Chapter 5
"Perry!" Go away. "Perry, wake up."
"I don't care if it's the whole North Vietnamese Army. I'm not moving."
"Perry, son. There's someone on the telephone for you."
He opened his eyes. "Hi, Mother." It had been an awful dream.
"Didn't you hear me, dear? A telephone call. It's for you."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know. A young man. He sounds white."
"A lot of people are," he said, and sat up. "It must be Al."
"Who is Al?
"Al Parks. I went to high school with him. We ran into each other last night. Tell him I'll be right there."
She started to go out, then stopped. "Aren't you wearing pajamas? It's not nice to sleep in your underwear. You know better than that."
"I'm not sleeping in my underwear, Mother," he said calmly, and looked at her.
"All right," she said. "I'll tell him."
When the door closed, Perry threw back the covers and looked at himself. A healthy young man in every way, but a total nothing when it came to getting the girl he wanted. Or any other girl, either. Probably everyone else at the party had had their sex last night, but all he'd received was a hot massage and a cold shoulder.
He still had the hard-on to prove it. Somehow, in the bright light of day it was no longer a desperate urge. It might not be hot pants at all; just the need to take a good piss.
He got up, and went to the closet. The unfamiliar room made him feel as if he were in a stranger's house. But the sight of his old, red plaid bathrobe reassured him. He put it on.
Out in the hall, he had to stop to remember where the bathroom was. While he was relieving himself, his mother's voice called to him again through the door.
"You don't have to hurry. He left a number for you to call."
"Okay."
"Shall I start breakfast for you?"
"I'm going to take a shower first. Give me fifteen minutes."
The apartment was attractive, and everything in it brand new, but Perry still felt out of place. Even after more than a year's absence, and almost two years of service, he still remembered the old place, and kept reaching for things that were no longer there. The move had been his mother's dream for years, and when he had arrived home in the middle of the night before last, he could see her price even through the tearfully happy greeting. She kept referring to it as 'our home,' and pointed out the modern kitchen, the terrace, and the view of the river before she got around to asking him anything about Vietnam.
He didn't mean to resent it, but he hac to refrain from reminding her this was only a city housing project, not a luxury building; and that the river was the Harlem, not the East or the Hudson. He had never been unduly proud of living on Amsterdam Avenue, and there was no reason to object to the wide, clean lawns, the brightly lighted streets and the comparative quiet of the new neighborhood.
Still, she could never keep this apartment any cleaner than the old one. And, he bet the move had made his little brother, Mike, feel that he had abruptly been taken away from his friends. He guessed that twelve year olds were able to make these adjustments easier than older people, and by the time the boy was back from summer camp, there would be no real problems for him.
By the time he had dressed, he could smell coffee and bacon. The sun-bright yellow kitchen was cheering. A big glass of orange juice tasted like the room looked.
"Where did you go last night?" his mother asked brightly. She was a past-master of the art of the 'I'm just-asking' which really was loaded with possible comment.
"Downtown." She would have to keep asking questions to get the facts from him.
She put the bacon and eggs in front of him, and checked the toaster.
"Did you see a show?"
"No." He started to eat. She had taught him never to talk with food in his mouth, so this was bound to limit his answers.
"Oh." The toast finally popped up. She put it on a small plate, then poured coffee.
"Did you come in late? I didn't hear you."
He swallowed first, taking a sip of coffee. "About one o'clock. I almost took the wrong subway. I was starting to go back to the old apartment. Force of habit."
She smiled. "That's a habit we can all break happily. This is where we belong. I feel so proud every time I come home. I just wish your father had lived to enjoy this."
But would he have enjoyed this? Perry really didn't think so. Some people would have called Charles Turner a typical old-time Negro; maybe even an Uncle Tom. The description was not really fair or understanding. Perry's father had been a quiet, hard-working, physical person. A construction man who had worked his way up from laborer to foreman. His roots had been as deeply planted as any of the buildings he had worked on, and as permanent. He had lived in only three places in his entire life. A farm in Florida, his parents' home on 131st Street near Lenox Avenue, and the apartment on Amsterdam Avenue that he had moved into the day after he and Virginia Ferman were married. Certainly he had never expected to live any place else. Perry suspected there might have been some strong arguments from his dad against this change of address.
Now, it was just a guess. Charles Turner had been killed by. a toppling construction crane when Perry was sixteen. Virginia Turner had put almost all of the insurance and union benefit money into the bank, and returned to nursing. She said the savings were to put Perry and Michael through college, but Perry had never doubted she had part of it earmarked for a brand new apartment.
What had surprised Perry was the location. He had been sure his mother would try for the better sections of the Bronx or Queens. It had not registered in him how uncomfortable she would feel in an integrated area.
It wasn't that she felt the same as her husband. He, too, worked side by side with white, but came home to a black neighborhood. He simply believed that it was easier to live with other blacks.
Perry's mother had a stronger reason. She didn't trust white people. They were born not liking blacks. You were safer with your own kind.
"I saw Al last night," he said.
"Some sensitive person," she said. "The first night home and you go chasing after your white friends. What about Cora?"
He hardly knew what to say. "It was by chance I met Al," he said. "You know Cora and I have been finished a long time. Why is none of your business."
"You can't trust whitey," she said. "No matter how nice he is to you, he's always got a reason up his sleeve."
"That's not true," he countered angrily.
"I'll leave you now," she said with a sigh. "I have to go early to the hospital." She kissed him goodbye and walked out the door. Left alone with his solitude he mulled over the situation.
His mind drifted to Vicky, her body, her white skin, and the wonderful smile he could see on her face, and open smile that invited him to be her lover. He wanted her. But he was trapped by the old curse of the black man.
To want white flesh was to fall into the very role all the crackers had for him. Yet he wanted Vicky because she was Vicky, not because she was white.
He thought of what it might be like to fuck her, to have her naked body next to his with not a molecule of air between them. He was with her in his room, lying on the bed, hot for her lithe frame that wriggled sensuously into his nude flesh.
He fondled her cunt, wiping his fingers along the snaking walls that curved and twined about her insides. The lusciousness of her tender flesh was superb, and he needed more and more of her at each second.
Her fingers were not idle. They swept in easy strokes over his wrinkled sac, titillating his outer skin and his balls with the effects of their ministrations. The sheer delight that gave him had his cock as hard as steel, and he wished he could fuck her for three days without end.
She rammed a pair of fingers into his ass-hole, wiggling them hard from side to side. There was inside him a feeling of pleasure so great he wondered where it had come from. The other fucks he had in his life were nothing compared to what was going on at this time.
Her fingers in his ass-hole played a tune of pleasure that fled to the tip of his toes and to his brain. He was surfeited with the deep delights she readily gave to him, as though all was his due. Her touch was golden, warm, lustful and aggressive.
He fiddled with her tits, noticing the contrast between his black skin and her white flesh. His touch at her nipples made her shake all over. He watched how the lines of her body writhed with sensual lust as the effects of his touches to her tits rambled across the skein of her nerves.
His cock was hard now, streamlined in its male solidness. It was big and black, and the thought of pressing it into those white walls of flesh was invigorating. He worked harder at her cunt with his fingers, pushing against her membranes, trying to get her juices flowing so that she would soon be well oiled enough for him to get inside her.
He wiped his tips across the area that surrounded her clit. The incredible lust he felt for her burned like a raging fire in his brain. In her eyes he could see a light that meant she was well pleased with the affection he stormed into her, and he was glad to know he was giving her a good time. The sheer beauty of her nude body made him tremble with delight each time he glanced at it.
The moans from her half-closed lips reached his ears, thrilling him to the marrow. His face pressed close to hers, at times merely rubbing skin upon skin the way animals do when they play, at other times kissing, lips to lips, with their tongues sweeping along and touching each other. Every time he touched the tip of her oral member with his own, a huge jolt of pleasure rippled through his face.
She fondled his balls and his straightened cock without ceasing. The lustful pleasures she drilled into him were everywhere, all encompassing. She could have done no better than she actually was doing.
He felt his need for her reaching the point of no return, that point where he would have to have his dick plunged in her cunt if he was going to stay sane. Her walls still were slow with their juices, so he worked frantically, massaging them with a furious stroking to get them ready for his insertion.
She got her walls in rhythm with his stroking of her so that he could better get her juices flowing. When he went in with his fingers, she pressed in with her membranes, and when he went out she opened her cuntal walls so that he could get that way fast. Then he plunged once more into her steaming pussy, soothing the walls that waited for his cock to intervene in their tunnel of love.
He was frantic. The raging passion in his jerking pole told him he had not long to go before he spewed his gism all over the place whether or not he was inside her pussy. He felt at last the oils from her walls coating his finger well. That told him the time had come.
He mounted her, dragging his skin across her and feeling how good it was to have her nakedness that near his own. Into her pussy he drove his cock, delving deep into the walls that were soft and refreshing. His senses became aware of all the succulent delights that trammeled them as he dealt stroke after stroke to her membranes.
Harder and harder he blasted his cock against her snaking walls. The touch of her cunt hairs on the hairs about his cock was titillating him each time he drove all the way inside her. The incredible fire that blazed in his balls was a sign that he was reaching his come at a rapid rate.
Vicki squeezed her cunt tight against his prick when it snaked into her passages. She had a tight cunt in the first place, a compact one like the girls in Asia had, and when she worked to make it tighter the results were exhilarating. Her cuntal walls grew slipperier as her oils flowed faster than they had at the beginning.
He slammed his stomach into her time after time. The slapping sound their flesh made when they clashed their bodies together echoed through the room. He heard her sighs above the sweaty pounding that their skins made when they hit one against the other.
Each second he thought he was going to come, but no matter how hard he tried there was something holding him back. Each second he was certain the next thrust would bring his scum spurting from his cock like water from a fire hose, and then he would be disappointed that he did not reach that level as he again thrust into her snatch.
His desire became stronger as the come he wanted eluded him. What was the matter? Couldn't he make it with a white cunt? Was that what was in his head and stopping him from coming?
The harder he worked, the farther away from his come he seemed to get. Vicky had come already, and her cream covered his cock. In his struggles to climax his own body he had not even noticed her jerking and thrashings as she felt all her insides turn to sheer glory.
With greater speed than ever he blasted his cock against her walls, slipping it quickly through her cunt lips and into the deepest realm of her walls. He was closer every second, yet just as far away as when he began. Something would not let him shoot off, held him back from coming when he needed to like nothing he ever needed before.
Then he came, and the pleasure inside him was fantastic. He thrashed against her naked flesh with all the lust in his black body. He put his hands to his crotch and felt the gism hot against his touch.
Perry woke from his dream, his daydream, to find he was covered with come. He had jacked off thinking about her cunt. He felt ashamed to know he had to get his rocks off that way. He cleaned up and dialed the number that his mother had left for him to call.
"Mr. Parks is not in," said the voice at the end of the line, when he asked for Al.
"Will you tell him Perry Turner called back?"
"Perry," the voice said. "This is Vicky. What happened last night."
"Nothing," he said.
"Listen. Al wants to see you. Come down later today. He'll be in till late."
"Do you know what he wants to see me about?" he asked.
"I don't think it's anything special. He hoped to get to talk to you for a while. He was sorry you left so early."
"How late did the party last?"
"Well, most of the guests had gone by two o'clock."
He thought she was going to add more explanation, but there was only a long pause. Then, "Do you have something else planned?"
"No. I'm pretty much on my own as far as time is concerned."
"Then come on down. You'll get to see how the best Village paper operates."
"All right. Why not. Where are you located?"
"Do you know how to get back to the apartment? To St. Mark's Place and Second Avenue?"
"Sure."
"Well, we're right on Second Avenue, about two blocks down." She gave him the number. "You won't be able to miss the sign on our door."
He didn't miss it.
The building entrance had double metal doors painted purple, with the name "East Village Alternative" in a wild, multi-colored script that was close to unreadable. Under the letters, occupying the full width of both doors, was an enormous circular design that he had to look at a second time in order to decipher. It was a wheel of naked human figures, engaging in a complicated and continuous round of sexual contact. Almost every heterosexual and homosexual act was being graphically performed with complete abandon and more concentration. But then the most shocking thing about this piece of art, to Perry's mind, was the fact that it was so boldly displayed on a public street. Things had changed; even in the Village.
He was suddenly embarrassed to be standing there staring at the erotic symbol, and was about to push through the doors when he noticed the words following the outer curve of the design. It was apparently the paper's slogan. 'A weekly interchange of ideas,' it read, 'devoted to ultimate freedom of expression.' He was sure Al had written that line and conceived the illustration. It was a typical example of his odd combination of irony and seriousness.
A sign on the wall inside directed him to the third floor. He could hear typewriters and conversation before he got halfway up the steep old stairway.
The third floor defied any concept he'd ever had of a business office. At first, he thought perhaps the guests from the party had simply relocated for their daytime activities.
The entire floor was a series of open, room-like spaces; no doors, and not too many interior walls left standing. The desks, tables, and chairs looked like cast-offs from the worst part of the Harlem ghetto, and most were concealed beneath endless clutter. Stacks of newspapers, piles of scratch paper, pads of ruled note paper ... posters, pamphlets ... almost every printed item imaginable. The walls, too, were festooned with posters, notices, flyers pinned, pasted, or apparently flung at random to fill an empty area.
The smell of ink was overpowering. The noise of talking and typewriting was augmented by rock music coming from somewhere on the floor, playing at top volume.
One of two teenage girls seated at desks at the top of the steps started to ask Perry if she could help him, when Vicky appeared. Her trim, well-dressed figure was in shocking contrast to the jumbled, disheveled background. She was wearing a neat, light blue dress which made everything and everyone around her look crumpled and dirty.
"You found it," she said smiling, as he came up close to him and took hold of his arm. "Let me make some fast intros."
She turned toward the two girls, who were now joined by a long-haired boy who had just walked in from the back. "People, this is Perry Turner, a good friend of Al's." She rattled off some names, but Perry didn't try to catch them.
"Groovy," one of the girls said.
"Pleased ta meetcha," the other nodded.
The boy raised two fingers in a V sign and muttered, "Peace."
"Al will be free shortly," Vicky said to Perry. "Let me show you my office, if you can call it that."
He followed her through several of the incredibly cluttered areas. Then, burning a corner, he knew they had reached their destination. The space was dominated by a big, old-fashioned window which was sparkling clean. It looked out on Second Avenue, and the sun was just starting to shine through. There were two walls, and an enormous square pillar which defined a roughly square area. Every surface facing this office was painted a light blue, almost identical to the color of her dress.
Just above the height of the window, a false ceiling arrangement had been made of heavy paperboard, hung on wires attached to the walls. It was the same blue, and had reproduced on it the same circular design which was on the downstairs doors. The sight of that bothered Perry, but he had to admit to himself that it didn't appear either as blatant or suggestive in this spot. He wondered whether it was there as a symbol of the paper, or because she had suggested it. He tried not to picture her prostrate before Al in the black room. y
Perhaps the most striking aspect of her office was its absolute cleanliness. Although the desk and chairs were old, they shone with wax. Several filing cabinets, secondhand though they were, were spotless. And the top of her desk looked like that of any executive in a good office. Her phone was white; the only one like it in the place, he noticed.
"Are you sure we're in the right place?" he asked her.
She smiled broadly. "Al calls me his over ground employee. I take care of all the contact with the world outside. We have a lot of advertising from regular businesses, and it makes them feel ... more secure, I suppose, to deal with someone who doesn't fit their picture of the typical hippy."
"Do they come here sometimes?" Perry asked.
"A lot of the local Village business people do. Theaters, banks, the better restaurants. I've even had advertising agency men stop in. As far as they know, I'm the Business Manager of the paper."
"Are you?"
"No. I keep a lot of the records, and I make the bank deposits and payroll checks ... but Al is basically responsible for the financial end of the operation. The production and printing runs into a lot of money and details I'd know nothing about."
Vicky sat down behind the desk, and Perry took one of the chairs facing her.
"How do you keep these visitors from seeing the rest of the place, to say nothing of the employees?"
"We don't. That's the whole idea. No matter what someone might think of their appearance or their age, they have to admit the group is capable of putting a rather professional paper on the stands every week. That's one of Al's basic aims: To break down square prejudices against youth, non-conformity, self-expression. If a boy wants to wear his hair down to his shoulders, it doesn't mean there's nothing of value inside his head. If a girl would rather get a clean high on marijuana than sick on liquor, it doesn't mean she's about to go straight to hell."
"Probably not," Perry said. It sounded logical, if not completely convincing. But whatever was shaky about her statements, he had not come down here to have a discussion of morals.
He didn't come here to see me, Vicky thought.
She had been watching him closely as they talked. Perry had a very expressive face, as most intelligent people had, and she could see his sudden lack of interest in what she was explaining. like a lot of men, she imagined he reserved serious talk for when he was with other men. Women were for other things. Not too many other things, at that. She didn't often agree with Olivia's estimate of the world, but what Olivia had said about Perry this morning was probably close to the truth.
Al had been extolling Perry's intellectual virtues; telling how he expected that P.T. would be willing to write some interesting articles about Vietnam and life in the Marine Corps.
"Don't count on it, Al," Olivia proclaimed in her most knowing, world-weary manner. "That black boy has no more on his mind than getting all the free and easy ass he can before he has to go back and play soldier some more."
"You don't know him," Al insisted.
"Hah," she mocked. "If there's one thing in this world Olivia Warren knows well, it's males. They come in three varieties: the thinkers, the talkers and the fuckers. The thinkers are the ones who make the world go round. There are very few of them, Al. You know that because you're one of them. The talkers are most of the men in the world. They keep talking so they won't have to think and they won't have to do anything. They fill the offices, the suburbs, and the bars. The fuckers are very special. They think about fucking, they talk about fucking, and they do most of the real fucking that gets done. That's your friend, P.T. If Margaret hadn't gotten to him first, he'd still be in the other room, plowing anything that moved."
Al had only shrugged his shoulders. Vicky had hoped then that Olivia was wrong. She wasn't so sure at this moment.
"Let me see if Al is free yet," she said, getting up. "I'll be right back."
Al's office was far back at the end of the building. The path from Vicky's office to his was something of an obstacle course, but after six weeks she could navigate it without any problem. It was odd how quickly you became used to an entirely different set of circumstances, she mused. Not only working in this fascinating office, but her entire new life in the East Village.
At odd moments, she was aware of a sudden sense of fear or dislocation. What if her parents found out the truth? Yet, eventually, she would have to tell them. Eventually? The last time she had talked to them, the main subject of their side of the conversation had been plans for her return to college. Breaking the news was not going to be easy. But following their plans instead of her own, she knew would be harder on her than her decision would be on them.
There would be tears and recriminations, for sure. But they had always showed her a tremendous amount of respect; had let her make up her mind in so many decisions, from the time she was old enough to make them. That, of course, had been the easiest course for them; the path of least resistance. Still, she had never had to fight too hard to get her own way.
Was that good or bad, she thought briefly. Come on, now, Vicky, let's not get psyched up on reasons and causes. You know why you're doing what you're doing.
She could see that Al still had the same two men at his desk before she was all the way across the office, but she thought it better to let him know Perry was here. She had noticed that Al kind of lit up when he spoke about Perry this morning, and there was no mistaking his pleasure at seeing Perry last night.
Al saw her approaching, and called a greeting. The other two men turned to look at her briefly, and their conversation stopped.
"You want me, Vicky?" Al asked.
"Only to tell you Perry Turner is here."
"Where's he waiting?"
"In my office."
"Damn!" he said. "I didn't think he'd get down so soon." He stood up. "Excuse me a couple of minutes, fellows. I'll be right back."
Their replies were only grunts.
"Have you eaten lunch yet?" he asked Vicky, as they started back across the office.
"Not really. Why?"
"I thought you could help Perry kill some time till I'm free."
She remembered something. "I don't know if he wants to eat," she said, "but I have a better idea. I have to go uptown to the other apartment and get some things. He could come with me, and that would take an hour or more."
"Great. Let me suggest it. It'll sound better that way."
"All right."
Perry was standing at the window behind her desk when they got back, looking down at the street. He turned at Al's greeting.
"You ran out on me," Al said.
"Not really." Perry smiled. "I just ran out of energy."
"It's my fault," Al answered. "I could have waited until later to start smoking. Or, better yet, you could have joined me. You just don't know how it recharges you."
Vicky's phone rang. She picked it up, and tried to listen to both the caller and to the two men in her office. She could follow the conversation in front of her by watching Perry's face.
He seemed immediately more relaxed talking with Al. Then, she became aware of the whole man inside the fresh, short-sleeved shirt and light-colored slacks. He must have an excellent physique. She had not really noticed last night. Perhaps, this outfit was cut closer to his body. The bare forearms had long, prominent muscles, and the shape of his chest was partly revealed through the shirt.
No wonder Margaret had arranged her single guest's portrait preview as Olivia called it. The more serious of the twins disclaimed any sexual purpose to this all-over touching, but Vicky had been thoroughly aroused the night she had experienced it. She had fully expected Margaret to make a lesbian advance to her before the session was over. But she hadn't then, or at any time since, including the actual painting sessions when Vicky had posed nude. She knew Margaret had sex with men, so perhaps the girl was being perfectly honest about the purpose of this contact.
Vicky knew she could never touch a man like that and not want to have him make love to her completely. And, even while answering some idiotic question of the telephone caller, she knew she wanted to have that kind of total contact with Perry Turner.
She could almost feel his skin against her palms as she studied the partly-revealed lines of his body. A smooth-arching muscle here, a curved one there, a tightly bunched one at this sport.
Her call was ended, and she put the phone down, feeling light-headed.
"Vicky," Al said, "I've told P.T. I won't be able to get loose till after five, five-thirty or so. We're going to make it for dinner. Could he help you bring down that suitcase of clothes from the other apartment?"
"That would be wonderful," she said, directly to Perry. "If you don't mind. It would be kind of heavy for me to handle by myself."
"Glad to be useful," he said.
Maybe more than you think, thought Vicki.
Maybe much more useful.