Chapter 2

As we neared the hippie group I saw there were about a dozen people sitting in a rough circle. They were dressed hippie-style. The colorful flags and banners on the pole billowed and snapped above them in the sea breeze.

The young woman who danced freely and sensuously was tall and her long mahogany-red hair blew in the wind and her large breasts swayed and jiggled under a faded, gray, short-sleeved sweatshirt. A large silvery ankh, the Indian life-symbol, dangled from a long silvery chain around her neck. Her compact hips and long thighs were encased in old jeans. She was barefoot but ankle bracelets of tiny bells tinkled as she kicked up small fluffs of sand when she moved in slow circles, arms gesturing gracefully, in a sort of tribal dance.

David said, "She's something!"

I sat cross-legged in a gap in the circle. He sat close behind me and a little to my left.

I couldn't take my eyes off the woman. She wore no make-up at all, yet she was lovely.

Her dance wasn't erotic, just sensual, because you knew from watching her that she loved her body and the way it obeyed her.

David breathed, "Man..." When she twisted to face the breeze, the sweatshirt was molded briefly against the full, sloping size of her breasts and her large nipples stuck out.

I glanced briefly around at the others in the circle. My gaze was caught by a folded wheelchair lying on the sand next to a small, thin girl wearing a long, wildly colorful cotton shift that appeared to be hand-painted. Her eyes seemed huge in her child-like face. Her brown hair was cut very short. A silvery ankh symbol hung from a silvery chain around her neck, too. She saw me looking at her and smiled unaffectedly, lovingly. I felt instantly that she was happy and content. I smiled in return.

I glanced across the circle at the young black man who played a set of bongos nestled between his thighs. He had let his hair grow out bushy and fuzzy. I realized he was staring at me and grinning. I didn't know how to react at first. Then I thought, he's only a boy with black skin ... and I might like him more than I liked David. So I nodded to him and smiled to show I liked his playing. Over his bare chest he wore a short serape made of an old white bedsheet that had been splashed and spattered with a dozen colors of paint. The pattern at first appeared haphazard and senseless, but the more I looked the more I liked it. He, too, wore beads and a silvery ankh symbol. His Levis were stained by salt water. He was barefoot.

As I looked around the circle I saw three others with similar ankhs dangling from silvery chains around their necks. The first was a skinny young man with long blonde hair whose rimless glasses perched on a prominent nose over a weak, scraggly-bearded chin. He wore only a pair of paint-dribbled and smeared old pants cut off raggedly at mid-thigh.

The second person with an ankh was the old, grizzled, white-haired man who played the guitar. His hair was long, too, almost to his shoulders, and he wore only a dirty, blue, unbuttoned vest and dirty, rope-belted, baggy, gray-striped pants, obviously from a suit twenty years old. His vest was festooned with buttons: MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR! BAN THE BRA; I'M MANIC-DEPRESSIVE BE WARNED; REAGAN FOR DICTATOR; PORNOGRAPHY IS FUN; PLUCK THE FUZZ; PRAY FOR SEX; WANTED A CASSIUS FOR LBJ. His skin had been tanned nut-brown and his face was fascinatingly wrinkled and creased. His vivid blue eyes peered sharply around as he played ... at the circle of young people ... at the people on the Ocean Front Walk a hundred yards away ... at the sea....

The third was a young, chunky, big-busted colored girl who sat on her heels next to the old man and swayed rhythmically with the music. She cuddled a brown baby in her lap. Her eyes were closed and she was smiling, singing softly to herself. She wore a man's loose shirt, tails out over her faded blue jeans, that had been decorated with swirls of green and orange paint. Her ankh nestled outside the shirt in the deep valley between her moving, unhindered breasts. Hints of brown skin showed through spots of unpainted white cloth and her nipples poked out sharply. A jingling bracelet of small bells hung on her left wrist and fascinated the baby she held lovingly against her belly.

The dancer seemed to tire. She simply stopped and settled down on the sand next to the old man. No one else got up to dance. The young black man kept on playing his bongos. He seemed self-absorbed, concentrated. The old man put aside the guitar.

One of the other onlookers said, "Your turn again, Sparrow."

The colored girl grinned. "No, man, I got to go to work in a little while. Got to have some energy left to wipe those old white asses."

A girl with long stringy black hair said, "Why ya wanta keep a stinkin' gig like that?"

"I do what I can for the tribe. I don't have no talent like Robin or Owl."

The black-haired girl asked, "How much do they pay you up at that old people's home?"

"Oh, they generous. I get a dollar thirty a hour."

"Just to wipe up shit?"

"Oh, yeah, man. Those old women shit in their beds twenty-four hours a day. They got no control at all!" She laughed infectiously.

I laughed, too. David nudged me. I glanced back at him. He whispered in my ear, "Look what the red-haired chick is doing!" I looked at the young woman who had stopped dancing a moment before. She was leaning against the old man, resting her head on his thin, bony shoulder. His right arm was around her waist. Her eyes were closed, her face was at peace, and her hands were under her sweatshirt, on her breasts, moving in slow self-caresses.

No one seemed to notice, or care. I looked away.

A long-haired boy in a plain white t-shirt and tan levis said, "Hey, Zeke, you heard what the fuckin' narcs did last night? They busted--"

The old man shook his head slowly. His deep voice cut off the boy with, "I heard, Greg. I don't want to put you down, but I wonder why you use that plastic American word all the time?"

"What word?" The boy was puzzled.

"Fuck. It's a lousy word. It's a four-letter symptom of the Establishment hang-up. It's sick, square language. It's part of the uptight sex scene that's helped make this country what it is."

"Yeah, but "

"Think for a while on it sometime. Fuck is a put-down word. You just used it that way: 'the fuckin' narcs.' And it means making love, doesn't it? And that's how most people unconsciously equate it fuck is dirty, and it means having sexual pleasure. People absorb this when they're kids and it warps them."

Behind me David exhaled a small breathy snort of dismissal.

The old man ... Zeke ... continued. "Fuck is a swear word! A word meaning a way to make love is indecent language. And yet people wonder why they all have sex problems!"

A lot of the kids in the circle were nodding. I agreed with Zeke totally. I blurted, "And it's the same way with words that name sexual parts of the body."

Zeke shifted his gaze to me. I looked into his wise blue eyes and I wanted to please him and be liked by him. He said, "Yes. Name some."

Everyone was looking at me. But it didn't bother me. I said calmly, "Oh ... cunt, cock, hole. . . " I wasn't embarrassed. But I saw David from the corner of my eye. He was visibly tensing up. But the hot sun beat down on me and I felt good.

Zeke smiled. "And the medical terms are almost as repulsive, aren't they?"

I nodded. "But there's nothing else to use."

A tall, horsy girl in a white bikini to my left said, "You can make up nice sounding names ... like ... fun box, or love rod."

Everybody laughed. She flushed.

But Zeke said, "She's right, though. Even fun box and love rod are better sounding and have better vibrations than cunt and cock."

The colored boy had stopped tapping on his bongo drums. He was looking at me again. He said, "Don' matter what you call it, just so you do it and like it." His black eyes challenged me.

His intense gaze made me a little uncomfortable. I could feel his eyes on my body. I had never been looked at so directly and sexually before by a black man, and he was a man ... at least in his early twenties. I didn't consider myself prejudiced but a shiver went through me anyway. He had very negroid features.

I didn't look away. I sort of shrugged and smiled, mostly at Zeke, and said, "I like it fine."

The colored girl with the baby smiled widely and said, "Good. Thass a very good sign."

Zeke said, "We haven't seen you around Venice before."

"No, I'm just here for a few more days, actually. My dad-likes to stay at the beach part of his vacation every year. This year he chose Venice."

"You have a healthy outlook on sex. What's your name?"

"Juli Lund."

He smiled and his wrinkles and creases spider-webbed his deeply tanned face. "Greetings, Juli. I'm Zeke Belkin, sometimes called Eagle Zeke by the members of our tribe ... " He pointed to the small, thin girl beside the folded wheelchair. "Robin Vedlow...."

We said "Hi" to each other and smiled again.

". . . Owl Wayne..." The boy with the long blonde hair and glasses said hello.

". . .Sparrow Jackson and her little fledgling, Tommy."

I said, "Hi. He's a cute baby."

"He oughta be. Took me ten long hard hours to get him out." She laughed and cuddled the child to her breasts. He plucked with his small hands at a button of her shirt.

Zeke gestured to the young black man. "This is Blackbird Winter ... "

Blackbird said, "Good meetin' you, Juli."

I nodded and smiled. Then Zeke nodded at the young woman who had danced and who still rested her head on his shoulder and continued to fondle herself. "This lovely autoerotic creature is my wife, Rill."

Rill opened her eyes and appraised me for a few seconds. She said solemnly, "Also known as the red-headed sap-sucker."

Blackbird grinned, "Yeah, man!"

I asked, "Why do you all have bird names?"

Robin answered, "It started with my nickname, Robin. Then Sparrow came to live with us and that was the way she ate, like a sparrow at first "

Sparrow said, "Now I eat like a horse!"

". . . so Zeke started calling her Sparrow. We started calling him Eagle ... and pretty soon, when Lew joined us we had to call him Owl ... "

Blackbird slapped his bongos in an explosive, swift rhythm. "Then I came on the scene and named myself!"

Zeke said, to sum it up, "We're the Bird Tribe."

David leaned close to me and whispered loudly, "Sounds like a pretty fowl situation." He snickered.

The boy on my right looked at David with disgust.

I shared that opinion.

Sparrow looked up, smiling, as she checked her baby's diaper for moisture. "Love Tribe'd be a better name 'cording to the way we cozy up in our nest."

I asked, "You all live together?"

Sparrow nodded. "Sure."

The boy named Owl said suddenly, "Bird House ... that's what we call it."

David asked, "You sleep together, too?" The way it came out he sounded dirty-minded and disgusted.

I hated him for asking that. I wanted to shrivel up. I was ashamed for him. I looked down at my hands in my lap.

There was a short silence. The flags and banners flapped overhead in the breeze. The surf thumped and swooshed. A helicopter buzzed angrily toward us from the direction of Santa Monica.

Zeke answered, "Sex is a part of everyone's life."

"Sounds like it's a major part for you people."

I couldn't stand it! I stood up and walked around the circle to Zeke. I glared at David. I knelt beside Zeke and asked, "May I play your guitar for a moment?"

He smiled. "Of course." The kindness and tone of his words told me he understood my move and feelings. He handed me the instrument. It was an expensive, older Goya.

I ran a few chords, then started singing one of my songs. I write songs as a hobby; words first, then I try to find a melody to fit. I don't play the guitar well, but I manage.

I have a fair singing voice, though. I sang my favorite song: the one I call "Where It's At."

"The hippie lives in the one true world

Of love and respect for man.

The hippie lives in the one true world

Where the straight ones never can.

"That's where it's at. That's where it's at.

"The old ones moan of our drugs and sin While they pill themselves to death. The old ones moan of our drugs and sin While they drink themselves to death.

"That's where it's at. That's where it's at.

"We want to be free to build our new life; Free of cops and wars and fear. We want to be free to build our new life; And the time is near. The place is here!"

Everyone clapped. They called, "Great."

"Real fine."

"Super groovy."

"Out of sight!"

I flushed and smiled and bobbed my head. "Thank you."

Zeke put his arm around my waist. "You are now an honorary member of the tribe. I name thee Lark."

I kissed him. "Thank you." I felt as if I was one of them. I belonged. But I noticed that David, sitting on the fringe of the circle, was scowling.

Owl asked, "Did you compose that yourself?"

I nodded.

Zeke said, "Sing some more."

Sparrow said, "Ohh, it's time. The time is here." She grinned. She looked at a nurse's watch on her right wrist. "I got to get back and change into my uniform. Them ol' bedpans is calling."

, Zeke looked at the low sun. "Rill and I should get back to the house, too."

I handed back his guitar. "Do you and your tribe come out to the beach every day?"

"Usually only a few of us. But today is special. Today is Robin's birthday." He smiled at her.

Blackbird stood up and slung his bongos over his shoulder by means of a carrying strap. Everyone shifted and moved. I stood up, too.

Zeke gathered the flags and banners, uprooted the pole, and said to me, "Would you like to see our house?"

"Yes, very much!"

I saw Blackbird kneel beside Robin, scoop her into his arms and lift her up. She clung to his neck willingly. Owl picked up the wheelchair and carried it on his head. Sparrow led the way across the sand toward the paved Ocean Front Walk.

Rill, Zeke's beautiful wife, had stopped caressing herself under her sweatshirt. She stood beside him. She said to me, "You're welcome. I dig you."

I wanted to go with them. But David walked over and I had to cope with his squareness again. I asked Zeke, "How far away is it?"

"Four blocks."

I gestured at David and walked away a few feet to talk with him. Zeke, Rill and the others in the tribe moved away toward the Walk. The others, the half-dozen hippies and high-school kids who had gathered to watch and listen, drifted off, too.

I said to David, "I'm going with them. Will you tell mother and dad I'll be back in a few hours?"

"I'll go with you."

"I don't want you along. You don't fit."

"Thanks!" He turned sullen. He turned his head and watched the tribe for a second. "You really sucked up to them with that song, didn't you?"

"So what?"

"Well, hell, when I drive all the way out here from the valley to spend the day with you I kinda expect I don't expect you to ditch me for a bunch of lousy nipples!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't ask you to come see me today, David. So for all I care you can hop into your nice new red Mustang and drive right on back!"

"I will. And fuck you!"

"You already have. That's really what you drove out here for, anyway, wasn't it?" I turned my back to him and walked swiftly after the tribe.

A few seconds later he called, "Hey ... Juli ... ? " But I ignored him. He didn't follow me.

I caught up with the group as they reached the Walk. Owl opened the wheelchair and I saw the plastic leather seat and back had been decorated in bright, psychedelic colors, too.

Blackbird lowered Robin easily into the chair. Rill pushed her as we walked slowly along the walk to Brooks Avenue.

I found myself walking beside Owl. He seemed shy and bashful. I had noticed his paint-dribbled cutoff pants, so I asked, "Are you an artist?"

"I hope so." He smiled tentatively. He brushed his long blonde hair away from his glasses and glanced at me with quick, nervous looks. "Hey, I liked your song."

"It says what I think."

"Yeah. I wish I could say what I mean in my paintings. They end up all ... confused."

"I'd like to see some of them."

He smiled wryly. "You will. They're hanging all over the house."

We crossed Pacific Boulevard and headed down to Main Street.

Sparrow's baby began to cry. She was walking with Blackbird behind Owl and me. She patted him and cooed to him but he wouldn't stop. She said, "He hungry."

Blackbird said, laughing, "Feed him some tit."

"Got no milk left ... but I guess it would pacify him."

I looked around and saw her unbutton the second button on her shirt and pull the shirt to the left so the gap was over her large brown breast. She exposed a big purplish nipple which she gave to the crying baby's mouth. The child began suckling contentedly.

I must have stared because Blackbird asked me, "You never seen a baby eat tit before?"

I shook my head. "I've lived a sheltered life, I guess," Owl said, "Me, too, till I came out here to go to UCLA, got kicked out of school and found the tribe ... only it wasn't a tribe then, just Zeke and Rill with Robin living with them."

We had crossed Main and were cutting across the curving intersection of two streets with Main and Brooks. I noticed people in cars watching us, looking, gawking ... I was proud to be with the tribe and happy to be thought one of the group ... a real hippie.

We continued along Brooks Avenue. I suddenly realized we were walking into a Negro neighborhood.

I began to feel a little funny about walking around the streets with only a brief bikini on. I asked Owl, "Why'd you get kicked out of school?"

"I wouldn't follow the rules in art class. The art professors are all hung up on procedures." He gestured violently. "Do this first, then you can do that. Bunch of crap!" He pushed his glasses up his nose and took my arm to steer me around a broken beer bottle on the sidewalk.

Rill turned Robin's wheelchair up the walk of an old, rundown two-story house. The street number, three ninety-nine, had been painted in flowing, orange and green psychedelic numerals above the door.

The door itself, the front window frames and the porch steps were all wildly alive with color. I said aloud, "Oh, I dig it!"

Owl smiled, pleased. "Wait'll you see the inside."

Zeke unlocked the door. Blackbird carried Robin inside and Owl carried in the wheelchair. Sparrow handed her baby to Rill and went down the hall to a back room.

The front room was a happening! Two walls were covered by Indian blankets. A handmade multi-colored glass shade covered the overhead light fixture. The floor was bare boards except for two hand-woven rag rugs. There were half a dozen psychedelic posters taped to odd spaces on the remaining walls. The furniture consisted of two old sofas and two old club chairs. Neither of the chairs matched the sofas in style, upholstery or color. A big, walnut-veneered old-fashioned Philco console radio stood in a corner with a Buddha incense burner on its top. But what caught my eyes more than anything were Owl's paintings, unframed, which hung on the walls like weird windows into another world.

I pushed my sunglasses up to the top of my head. I said, "Oh, wow!" and walked over to one of the larger canvases. It was done in a sort of dribble technique ... tiny drops of paint that formed faces, figures, objects, landscapes ... and the color was magnificent! The scenes glowed with life. I looked and looked and looked!

Owl came up beside me. He examined his work critically. "That one came off pretty good."

I looked at him with a ton of new-found respect. "It's beautiful!" I glanced around the room ... at Robin's wildly colored shift ... at Blackbird's patterned serape ... and I said, "You decorate the tribe's clothes, too, don't you?"

He grinned. "Um-hmm. Some of them anyway."

Blackbird was lounging in one of the chairs. He was reading the latest issue of the Free Press.

Robin had rolled her psychedelic wheelchair down the hall and into another room.

Zeke asked me, "Lark, will you eat with us?"

I felt a surge of identity and happiness and gratitude at his having used my "tribe" name. I said, "Yes, thank you."

I went along the walls with Owl looking at his paintings. I said,"You must have talent overflowing out of your ears!"

He shook his head. He brushed his long hair back. "No. Most of my stuff doesn't make it. I'm still trying to find the handle." He abruptly smiled and asked, "You want to see the rest of the house?"

"Yes."

Blackbird said from his chair, "You want a drag of this, man?" He was smoking a small, thin, hand-rolled cigarette.

I knew it was pot. I'd seen a girl in my college dorm smoke a tiny "roach" once in my freshman year. Owl said, "Sure." He took the little cigarette and sucked air and smoke into his lungs with a long hissing inhalation. He held his breath for a long moment, then slowly exhaled. He nodded and smiled. "Good stuff."

Blackbird nodded at me. "Try it." He was half-grinning. His eyes drifted down over my body.

I had never smoked pot before. Owl asked, "You want to?"

I nodded. My mouth was suddenly dry and my belly felt icky. But I carefully took the marijuana cigarette and tried to imitate Owl's inhaling technique. I took in a deep lungful of air and smoke. I held it in, smiled, and handed it back. Owl took another drag and handed it back to Blackbird.

I exhaled slowly. I didn't feel any different. I was disappointed. Owl took my arm. "I'll show you our money factory."

We started down the hall. The panels of a door on the left were decorated with drawings of impossibly colored fantasy flowers. I instantly knew it was Owl's work. I started to say something about them.

But the door was opened inward suddenly and Sparrow, totally naked, came out. It was the bathroom. There were a few drops of water on her shoulders, in the deep valley of her big, brown, fully-fleshed breasts, and in her tightly kinked patch of black pubic hair.

Water gurgled in the bathtub. A waft of steamy air followed her out. She smiled and walked on down the hall, unashamed, her chunky brown buttocks quivering and rocking with each heavy step.

Owl smiled and said to me, "Quite a chick." He looked into an open doorway on the right. "Hey, Robin, you mind if I give Lark the guided tour?"

Behind us, in the front room, Blackbird or Zeke must have turned on the radio. A fast-speaking announcer's voice swiftly built in volume: ". . . instant sound, instant communication radio! Now hear the classic by Jefferson Airplane!" The music began and I recognized the opening sound of "White Rabbit."

Robin's voice, sweet and small, called, "Come in. I've got something for her."

We entered a bedroom that was mostly a handcraft workshop. Robin, thin and child-like, sat in her wheelchair before a work table scattered with tools and small electric buffers and grinders. She smiled when I entered. She handed me a silvery chain bracelet with tiny bells and peace symbols attached. "I enjoyed your song very much. I hope you enjoy this half as much."

I was astonished and overwhelmed. I knew I had to accept it; I couldn't refuse. It was a love offering. But it was obviously worth at least ten dollars in a hippie shop.

My throat tightened and I felt close to tears. I bent over and kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, very much. It's lovely." She smelled of a delicate perfume, her enormous brown eyes closed briefly and her small hand rested lightly on my back for a moment.

I straightened and slipped the bracelet on my left wrist. As I fastened the clasp Owl said, "She's the real artist in the tribe, I think. She's won some awards with her things. Her jewelry really sells in the shops on Fairfax."

Robin touched his hand. "But you're the genius. Poor mixed-up genius."

He tousled her very short brown hair. "I'm not poor as long as my folks keep sending me a hundred dollars a month."

I said, "You're lucky. My mother and dad wouldn't do that for me."

He shrugged. "They think I'm in a special art school. Eagle made up a letterhead and conned them along."

Robin said, "Eagle is wonderful. He took me in. He bought me all these tools ... he saw that Owl needed desperately to live and work here where there's love and freedom ... and he accepted Sparrow when she showed up one night with her baby and no place to go. Nobody else wanted her."

Owl nodded. "He's something else."

I reached out and touched the ankh hanging from Owl's neck. "Did you make these, Robin?"

She smiled. "Yes."

Owl said, "She doesn't make them for sale in the stores, though. There are only six."

I said, "One for each of the tribe." I wished I could have one. I wished I could be a member of their tribe.

We looked at a startlingly beautiful portrait of Robin that Owl had done, then we went out to the hallway.

Sparrow called from a room a few feet further on. "Owl, baby? You help me a sec?"

We walked into her room. The walls were papered with cartoons from magazines. One whole wall was "Reserved for Ron Cobb" according to a sign that had Owl's style. Sparrow had apparently cut each Cobb cartoon from the weekly L.A. Free Press and taped it up. There must have been five dozen.

She stood by the bed in white panties with a white bra cupped over her big breasts. She shook her head when we entered. "Can't make it with these hooks."

Owl helped her fasten the bra in the back. It was tight. The straps pressed into her smooth, buttery shoulders and back.

She gave him a brief kiss on the lips. He ran his left hand over her belly. It was a casual, affectionate, mutual act, completely unselfconscious.

I thought it was fine, really groovy, that there was such naturalness between them as male and female, without the race thing intruding. But it was sort of jolting for me because I'd never seen it done before. And I felt a little jealous, too. I liked Owl. There was something about his manner, his talk, the way he looked at me, smiled, touched me occasionally, that struck a me-too chord in my heart. I dug him and I dug his art.

Owl took my hand and we went back into the hallway, heading toward the front room. I asked, "Where's your room? Where do you paint?"

"Upstairs. I'll show you."

We entered the main room. Blackbird was lying on his back before the big old Philco, his head propped against the speaker grid, eyes closed, totally with the sound of a Beatles' song that poured over him at near top volume.

Zeke was lying on one of the sofas, smoking an ordinary long cigarette. He was reading a thick book. I couldn't see the title.

Owl towed me through an archway into the dining room which held a big old wooden table surrounded by mismatched wooden chairs. I had a glimpse into the kitchen. Rill was standing by a gas stove. Sparrow's baby lay cradled in her left arm nursing on a bottle. Rill stared down at a large pot she was stirring.

Then Owl and I started up a narrow stairway just inside the dining room archway, on the right. The stairs were worn and splintered.

There were three rooms upstairs and a small bathroom. Owl's room was on the right over the living room. The bass notes from the radio came up through the floor. I laughed and clapped my hands when I entered. "It's such a perfect artist's shambles!"

He smiled. "Yeah ... I'm not very neat."

"You don't have to be neat. . . and don't apologize." I touched the tips of dozens of brushes in paint-dappled pots. I inspected a caked palette board and drifted around the cluttered room to the half-finished painting on the easel that stood close by the double windows.

The painting was of a nude blonde girl lying on a bed made of arms and hands that were all over her body, touching, stroking, seeking her loins and breasts. It was done in the droplets-of-paint technique.

I stared at the unfinished painting for a long time. It affected me in a weird, hypnotic way ... I felt akin to that naked girl. I said, "She doesn't want to leave the bed, does she?"

Owl was beside me, studying it, too, as if he hadn't created it. "No. She-likes it. That's why she bought it and sleeps on it."

I studied it some more. One of the hands seemed to have fingers in her body. It was hard to be sure.

Owl put his arm around my waist. His other hand touched my belly. I was very conscious for a second that I wore only a thin, two-piece bikini. He said, "I like you." Very simply, truthfully, openly and I knew he wanted to kiss me. It was what I wanted, too. I turned and accepted his mouth. I shivered and trembled as his tongue came into mine and played tantalizing games.

I melted in his arms. I wished he had dozens of arms and hands like the bed he had drawn. I was lost behind the sparkling darkness of my closed eyelids ... lost in his mouth, in his arms, in his wanting, and in my own wanting. A sweet, wet urgency, hot and coiling, came alive in my womb ... in my breasts ... in my heart.

I was astonished and afraid and happy. I was turning on like crazy for Owl! I moaned and wanted him to touch me. . . stick a finger in me! ... but I knew I'd stop him if he tried. It was too soon after my time with David that was another world and only, barely, an hour and a half away in time ... and I wasn't a nymphomaniac! I didn't go around laying for just anybody! I liked sex but I wasn't an addict!

My thoughts whirled like a cyclone. I wondered what he was thinking she's a slut? An easy lay? A chick who's playing at being a hippie?

I pressed my belly against him to feel his erection. It was there, naked in his cut-off pants, stiff and long under the paint-smeared material. Then I pulled back, ashamed, because I couldn't be so bold I didn't know him well enough! I did, but ... it was too soon! I wanted ... but....

I pushed myself away from Owl.

He was puzzled. "What's the matter?"

I couldn't answer. I looked at the paintings on the easel. I couldn't face him. I couldn't say, "I'm not that kind of girl!" because I was!

I said, "Show me some of your other paintings." And I almost added,". . . first."

"Sure." He had stacks of canvases leaning against the walls. He squatted with me and showed them. Most were in his new technique. Most were people, or weird other-world animals, or wild, impossible landscapes, not of this earth.

After twenty minutes I asked, amazed, "And the Art people at UCLA didn't like these?"

"A couple did, but I'm pretty arrogant when it comes to painting, I guess. I don't take instruction very well. I hate to be told! They said I was a 'perverted Pollock.' So I quit school."

"You said before you had been kicked out."

"I was! When I should have been in History of Art classes I was painting. When I should have been in some stupid Psychology class I was painting. So..." He shrugged.

I stood up and returned to the painting on the easel. It fascinated me. He stood close and watched me. I became very self-conscious.

He said in a soft, hesitant voice, "Hey, Lark..." He took my in his arms and kissed me. I didn't resist. I caved in and opened my lips. I was quickly all hot and bothered again, turned on, wanting his hands on me, unable to get enough of his mouth and tongue.

After a moment I began to get weak and breathless.

Owl ended our kiss and said, "I want to make love with you."

"With me ... not to me. We stood belly to belly, thigh to thigh, his hands resting on the small of my back, our chests slightly apart. His gaze was honest and candid.

I nodded. I suddenly was ashamed of myself for thinking like an up-tight square, a sex-denying little prick-teaser! Sex is good! It doesn't matter how often you enjoy it if you're with someone you like and trust. I said, "I want to make love with you, too." My voice shook.

He took off his glasses and put them on a nearby table. He took my sunglasses from their perch on my head and put them on the table, too. His eyes, without his glasses, were gray-green and kind of out of focus and baffled looking.

Then he left me to close the door.

I asked, "Aren't you going to lock it?"

"It isn't necessary. If it's closed it means 'privacy wanted' and it's respected.

We kissed again and all barriers went down! I felt free to show my lust for him. I ground my belly against him and rubbed my breasts on his chest. I gasped and moaned during the kiss because I wanted to. I didn't need to repress anymore, not with Owl, because he wouldn't think I was too passionate to be decent and respectable;

I felt him pull the string on my bikini halter bow knot in back. I slid my mouth from his mouth and stepped back. I pulled off the halter and let it drop. I could feel my nipples sticking out. I hoped he would like my breasts even if they did sag a little and weren't as big as Rill's or Sparrow's.

I pushed down my bikini bottom and let it slide down my legs to the floor. My heart was thumping away like crazy.

Owl simply took my hand and drew me to the low, double bed in the corner. The bedding was rumpled and sour smelling but I didn't care. I pushed him down onto his back and undid his belt. I wanted to take his pants down and see how big he was.

I've always been curious about boys' penises. I don't care if they're big or small. I just like to see and touch. They're always different.

I unzipped him and tugged his pants down off his hips. I saw his patch of curly blonde pubic hair first, then the white-skinned tube of rigid flesh was uncovered, more and more, longer and longer, until the head of it sprang free and it flopped up and to the side, still getting longer, the smooth violet tip pushing out of the white skin sheath.

It was longer than David's, but thinner, and it curved slightly to the left. I closed my fingers around it and pulled the skin down. I asked, "Do you make love a lot?"

Owl began playing with my breasts. "I don't know ... sometimes. Depends." He shifted closer and sucked on my right nipple.

I closed my eyes and began pumping him. He was using his teeth on my nipple, scraping it lightly, sending shivers of pleasure dancing through me, down to my womb.

After a minute he pulled my head down and kissed me. His hand slipped down to my thighs and stroked me there, and wormed fingers into me, to my stiff little clitoris, and I had a spasm of pleasure when he made a contact that nearly blew my mind.

We were both breathing heavily, both restless and aroused. Owl stroked my back ... my buttocks ... my thighs ... He kissed my throat, my ear, and breathed, "Want to sixty-nine?"

I had never done it, but there were no boundaries for me with him. I wanted to try it, to find out, to experience it. I gripped his long penis in my hand and wanted to finally know what it was like to put one in my mouth and suck.

I whispered, "All right."

He moved around and arranged us on our sides, facing each other's loins. He opened my thighs and rested his head on my lower thigh,-as if it was a pillow, and with both hands gently opened the lips of my vagina, and moved his face closer ... I could feel his breath there.

His long penis was before my face, inches from my mouth, throbbing slightly. I held it in my hand and stared at it.

Owl pressed his mouth to me down there! I inhaled sharply as he began licking me. "Oh. Ohhh...." I made little coital moves. I licked my lips, closed my eyes and took the head of his penis into my mouth. It tasted salty at first, then there was no taste. It felt rubbery and velvet-smooth to my tongue. I wasn't disgusted or revolted. I actually liked it ... It was like suckling a huge nipple as a baby. It was giving Owl pleasure. It was being unashamed and hip and having a healthy outlook. It was discovering that I was mature enough emotionally to do it.

I existed in two worlds: I was going wild from his licking and tonguing of my clitoris, and I was experimenting with ways to suck the long, hard rod of hot flesh half in my mouth, half in my hand's grasp. Owl's hips moved slowly, instinctively, to push more in.

I moaned and rushed air through my nostrils and plunged as much of his penis into my mouth as I could, partly into my throat until I gagged. There were still inches left. I retreated and licked the tip. I plunged my head forward again, straining to see how much I could take.

I vaguely heard Owl gasping, panting, whistling air through his nose, sobbing, making wet noises, as I was, as he seemed to glue his mouth to my vagina and flick his wonderful tongue faster and faster against my slippery clitoris.

I began sucking his penis voraciously, greedily, as my pleasure increased, as an orgasm built its explosive tension in my loins. I went golden hot inside my belly.

All but one thought was driven from my mind as the exquisite sensations suddenly triggered and surged through me. Owl's hips thrust toward me with new, quick urgency, and I was afraid he would shoot in my mouth...

Then I was enveloped in a blinding, convulsive blaze of orgasmic pleasure. I whimpered and thrashed against his mouth ... his lashing tongue ... and was mindless, beyond any restraint as I drove my head faster and faster, slobbering saliva, moaned and grunted with urgency, as I plunged his long, rigid penis deeper and deeper, against the back of my throat, gagged but was beyond caring, driven to give him what I was experiencing and with joy heard his deep gasps, felt him tremble, received the animal thrusts into my throat, felt the huge spasms in his loins, the spurting of thick fluid ... I swallowed and didn't care! It tasted slimy, like raw egg and I didn't care! A closed-off, square,up-tight corner of my mind screamed in shock and I didn't care!

We rolled onto our backs. I lay panting, eyes still closed, glowing, enjoying minor spasming inside, and the shock seeped further into my mind at what I had done. I wanted to spit. I couldn't swallow. A considerate host would provide handy after-suck-off-mints....

Owl murmured, "That was out of sight ... " I heard him moving around. I was astonished when he kissed me! How could he bring himself to do it? I had to swallow finally, and the taste wasn't so terrible. I've tasted worse toothpaste. And I realized he didn't think what we had done was evil or dirty. He really didn't! I had been intellectually in agreement, but deep down I had had my mother's attitudes imbedded in my value system. Society's values. Puritan anti-sex values.

It was a sweet, brief, passionless kiss, one of gratitude and happiness and love. I opened my eyes and smiled. I whispered, "I've never made it that big before. Oh, wow...."

"Me neither." He sighed deeply. He reached over and cupped my left breast in his palm. It was a gesture of possession and togetherness. I ran my fingers through his long blonde hair.

Owl said, "I wish you "

He was interrupted by a soft rapping on the door. I tensed! Blackbird's voice said, "Hey, man, supper's on the table."

He didn't come in. I relaxed as Owl answered, "Okay, thanks."

I left the bed and picked up the parts of my bikini. Owl pulled on his pants.

A few minutes later we went down the stairs hand in hand.

The meal was a sort of slumgullion stew, a cabbage and fresh peach salad, and coffee. It wasn't imagine but there was plenty of it. I noticed there were a lot more chairs at the table than tribe members. I asked Zeke why.

He stopped spooning stew, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, "We get some kids in almost every day who are hungry and need a place to crash. We feed them and sleep them. We'll get a couple later on tonight, I imagine. We always do."

Rill ate quietly. She didn't say a word during the meal. She brought in more food and coffee, and usually kept one hand under her sweatshirt on her breasts.

Sparrow had already left for work. Robin sat in her wheelchair next to the table. Blackbird smiled a lot. I think he was high. The radio continued to blast rock music.

Afterward I helped Rill clear the table and wash the mismatched dishes, bowls, cups, mugs and silverware. We worked silently, yet I didn't feel I was an intruder or unwanted. She simply accepted my help and smiled when I leaned over impulsively and kissed her cheek when the kitchen had been cleaned up and everything put away. I said, "I envy you, Rill."

She said, "It's a good life. As long as I have Zeke."

We went into the living room. Robin was working in her room. Blackbird had gone out. I joined Owl on the porch. We talked, watched the few passersby, and he introduced me to a hippie couple when they fell by to see Zeke. The girl was almost lost in cast-off men's pants, shirt, and large, shapeless sweater. Her long black hair was a tangled mass. She was barefoot. Her man was heavily bearded, dressed similarly, and barefoot, too. He was simply John. She was Peg.

We went inside a half hour later and I noticed them sitting at the dining room table eating some of the left-over stew.

We went upstairs again and Owl did some work on the painting while I watched and read an old copy of The Oracle.

We talked about everything.

Then I glanced at my watch and was amazed. It was almost midnight!

Owl walked me home. He let me wear his sweatshirt. He wore an old red jacket. On the way he said, "Why don't you split your folks' scene? You're old enough. Nineteen."

"I'm tempted." We held hands as we walked. "But I'm tied in. I go back to USC in three weeks ... registration."

"You really want to buy the square bag?"

"I'm not buying it. But getting an education is important."

"For what? A life like your folks have?"

We halfway argued all the way. I was torn up more and more. I knew he was right ... yet I couldn't just ditch two years of college and my future. I was still hanging on to parts of the square value system. I didn't realize I couldn't live half-and-half.

We kissed in the alcove of the apartment house. I went syrupy and weak again and pressed tight against him. We both wanted sex again. We promised to see each other the next day.

I unzipped the little pocket in the side of my bikini and took out my door keys. I was going up in the elevator when I realized I still had on his sweatshirt. But I didn't think it mattered I'd give it back the next day.