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.