Memoirs of a beatnik Read online

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  AUTHORS NOTE

  "What do you suppose happened to all those Beatniks?" mused a blonde freshman as she drove me back to San Francisco after my reading at Berkeley last year.

  Well, sweetie, some of us sold out and became hippies. And some of us managed to preserve our integrity by accepting government grants, or writing pornographic novels. John Wieners is mad and in make-up in Buffalo, Fred Herko walked out a window, Gary Snyder is a Zen priest. You name it. Or, as my eleven-year-old daughter recently said to me, remembering the early years of her childhood:

  "I really miss those old days. They were hard, but they were beautiful."

  Things now are more like pretty. A New Age, with a bit of the baby fat still showing.

  Stay stoned.

  Diane di Prima May 1969

  February

  Well, here I was. I stretched my legs, arching my toes and sighing just a little, so as not to waken the boy still sleeping beside me. Here I was and, I thought wryly, this is only the first of many strange apartments I'll be waking up in. The muscles of my thighs felt sore, and I passed my hand over them to feel the graininess of the dried come that was stuck to them here and there. Then I slid my hand between my legs and felt softly of the lips of my vagina. The skin was raw as I slipped my fingers inside, exploring gently. He certainly was a big one, I thought. A big one for the first one, that was good. A shiver of pleasure passed over me as I explored the familiar ground and goose bumps started up on my arms. Now, I thought with a little grin of cynical pleasure, I certainly won't have any more trouble using Tampax.

  Ivan was still asleep, his back to me. I softly slid the sheet off both of us, and compared the rosy, almost violet cast of my flesh with the pallid, olive light that his body threw off. We looked good together. It was a pleasure to lie there, mildly aroused, passing my hand over the smooth skin of my own breasts and stomach, and knowing that at any moment I could initiate the dance that would satisfy my own desire and bring delight to the creature beside me.

  I turned on my side and put my mouth on his back, lightly tonguing the indent his spine made. He had one large vertebra there at his lower back, just before his spine curved in between the cheeks of his ass. I explored it thoroughly with my mouth, traced the spine to its end, and started up again, this time bringing my fingers into play, brushing them lightly over his flanks and sides, raising the fine down that covered his sallow skin.

  Ivan was thoroughly awake by now, stirring beneath my touch, and as I raked the hair on the nape of his neck with my tongue, he turned toward me, covering my mouth with his own. I slid my arm under his shoulders, noticing as I did so that for all his length his shoulders were very slight-as slight as a girl's. For some reason this excited me all the more, and I moved my body so that I half lay on him, and devoted my full attention to our kiss.

  There are as many kinds of kisses as there are people on the earth, as there are permutations and combinations of those people. No two people kiss alike—no two people fuck alike—but somehow the kiss is even more personal, more individualized than the fuck.

  February

  There are those who kiss intently, earnestly, their lips tight and straining, their tongues hard, thrust with a firm determination as far as possible into the other's mouth; there are those who kiss lackadaisically, casually, languorously, their mouths slack, brushing lightly, their tongues almost unequal to the effort of venturing forth. There are those cunning kissers whose kiss seems casual at first, and sneaks up on you in vast explosions of lust. There are those insinuating kissers whose kiss is so lewd that it leaves you slightly repelled, as if you had just had a quick fuck on the bathroom floor; and those virginal kissers who, in the act of turning your mouth practically inside out, seem chastely to be taking your hand. There are those who kiss as if they were fucking: tongue pumping frantically back and forth between the other's lips in a breathless rhythm. There are many, many other major types of kisses—at least twelve come to my mind offhand. List your favorites below:

  Our kiss began at the lips, mouth loose, relaxed, playing and brushing each other gently, seeking to blend into each other, to become one mouth, but with no urgency about it. The excitement built gradually, until lips were being ground savagely against the still-closed teeth. A slacking off, and then his tongue came out and began to examine the inside of my lower lip, prodding and sliding gently into the corners, rubbing against my gums and curving my lip down. The tongue withdrew, and mine moved to follow suit, to play the same game but more thoroughly, slipping around the inside of the upper lip also, and down into the sides of his mouth, puffing out first one of his hollow cheeks and then the other. When I tired of this, I fell to nipping the inside of his lower lip with my teeth. And then his tongue reached out again, serious and straining, searching out the roof of my mouth, and the skin under my tongue. We shifted in order to lock mouths and bodies more closely

  February

  together, and my hand found his large, beautiful cock and began to stroke it and fondle it, occasionally pausing to cup its full knob in the hollow of my palm.

  Our tongues were jousting now in a fine fencing match of pleasure, touching and tilting as we moved slightly from side to side in our attempts to bring our flesh into more and more total contact. I slid a knee up under his balls and rotated it gently, while examining his entire palate with the tip of my tongue. In reply, he pressed one thigh awkwardly against my crotch, just touching my clitoris. A warm wave of pleasure spread over me, and I began to grind my box against his leg, gripping him with both my thighs, while my mouth left his and sought the hollow place I loved at the base of his throat.

  He lay there, his head thrown back and his eyes closed, as I traced the line of his throat, his collarbone and his breast with my mouth, leaving a fine trail of saliva on his pale skin. My tongue played briefly with his hard, slight nipples, and I continued my journey south, pausing now and then to nip the fine, smooth flesh just under his ribs, or to ream his navel with my tongue. His eager hands on my head now thrust me down, down toward his huge cock, but I resisted, playfully. I was not to be hurried. I took one of the dark hairs on his stomach between my front teeth and pulled at it lightly. I traced the fine bones of his pelvis with my mouth, studying the way the flesh, stretched taut, dipped into a hollow, smooth and sensuous as sand dunes. I left a purple tooth mark there and went slowly on my way. Ivan groaned once. His hands, letting up slightly on their pressure, began to play frantically in my hair. I mouthed and tongued the smooth skin between his navel and groin, until the muscles leaped and twitched under my touch and I could hear his quick, involuntary gasps.

  I slid my body down along his leg, until my mouth found his standing cock. I began to play with it, nibbling along its sides with my lips, tonguing here and there at its root, in the tangle of dark, musty-smelling hair. At last, under the urgent message of his hands, my mouth closed over the large head of his cock, and I tasted the bittersweet liquid at its tip. I bent my head down as far as I could, completely filling my mouth, straining to make that space larger and to take him in more completely. The head of his

  February

  cock pressed against the back of my throat and I gagged slightly, but his mounting excitement drove all other thought from my mind. I slid my hands under his buttocks, and drew him closer to me, moving my head up and down, and pressing my own wet opening tight against his knee. My head was swimming; my blurred sight registered a patch of sunlight on the yellow wall over and over again. I remember thinking irrelevantly that the rain had stopped. I could hear Ivan gasping and moaning above me.

  My own desire became more urgent. I wanted that large pulsing cock inside of me. I withdrew m
y mouth from it swiftly as a shudder ran through him. I paused briefly to tongue his full, round balls and, sliding my body up over his, I raised myself with my arms and straddled him so that my moist hole was just above his rod. I lowered myself onto it, guiding it to the proper place, and squirming down over it to take it into my still tight opening. But there was more. I had not taken the huge tool in fully. We separated slightly and I slid one leg up, over his shoulder. His hands on my backside drew me close and closer—he was in, up to the hilt. My body seemed to be melting, a grey mist spilled before my eyes. We lay on our sides, one of my legs stretched out under me and one over his shoulder. We pumped and circled in a mounting tide of ecstasy. My long hair had come loose and cascaded over us both. At last I gave way, my entire body filled with pleasure, and felt the flood of delight sweep through my flesh as his warm come filled my cunt to overflowing, and with a shuddering shout he collapsed on top of me.

  I know that it was a long time before we moved, because when I raised my head I saw that the patch of yellow sunlight had moved quite some distance across the wall, and sunk down somewhere near the woodwork. I moved my leg a little, and Ivan slid his limp wet cock out of me, causing an exquisite and delicate sensation. He reached across me with one arm and picked up the electric alarm clock which had been knocked over by our exertions. Gave a long whistle when he saw the time, started to pry himself loose, then fell to kissing my eyelids and tugging at my ear with his lips. I slid over to a drier place on the sheet. He pulled a loose strand of my hair across my face, spreading it like a web, and kissed me through it. Our tongues met as if through a veil. I said, "Umph."

  February

  "Hungry?" he asked, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to the floor, which was only about a foot below.

  "A little," I said, snuggling deeper into the pillow to indicate that I didn't want to get up and do anything about it.

  Ivan stood up, and I looked at his strange and beautiful flesh as he headed for the shower. Decidedly too long, and too sallow. It glowed. A kind of El Greco quality about it. He was very beautiful, I decided, and cuddled deeper into the warm place our bodies had made. I dozed off.

  And woke to the aroma of coffee and the sizzling sound of eggs. Ivan had showered and dressed and was standing over me, grinning, two steaming cups in his hands. He set them down and sat down beside me as I sat up sleepily, the sheet falling from around my shoulders and my hair falling into my face. I sipped the hot sweet liquid greedily. It cleared up some of the dream-fog in my head, and I stole a look at Ivan over the side of the cup. This was not the young pirate I had met in the Village the night before. Nor was it the El Greco painting I had made love to. A young man, quiet, rather thin, dressed in clean dungarees and blue work shirt, his wet hair neatly combed. Ivan caught my eye and my thought and grinned. I grinned back. Words were not part of our thing. Then he made as if to pull me to my feet.

  "Come on," he said. "The eggs will be getting cold."

  I stood up and walked naked to the center of the room, where I stretched and yawned, the sunlight I had been watching all morning from the bed catching me around the ankles. I made a loose, untidy braid of my hair to keep it out of my face. Something dripped onto the instep of my foot, but I ignored it. Ivan threw me another blue denim work shirt exactly like the one he was wearing, and I put it on, rolling up the too-long sleeves and, thus attired, went in to breakfast.

  We sat at a tiny table in the miniature "bachelor kitchen" and devoured frozen orange juice, fried eggs and burnt English muffins swimming in butter. Ivan had put on his glasses, which completed the transformation to a sober, rather over-serious young working man.

  "Just slam the door when you go," he said, his mouth full. "It locks by itself. Stay as long as you like, play records, type,

  February

  whatever." Then he added, with just a trace of hesitation, "Shall I see you tonight?"

  I liked the hesitation. I liked the confidence, too, with which everything else had gone down between us, but without that hesitation he would have been just a trifle overbearing. I suppressed another grin and filled up my mouth with egg.

  "I don't know," I said. "It depends. I'm still living at home."

  "I'll meet you," he said. "At nine. At David's." David's was an arty coffee shop on MacDougal Street. The only one, besides the Mafia hangouts, in those days.

  "OK," I said, still playing it cool. "If I'm not there, don't wait."

  He gave me a long, playful look from under his eyelashes, half coaxing, half ordering me to be there, and after an eggy kiss he left for work.

  February

  February Continued

  The Swing was a haven because it was off-bounds, a meeting place for outlaws. Now, in the midst of "gay liberation" the social stigma has gone out of homosexuality, and with it the high, bitter romanticism that made it so debonair. (I remember a hustler friend at Lenny's Hideaway one night refusing an importunate businessman with U I just don't feel that flamboyant tonight, dear.") Gayness can no longer be used to hold the world at bay, put down the society around you, signal your isolation and help you stand clear. It is no longer a component of black magic: Cocteau, Genet, or Kenneth Anger. Only last week I saw a copy of The Well of Loneliness , secret classic of my mother's generation, selling for ten cents at a Haight Street thrift shop.

  We sat in a dark wooden booth, upholstered in old red leather, our movements reflected in the speckled, blue glass mirror that lined the walls. We talked, we drank, occasionally we got up and danced with each other or with one of the "regulars," straight or gay, whom we had come to know, it seemed, almost as well as we knew each other.

  The dance was the Fish, forerunner of the Twist, and much freer. You could dance it in couples, like the old folks danced the fox-trot. In that case you slipped one of your legs over one of your partner's legs, he slipped a knee into your groin, and you ground your cunt on his thigh, f eeling his hard-on with your stomach or the side of your pelvis, while your hands hung casually at your sides, or were shoved into the back pockets of your jeans, the better to thrust your pelvis forward. Or you could dance it free, in twos, threes, anything up to fives: then you stomped and leaped, did back-bends, splits, pirouetted and "froze." Freezing was an art. You threw your head back, arms straight out, and as you bent slowly backward you set every muscle in your body leaping and quivering separately. Not many people could do the Freeze. All this while, your air was casual, and your face betrayed no emotion at all. The dance was the Fish, and the game was Cool.

  Even in bed, I thought, the game is Cool. That side of the cantata was finished, and the record changer shuddered a little and started it over again from the beginning. Trumpets and woodwinds. A slight breeze stirred the curtain and passed over my naked body, raised goose bumps here and there as I went on thinking, sorting out the moments that had brought me here.

  10

  February Continued

  Susan and I had been sitting in our booth together, each huddled into a corner, talking of this and that. Susan was watching the dance floor: a young man named Claudia, who had a black streak in his blonde hair was whirling and bending to some loud rhythm-and-blues number-Dinah Washington was moaning about what it was like to sleep with her landlord. I was watching the archway that separated the bar from the back room with its tables and dancing and Cosa Nostra guardian angels. I always sat where I could watch the door. A habit. We felt safe here, sure enough, but I was prepared for anything.

  Two rather beautiful young men walked in and stood in the doorway. One was somewhat taller than the other, with dark eyes, incredible eyelashes, high cheekbones, and a rather pinched look. He wore a wondrous shirt of some soft material, with a high collar open at the neck and very full sleeves with wide cuffs. His friend looked softer, younger, with light blue eyes and an expensive Italian boat-neck jersey. We had met once before a few days earlier, in David's coffee shop. I had looked up to see the taller one standing in front of my table, looking down
at me. "I'm Ivan," he had said, "and this is Robin." "I'm Diane," I had replied, "and this is Susan." We had grinned at each other for a while, and they had left.

  Tonight our eyes met briefly with just a flicker of recognition. Then he turned and spoke a few works to his companion. The easy way he leaned over him and the vague softness with which the younger boy looked up at him made me wonder if they were lovers. I turned to Susan to ask her what she thought, and when I looked for them again they had already gone.

  I had passed my hand over the rough denim that covered Susan's knee and smiled at her. For warmth, for comfort. She squeezed my hand between her legs and smiled back. Her long, slim hand playing with the beads of moisture on her beer glass caught the dim light. Anglo-Saxon innocence, I thought. That's what she has, what she is. Big blue saucer eyes, a soft full mouth, and an uptilted nose. What made St. Augustine say that thing: "Not Anglos, but Angels."

  I turned in bed, thinking about her, and slid my hand under the pillow. Blonde hair cut straight across her forehead in bangs,

  February Continued

  and falling in a soft pageboy on her rather broad, rather slim shoulders. She looked like she sang in a Methodist choir—and she had, until rather recently. Her blouse was made of some really incredible thin stuff through which you could see the pert rosebud tips of her small breasts. Her blue jeans were cut high and hugged her hips closely, and around her waist she had tied a crimson sash. I pulled the sheet up around my shoulders to keep the wind away, and wondered where Susan was at this moment. How she was doing.

  What had she and I been talking about last night? I wondered. I couldn't remember, though I clearly recalled the intensity of our conversation, and the lift and joy her presence always gave me. A lilt at the heart, like sparkling wine.