buzz. I heard him leave the house and listened as he vroomed his Mustang and dug out. Juvenile.
Mother came to my door. She tried the knob, then called, "Juli?"
"Yes ... " I unlocked the door. Why stretch it out into a big scene?
"You were very rude to David. After he drove over to welcome you back "
"I'm not interested in David Krayne any more, mother."
"I don't see why not. He's a nice young man. He was terribly hurt a moment ago. I think he loves you. You didn't give him a chance at all! You used to like him! You were quite intimate with him before you took up with those hippies, weren't you?" She mixed pseudo-sophistication with a he's-the lesser-of-two-evils tone in her voice.
"I suppose."
"I knew something was going on between you two, but he's a nice young man, responsible, and he'll be a success in life, so I didn't say anything. You could certainly do worse. In fact, you have been recently."
I said nothing. There was no arguing with her.
"I took the liberty of asking David back. I made a date with him for you, for Friday night."
"Oh, mother! You can't You're trying to tie me back into this awful life every way you can! Dad, now David ... "
"We love you, dear. We're trying to save you--. "
"Oh, shit!"
There was a silence. She gestured helplessly. "I really don't see what you see in those hippies."
"I can't explain it to you so you'd understand."
Another silence. "Well, David will be over here Friday night ... "
"Mother, I know what you're trying to do. All right, I'll go out with him! But I can't let him fuck me " She gasped at my use of the word. " because I've got gonorrhea!"
She paled. "Are you sure?"
I told of visiting the clinic, the test and getting a shot. "We'll go see Dr. Edd tomorrow morning."
"All right. I'm due for my third shot anyway." She left my room a moment later with a dazed, shocked look still in her eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dr. Edd shot a million and a half units into my rump and said for all intents and purposes I was cured. Another shot in a week would simply be "insurance." Mother was terribly relieved.
Friday night came and I wore a taffeta minidress, and no bra, but it didn't matter since I had to wear a slip with it and taffeta is so stiff and rustly the movement of my breasts didn't show very much.
David took me to a good steak restaurant and spent fifteen dollars on the meal alone. But it was wasted on me because I was contemptuous of him for spending that much in an attempt to "bribe" me not just to obligate me to give him sex later (that's always his prime unconscious motive) but to show me how good the square life is in contrast to the "grubby" hippie life. He thought money was the difference.
We argued all during the dinner: "Christ, Juli, isn't it better to have things than not to have things?"
"Not if you don't need things! Why do you 'Need' a big house, a big car, all kinds of gadgets? Will you live longer? Will you have more friends? Will you sleep any better? No! You'll probably worry and work yourself to death twenty years before your time!"
"I don't know ... do poor people live any longer than rich people?"
"No, not if they eat themselves up with envy and don't know enough to eat right and always try to imitate the 'upper' classes. But if they stop trying to join the rat race, and don't let all the lies get to them, and resist the social pressure to be like the Joneses and buy, buy, buy! and concentrate on the really important things in life...."
And so on it went ... into race relations, the wars, the economics of everything, personal values and morals....
There was even an argument about my hair. David said, "Hey, you need another dye job. Brown roots showing." He snickered. He had scored a point for his side, he thought.
"I'm through coloring my hair. It's a stupid, artificial thing to do. I'm letting it grow out."
"That'll look pretty funny for a year or two." He laughed. He thought I was kidding.
"Don't worry. You won't have to see it."
"Hey ... you serious?"
"Serious."
"But " He grinned and retreated. "Naw, you're not!" Then he changed the subject.
We went to a show, "A Man For All Seasons," and David squirmed and fidgeted through it. He had asked me what I wanted to see, stupid man, and I had chosen "Seasons." He didn't like it because it was "too deep" and didn't have any girls in bikinis and bathtubs.
Then came the drive home more arguing and the attempt at petting on his part when we stopped before the house.
His hand on my thigh just under my dress, his after shave reeking in the car, his minty breath puffing at me ... I had spotted the furtive little move of his hand to his mouth with the mint as we emerged from the show ... he obeyed society's dictum: Thou Shalt Not Smell like An Animal, even if we do have a body, because a body is dirty and evil, and a natural odor is a Terrible Thing.
Which is not to say a person shouldn't be clean! But after you're clean to add a lot of gunk...
He tried to kiss me. I avoided his mouth. "What's the matter, Juli? You had a good time, didn't you?"
"I wasn't bored."
"We went to see the show you wanted to see." Implication you got your way, now you owe me a payoff in sex time for things to go my way!
I knew he would fume and argue and needle me for an hour unless I let him do a few things. I had before often enough, why not now? I asked, "David, why do you have to buy sex, and bully to get it, and pressure to get it ... ? I keep wondering ... can't you ... don't you know any girls who like you for yourself enough, and like sex enough, to do it without a big operation like this?"
"Sure! What do you mean? You like sex." He was confused.
"Yes, honest sex, not the kind that is a payoff."
"Well, I don't know any hippie girls who give it away. You try taking a girl out on a date and not spending any money on her. Not around here you don't. They get all fixed up and they expect a guy to lay out twenty bucks. The pretty ones. Who wants to drag along a dog?"
"A lot of girls prefer a quiet, walking date, or something like that."
"That's what they say!" He was resentful and surly. I couldn't blame him. Most girls are brought up in the system the middle-class sex bag within the possessions bag within the status bag. And most boys grow up accepting the system it was self-perpetuating and hate it but don't rebel. By the time they are sixteen or eighteen most of them are pussy-whipped. It is all so sick and depressing.
The truth is, David is such an up-tight square, such a sniggering jerk in so many ways, that no non-conformist girl, the kind who reject the system consciously or unconsciously, will look at him.
I had been moving farther and farther into non-conformity and had left David far behind.
But he wasn't going to be diverted by put-downs or discussion. He had paid for kisses, feels and anything else he could get, and he wasn't going to be denied.
His clammy, nervous hand came to my inner thigh, again, and this time it slid up to my panties and cupped my mound. His middle finger pressed the thin pink nylon into the lips of my vagina. My clitoris was touched and came alive in spite of my dislike of him.
David kissed at me again and I let it happen. His tongue fluttered in my mouth and I liked it ... my body liked it ... and he was only in my mind a male body to be used for sexual relief. Sex with David, I knew, wouldn't have the added emotional impact and completeness of sex with someone I loved, especially with Owl, but it would be good, nevertheless. I knew he could satisfy me and I was willing to indulge ... more as a diversion and relief from life-with-mother than anything else ... and take the pleasure that he offered. Why not? It was something to do.
I put my hand on his pants front and felt the size of his big, fat penis. I began to turn on. He pushed his hand under my panties to my belly and worked a finger down through my pubic hair to my lips, and into the slippery sensitive flesh. His finger buried itself in my vagina and then withdrew to slither over my button.
My legs opened more and I cooperated in the long kiss. I slipped a little lower on the car seat. My nostrils flared as I sucked air through them.
Then the house porch light came on and mother came out and started down the walk toward us.
David groaned and muttered, "Son of a bitch!"
I straightened up and agreed with him. She had no right to interfere!
But mother surprised us. She peered into the dark interior at us and said, "Come inside, David. You two can talk in the living room. I only stayed up till now to make sure Juli got home safely. Come inside." She smiled and went back into the house.
David said, "Huh! She never did that before!"
"She wants to keep me here. She's willing to overlook a few things for a while to promote our 'romance'. "
"Swell. Let's go in."
So we went inside. Mother appeared in the hallway for a moment. "Make drinks if you want, kids. And there's all kinds of food in the refrigerator." She smiled at David. "Good night." And she disappeared into her bedroom.
I said to myself, softly, "My mother, the pimp."
"What? Hey, this is nice of her, isn't it? I could use a drink. Where do you keep the fixings?"
"Over there." I pointed, then went over myself and opened the dining room cupboard where she kept the gin bottle and poured stiff slugs into two glasses. "There's a 7-Up in the refrigerator." David got two bottles and we had a strong mixed drink apiece.
He said, as we settled down on the sofa, "I thought you were so down on drinking."
I was depressed. Owl and the tribe suddenly seemed a million miles away, a forever away. I had a sickening feeling I'd never see any of them again. "I figure I may as well get used to it." I drank deeply. A little neon sign lit up in my mind: self-destruction.
David drank, too, then put his glass on the coffee table and leaned close, put his arms around me, hand on my breasts the taffeta rustled and asked, "Can we make out?"
"Why not? That's what she wants. You could fuck me on her bed and she'd watch and smile and say, 'Well, if you young people intend to get married...'
"No kiddin'? You willing to marry me?"
"No, David. I'm only willing to have sex with you tonight. Now." I finished my drink fast. We kissed and pawed each other. A warm glow was spreading through me. "Let's go into my room."
He was more than willing.
I closed the door and said, "Let's see that big cock of yours."
"Hey ... " He grinned with embarrassment. "You're talking pretty dirty all of a sudden."
"Why not? Sex is dirty, isn't it?" My mind was beginning to feel fuzzy. "Let's get naked and fuck. Fuck. Fuck."
"Hey, Juli ... " He wasn't sure I meant it. He grinned as he found the reason for my changed behavior. "Hey, you're getting drunk!" He was delighted. I had fallen off my high and mighty perch.
I nodded and it made me dizzy. I opened the back of my minidress and awkwardly pulled it up and off. I threw it toward a chair. "Come on, David. Nakedsville. Fuck City." I winked and pulled off my slip. I did a bump and grind. I was like a thick piece of emotional ply board a sheet of gin-gaiety, a sheet of lust, a sheet of contempt, a sheet of rage, a sheet of despair all glued and pressured together.
David undressed quickly. Coat, shirt, tie, slacks, undershirt, underpants, shoes, socks. Naked. Penis sticking out like a pink and white cucumber. I stepped out of my panties and pointed to the bed.
He crawled onto the bed and took me into his arms as I joined him there.
I ignored what his hands did to my breasts. I examined his penis. There was a dewdrop of lubricating moisture at the tip. I pumped him and more came up. It was fatter than I remembered it. It was hot and very stiff. I put my thumb on the big vein on the side of it. Nothing happened.
David asked, "You want the light on?" The ceiling light was bright.
"Sure. I want to see you when you go down on me." H is embarrassed grin returned. "I've never ... you know ... "
"You're going to do it tonight or get out of here right now."
"Aw, come on now, Juli ... "
"I mean it." I pushed away from him. I opened my thighs wide. I pointed at my pussy. "Lick it!"
He stared at it. "Well...." He licked his lips. "If you'll do it to me, too."
"Maybe yes, maybe no. I won't promise." I stared him down.
"Christ, Juli "
"All right, get dressed!" I folded my arms across my chest.
He complained, "You've changed."
"Eat me or get out!" I glared at him. I hoped he wouldn't. I hoped he had that much manhood and guts left. Not because going down is so terrible. It isn't! But obeying is! In a situation like that, a master-slave situation, obeying is a terrible soul-destroying thing.
"Well ... okay ... for a minute."
He moved between my thighs. "What do I do?"
I cringed inside for him, and hated him and pitied him. I used my hands to pull my lips apart. "Use your tongue, stupid!"
He moved his head forward and hesitantly extended his tongue. His eyes turned up to see me watching, and he begged, "Don't look."
"Lick!"
He craned his neck, stuck out his tongue and barely touched me there. The contact galvanized me! A hot, electrifying thrill shot through me, far out of proportion to the actual physical act. It was mixed with huge gobs of power! triumph, mastery! My gaze was riveted on my pussy and his extended tongue. I whispered intensely, fiercely, "More!"
He moved closer, more of his tongue came into contact with my pink, wet, inner flesh. He licked. My clitoris surged to full size and firmness. My hips writhed. My fingertips became slippery from my secretions and I couldn't keep myself open to his tongue properly. I stopped trying and seized his head. "Get tight!" And I pulled his face his mouth against my pussy. I was aroused, weirdly turned on by his submission and my power over him. David wasn't a man in my eyes anymore. He wasn't even the David I had known. He was an utterly humiliated creature ... now only a mouth, only a thing to be used and manipulated for amusement and pleasure.
He resisted and tried to pull back, but I kept pulling his mouth up against me and I whispered, "Eat me! Do it! Eat cunt! Lick cunt! Do it! DO IT!"
He could easily have broken my hold on his head. He could have easily pulled away and slapped me. But he didn't. David let me pull his face tight into the hollow of my loins, up against my hair, and he capitulated with a small, muffled whining in his throat, and his tongue went into me like an intelligent eel and I came! The orgasm was so violent I almost screamed. The muscles in my arms stood out as I crushed him to me "Lick, lick, lick!" and he did! And he snorted and fought for air, but he liked it! He liked his role! He liked the put-down, the submission, the humiliation, the abandonment of manhood and self-respect!
Then I collapsed into the bed and released him. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply. I heard-felt him moving up beside me. I even heard him wipe his mouth. He asked quietly, "Did I do it right?"
I smiled. I owned a six-foot lap dog. "Yes, baby, you did it right." I patted his crew cut head.
He kept silent for a few minutes, content to stroke my breast and belly, while I recovered, while I decided what we would do next. I wondered if mother was in the hallway outside my door, listening. I didn't care.
"Will you do it for me?" Begging.
I sat up. His erection was as big and hard as before. I decided to taste him, to compare, out of curiosity. To hell with his pleasure. That was incidental to my knowledge. I pushed him onto his back and straddled his knees. I pumped his big, fat penis experimentally, wiped the secretions away with the palm of my other hand, and lowered my mouth to it.
It was much larger in my mouth than Owl's. I couldn't take as much. It gagged me more severely when I tried to force the bigger, rounder head into my throat.
I sucked it a moment, used various tongue techniques ... was aware of his gasping and tense muscles, his small coital thrusts ... until it bored me, then I lifted my head and looked at it and had an urge to bite it hard and see blood spurt instead of semen.
"Don't stop!" His face was mask-life, stiff with lust. His eyes begged. He was so close.
"Cool down, David! Just lie there for a minute!"
He obeyed.
"Finger me!"
He slipped a finger into me and began sliding it in and out.
"Gently!" He obeyed.
I felt my desire return slowly, building up to a want, to a need for another orgasm. "That's enough." I moved forward and poised over his still huge penis. It was the woman-superior position and it meant exactly that to both of us.
I held him in my hand under me, pointed it up, lowered to take the head of it, and then let my weight push it up onto me ... deep ... deep! I whispered to myself, "Oh, wow..." I looked at the wall, not at him, as I crouched and moved on him, on his meat. He was only hard meat. That's all he deserved to be.
I drove his meat deep with each plunge, deep and hard with each plunge to his pubic bone, and set the bed to quivering and squeaking in rhythm, the quaking sound known everywhere. Mother must have heard it!
The boiling honey sensation was claiming my guts, my entire body! I was panting, clutching his shoulders, slapping myself down on him, knowing from his reactions that he was close to going off, but knowing I was there, too ... I ground myself down, wishing he had just a little bit more, to reach the secret, sensitive place, as Owl did. But I made it anyway, and went crazy as he gripped my hips and jolted up into me and grunted and spurted and bowed his neck ... gritted his teeth...
When it was over I was still on him, feeling him shrink inside me, hating the idea of having to clean up, not because of the sperm as such, but because it was his sperm, and in a small way it was a victory for him over me. He didn't have to wipe and wash like I did. Damn men!
I was just easing off his body when I saw what I was doing. To myself. To him. Mostly to me. I said in a sort of low key voice, "Oh, no...."
"What's the matter?"
I didn't answer. I pressed my hand to myself, climbed off the bed, opened the door and went into the bathroom. I washed myself mechanically and realized with greater and greater clarity what had happened. I was becoming like my mother! a contemptuous man-hater! It didn't matter that I liked sex and she didn't. What mattered was that I had for a while accepted this life mother's life, mother's values and had lived them with David! I could have David for my husband. He wanted to be what he was. He had been reared for it ... emasculated for it. . . and was content.
I wasn't! I didn't want to be trapped in a life I hated with a man I hated and despised for not being a man. I didn't want to seek continual revenge on my man because he couldn't command my respect. I didn't want to dominate him ... mother him ... manage him! I didn't want that kind of hell because I knew the only escape was self-contempt and self-destruction ... the liquor scene ... the tranquilizer, sleeping pills, energizer drug scene ... the eventual divorce ... the hell of emptiness ... loneliness...
If I stayed with mother I would end like her.
It was so clear to me! So obvious!
I walked back to my room. David hadn't begun to get dressed. Awaiting orders. I no longer wished to even talk to him. He was such a painful thing to know ... now. I finally said, "Get dressed. Leave me alone."
"Sure." He was quiet, too. He knew something had changed but he couldn't face it consciously. Maybe he never would.
It was past one A. M.
When he had gone I put on a robe and went down the hall to mother's room. Light showed under her door. I knocked. She said, "Come in, dear."
She was sitting up in bed, leaning against two pillows. She was reading newspapers. She accumulated them for a week or more at the time, then "caught up." There was a tall glass on the bedside table with the dregs of a drink in it.
She waited for me to say something. She was smiling faintly, serene, confident. I knew I was going to shatter her again, crumble her, perhaps destroy her. The slimy feeling in the pit of my stomach returned.
"Mother ... it didn't work."
"What didn't work? What do you mean, dear?" The paper rustled as she put it aside.
"David and me. I don't want him ... as a husband, as a lover ... as anything! I don't want this house or one like it. I don't want this life!" I was standing near the bed, arms akimbo, feet planted, head down, defensive, determined to resist her pleas, her tears, her hysteria.
"Juli, I don't understand "
"Oh, you do, too! You invited him in tonight so ... You did everything but turn down the bed and play soft music-to-fuck-by!"
Her eyes and nostrils flared. "Juli, I won't listen to talk like that! I don't know what you're talking about, and I'm sure I don't want you to explain. You've never used words like that with me before, and I don't want to hear anything
"Oh, shit, mother! SHIT! Don't be such a hypocrite! Who do you think you're fooling? Not me! Not dad! Only yourself, I guess. Can't you face anything? Do you have to pretend and fake and lie and "
"STOP IT! You're talking crazy." Her hands knew, though. They were alive again, twisting and torturing the bedding at her waist.
"I suppose I am. I couldn't make you see what I mean in a million years. You're locked in so tight ... I only came in to tell you I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going back to the tribe. I can't stand this "
She paled as if the blood had been drained from her body in an instant! "No, Juli! Oh, God, no!"
She aged before my eyes. Her eyes went empty and her face changed subtly, somehow, and she was old. "I have to! I have to save myself."
"But what about me?" She had such a stricken look! "I'm sorry! I-"
"I can't live alone! Juli, alone! The terrible empty nights ... "
I looked at her searchingly in that instant! There was a falseness ... an insincerity ... that rang like a cracked bell in her tone and minute behavior. Yes, she was anxious and neurotic and wanted desperately to keep me. But she was putting me on, gliding the lily, overacting! Now she was beginning to sob into her hands.
"Mother, you're an awful ham!" I turned away.
"Juli!"
"I'm sorry, I'm leaving tomorrow. If you want company, invite David over. He'll do anything you want." I closed the door quietly as I left the room and as she wailed, "Juli ... Juli ... "
I returned to my bedroom, slipped out of my robe and climbed into bed. It smelled faintly of sweat and sex.
I couldn't sleep, though. I was on edge, half expecting her to come in and plead and sob ... . I clutched my resolve tight to me and reviewed everything bad about the life in middle-class up-tight San Marino ... and yearned for Owl, the tribe, the tribe life.
I heard mother, still crying, moaning, for my benefit I told myself, go into the bathroom. I saw light seep in under my door from the open bathroom doorway. I heard her gasp. There was a crash as something fell and smashed, then heavy flesh-thud and the house quivered slightly. She had fallen!
I scrambled out of bed and dashed into the bathroom. She had slashed her wrists!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dad rubbed his eyes as I entered the kitchen. "How is she?" He stirred his coffee idly. He really didn't care.
She'll be asleep in a few minutes. I gave her two of the strong ones." I put the two plastic medicine containers of sleeping capsules on the counter and sat on the stool beside him. I glanced at the gold-cased Acutron on his right wrist. Four-ten in the morning. We had just gotten back from the emergency hospital. "I don't think she should have control of these."
He nodded. He yawned. "You keep them. I never thought she'd do anything like that."
"I guess she was desperate."
"You shouldn't have told her you were leaving so soon."
"What should I have done-just disappeared."
"You promised us two weeks."
"It would have happened then instead of now. She'll do anything to keep me, and you."
He grunted. His gray hair was awry. He wore pajamas under his pants and jacket. No socks, just tan suede loafers. "Think she'll try it again?"
"Yes, if she thinks it'll gain her something."
"I think she's going insane." He stared at the stove. "She has to have someone here with her."
"You can hire a nurse-"
"Juli-"
" or a live-in housekeeper-companion."
" she's your mother!"
"She's your wife."
"I have a business to run!"
"Not at night."
"We'd only fight if I stayed around here! It would only make things worse."
I had the closed-in feeling again, the sensation of being pushed into a cage. He was trying to chain me to her! "Dad, I can't stay!"
"Why not? What is so terrible about living here? This is a nice house! Good food! Color television!"
"What about college? You and mother wanted me to go back."
"Oh, yes ... well, I'm afraid that'll have to wait. Maybe by January things'll have straightened out ... "
"You want me to be a slave to her, and you! You have your freedom from her but I'm to be stuck here! That's not fair!"
"Life isn't always fair, honey. You have to take the bad with the good. There are responsibilities "
"You really quote the cliches when you want to get your way, don't you?" I was scornful.
"I'm sorry, Juli. I know how you feel, but "
"But I'm stuck." I slid off the stool and wandered around the kitchen. The prison. "Dad, she didn't intend to bleed to death! It was an act! Just to set up what's happening now! Just to tie me to her, and you, too, if possible."
"She did cut her wrists."
"But not badly. Not enough to really bleed. It was just a maneuver!"
"Maybe so. But next time ... "
"This is just submitting to blackmail! I won't stay!"
"You have to! Listen, Juli, honey, I'll look around for someone, a companion for her, but it'll take a few weeks to get the right person. Surely you can stay that long! It won't be so bad. David'll be over a lot to keep you company. I'll visit. Your mother isn't so bad if you handle her right. And, listen, I'll get you a new stereo. And new records. How's that? Okay?"
A frantic little animal was in me, squealing, trying to get out. The animal was me! Why couldn't I just walk away?
"I've got to get some sleep. Got to open the store at nine." He sipped his coffee and then headed for the side door. His car was just outside. "Things'll work out, honey. You'll see." He yawned. He went out, shut the door, backed the wagon out, drove away. Silence.
And I hated him, too! I wanted to break something! I threw his coffee cup against the wall and gained a small satisfaction from the sound of it shattering and the spattered coffee on the pale rose wall. But I knew I'd have to pick up and clean up later in the day.
I checked on mother and saw she was sleeping.
I fell into bed and began to cry.
The next day, that same day actually, in the early afternoon, I went into mother in her room, and said, "I have to go to the store. We need milk and bread and some kind of meat for tonight."
Her bandaged wrists were a shock of white gauze and tape. "Of course, dear. Take what you need from my purse."
I took five dollars, went out to the garage, and wheeled out my Honda. It had a carrier on the back and stretch ropes to tie down a package or bag. I really enjoyed riding it.
But this time I couldn't get it to start. I kicked the pedal till my leg was exhausted. Phut-putt-putt......Phut-phut-putt-putt. ... Endlessly. I decided I'd have to use the car. I started back into the house to get the keys from mother.
I was not intentionally quiet, but I was wearing sneakers and I didn't make a lot of noise opening and closing the kitchen door, which is pretty far from her bedroom anyway, so she didn't hear me enter and didn't hear me approach her partly open door.
She was talking on the phone, so her attention was diverted there.
I heard my name mentioned. I stopped to listen.
". . . see my wrists, Mary! All bandaged."..."Well, they sting! but I didn't cut anything vital."..."No" ... But she was going to leave again! My own daughter wouldn't stay with me! I wouldn't tell anyone in the world but you, Mary. I had to do something!"..."A hippie, I think."..."He must be something in bed, is all I can say."..."I don't know where she gets it. Not from me! Probably from Robert and his side of the family. All he can think about is sex, too."..."No, I should say not! I cut him off a long time ago. I wouldn't let him touch me.
Dirty, filthy business! I wish "..."Well, let him! I don't care if he screws around but to 'fall in love' ... that's too much! I frankly can't understand why he wants a divorce! He can have as many outside affairs as he wants "..."Yes, the little bitch is the same way. You should have heard her with David last night-David Krayne, her boy friend-a big, husky boy ... just moaning and groaning in there on her bed ". . . "I'm surprised the whole neighborhood didn't hear her! It's unnatural to enjoy it that much! I never got anything out of it at all, but then, Robert never was much of a lover as far as style goes."..."Well, you know ... stick it in, puff and grunt, and that's it."..."Mary! No, never! I'm surprised you can even suggest it!"..."That isn't the way I was raised! That's awful! Ugh! Just the thought of it "..."I wouldn't be surprised if she does it. With those hippies. They've probably taught her every perversion in the book."..."No, I won't permit it! I can't!"..."Oh, I'll get him back, don't you worry. He'll find out how expensive it is. Then when he talks to my lawyer! I'd like to see his face! I'll take the house ". . . "I'll win, Mary. I have to. I will! I couldn't go on living in this city if he goes ahead with it and she leaves. I couldn't face anybody!"..."How would you feel if your family moved out on you? They're shouting to the world that I'm impossible to live with, a failure as a wife and mother-"..."Well, if it was only one of them. But both!"..."I'd just have to move. But I could still get another man. I'd just have to take off a few pounds and buy a few new dresses. I'm only forty-one, you know. I've still got a figure..."..."That would be his tough luck, wouldn't it? Once I had him "..."Every woman fakes that! I never once got any pleasure from it!"..."I don't want to talk about it, Mary."..."I simply don't believe you!"..."Well, I suppose Juli is going to be a prostitute! She'll end up a little two-bit whore. All this enjoyment of sex!"..."She's nothing but a selfish, ungrateful, whiny, sniveling little sex-crazy bitch"..."Yes, good riddance, but not till later! Not till I've got Robert back. Then, oh, I'll make him pay! I've got plans for him!"..."No, I told you before, he can't afford to divorce me! He's too far in debt!"..."I don't think so at all! Didn't you tell me last week you were having the same trouble with Sam?"..."Well, in that case you should put on a little act. Listen, kid, when Robert...."
I floated away from her door. I was shaking but free! I went into the kitchen and left the five dollars on the drain-board. I wrote a short note on a scratch pad: "Dear mother:
I just heard what you had to say about me on the phone. Thank you. I hope you get dad back. You deserve one another.
Juli."
Then I went out to my Honda and tried starting it again. It still wouldn't start! Until I noticed the gas valve was still "off". I just stared at it. Forgetting to switch it on had saved my life!
The Honda started immediately once the carburetor was full. I zoomed down the driveway to the street and joyously started the long trip to Venice.
Then I settled down to calm, safe driving. I didn't want to ruin everything by hitting a car or getting hit and ending up dead or crippled or in a hospital for months!
I took my time. I had all the time in the world.
The ride took nearly two hours.
The warm-cool ocean breeze felt wonderful to me as I headed down Brooks Avenue from Lincoln Boulevard, down the last few blocks to the tribe house. I pictured Owl's joy at seeing me, and the others' smiles ... I perked inside and laughed aloud and beeped my horn at everyone. I could hardly contain my happiness!
I ran the Honda up the tribe house driveway and parked it behind the psychedelic microbus. I heard the familiar music inside the house. The door was open.
"Hey, everybody!" I ran up the porch steps and went inside. Cheryl was sitting cross-legged on the floor by the stereo, sewing a white and red dress. She smiled in genuine pleasure. "Lark!" She stood up and put aside her things.
"Hi. I'm back. Where is everybody?" We kissed. I hugged her, and she hugged me. There was no reluctance.
"Zeke and Paul and Robin are over on the beach."
"Where's Owl!"
"He's upstairs with Sparrow. They're--"
I started toward the stairway in the dining room.
"Lark! They're making love, I think."
I stopped dead and looked back at Cheryl with wide, stunned eyes. "But I've only been gone. ... " I ran up the stairs and stopped before the closed door of his room ... our room! I wasn't thinking. I heard the squeak of the bed ... and moans.....
I went icy cold. My throat was tight. My heart was shaking my body. An all-gone feeling was in my belly.
I flung the door open.
Sparrow's chunky, brown, naked body was astraddle of Owl's whiteness. Her big breasts jiggled and swayed and bobbed as she moved up and down on him. His hands were spread wide on her hips, pressing into the buttery layer of fat. Her white teeth showed in a grin of pleasure. Her eyes were closed. She rose up and I saw the long, hard, glistening length of his white penis emerge from her dark loins. Then she drove down and plunged it all into her, drove him down into the mattress with her weight and lust, quickly, up again, down! And moaning.....
It took them a few seconds to realize I was there, watching. Sparrow's grin changed to a smile. "Lark." And Owl smiled, too, and started to speak.
But I said sarcastically, viciously, "Excuse me!" turned and scrambled down the stairs. I was sobbing. I didn't think of myself and David the night before. I hadn't been "faithful" either!
I rushed passed Cheryl and ran outside.
I didn't know where I was going. I was in a turmoil, mind-blown, freaked out, behaving like a stupid fool. I was over-reacting-unknowingly using up self-rage by directing it outward.
After a minute I found myself running across Pacific toward the beach. I wanted to appeal to Zeke, to get sympathy, half-consciously to get him to keep Sparrow away from my man.....
I ran out onto the sand and saw the tribe's banners and flags flying far out near the surf. They were sitting in a circle. I took off my sneakers and walked swiftly.
I waved and called as I approached. Some of my happiness and joy returned. And some of my common sense!
The tribe waved and called my name as I approached. They smiled and laughed.
I ran the last fifty yards and collapsed on my knees between Zeke and Rill. I was crying again, but for a different reason; this time with relief and a sense of homecoming. I kissed Zeke wetly, and Rill, and then Robin opened her arms to me and I hugged and kissed her, and Paul, too, embraced me and patted my back and kissed me.
Zeke said, "Welcome back."
"Did you get my letter?"
"Yes. We understood your position."
"I shouldn't have gone away. It was so awful ... so bad ... just a terrible scene." I sniffled and wiped my eyes. "And I got infected with all that square up-tightness again ... and ... just made a stupid fool of myself in front of Owl and Sparrow and Cheryl."
Rill took me in her arms. The soft fullness of her breasts under her sweatshirt felt good and reassuring to me. "What happened?"
I hesitated.
Zeke said, "Tell us. Clear it out. It's catharsis."
Robin reached over and gripped my hand.
"I acted like Owl was mine ... you know, possessive ... like a typical..." I couldn't look at anyone. "I opened a closed door and saw them making it and got jealous...."
Zeke nodded. "It takes a long time to shed that square skin, doesn't it? You're learning."
Robin said, "You were only saying the tribe words before. Only pretending to yourself."
"I guess so. I was so happy to be back. I had a vision of him waiting for me to come back, not making love with anyone ... "
Zeke said, "In the tribe we are all married to each other."
"I'm ... I'm still in the tribe, aren't I?"
He smiled and stroked my long hair. "Of course. We welcome you. We missed you."
Paul asked, "What happened to you at home?"
I sighed. I sat up and said, "Well, it's quite a story...." I started with a recounting of the conversation with my mother in her car when I met her in Santa Monica.
Ten minutes later I saw Sparrow and Owl coming across the sand toward us. I got up and went to meet them.
I stopped before and said, "I'm sorry. I wasn't tribe for a minute, in the house. I violated privacy and acted like a fool. Forgive me?" There were tears in my eyes.
Sparrow came forward and kissed me. " Ain' nobody perfect yet, Lark. I glad you back."
Owl stepped in and took me. I melted in his arms. He whispered, "That old square bag is tough, sometimes, isn't it?"
"Umhmm, but I'm out of it now, for good!" We kissed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
That night, when Owl and I were alone in our room, as he was mixing a thinned shellac, I asked, "Did you and Sparrow finish ... after I broke in here like I did?"
"No." He added something to his mixture and stirred.
"I'm sorry." I was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing only panties and an open shirt. It was a very warm night for Venice in September, and all the day's heat in the house seemed to have collected in our upstairs room, in spite of the open window. There wasn't any breeze.
I looked at my watch. Nearly twelve-thirty. I signed, happily and sadly. A half hour before, we had made beautiful love together. Nothing had changed. I could tell he still loved me with a special quality of affection and care, as I did him, that we reserved for each other. Yet ... I was unhappy because of my stupid actions when I arrived earlier in the day. It bugged me! It made me cringe inside when I thought of how I had acted, and I couldn't help thinking about it!
There was a change in the voice-stereo music pattern under us. I recognized Sparrow's voice as she spoke to Zeke and Paul. She had just got back from work.
I said to Owl, "I wish I could make it up to you ... you and her."
Owl smiled. "I don't know how. It isn't that important." He took up a brush and began applying a coat of shellac to the surface of a painting.
"It is to me." I frowned. I remembered Robin saying there weren't enough men in the tribe ... with Blackbird gone ... with me monopolizing Owl. ... Then I knew a way to wipe away my goof. I said, "Would you like me to invite her up now?"
Owl looked up. "A trio?"
I nodded. "You said you've been in trios before ... with her and Robin ... and with Zeke and Rill...."
"Yeah, but you shouldn't do this just because "
"I'm not! I mean, I am ... but I want to, and I want to be closer to Sparrow and to know her better, and to give her something of myself ... and simply ... I think I'd dig having sex-fun with her and you and me."
Owl cocked his head and peered at me through ever-dirty glasses. He smiled. "Okay, go down and see if she's interested. She might be too beat from her job, though."
I went downstairs and didn't give a thought to my semi-nakedness. There were three hippies sacked out on air mattresses on the floor. Sparrow was sprawled on a sofa next to Rill. She looked neat and professional in her white uniform, white shoes and stockings. Her brown skin contrasted richly with the white.
The stereo was blasting a Simon and Garfunkel song. Zeke and Paul were discussing the weird case of a popular college professor in a small up-tight state college who had been fired for using the word "whore" in a philosophy class. Rill listened and stroked her breasts under her sweatshirt.
I crossed the room and knelt beside the arm of the sofa next to Sparrow. My nipples grazed the old maroon frieze upholstery and sprang to life. A tiny set of shivers went through me. "Hey, Sparrow, would you like to come upstairs and make love with Owl and me? If you're not too tired?"
She smiled. "Hooeee. Thass the best offer I've had in weeks. I ain' never too tired for that." She stretched and arched her back. "Umm ... mm! Got to have me a bath first, though. Those old ladies kept me runnin' tonight with them bedpans." She smelled her hands. "That las' one ... " She shook her head. "Old lady messed all over everything. Took two of us to clean her and that bed!" She leaned close. "You doin' this 'cause of today?"
I nodded. "Partly."
Sparrow understood. "I ain' gone keep you from easin' your mind, Lark. I'll help you. It good for you, an' good for me ... and tirin' for Owl." She laughed. "I'll be up in a couple sees. Got to check on my baby." She reached down and squeezed my left breast briefly before getting wearily to her feet and going down the hall to her room.
Rill had heard our conversation. She nodded at me and said, "Good."
I went up to our room and told Owl Sparrow would be up soon. He capped the jar of shellac and dunked his brush in a coffee can of paint remover. He jumped on the bed. I thought it was going to collapse. He said, "You know ... I've decided to stop dropping acid."
Was I glad to hear that! But I played it cool. I asked, simply, "Why?"
He brushed my shirt aside and lapped like a dog at my left breast. Between tongue lappings he said, "Bad ... trips. Not ... worth it." He lifted his head. "I haven't tripped since you left. Acid doesn't seem to help my painting any more. Anyway, I'm staying on the ground from now on ... except for some pot once in a while."
"Good." I reached down, unsnapped his stained, cut-off levis and ran the zipper down. His half-hard penis flopped out into my hand. "Umm ... five inches."
"Want to try for eight?" He lowered his mouth to my nipple.
"Sure." I pumped him slowly. I liked to feel it grow long and hot. It lengthened and firmed in my grasp. An itchy need came alive inside me. I had two orgasms already, earlier, but I wanted more. I twisted around-pulled my breasts from his hands and mouth-and plunged the top three inches of his penis into my mouth. I worked my tongue. He worked with his hips.
The door of our room was partly open. Cheryl could have looked in if she had been in the hall ... . I didn't care.
We heard someone come up. It was Sparrow. She came and grinned. "You startin' without me?" She closed the door. She wore a rich, cream-colored minidress of snug jersey. It hugged her big, loose breasts, showed her thick nipples, and hung just below her hips. As she crossed the room I could almost see her pussy. I was positive she didn't have panties on. I said, "Not really. That's a lovely dress. Did Cheryl make it?"
"Uh-huh. Jes' give it to me two days ago. She good to people. She 'n Paul are tribe already." She looked down at her dress and smoothed it against her belly. "This a good color for me." She smiled and pulled it up and off. She was naked.
Owl said, "We should give them tribe names."
I made room for Sparrow on the bed. "That's Zeke's job. Maybe they don't wish tribe names. Is it a rule?"
Owl shrugged. He put a hand on Sparrow's mound as she got comfortable between us. "Let's see how fast we can get her off." He put his glasses on the table.
"Okay." The idea appealed to me. I started playing with both her breasts. She smelled clean and soapy. Her big, purplish nipples yeasted out and hardened into wrinkled, indented knobs. I saw Owl press his middle finger down between the reddish brown lips of her pussy. Her kinky black pubic hair was thick under his hand. I asked her, "What do you like best?"
"I like it all." She drooped her eyelids and watched our hands on her solid brown body.
I started suckling hard on her right nipple. Her smile widened. She breathed, "Ooo ... baby Lark. ... " Then Owl slid his finger deeper and must have found her clitoris. She gave a small jerk of her hips and a small breathy, "Ah ... thass the magic place. ... "
I concentrated on sucking her nipples. I caught a glimpse a moment later of Owl's hand. He had a lot of fingers in her, pushing them deep, sliding them high over her clitoris ... because she was beginning to vibrate, like a motor was running inside her. Her mouth was open and the smile was gone. She was breathing loudly. And after another minute she whispered unevenly, "I want more 'n fingers, baby. Gimme that joint." Her thighs opened very wide, and her knees came up.
I watched as Owl moved around between and pushed her thick, round thighs higher. He said to me, "Hold them." I knew what he wanted. I helped him push her knees back until she was doubled up, until her knees were against her shoulders, framing her face. And Sparrow said, "Oh, yeah ... yeah..." She was ready, slick and wet around the lips of her pussy, in position, open, and her right hand was reaching blindly for him, to guide his long, white, hard penis into her body.
He moved close and pushed away her hand. He let the tip of his penis nuzzle her. She said, "Don' fool 'round. ... You s'posed t' see how fas' you kin make me come!"
"I almost forgot." He poised over her and let the head of it sink into her. He gripped her heavy buttocks, looked at me, grinned like a little boy, tossed his head to flip his blonde hair from his eyes, and jerked his hips forward and down. His penis was driven into Sparrow to the hilt-wham-and she quivered and groaned ... I'll never forget the way she groaned.
He stayed that way for a few seconds, buried in her, looking at his body tight to her there. Sparrow's eyes had flared when he slammed in, then closed. Her quavering groan was still hanging in the air when he pulled out almost all the way, then plunged again. She grunted with pleasure. He withdrew ... plunged ... plunged, faster and faster, long, deep strokes, hard strokes into the most private, sacred part of her interior.
I saw her belly spasm when he reached bottom. Then I started kissing her on the mouth and couldn't watch her reactions closely. I stopped long enough to say to Owl, over her pleasure-moans, "Don't you go off; I want that, too."
"Don't worry." He seemed to plunge faster. The bed squeaked like crazy.
Sparrow was gasping, holding her knees tight to her shoulders, and she panted, "Oooo ... goin' ... goin' ... goin'. . . GOIN'! "
Her face was glorious during her orgasm. Exalted. like she was seeing God. She wasn't seeing me or Owl or the room. And her body-her arm muscles stood out as she gripped her thighs, and her throat muscles and tendons were like cables, and her belly hollowed and rippled, and her whole body shook.....
I was happy for her. I wished I could have done something to make it even better for her.
Her voice took on a hoarse intensity, with a small whine at the end of each word-groan, and she begged half-consciously, "Don' stop ... don' stop. ... " while her pleasure sharpened and knifed along her nerves.
Owl didn't stop. His eyes were closed, he was breathing hard with exertion, and I could see he was enjoying it, and was close, too, in spite of good intentions. His long white penis was swallowed, emerged glistening with her juices, was swallowed...
Then Sparrow's hands gradually loosened on her thighs and her legs got in the way. She whined, "Thass ... 'nough ..,. " and pushed at him feebly.
Owl withdrew and sat back on his heels.
Sparrow breathed, "Hooooeeee..." The smile slowly returned to her face.
I had eyes only for Owl's penis. It stood up from his loins, throbbing, so incredibly long! And I had been turned on watching him and Sparrow. Now I wanted it!
I still had my panties and open shirt on. I quickly shucked them off. I touched his wet penis and said, "Lay back, darling."
Sparrow said, "Les see how fas' we kin git her off, Owl."
He nodded. He was flat on his back, helping me over onto him. Sparrow reached in and held his penis in position as I lowered myself. I was a little bit self-conscious about doing it with someone else present, but not much. Sparrow was more than a friend now. I was no longer seeing her skin as brown, or thinking of her as Negro. She had merged into the gestalt of Tribe. I was thinking tribe.
I didn't close my eyes to close them out. I wasn't embarrassed to see them watching as I took inch after wonderful inch of his penis. I sank down on it with a long sigh, a long inner joy as the length of him penetrated up ... up ... touched at last the deepest part ... the weird shivery inner mouth.
I sat tight upon him and had him buried in me. Funny little convulsions radiated from my insides at that maximum pressure at my womb. "Oh ... wow...."
Then Sparrow straddled Owl's legs behind me and reached around with both hands to fondle my breasts ... and rub her own breasts into my back. It was a wild situation and I dug it. Seeing her brown hands on my flesh. Feeling her warmth pressed against me. Feeling Owl's hot penis so incredibly far in my belly.
I said, "I wish I had x-ray eyes. I'd like to see what I feel!"
Owl grinned. "Something's alive in there."
I leaned forward and was able to press him a little deeper. I could feel my uterus dilate! The narrow head of his long penis penetrated to acutely sensitive tissue. I gasped and lifted a fraction.
Sparrow continued fondling my breasts. Her fingers tweaked my hardened nipples. She said, "Go ahead ... start slidin' up an' down that pole."
I did. It felt wonderful. Sparrow's hands stayed with my body, then her right hand slid down between my open thighs, to my mound, and her middle finger, as I continued to rise and fall on Owl's lovely eight inches, slipped between the opened lips and found my distended clitoris.
I moaned at the first electrifying contact. "Ummmmm ... oh ... what a combination..." I was climbing to a peak of sensation almost immediately. Her finger rotated in tiny slippery circles on that erotically sensitive little button. I moved faster and faster on Owl. I was panting, open-mouthed, watching with head down as her finger worked on me, as the rigid column of his penis filled me again and again. My long hair had fallen forward to form a curtain that brushed his chest.
The pleasure surged fantastically and burst through me like an exploding fireworks rocket! I went crazy for a glorious moment ... then was drained of energy and stopped.
I was surprised that Owl hadn't gone off with me. He was still big in me. I slipped off him and said to Sparrow, "Look at that swollen thing! You want to try to make it go down?"
"Sure!" She grinned. "Won't take long, either." She took it in her hands, lowered her head and clamped her thick lips around the glans. Her mouth and tongue began to work in a swift, up and down sucking activity.
I watched with interest. I had seen Rill satisfy Zeke this way, but Sparrow doing it with Owl was different and fascinating. She played with his testicles as she sucked, and then pointed to me and then to his head.
I smiled and began kissing him on the mouth ... deep tongue kisses. In a very short time he clutched at me, made sounds, went glazed in the eyes, went rigid, tore his mouth free, groaned, "AHHH ... GODDD..." His head lifted from the bed, then his upper body, and he stared fixedly at his penis as Sparrow increased the speed of her head movements and plunged more than half of him into her mouth each time.
His hips thrust upward. His agonized breath rasped in his throat ... I could see Sparrow's throat working as she swallowed his jetting sperm. I wondered if she liked the taste, hated it....
Then Owl hissed, "That's enough!" and melted into the bed. He sighed deeply and brushed hair from his eyes.
Sparrow lifted her head. His shrinking penis slipped from her lips. She grinned. "Thass the bes' medicine I know for a big, swollen thing like that."
I had to giggle. "You sure cured it quick."
Owl said, "Stick around. It's a recurring ailment."
I said, "Next time it needs it I'll give the cure.
Sparrow yawned. "Now I'm gettin' the tireds. Gotta go down an' check on Tommy anyway." She stroked my left breast. "Thanks for inviting me up. We do it again sometime?"
I kissed her on the mouth. "Yes."
She patted Owl's new small penis. "Poor thing needs vitamins." She got off the bed, picked up her dress and padded to the door. "Later." And as we answered, "Later," she went out and closed the door behind her.
I settled down beside Owl. "She's a wonderful girl."
"A fine chick."
I kissed his chest. "You're a fine rooster." He smiled. "Hey ... you back for good now."
"Of course. I wouldn't leave here again for anything."
"No matter what."
"I swear! By Zeke!"
"Okay..." He rolled on his side toward me and kissed me. "Would you be my tribe wife."
"Of course! I thought I was."
"No, you're still only a provisional member. You still don't have your ankh. What I mean by tribe wife is getting married in the tribe. I was talking to Zeke about it and he thinks there ought to be a tribal ceremony, with everybody taking part. It's all new."
I was filling up with happiness and pride and tears. "Oh, darling!" I hugged him. "I'll marry you any way you want!" I kissed him fervently. "Can I tell everyone? Can I announce it?" I was sniffling, weeping a little. He grinned. "Sure."
I hopped out of bed and ran naked through the house, breathlessly telling Cheryl as she sat sewing Zeke and Rill and Paul who were still downstairs talking and Robin in her room (She hugged me and kissed me) and Sparrow as she changed Tommy's diaper. I even told the crashers on the floor when I stumbled over them in my happiness and haste. They grinned and wished me love.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
It was late Sunday afternoon a few days later. It was my wedding day. We were all gathered in the living room. Sparrow had the evening off.
I was exhilarated. Everyone in the tribe, including Paul and Cheryl, had spent two hours walking and dancing through Venice, singing to Zeke's and my playing on guitars, giving out cookies Rill and I had made, handing out oranges and apples to children and some astonished up-tight adults, laughing, waving and calling "Love ... "
"Peace ... " to everyone.
Now Zeke arranged everyone in a circle on the floor. The stereo was off. There was a sign on the front door in Owl's wild script saying: "Tribe Ritual Later, please Thank You."
Zeke stood up. He wore his button-festooned vest. He said, "Owl and Lark are to be joined here as man and wife within our tribe. That is good. But there can be no joining until something is done." He looked directly at me. "Lark, rise."
I got to my feet from my position between Owl and Sparrow.
"Come forward."
I moved into the circle and stood before him. I was trembling. It was quiet in the house. Everyone wore their best tribe clothes. Everyone wore their ankhs.
"Lark, you joined us a few weeks ago on a provisional basis. On a trial basis. You have lived as a tribe woman, you have learned our ways and accepted our spirit. It is good." He was very solemn.
My heart was thumping fast in my chest. I met his kind gaze. I swallowed.
"We of the tribe have met in secret council and have voted on your becoming one of us." He looked down to Robin who sat to his left.
Robin unwrapped a piece of green velvet in her lap and revealed a silvery ankh on a silvery chain. She handed it up to Zeke. She was smiling.
Zeke said, "Juli who-is-now-Lark, we welcome you and accept you." He slowly placed the ankh and chain over my head and arranged it around my neck.
I was really trembling then, and tears of happiness puddled in my eyes. The ankh was actually silver, and heavy as it nestled between my breasts. I was wearing my painted sweater and an off-white miniskirt.
I threw myself forward and kissed Zeke. "Thank you!" Then I went to my knees and kissed Robin. Then Rill, Sparrow, and Paul and Cheryl. Lastly I kissed Owl, and didn't want to stop kissing him. I took my place and was very conscious of the ankh on my chest, and very proud.
Zeke said, "Now "
The loud chunk of a car door sounded out front. We all glanced out through the window.
I wailed, "Oh, no..." It was David! He clumped up onto the porch, studied the sign asking for privacy, and knocked loudly on the door. He looked in the window and saw us sitting on the floor. He saw me. "Hey, Juli! JULI!"
I wanted him to die! I wanted to wipe him out! I couldn't look at anyone. "I'm sorry. I didn't know he was coming. I don't "
Zeke said, "It's not your fault. They rarely let go easily. Come, Lark. We must talk with him."
I followed Zeke to the door. The others stayed in the circle. Zeke opened the door and moved so that David could not come in. I followed Zeke out onto the porch.
"Juli, your mother tried to poison herself last night! The doctors had to pump her stomach. It was touch and go for a while."
My stomach clenched tight. My ankh burned with weight and power against my breasts. I sought and clutched Zeke's hand. I said, as evenly and calmly as I could, "Thank you for coming all this way to tell me."
David frowned. "You'd better come back with me."
"No."
"What? Aw, come on, Juli! What kind of a girl are you?" He glanced hostilely at Zeke. "What have these freaks been doing to you?"
I said, "Calling us names won't do you any good, David, because I'm not going back to you and mother and dad and that house. I'm through with all of it, and all of you."
He stared at me. A flush of anger crept up his neck. "You've really gone all the way with this hippie shit, haven't you?"
"It isn't " I wanted to hit him! He was so ... stupid!
He pulled his head down and glared. "Have they been feeding you drugs?" He fastened his glare on Zeke. "Is she hooked on something? On marijuana or LSD or something?"
Zeke said calmly, "She prefers our way to yours."
"You've got to be kidding! She's on dope! I can tell just by looking at her! I'm taking her back to her folks!" He made a grab for my arm.
I pulled away. "DAVID I'm not smoking or swallowing or injecting anything! I'm not going with you! And if you try to force me I'll have you arrested for assault and kidnapping! I MEAN IT!"
He believed me. And he didn't have the guts to go through with it anyway. Not David. He said, "But ... for God's sake ... your mother ... next time she might not be found in time!"
"Oh, David, she's faking all this! She'll never make a serious attempt of suicide. She's just using you to try to get me back. How did you know where to find me? She told you, didn't she?"
"Well ... yeah ... she called the Venice cops here and found out where you had been picked up before. She couldn't come herself! So I said I'd try to make you see ... Christ on a crutch, Juli, don't you have any sense of responsibility at all?"
"Yes, very much. But only to those I love and respect. This is my home now, and Zeke here is my father. The tribe is my family." I said it firmly and with certainty.
He was really shocked. He stared and blinked and stared. "You've changed. God, you've turned into some kind of a
. . . " His face hardened, cooled. "If that's the way it is ... okay ... good riddance!" He showed contempt and loathing in his eyes. He turned and clumped away, off the porch, down the walk to his red Mustang.
Zeke put his arm around me and we went back inside. He locked the door and told Owl and Paul to hang blankets over the windows. There would be no more interruptions. He asked Rill to light candles because of the gloom, and asked Sparrow to start incense burning.
When the blankets were in place, the candles flickering and the aroma of bamboo incense tinged the air, Zeke put a sitar record on the stereo at low volume for background.
He stood again at the head of our circle. "Owl and Lark, sit before me."
We moved forward into the circle. We sat side by side.
"This marriage ritual is a first for our tribe. We are creating it now, as it happens. If it happens again it may not be the same, or we may make small changes. It doesn't matter. We do not want to be bound by rules and laws, only by love and our determination to be free and creative and happy.
"We are called 'hippies.' One name is as good as another. The square world ... the news media ... the Establishment ... all like to label things and people and social movements. Let them. That's their problem; it permits them to lump individuals into categories and to lie to each other about us, and about themselves. Their 'reality' is as unreal and evasive of the truth as any they accuse us of holding.
"They fear us. Why? They fear our philosopy. They are largely the middle class. They say: 'What if everyone "dropped out"? ' What if, in other words, everyone refused to believe their self-lies and social lies the lies that keep them going day after day and year after dreary, unloved, sterile year? They know ... they know ... their world, their system, their lies are unable to stand examination. Deep down they know their values are sick and inhumane. But they haven't the courage to change. So in their fear and envy and cowardice, they attack us and mock us and vilify us. But in doing so they only reveal themselves and their emptiness. They are trapped and they know it and they cannot endure us who are free.
"We are hippies. We only ask to be let alone to live as we wish to live. We have found an alternative. We only ask tolerance.
"But they cannot endure our non-conformity. They fear it because they are attracted to our strength, and our strength reveals their inner weakness. They are anxious and afraid and so become angry and aggressive. They want to impose Order and Authority and Laws. Their lies need force. Their lies require guns and police and courts and prisons to continue to exist. Without force ... could their systems exist? No. But our way can exist with love, with sharing and with freedom.
"A hippie is a visible slap in the face to them, a walking, living, breathing reproach, and the hippie philosophy is a constant reminder of their failings and vulnerability, a constant temptation maddening! and a way of life their children are choosing to follow in large numbers.
"They old way is dying. We are the future."
Zeke paused. He had said it all.
He continued, "Lark of our tribe, and Owl of our tribe are joining within us. They are becoming ritually closer, a unit within us which makes us stronger. I speak for our tribe only. Strength and cohesion in our tribe helps all tribes, and helps the hippie movement in the world.
"Owl and Lark, I wed you. You are now two who are one within the tribe, but you must not live within the tribe as two people in a shell, for yourselves. You must face outward to us as you link together, and you must link with us as you face inward to each other."
There was a pause. Nothing had been planned. Owl turned and we kissed.
Robin said, "I want you to have these." She handed Owl and me each a beautiful silver ring, intricately worked with silver thread and fine wire. I was awe-struck. "Ohh, Robin ... " I kissed her. Tears were running down my cheeks.
Owl kissed her, too, then he said to the tribe, "Lark and I are married now, but this ceremony did more than that. It married us to the tribe."
I nodded. "And it married all in the tribe to us." I kissed Zeke, then moved to Rill and kissed her, then Sparrow, Paul and Cheryl.
Owl did the same. There was no hesitation about kissing Zeke and Paul on the lips.
Paul said, "Zeke, Cheryl and I want the tribe to know we think this is a fine ritual and we want to be part of the tribe, too. Not just friends who live here."
Cheryl nodded. She sat with her hands in her lap. "We want you to give us tribe names."
I said, "Yes, do, Zeke." Others nodded and agreed.
Zeke smiled. "Then, Cheryl, you are now Dove. And Paul, you are now Oriole."
Everyone was pleased.
Robin said. "Now we should celebrate."
On impulse I said, "Yes, let's eat and then let's all make love together." It was out of my mouth before I knew it and the words hung in the air in a silence as the others thought about it.
And then Rill smiled and said simply, with acceptance, "Yes."
And Robin said, "Yes, that's the way it should be." Owl squeezed my hands in approval. Cheryl ... now Dove ... without looking at Paul-Oriole, said, "Yes, I want to be part of it." Oriole nodded.
Sparrow grinned, "Umm-hmm!"
Zeke said, "Yes. Lark has spoken for all of us. Tribe joining in love ... in group love, in giving and receiving pleasure and joy in a symbolic and an actual merging of bodies and minds. It is a true instinct ... a true completion for the ritual."
The candles flickered shadows on the walls, on the paintings, on our clothes and faces. The aroma of incense had grown stronger. The sitar music had subtly worked into our minds and emotions ... There was silence, but a silence of acceptance. A silence of anticipation and not of embarrassment. A silence of contemplation.
I felt complete. I thought of mother and dad and David and the way they live, and I pitied them.
Rill stood up. "Who is hungry? We will make a table of small things to eat, to make sandwiches or not. Iced tea and coffee ... "
Zeke said, "Nothing formal. We will spread mattresses on the floor here. Eat when you want, make love when you want, talk, sing, play, until morning ... until dawn."
We all went to work. The women went to the kitchen to prepare the food. The men went into the bedrooms to bring all the mattresses and a few blankets to cover them.
Twenty minutes later everything was ready. The candlelit dining room table held cheese, bread, sliced baloney, peanut butter, margarine, some peanuts in shells, pickles, oranges, apples, pears, bananas, a big jar of tea with clinkly ice cubes floating, cups, glasses, odd silverware, a bottle of wine, even a box of chocolates Sparrow had brought home from the convalescent home that a patient had given her, and a pot of hot coffee was on the stove.
The living room was almost wall to wall with joined mattresses. Covering blankets were tucked in neatly. There were pillows. Someone had even been practical and thoughtful by laying out a supply of small towels.
I liked that. It signified acceptance of sex and the bodily functions that sex involves.
Everyone began to piece food from the table, and there was laughing and smiling, but no one took off any clothes. There was a hesitation to begin.
I realized it was my duty to start. I had asked Owl earlier in the day to decorate my body with painted flowers and things, as he had once painted Robin's breasts. He had spent an hour "doing me." He had even "done" himself.
We went into the hallway and stripped. When we walked back into the dining room we caused a stir! My breasts were red and yellow flowers. The flowers' stems joined at my belly button and continued to the green "grass" of my pubic hair from which they grew. There were some bushy leaves, too, and brown root tendrils painted down my thighs. But I still wore my ankh.
Robin exclaimed, "You two are beautiful!" And Dove said, "Yes, groovy!"
Owl was something else! His chest and hips and thighs were painted with psychedelic lightning bolts, all "striking" his genitals. His penis was painted with rings of color and his scrotum was a bright yellow with purple dots.
Sparrow said in awe, giggling, "Thass jes' too much!"
I said, "I feel like we're a parade all by ourselves. A work of art ... living art."
Zeke said, smiling, "A real flower child." Oriole touched my "stem" skin below my breasts. "Are you dry?"
I took his hand in mine and said, "It's a tribe flower. It's yours to touch and know." I put his fingers on my breast.
Dove came close. "Let's be busy little bees." She lowered her head and gently, without a trace of embarrassment or self-consciousness, began to suck my right nipple, the center of that bloom. Oriole lowered his head and took my left nipple into his mouth. It felt good. I put an arm around their waists and said, "Umm, the first time I ever had a bee with a handlebar mustache!"
It cracked everybody up. Dove and Oriole fell away, laughing.
I didn't feel naked. I didn't even feel nude, which is "respectable" nakedness. I simply felt natural. Maybe it was the body-painting on me that helped, sort of lifting me out of that shame-guilt bag given me about my body and sex by society and my parents.
Sparrow said, "What we doin' dressed? We goin' have us a orgy or not?" She had on jeans and a serape. She lifted off the serape and was nude to the waist. Her big purple nipples stuck out and her large, loose brown breasts wobbled as she moved to unsnap and push down her jeans. She hooked thumbs under her panties, too, and they came down with everything else.
Rill smiled and pulled off her sweatshirt. Robin laughed and said, "Everybody!" She pulled the string tied at the top of her psychedelic mother hubbard and pushed the garment down off her shoulders. Her pert little stick-out breasts came into view.
She rolled her wheelchair into the living room to the edge of the mattresses, and pulled herself out of the chair. She laughed and sprawled and wriggled out of the single garment. She had not worn panties. She called, "Owl, help me off with my brace?"
Both Owl and I went to her. The orgy was beginning.
When her leg brace was off Robin tosses it into the seat of her wheelchair and pushed the chair toward the hallway. "I'm here for the night!"
The others joined us. Dove unzipped the back of her lovely green minidress and pulled it up and over her head. Her long white-blonde hair caught in the zipper and Zeke helped her. Oriole unbuttoned his shirt.
I said, "There's one more big surprise." I reached over and took Owl's colorful penis in my hand. I pumped it slowly. It had been about one-third big, and now it grew more. The rings of color painted on it began to widen. He had painted his glans with a harmless royal-blue vegetable dye. I rolled over and took the glans into my mouth. I used my tongue on the little triangle of super-sensitive nerve endings on its underside. His penis surged with hot blood. In seconds his penis was in full erection.
Dove was squatting, naked, beside us, watching. She began to giggle.
As his penis had filled and lengthened, the colorful rings had widened still more to reveal letters painted within them on each side. The letters spelled L-O-V-E and E-A-T M-E.
In the dim light only two candles were lit in the living room Dove leaned closer to see. I took my mouth away. "Want to try it?"
She glanced up at Oriole. "Can I?"
He had his clothes all off. He had an erection. His penis was average-length, about six inches, I guess, but thick! I had never seen one so big around. I said, "I'll trade you." I was curious.
He settled down beside us. His long brown hair was awry from pulling off his shirt. He grinned. "Go ahead. Try it."
I moved out of her way and sat beside Oriole. Owl was content. He reached for a small pile of pillows and wedged two under his head.
Robin and Sparrow and Rill and Zeke were arranged in a rough circle, watching ... and becoming involved with each other. Rill and Robin were caressing each others' breasts. Sparrow was playing with Zeke's erect penis, and Zeke was easily, quickly, working fingers into her. She was sitting cross-legged, her pussy open to his hand.
Dove reached out tentatively and touched Owl's penis. She laughed. She was definitely self-conscious at that point. I don't think they had ever been in an orgy before, or even done any experimentation in three-way love. She said, "It's so long!"
I said, "It reaches clear into my womb sometimes."
Her eyes widened. They were dark blue, almost black in the flickering candlelight.
I reached over and clasped Oriole's penis. It was like holding Owl's wrist! I couldn't get my fingers around it. I thought Dove must be deliciously tight for him.
Oriole touched my breasts. "One thing," he said, "Are all the girls taking pills?"
I nodded. "Rill gets enough for Sparrow and Robin, and I have my own prescription. Is Dove using them?"
He nodded. "We decided not to have any children until we're settled and sure of our future and our income."
"How can you ever be sure of that?"
"If the tribe can be made to work..." He watched Dove begin to lick Owl's penis. She was giggling. She said, "It tastes like spinach. Good thing I like spinach."
I asked Oriole, "Want me to do that to you."
"If you can."
I lowered my head and discovered what he meant. The head of his penis was as big as an extra-large egg. I tried, but I just couldn't open or stretch my mouth enough to get it in. I settled for licking it and sucking as much as I could. I wanted to try putting it inside me, but I wondered if I could stretch the entrance of my vagina enough to take it.
I moved up on him. "How does Dove manage it?"
She heard me. She was pumping Owl and enjoying his fingers four fingers! She said, "It took a week of trying, before we were married. We knew there was no point in getting married if we couldn't make it, even if we loved each other. It hurt me a lot but I got it in. Then I got used to it and stretched, I .guess. I don't think you could do it. Not if you're used to Owl."
I said, "You try Owl and I'll try this!"
Sparrow was breathing hard as Zeke's bunched fingers sluiced in and out of her. "Hey ... you let me have that fat one if you can't do it, Lark."
I smiled, "Okay." I was aroused from seeing things going on around me. Rill and Robin were progressing to mouth kisses, deep tongue kisses.
I moved up further over Oriole. He obligingly fell back and watched. I leaned forward and dangled a flower-breast near his mouth. "I dig that mustache ... " He sucked my orange-colored nipple. I held his penis and made contact. It wouldn't enter. I let myself down on it heavily and rocked to spread my lips and work it in. I bit my lip. It was hurting a little. I felt distended, really stretched open.
I looked over at Dove. She had easily taken Owl's glans and about four inches, but wasn't going any lower. She looked at me. We laughed.
Zeke said, "Don't hurt yourselves, girls."
Sparrow was lathered. She was taking Zeke's plunging fingers to the last knuckle and beyond, to his thumb joint. Her hand was pumping him wildly. She panted to me, "Let me have it ... " Then she gasped and threw back her head. Her eyes rolled up. "Ahh ... goin'. . . goin'! " She snorted and shuddered. She fell back, legs splayed, hips jumping against the thrusts of his wet, juicy hand. Her own hand had abandoned his penis. And Zeke whispered, "Enjoy it, Sparrow ... "
A sympathetic pleasure-tremor leaped through me as I watched ... as we all watched her climax ... and my in-sides gave a little excited spasm, and my anterior vaginal muscles dilated ... and suddenly Oriole's huge glans popped into me and my weight plunged his massively thick penis into me to the hairs.
I gave a small grunt. I felt incredibly stuffed. My vagina felt like a balloon skin filled with air to the point just short of bursting. I didn't dare move. I was aching inside with stretch-hurts.
Sparrow had finished. She lay gasping. Zeke reached for a towel.
I said, "Oh ... wow ... " I looked at Dove triumphantly. She was working her hips, taking more and more of Owl's gaily painted penis, down to the red circle the "E" on the side I could see about seven inches were inside her. Her eyes were closed, her lovely, slim body arched and plunged, her pale blonde hair rippled as she moved....
I whispered to Oriole, "Put your finger on my clitoris." He nodded understanding and touched me there with his thumb. It was too awkward to use any other finger. But his thumb was marvelous! It rotated on my sensitive little button, oiled itself in my secretions, became marvelously slippery....
I sat impaled on him, and simply enjoyed that caress for a long minute, two minutes, and watched Rill open Robin's withered legs and fit her mouth tight against Robin's pussy lips. Robin wailed softly and convulsed when Rill's tongue speared her with flickering pleasure.
I watched as Sparrow crawled around to Zeke and began sucking him off. I watched as Dove gasped, quivered with almost all of Owl inside her, and suddenly began bucking on him like a wild girl, with little panting cries of agonized pleasure, with her belly flexing, and I saw that her heat and wetness was smearing the dye and paint on his penis, running it into a mess on his hair and scrotum ... and surely inside her she had a rainbow colored vagina.
Everybody was making it except me ... and Oriole. But his magic thumb was doing its job. I could feel myself loosening more, getting wetter and more slippery. The small hurts inside me were smoothed away. I lifted a bit and sank down. It felt good. Very tight, but good. I lifted higher and lowered, more, higher, lowered ... until I was to the point of losing his giant glans. Then I pressed down hard and enjoyed the feel of so much plunging up to my uterus. The fist-like head of his penis nudged me there and shivers of delight went through me and from his still moving thumb-caress of my clitoris. I was swiftly in heaven.
Oriole began squeezing and molding my breasts with his hands. He watched his wife make it on Owl's long pole. He watched Owl thrust up and bury all eight inches in her and pump his sperm into her. He saw Dove tremble and heard her say, "I did it ... I did it ... " and then she giggled and stopped moving and sighed...
I had the hot syrupy glow in me, too, that meant orgasm in a short time. The urgency was in me, the wonderful need that took over and drove my body to slam down on Oriole, to lean far over and kiss him and thrust my tongue deep into his mouth.
Then my own climax hit like an explosion of boiling honey and my insides roiled and spasmed with the sudden release of accumulated pleasure energy that sung along my nerves and inundated my mind-body.
And I took Oriole with me. His thick shaft seemed to thicken even more, as if it could only grow outward and not longer. In my own intense world of pleasure I vaguely heard him gasp and felt him tense, felt him jolt upward, and actually felt the convulsive movement in his urethra as he ejaculated.
We cleaned up and I went upstairs for a moment. I returned with my guitar. I sat in a corner and played along with the sitar music as best I could.
Dove and Oriole lay close by. There was no trace of a jealousy scene between them, no "possession" bag. like with Owl and me: we knew we were well-suited, we knew our love was deep, and we knew giving and receiving pleasure in the tribe was no danger, because the pattern, the system was different. It's like we were all part of a larger body. Is the right arm jealous of the right hand for scratching an itch on the left leg?
Owl brought me a glass of iced tea. I sipped and when the record on the stereo ended I made up a song. Not much of one. I half watched Robin sucking hard on Rill's teat-like nipples. Rill was lovely in the candlelight. She lay in complete abandonment, and her fingers were working on her long clitoris, speeding her to a panting climax.
A little while later Sparrow moved over to Oriole and played with his penis to make it big. She wanted it. Dove told her stories about her own trials and difficulties with it in the beginning. There was no hesitation or hang-ups. It was all so beautifully open and honest. Just natural conversation during an orgy. But orgy is a bad word because it has square sin images hanging on it.
A candle went out and Zeke replaced it, and the other one, too.
Owl went upstairs and brought down some pot all he had and we all smoked it and got a little high. There wasn't enough to really get us stoned. We didn't want that anyway.
Then Owl began kissing me and I stroked his penis until it was hard. He went down on me for a minute, then I squirmed around and we sixty-nined. It was a wild thing to suck on his varicolored head and shaft. The rings of color and the lettering had mushed and smeared so that the whole thing looked a little like a psychedelic barber pole.
My nipples had lost some of their coloring, too, but it was in a good cause.
In the flickering yellow darkness Sparrow was mounted by Oriole. I heard a delighted, wondering, "Hooo-eeee..." as he forced his wrist-thick penis into her.
Zeke took up my guitar and played and sang a Dylan song. He wasn't much of a singer, but it didn't matter.
I lay on my side with Owl's long penis half in my mouth and I sucked in a mindless happiness, with his tongue licking my clitoris in an endless giving of exquisite sensation to me, and I went crazy with swift, gasping climaxes, that only faded for a short time, and returned....
Rill brought Robin some food. Dove went to the bathroom. Owl took his hardness from my mouth, moved around and slipped it deep into my vagina, then thrust deeper, and oh, God, thrust deeper until I shuddered and spasmed again as he cried out and jetted in me....
Sparrow grunted with pleasures and came with a violent quivering of her belly and thighs. Dove was talking with Robin. Together they stroked Rill's breasts....
The night slipped away.
The hours melted with the candles.
I lay in Owl's arms, sleepy, drugged by contentment and my pleasure-numbed body. Zeke still chorded my guitar, with Rill pressed close. Dove and Oriole were asleep. Sparrow and Robin were taking turns with the dildo. I half listened to Sparrow whisper again, ". . . comin' ... comin'..." and thrash around. . .
As I lay half asleep I thought about myself and the tribe. It was so simple to me! Happiness was the yardstick to use to measure a life ... a way of life. I was happy in the fullest meaning of the word as Lark, wife of Owl, part of the Tribe. I was harming no one.
I knew the square world condemned me in its sickness, but it had no right to interfere. Those up-tight people of the outside ... they were the ones who were killing and burning for the sake of things, in the name of words, not us. We only ask them to leave us alone. We are happy. We can handle our small world.
I sighed and slid deeper into sleep ... in Owl's arms ... into dreamless, guiltless sleep.