“A player. Ethan. So he fucks the Warhol starlets. I know. He told me all. In a way, we know a lot about each other just from the few days and nights we spent together. I can take care of myself, don't worry your cute curly head.”
Ethan rubbed the knuckle of his right hand on the tip of his nose, and breathed in. “He takes the hard stuff, Anna. What do you think he's doing now?”
What astounded me was how analytically Ethan spoke about this aspect of Nick's personality. There was no hesitancy, no twisting his foot, so to speak. Plainly, Ethan wanted to make sure I was aware. For a moment, I was annoyed. I shrugged it off, smiled at Ethan, reached over and ran my fingers through his hair. As Nick returned, Ethan stood. “My turn. Got to take a huge pee. It seemed like he wanted to give Nick equal time to tell some secrets about Ethan.
Nick leaned over the small table pulled me towards him and planted a big wet kiss on my lips. “Hey, babe. How are you? You look beautiful and perky.” With those words he looked right inside me, and then pulled back for a moment. “Babe, Ethan's a good guy. He's going to help you get a job. I know he will. He's that kind of guy. And I can tell he's smitten by you, you sexy lady.”
“He's sweet,” I said.
“What about me?”
I scrunched my lips. “You're hot, hot, hot,“ I laughed.
Ethan returned, and we all clinked our bottles of Bud. “To us,” Nick began.
“To us,” Ethan followed.
“To the three of us. May we always be friends and companions,” I said.
“And lovers,” Nick added.
All this was said while one guitar soloist or another took the stage. Talking was incessant and loud. The music and songs were mainly protest; lots of sing-a-longs with mostly wannabe musicians.
Finally, Richie Havens approached center stage, and Cafe Wha? went seriously quiet. Havens sat on a plain wooden stool, his much scarred Guild guitar in front of the microphone, a pin spotlight on him. Soon his big heavy hands attacked, with opening chords to Peter, Paul and Mary’s “If I had A Hammer,” and he sang in his rich, deep voice. You could hear gasps from the patrons, and I imagined broad smiles and some tears of joy. Wow, I was in the big city and the energy was intoxicating. I realized how lucky I was; first meeting up with Nick in LA, and now here in NYC with Nick, and making friends with Nick’s friend Ethan, an art critic.
All this past decade or so, I drifted along in my life, like a forlorn wind, with a constricting understanding of reality. A confusion, a disorientation in a way ever since my pregnancy. With Andy I had a baseline of reality, though ironically much of our time together dealt in the fantasy of celebrity. Are my stars lining up correctly? I sighed, and told myself that luck is not with the stars, you silly Anna from Dawson Street in Pittsburgh, PA.
Havens, sang several more songs, got a standing ovation, with lots of whistles and calls for more music. The set ended, and we trotted up the stairs to the street, arm and arm. We eased into camaraderie quickly, like ants on a sweaty arm. Why would I think that, and rebuked myself that sometimes I can get strange. No breeze blew at all; it was a stagnant night of stale air under a black sky. As we walked, gawking, passing around a joint, like happy winos passing a bottle of cheap wine, our bodies oozed more and more sweat. But to me it seemed like we were on a heavenly bus ride.
We checked out the Gaslight on MacDougal, and caught a set with Bob Dylan; frankly I was more enamored with Havens' rich baritone voice, than Dylan's nasal sounds; but that was me. Ethan protested, saying that Bob Dylan is tops. “He's a musician, poet, and singer,” Ethan explained why the crowds at the Gaslight didn't applaud, but only snapped their fingers. “It's weird you know, because air shafts here go right into the apartments above us, and police have been called so many times.”
“So, now we snap,” Nick said, snapping his thumb and middle finger and swaying.
After the set, we walked over to Gerde’s Folk City, on the corner of West Fourth and Mercer and sat through a jam session with the Greenbriar Boys, a folk and bluegrass group; by this time we all were plastered. During the performance, I placed my hand on the side of my forehead and said, “I'm very happy,” though tears began to flow.
“And drunk,” Nick yelled out. “Why are you crying? Hasn't it been a fun night?”
“Yes,” I said between sobs. “But I'm going through a lot of personal stuff in my life, and you guys make me feel so happy.”
“Let her cry it out Nick?” Ethan sneezed, blowing his nose in a large white handkerchief. “Summer allergies. They just don't quit.”
“Never been with two delicious and great guys,” I said. “We're a great fit. Don't you think?.”
“Yeah,” the two guys said.
“Wait, till we get you more involved, with the art world, and Andy,” Nick added.
We walked out, an hour or so later. On West Fourth, Ethan stopped, turned with a serious look, probably the first such look all night, because of all merriment we experienced. He spoke like a professor. “First we must get our Anna a job, here in the city,”
Nick was swaying, much like an ice skater in a rink on a hot summer's night.“Count on it, babe. Maybe Ethan is in a better position for that than me. Count on us, babe.”
“Why Nick? Will your ladies, mind if I were around you?”
Nick halted in his tracks, pointed a finger at me. “Not fair. That's not fair,” he repeated and slipped as he moved toward me, stumbling over his feet. “I am drunk, my friends,” he said.
“And stoned,” Ethan and I said at once.
“Guys, listen I think we can find Anna a job with an art gallery, or maybe at Esquire. Who knows?”
“That's sweet Ethan. But I have to do my own digging for a job.”
We wound up at two or so in the morning on Hudson Street at the White Horse Tavern, the old longshoreman's dive, now a hangout for new bohemian dreamers. We drank shots of schnapps with a beer chaser. In between, the bartender, a burly guy, with black hair, and tattoos on his arms -- I could swear one read Mom – offered a couple of rounds on the house. Finally, after much hugging, laughing, and swaying, we declared an end to the night and meandered to a diner for eggs and toast and herb tea.
“She’s like one of the guys,” Ethan said, while we sat around a chrome legged oval table with a red top, at the diner. “Yeah,“ Nick nodded. “But a hell of a woman and a really great fuck.”
Feeling warm, stoned and weary, I buried my head on the table for a moment, and remembered my Pops pinching his nose and closing his eyes when I had told my parents I was pregnant. “You know better than to do what you did. We forget what we know we should do.” Pops was talking fast, “Always bad to do what you know with your whole body, when you know you mustn't do. Always bad.” He threw up his hands and walked away. I was so scarred at that moment, shaking, and biting my lips, feeling bugs crawling all over me, which made me sob harder. Mamma in her neatly pressed print house dress held me tight to her bosom.
After a moment, I sat up. “Anna you are out of it,” Nick said. “Here, drink some water.” I fixed my bleary eyes on the walls of the diner, covered in pale blue wallpaper with black line ink drawings of ancient Greek Doric columns, and the goddess Aphrodite, nude and nubile. What shook me, I imagined I saw a talking head of my father rising above Aphrodite, repeating, “… always bad, always bad to forget what we know not to do.” I began shivering, hunched up my shoulders, but finally relaxed,when my sunny-side up eggs were dropped in front of me.
I wanted to go to bed with both of them, right here and now. Yes, I was giddy and drunk and stoned. Oh, yes I wanted Nick and Ethan as lovers. Drunk and stoned as I was at the moment, I still fantasized about the three of us in a free love situation, a celebration of my femininity, a celebration of our liberation, a celebration of our individualism. “This would be great,” I warbled.
Ethan's cheeks glowed. “What did you say? What would be great?”
“I don't know,” I said.
“I'll tell you who i
s great. The lady with us. She is a hell of a woman, and I'll repeat, and a damn great fuck,” Nick slurred. I didn't mind Nick talking about me in this way. I decided it was all good, since we all were smashed.
Nick and Ethan were so different from me, and I wondered what this could mean. I fucked as well as Nick, I began thinking. Sex is the great equalizer, isn't it? Still, I was a child of immigrant parents for one, and these two guys didn't appear to have any such traces. My mamma and pops struggled only to remain in a cycle of poverty, and in their culture.
After a few sips of hot tea, a droopy-eyed Nick announced he would take me home. When Ethan protested, Nick told him, “She is my guest.”
Ethan retorted, “We should ask Anna.”
Nick gave in. “Okay.”
“Guys, you’re putting me on the spot.”
Ethan disarmed me with his sincerity, his openness to hearing about me. Earlier tonight he offered to set up an interview with his magazine. Ethan admitted that it often wasn’t easy for him to start conversations with a woman in a bar. “Anna, you just opened something in me, when you walked in, all smiles, and happy, ready to celebrate a night of good times.” I joked saying that it was my tight fitting skimpy clothing that piqued his interest. Ethan laughed.
I laughed and kissed each on the cheek. “My things are with Nick, and I’m his guest, for a little while.”
In the cab ride back to the Chelsea Hotel I told Nick, “Ethan’s going to set up an interview with Esquire. I might get a job. Oh, wouldn't that be great? And I mean so quickly. I'm just hoping I get this job. Funny, how luck seems to follow me. You know sometimes when it rains it pours. Now I have two great new friends, and maybe a new job.”
“Yeah, Anna. Hey, you deserve it. You'll see, Ethan will come through. You can count on him.” With that said, Nick leaned over, and kissed me, and we embraced holding each other warmly.
“I''ll say this about Ethan, he knows his shit,” Nick said.
“What do you mean?”
“He a damn good art critic. He knows his art history, and knows today's art, and the players.
When we pulled up to the hotel, Nick paid the cab driver, lifted me out of the cab, carrying me up the staircase to his room, and gently laid me down, straightened my hair, removed my shoes, stripped me naked and dressed me in one of his baggy, well baggy on me, tee-shirts.
Nick took his spot by the window, peering out at the gray cast of night growing milkier; a hum of light traffic sounds floated up from West Twenty-third Street. After a moment he reached over to his dresser and pulled out his secret sock from his dresser drawer, shaking out a little white pill, which he swallowed. I gazed at this strikingly handsome man. My eyelids were heavy. I realized what had been my attraction to Nick; well, his large frame, his carefree style, his big city reflexes, and at times a disarming vulnerability. Oooohhh, Nick was a charmer, calm, yet intense when he would devour you; confident, always. All seemed straight and clear to Nick, I imagined.
Watching Nick, I began thinking that a free-love situation with the two guys would be wonderful. No strings attached, no possessive instincts, no marriage, but a union of companions who share their feelings. Just freedom to love. My tendencies towards embracing a romance as soon as anyone pays attention to me, excited. These guys will come through, I assured myself. That's what I wanted now, and somehow I was sure I could achieve this. Free-love. No law, no contract, no institutions or marriage would hang over us. We loved because we wanted to love; we alone were the keepers of our own bodies.
Within moments the gray sky lifted, a rosy dawn tiptoed through the window, and I feeling intensely happy, descending in song like a warbling bluebird, about my future days, fell asleep.
Chapter Four
A lot happened in the weeks that followed. I found a share with two other girls in a large one-bedroom apartment in a new high rise on East Forty-ninth Street – doorman, and laundry facilities on every floor. Ethan kept his promise and scheduled an appointment for me with the art director at Esquire, and I got the job on the spot, doing paste-ups for the magazine.
When I told Nick, a few days after I got my apartment and before leaving for work at the magazine, that I’d be moving out on the first of August, a week hence, Nick shot a look of shocked surprise. He drew his fist to his mouth and blew air in at first. Finally he said, “Don’t go, babe. Don’t go. You can stay here. There’s no problem. Do you need more closet space? Hey, that’s not a big deal.”
I was stunned, not at all expecting his reply, and stood staring, but eventually dropped my eyes and looked down. “You don’t want me to go?” When I looked up Nick appeared so hot – his eyes were on fire. “I have to leave, but you know we’ll still have each other, I’m sure every day,” I said, and looked right into Nick’s blazing eyes. “I told you. I promised you, before we left L.A. that I won’t be a burden.”
“Hey babe, and you’re not. You’re no burden, Anna. I want you here. You are my friend and I … .”
“Well I want to be my own person.”
“What’s wrong with sharing this space with me? I’m not here half the time. So you’ll have privacy. Hey, you won’t get that with roommates.”
“So you can fuck me when you need me,” I said, with a tad of anger in my tone
Nick turned and walked to his chair by the window.
I stood frozen in my tracks, staring in his direction but really at nothing. There was no doubt in my mind that I hurt Nick with my caustic remark. I know I did. And that's not what I wanted to do. “Gosh, there I go. I can't control my mouth. I'm sorry, Nick. I shouldn't have said that. I was harsh. Wasn't I? That's not me. Please baby, excuse me and accept my apology. Please.”
Nick turned from the window and nodded. “I understand.”
All the time I was thinking I was doing the right thing for our friendship, and now Nick turned the tables, and I hurt him. I began shaking my head, and after a pause, I couldn’t restrain myself, I blurted, “Nick, hold me.”
“Sure. But come here and sit here on my lap, Anna, and we'll look out the window, together. I perched on his lap, wiggling my derriere a bit as I sat. Nick wrapped his arms around me, holding me tight, kissing my cheeks and lips furiously. “Stay with me. This is now. We know each other now,” he said softly. “I like sleeping with you, Anna.”
“Nick.” I protested.
“Well you know what I mean. Sharing a bed with you. Kissing you good night and giving you a hug. Yeah, babe.”
I easily sensed he was getting aroused. Those big blue eyes shone brightly, with a slight look of pleading. God I had never seen Nick this vulnerable.“Don’t make it more difficult. Nick, We’ll see each other tonight?” Now what have I done, I was thinking. I upset Nick. His eyes told me so. Never would I have thought, he would want to lean on me. He seemed to have taken a one hundred eighty degree turn from the Nick I thought I knew. I wished he would fling me on the bed, and we would begin an episode of the most erotic lovemaking.
There must have been a pause of maybe five seconds, when I found myself laying prone on his bed, Nick’s face hovering over me, so luscious looking. I grabbed his big head and pulled him toward me. He began to kiss my lips ever so gently, which hasn’t been his style. Nick pulled off my skirt and blouse, and then quickly pulled his shoes, socks, pants – all his clothes fell off his lean and beautiful body. He just stood over me, looking down as if savoring every part of me.
“Come to me baby,” I said. Ravish me Nick. I am always yours.” I began to pull off my slip when he interrupted. “Anna. Let’s do this slowly and savor every moment.”
Nick stroked my cheeks with the fingers of his open hand as if massaging. I began to quiver. It was still early enough for me to get to work on time. Tears were streaming down my face – my heart wouldn’t stay still as I looked at his beautiful face, neck and down his naked body at his very erect manhood.
Finally, he pulled down my panties, making sure to caress my legs as my garments fell to the floor. Nick
slowly began kissing my legs, thighs, inner thighs, and my lady-hood, where he began to lick my hairs and with a pointed tongue pushing inward, rolling his lips and mouth on me and in me. I moaned, and my body trembled.
“I could taste you like this all day, lovely Anna. Your body warmth and scent.” And with that said, Nick reached up to yank off my bra, which he flung across the room, and straddled my body. His hands quickly moved up to my breasts, cupping them both, squeezing gently and then rotating his finger lightly on my nipples. He licked his fingers and went at my breast once more. I flipped my head back, closing my eyes; he moved his moist lips to my neck, kissing smoothly, with an almost tickling sensation. I was hot, desirous, happy, and breathing hard. Nick smoothed his mouth up and down the sides of my neck. He bit my ear and whispered. “Don’t go, Anna. Don’t. The three of us, you, Ethan and me; we will figure out how our friendship will move ahead. I know it babe. I want it. We all want this.”
Blissful Interlude: J. G. ROTHBERG Page 4