When I walked into Elvis’s home on Hillcrest Road in the Trousdale Estates section of Beverly Hills, it was around eleven o’clock in the morning, and there was Elvis, waiting with open arms to greet me and welcome me personally to his home. Of course, at that early stage of our relationship, I had no idea what a big deal it was for him to be awake and dressed before late afternoon, or even the evening. But there he was, in all his regal splendor. As soon as I walked in, he reached out for me, commanding, “Come here, you,” and held on to me for the longest time.
“Oh my God, where have you been?” he said. “When I tell you I want to be with you, that’s what I mean. I want to be with you. I’ve been going crazy trying to find you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just thought you knew that I was going to be gone for two weeks.”
Elvis gently pushed back from me and stood there with his hands on my shoulders, looking lovingly and deeply into my eyes, seeming to just absorb me. I had dressed very carefully for our reunion, in a little sleeveless emerald green dress with a scoop neck and a ruffle at the neckline. It was a body-skimming, slightly above the knee, feminine, sexy, but classy dress. I had even used what I thought to be a subtle amount of precisely matching green eye shadow to complement my dress.
“Honey, couldn’t you find any green eye shadow to match that green dress?” he asked.
“Oh yes, can’t you see?” I said, closing my eyes so he could get a better look at my artistry. “Look, see, it’s exactly the same color.” I was a little too pleased with myself.
He started laughing his wonderful, contagious laugh.
“Honey, I was joking,” he said, pulling me into him to hug me tighter than ever.
“Oh, is it that obvious?” I said, finally catching on to his teasing sarcasm. I started laughing, too.
We held on to each other, laughing together, and just like that, my nerves dissolved, as if we were children finding something to giggle about.
He showed me around his house, and explained that this would be the last time he would be in it. It had been sold, and he had bought a house in Holmby Hills on Monovale Drive that he would be moving into at the end of his upcoming engagement in Las Vegas. He explained to me that soon after finishing decorating and preparing for the move into the Monovale estate, Priscilla had given him the news that she had fallen in love with another man, Mike Stone, their karate instructor, and she would be moving to Marina del Rey in Los Angeles to live with Mike.
“I’m hoping you will come with me and stay with me in Holmby Hills after we are finished in Vegas,” Elvis said. “I don’t want you to even think of leaving, not even for a day.”
He pulled me into his arms and held me close.
“I’ve got you now,” he teased.
I was a willing, smitten subject already.
We ended up in the kitchen, where the housekeeper had prepared lunch for us.
“Honey, we’re going to take a Learjet to Vegas in a little bit,” he said. “Do you mind small planes?”
“Uh, yeah, not so much. Are you kidding me? I’ve barely flown in a big plane, never flown privately, never been to Las Vegas, so yeah, I’m all good!” I said, full of joy at the very thought of all that lay before me.
Before I knew it, it was time for the limousine to roll back around and take us to the airport, where we crowded on the five-seater Learjet that was fired up and waiting for us on the tarmac. Seated between Elvis and Red West on the tiny back row of seats in the plane, I could hardly believe I was on my way to Las Vegas, where Elvis was due to start rehearsals for his Hilton International engagement. And yet, it all somehow felt totally natural, as if I was exactly where I was meant to be.
When we arrived at the Hilton, we were swept up to the Presidential Suite, using the service elevators and meandering through the kitchen, back doors, and what I would come to call the “garbage route.” We were then, and always, surrounded by the thirteen guys—known as the Memphis Mafia—who were part of the original rock star entourage, some working as valets or bodyguards, one or two as court jesters, or any combination, according to Elvis’s needs or wants. The guys had gone into the suite before him and gotten it all set up for us. I walked into the bedroom behind Elvis, looking around to survey the sleeping arrangements.
“This is so beautiful!” I remarked. “It’s even more spectacular than I imagined!”
Then, the reality of his plans for our arrangement began to dawn on me.
“So where’s my room?” I tentatively asked.
“Well, you’re going to stay with me,” he said, nodding the guys out. “I said I want to be with you, remember? How many times do I have to say I want to be with you?”
“Yes, but I’m not comfortable sharing a room this early in our relationship.”
He surprised me then.
“Honey, I know you’re a virgin,” he said, drawing close to me. “And I’m not going to touch you until you’re ready for me to touch you, and I just want you to know that. I want you to trust me. Do you trust me?”
“I do,” I said, feeling like I was safely living in the pages of a fairy tale.
“You can sleep right here with me, and we will only go as far as you want to go, as quickly or as slowly as you want to get there. I want to preserve you for as long as you need.” He actually used that word, preserve, like the perfect Southern gentleman he could be, just one of the many sides of his gloriously complex personality.
He pulled my body into his, and we lay on the bed kissing and holding each other. “I respect you, honey, and I’m willing to wait,” he assured me once again. He held me down, looked at me for a long moment, and said with more than a twinkle in his eyes, “And you really believe all that shit, don’t you?!” He laughed so hard he cried at his own silly joke. We both rolled around laughing at his ambush humor, which I was about to get very accustomed to.
“Oh, you’re funny!” I said, leaning into his kiss. We eventually pulled apart, and I looked around the room.
In addition to several guns on what would become his side of the bed, I noticed an assortment of at least a dozen prescription medicine bottles.
“Have you been sick?” I asked.
“No, why?” he said. “Why do you ask that?”
“Well, what are all those prescription medicine bottles then?”
He looked around, so used to seeing the bottles, he apparently didn’t even notice them anymore, and he had to stare at them for a moment before he formulated an answer.
“Oh, yeah, yeah, I had a little respiratory thing, but I’m fine now,” he said. “It’s just leftover medicine from when I was sick.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that you were sick,” I said.
I believed him, because, at that point, I had no reason not to. I’d grown up in a household where my parents didn’t even have any alcohol in the house, not even beer. My parents both smoked cigarettes, which I hated, but that was it. I didn’t even know that people abused prescription drugs. And so, of course, I didn’t doubt his explanation.
I don’t remember him taking a sleeping pill that night at bedtime, although I suppose he must have, as he would every other time we went to sleep together. But, of course, I remember the feeling of lying down next to him, as you remember so distinctly the first time you fall asleep with someone you love. What made the moment even more notable was the fact that I’d never lived with a man before, and so this was all new for me. Although I’d hardly slept at all the night before, and I’d had more than a full day with Elvis, and I found myself exhausted, I was not quite ready to give myself over to my dreams. There was too much to experience, the sensation of him spooning me, and then as he drifted off, his breath brushing the back of my neck, making me feel very aware of the fact of another entity there with me. I’d already been struck during our first hours together how affectionate he was, and now, even as he slept, he made me feel so cherished, holding me as tightly as he could all through the night. He really does need me, I thought, as I
curled into the curve of his body. When I did finally doze off to a fitful sleep, I was awakened by his slightest movement.
Those first few days with Elvis were sublime—everything was new—and yet, it all felt surprisingly familiar. True to his word, Elvis cuddled and kissed and spooned with me, but he didn’t take our physical relationship any further than that, or put any pressure on me to do so. Instead, he was incredibly romantic, tender, thoughtful, and loving. Any surprises were of the magical, sweep-you-off-your-feet variety.
During my second or third day in our over-the-top suite, Elvis told me he was going to go out for a little bit. He was only gone for about an hour, and when he returned, I had just gotten out of the shower. I was wearing the cozy white hotel robe with a matching white towel wrapped around my head, turban-style, and was getting ready to dry my long, dark hair when I looked up and saw him.
He was resplendent in a white high-collared suit, with white pants and flared inserts in the pant legs. He was slim, sporty, perfect, with his “Elvis sideburns,” his trademark sunglasses, and his skin glowing with a great tan. Elvis Presley at his finest.
I was so struck by his overwhelming presence in that moment that I actually lost my breath, the air all leaving me at once.
“Honey, I went out and ran a little errand,” he said. “I got you something.”
He held out a beautiful, big curved ring, almost in the shape of the infinity sign, encrusted with diamonds and emeralds mounted on high spirals. It wasn’t lost on Elvis that emeralds are my birthstone. The ring was beautiful and far more extravagant than anything I’d ever owned, or even dreamed of owning. And then he pulled out a second yellow gold ring, also set with diamonds and emeralds.
“What the—why?” I said, unable to hide my surprise. As if his presence alone were not enough to thrill me without end.
“Because you are you,” he said. “You are beautiful, and you deserve to have beautiful things.”
“I don’t even know what to say. You really don’t have to do things like this. You are enough just your own self for me.” I stammered in an attempt to explain my feelings. “My gosh, thank you. This is unbelievable. You are unbelievable.”
“Get used to it,” he breathed into my ear as he held me close.
I kissed him as he slid each ring onto a finger they fit. He then said something I would hear him repeat during our years together as often as I witnessed such shows of his incredible generosity. It’s advice to which I still try to adhere:
“An object is not beautiful if nobody sees it. Wear the pretty things you have.”
Those would be the first of so many pieces of jewelry, and gifts, he gave me over the years.
From our first moments together, our relationship was all-encompassing. In addition to our bond formed through our backgrounds, we both thrilled at a slightly sharp, sarcastic sense of humor that was just the slightest bit wicked, especially when the jokes were coming from Elvis, who could be quite profane and adored the chance to shock unsuspecting listeners. But also because we both understood the same manner of love, which was given purely and unabashedly, and often expressed through baby talk. We’d both been raised on it—my mother had baby-talked me, while petting me, just as his mother had petted and baby-talked him.
Without ever pausing to speak our intentions aloud in advance, or establish any proper rules for our communication, as if we’d always known each other and the words had always existed between us, we talked baby talk almost instantly. Elvis especially liked something he called “iddytream,” which you non–baby talkers might know as ice cream. “Butch” was our word for milk, and “butter butch” was buttermilk. But these words could also be special terms of endearment, as I sometimes called him “Butch” or “Butter Butch.”
It was our own private language, and we were living in our own special world. I never called him Elvis. My other baby names for him included Gullion and Buntyn, like baby bunting, although I pronounced it more like “Buntyn” (“button”). On reflection, with the babies I birthed and baby-talked now grown men themselves, I know all of this might sound a little odd, but at the time it felt completely natural. And he had his own names for me. Besides calling me Mommy and Ariadne (or Ari), he called me other sweet nicknames, including “darling,” “honey,” and “baby.” As he spoke these words to me, the sound of his incomparable, sexy, melodic drawl, infused with childish whimsy, was unlike anything I’d ever heard, nor have since then.
Elvis had a pet name or nickname for just about everything and everyone, it seemed. During the first few months I was with him, while he was still getting to know me and discovering my physical features, as well as my disposition and personality, I caught him staring at my bare feet while we were comfortably lounging on our bed at Graceland. He picked up the phone by his side of the bed and called downstairs and requested that Charlie Hodge, who accompanied Elvis on stage, playing guitar and handing Elvis water and scarves, come up. I had no idea why Charlie was being summoned, but thought maybe it was a song idea Elvis wanted to share or something like that.
“Hey boss, what’s up? You need something?” Charlie queried.
“Yeah, I do, Charlie,” Elvis said. “I need you to come over here and look at Linda’s pretty feet. Aren’t those the prettiest ‘sooties’ you’ve ever seen?”
Charlie laughed out loud at the reason he had been called upstairs, and after ensuring there was nothing more required of him, excused himself. But Elvis wasn’t done with him.
“Look how well groomed her feet are, Charlie, and how her ‘yittle’ toes just line up perfectly,” Elvis had remarked.
“Honey, I don’t miss anything on a woman’s body,” Elvis said after Charlie left the room. “If your ‘sooties’ are well groomed, then it stands to reason you take pride in your appearance. Call it a foot fetish if you want; that’s just the way I am. I don’t like to look down from a pretty face and see calloused-up, dirty feet.” I should note that Elvis was a leg and butt man and didn’t care at all for big breasts. He often said, “If I want big tits in my face, I’ll throw a freaking cow in the bed with me.” Whew!
The more highly evolved, independent, experienced woman I am today would more than likely take exception to being so closely scrutinized by anyone. But then, it was Elvis, I was naïvely in love, and he was a baby-talking, one-of-a-kind charmer.
From our first days together, Elvis also shared with me his profound and abiding spirituality, and his lifelong quest to understand his place in the world through his religious explorations, delving deeper into the conversation that we’d begun at Graceland, when he’d discussed all the books on his shelves. Often when Elvis spent time with new people, as I would learn, he was hungry to speak with them about his faith and question them on their own beliefs. After his passion for music, this was the most profound way in which he connected with others. Elvis grew up Christian, and he held an amalgamation of different Christian faiths, with the overriding one being Pentecostal. He believed in the laying on of hands, and faith healing, and he believed in the Holy Spirit.
I think at the core of his being, and at the core of his belief, Elvis was a Christian, and he took Jesus as his king. Since he was the King of Rock and Roll, fans used to sometimes pass Elvis crowns onstage when he was performing.
“You’re the king, you’re the king,” they said.
“There is only one king, and that’s God,” Elvis sometimes replied. “That’s Jesus. I’m not the king.”
Elvis was very humble about his place in the cosmos and had an abiding faith in Jesus. At the same time, he was never judgmental about the beliefs of others and didn’t feel everyone in the whole world had to be Christian. He and I often discussed this point. We agreed that the God we knew and loved, which was all-encompassing, did not hold the belief that if you’re raised with Hinduism, or Buddhism, or any other non-Christian faith, you’re doomed to hell. That’s not the God we recognized.
We discussed our spiritual leanings a great deal. Fundamental to
both of us was the idea that there is an energy and spirit that endures into the afterlife. In the Bible, it says, “In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not true, I would have told you so.” Our interpretation of this idea was that these “mansions” could have meant anything: heaven, reincarnation, or even that our energy is dispersed to different planets after death. We didn’t discount any possibility. “With God, all things are possible” it states in the Bible.
Yes, Elvis did believe in Christ, and he believed in all of Christ’s teachings. He also believed in Paramahansa Yogananda, and metaphysical meditation, and was completely nonjudgmental about nearly all other forms of worship. He respected anybody who was looking up to a higher good and trying to be a better human. Around his neck Elvis wore a crucifix, as well as a Star of David, a lamb, an Egyptian ankh, and even a little crescent moon and star, to represent Islam. In other words, he wore every religious symbol there was on a chain. I once saw someone ask about this.
“Hey, Elvis, are you confused?” the guy asked.
“No, man, I just don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality,” Elvis said.
In the summer of 1972, when I met him, Elvis was in his prime. He was thirty-seven years old, six foot one, and on the slender side for him, probably weighing about 165 or 170 pounds. He had an incredible physique, a noticeable physicality, a great bone structure, even. It was as if it wasn’t just his build and his features that were perfectly crafted, but also his skeletal structure. Before then, and later on, of course, he famously battled his weight, which always fluctuated at least ten pounds. His mother had had problems with her weight. And he loved to eat. But for this moment in time, he was perfection incarnate.
He was so magnificent that after he’d fallen asleep I used to lie awake with my face drawn up close to his and use the opportunity to study and memorize every pore. From the curvature of his lips, to his eyebrows, to his eyelashes, he was a physically incomparably beautiful man. I often woke up before he did and enjoyed the feeling of just being there with him.
A Little Thing Called Life Page 6