Memoirs of a beatnik (4 page)

At last the ground grew drier, it leveled off, and we came to a clearing full of sunshine where a few huge boulders lay basking and sunning themselves. I climbed a rock and lay down on my back in the sun, one arm thrown over my eyes to shield them and my wet muddy shoes set beside me to dry. I could feel the warmth from the stone soak into my body, could hear the headlong rush of the stream full of melted snow, and the soft, hesitant rustles and occasional birdcalls of the woodland creatures in my self-created darkness.

Tomi came and lay at right angles to me, and put her head on my stomach. Every muscle in my body thrilled and tensed, but I

April

didn't move. I could feel my flesh grow alternately warm and cold where her breath, filtering through my nylon leotard, touched my skin.

We lay together for a long time without speaking and then-her lips lightly brushing my stomach as she did so-she turned her head so that she was facing my feet. She reached one slim, small-muscled arm down along my leg, brushing my ankle with the tips of her fingers.

"You're still wet from the stream," she murmured. She pushed my damp dungarees further up my legs and, sliding down, began to suck the droplets of water that clung to my ankles. At last I stirred, took the arm from across my eyes and, raising my head slightly, looked down at the small dark creature who could arouse such sorrow and hunger in me.

"Still wet, and muddy," I answered her.

She rose to her knees and sat back on her heels, looking at me with an agony of hunger, behind which lurked a certain lewd playfulness.

"I'll fix that in a minute," she muttered and, raising her hands to her blouse, began to unbutton it as swiftly and matter-of-factly as possible.

She slipped it off, folded it, and placed it beside her on the rock, while I took in the familiar, creamy texture of her skin: its delicate, off-white ivory color against which the pristine whiteness of her brassiere stood out starkly. A swift movement of her hands behind her back and she had slipped it off, and I studied her burnt-sienna nipples and the heaviness of her young breasts, which sagged ever so slightly in spite of her scant eighteen years.

She was still on her knees beside me, but now, with a single motion, she stood up and began to undo her slacks. She slipped them off, together with her underpants, as easily and unselfconsciously as if she was undressing alone in her own bedroom. She separated the slacks and the panties, folded the slacks and placed them neatly, her cotton panties on top. She stepped out of her loafers and, her back to me, bent to remove her heavy wool socks, so that for a brief moment I was aware of nothing but the dark crease of her ass and the red slit beyond, where a small bead of creamy moisture had already gathered.

28

April

Then she straightened and, making fists of her hands, stretched them straight above her head, throwing her face back toward the sun and standing on tiptoe as she stretched out her whole torso in an almost ritual movement. The concave place in the small of her back was matched by the concave line under her rib cage as her stomach flattened and flexed in narcissistic pleasure under the warm sun.

I studied her small figure-the wide hips and heavy breasts so lush in spite of her slimness, the warm tone of her flesh—seeking to find the combination of elements, of color and line, that bound me to her: that had done so for the two years I had known her.

She looked down at me where I lay on the rock in a welter of red hair, no longer sulking but still distant and wary.

"Still wet and muddy," she drawled mockingly, and then, kneeling again at my feet, began gently, half-teasingly, to dry my ankles with her white cotton panties. She dried them slowly, alternating left and right, first my ankles, then my insteps, then the arch of each foot; then she began to wipe the mud from the soles of my feet and to clean and dry my toes one by one, wiping the mud from between them with her underwear, finally bending and taking them into her mouth.

I lay under her ministrations, feeling her touch on the soft skin of my feet, not moving while wave after wave of desire swept over me. At last I could contain myself no longer, and I sat up and drew her to me, drinking deeply of her scents: cologne and hair, sweat and lust, all mingling in a fragrance that was Tomi, as I kissed her soft, acquiescent mouth again and again.

Her small hands slipped behind my back and under my hair and unzipped my leotard and unhooked my bra so that she could, with one motion, slip them both down over my shoulders. Still holding my mouth with her own, she drew me to my feet, undid my jeans, and with my eager help slipped all my clothes off in one tangled heap. I stepped out of them without interrupting our kiss.

We stood there together on our rock in the sun, and I shivered as the cool damp breeze of early spring came out of the woods and found us. My head bent to hers, our bodies scarcely touching, and I raised one hand and gently began to stroke one of her breasts, while the other hand found its way between her thighs. She

April

contrived to separate them slightly, and I lightly rubbed her clitoris, feeling it stand out and harden slightly under my touch, before I slid my fingers into that warm, moist cunt I knew so well.

She sank her weight slightly upon my hand so as to draw me even further into her, and I played with the walls of her opening, exploring here and there, steadily, eagerly, while my other hand slipped from her breast and went around her shoulders, half supporting, half embracing her. Both her arms were around me; her hands hooked onto my shoulders helped to hold her up. Then my plunging, trembling hand touched the neck of her womb, and she bit down on my lower lip with a moan, her pelvis jerking wildly.

With one sharp cry she released a flood of come over my hand and collapsed against me. I nearly staggered under her weight, but managed to keep my balance as she leaned against me, her flushed face buried against my chest, her breasts and stomach totally crushed against me. As she so often did when she reached a climax, she was crying softly to herself.

I withdrew my hand softly, and she, her crying abating somewhat, slipped to her knees in front of me and raised her mouth to my cunt.

I stood over her, squatting slightly to allow her easier access to my throbbing, aching cunt. Her tongue flickered ceaselessly, maddeningly over my clitoris, her arms were around my thighs, her hands on my buttocks squeezed them convulsively. My excitement had almost passed the point of being pleasurable, the sun was whirling in the sky, I felt that I could no longer stand. I bent almost double, clutching her short black hair in both hands, as my head hung down and I whispered her name.

At last her tongue entered my cunt, moving in and out with quick, sure strokes. I could feel her teeth press against my pelvic bone as she strove to enter more deeply. The walls of my vagina were quivering, vibrating like an exquisitely tuned instrument to her every stroke and nuance. At last everything went totally black, a familiar fire licked from my stomach down into my groin and with long, racking shudders I came into her mouth.

I don't know how I got down, but I found myself lying beside her. Her head was still level with my crotch and there was a small purple bruise beginning to show on my hip, where my bone had struck a rock. It had grown chilly, and even as I stroked her head

April

and shoulders I wondered how I could get to my clothes without disturbing the girl whose head lay on my thigh.

She stirred first, groping through the pockets of her slacks for a cigarette, lighting it with nervous, nicotine-stained fingers. The sun was getting low, and now that the spell was broken warmth became the only imperative. I sat up and fumbled my way back into my clothes, cursing and mumbling as I slipped my feet into my cold, wet shoes. Tomi spoke once, hopefully, to suggest the swimming hole, but I cut her off by saying it was too cold, and it was.

We tromped back, rumpled and peaceful, and just as we got to the barn dusk was falling and the first stars were out.

We closed up the studio in silence, pausing only for a brief kiss. Tomi picked up the sketch she had done that afternoon-to show Martha—and we walked across the field to the small farmhouse whose windows were casting chunks of bright light across the evening. The curtains were not drawn, and even before we entered the house we could see that Serge, Tomi's father, was busy preparing drinks, that Martha was knitting something black in front of the fire, that her brother William was back at work on his hi-fi kit.

We entered with muttered excuses, and ducked quickly into Tomi's room to wash and dress-make ourselves more or less presentable for the evening—pausing often to touch and fondle, to laugh and whisper together.

April

32

April Continued

by one of her father's hired hands and frequently bullwhipped in the barn by her father, could not bear to be touched at all.

And there was Tomi. Tomi, who galvanized the whole scene and made it come alive, by falling in love with each of us, one after the other.

To each of the others in our close, intense scene I could relate to some extent—there was some area in which their lives and mine overlapped, in which their values met my own—but with Tomi I had no point of reference at all, and so of course it was with her that I fell in love. I suspect that we all did, and for the same reason.

The inside of Tomi's head was full of harpsichords and ink washes, tweeds and lust. Her letters were amazing, eclectic compositions which owed much to Dylan Thomas and J.D. Salinger for their style, and to Jean Cocteau and Jean Paul Sartre for their content. I had just come from a world of Puccini and Tchaikovski to Bach; she played me Schuetz and Palestrina and found Bach "too ornate." Her clothes were a wistful approximation of Bergdorf Goodman and Abercrombie & Fitch. When she spoke of an apartment in New York it was in the West Village, was stark white, with skylights and Swedish glass, and black sling chairs which she called "African camp chairs."

Her parents who had no more money than my own, lived beyond their means in expensive Darien, and shopped in a Gristede's where everything cost three times as much as it did in the local supermarket in Brooklyn, but where Tallulah Bankhead could be seen buying brandied peaches. Tomi's mother Martha was a handsome little woman in her mid-forties, Anglo-Saxon and proper, grim and laconic, a woman who did what was expected of her, and took no pleasure in it. It was a well-known—and frequently discussed—fact within the family circle that she was frigid. Her father was a florid Latin type, half French and half Italian, who drank emotionally, spent too much money, and was openly and despairingly in love with bis wife. Their dogs were mangy, but thoroughbred; their heroes F. Scott Fitzgerald and Harry Crosby. Their house was much too small, their barn too big; they read the New Yorker and the Sunday Times, lived on peanutbutter sandwiches and scrambled eggs, and drank endless martinis in front of the fireplace in their dark, crowded living room.

34

April Continued

All this was an astonishment to me. I came from Brooklyn, from a block that just avoided being a slum, where I had played stick ball in the street and dodged the Irish altar boys. My parents were first-generation Americans, my grandparents Italian, and our backyard was full of grapevines and tomato plants. I had seventeen aunts and as many uncles, and twenty-two first cousins, whom I had been taught to regard as additional brothers and sisters. My grandparents could not read or write; my parents, with grim determination, had put themselves through college and become "professional people." They were never in debt and bought nothing "on time." They were noisy and unpretentious: the cupboard was always full and the liquor cabinet (if there was one) was usually empty except for homemade wine. To like to drink hard liquor was considered a misfortune.

Our feasts and festivals had been hearty peasant affairs, at which, ever since I was twelve, I had found myself dodging the amorous advances of a portly uncle, who was ostensibly teaching me the tango; at which I had had to stand for inspection while my grandmother and my mother's older sisters felt of my budding breasts, drawing them out with their fingers, or spanned my bottom with their hands, while commenting in Italian on my good and bad points as a future breeding animal. All this was done in a spirit of utter kindness and delight. No one of my thirty-four aunts or uncles had ever been heard to complain of their sex life or marriage—it would have been an inconceivable breach of etiquette—except for unfortunate Aunt Zelda, whose husband had simply left her, and who therefore could no longer pretend to be happy whether she was or not.

And so it was with total amazement that, on my first visit to Tomi in her home, I heard a drunk Serge list the accumulated woes of his home and marriage. This first astonishment was followed by a second even greater one when, on opening my eyes the next morning on an Army cot in the living room, I found myself accepting from Serge a rather large martini, complete with olive. Everyone was flitting about in their nightclothes, everyone was drinking. I drank one martini, and then two. I was more than slightly tipsy and very hungry when Serge handed me a third.

April Continued

"Oh, dear," I exclaimed, more or less involuntarily, "such a chore, swallowing them, one after the other!" This ingenuous remark endeared me to the entire company. I was "in."

However, no one mentioned breakfast. After a while people dispersed to sketch, or fish, or sew; Serge settled down to some serious drinking; no one ate at all. And so the day went by.

As many days had since. I had by now become used to the ways of the household, and thoroughly enjoyed my visits, as one might enjoy visiting the household of a family of fantastically well-bred Venusians. With the added complication that I was, had been, and (I was convinced) evermore would be, in love with one of the aforementioned girl-Venutians.

So much in love that, sitting with her and O'Reilley in Arthur's Tavern in the West Village a few months before, I had willingly agreed to leave school and join them in getting an apartment, although I knew that they were currently in love with each other. So much in love that, at Tomi's request, I had broken off with Ivan without a word to him. Well, here I was, I had found an apartment, I would tell Tomi about it tomorrow, and a new scene, our scene, would start: bamboo and burlap, white walls, black furniture. Drawing tables for Tomi's commercial art, which was, theoretically at least, going to support us. Russel Wright dishes. Pep-peridge Farm bread and lambchops.