It wasn't until I had lived with Mora for about three months that I really began to find out about her. To a kid my age it wasn't very nice. As the stars of first love began to leave my eyes and my head began to clear, I noticed things that had escaped me before.
Mora drank a lot of gin. At first she drank it mostly as martinis, but I noticed that she often just threw some ice into a glass filled with gin and slugged it down. If she was upset about something she would take the sauce right from the bottle, no ice, no nothing. I left early for school, but when I came back I saw the gin bottle on the bar, and an empty glass or two, which were liable to be anywhere around the house, so I knew that she was drinking in the morning before she left for work. When she returned home she would head directly for the bar and have one fast gulp of straight gin, followed by several leisurely martinis before dinner, and a couple more during the evening. Mora liked to dine out and taught me how to order for her, how to handle waiters, how to select wine, leave tips, and even proper table manners. She always had four or five martinis during the course of the evening, and a nightcap when we got home.
Yet she wasn't an alcoholic like the alkies I knew from the Tenderloin. She never took a bottle anywhere with her. As far as I knew, she didn't drink at work and never got up in the middle of the night for a quick one. If we were out for the day to someplace like the beach, where there were no drinks available, she didn't seem to miss it. Even so, she killed a fifth of Gordon every couple of days.
The booze usually made her irritable, and sometimes downright bitchy. When we were out she would get insanely jealous if I even looked in the general direction of another female over twelve or under fifty years of age. She would ask me bitterly if I would like to fuck this one, or get into that one's pants, and then she'd begin accusing me of screwing around on her and threatening to throw me out, reminding me loudly that everything I was, I owed to her. Her face turned hard and her soft, brown eyes became cold with fury. When she was like that she scared the hell out of me.
When we got home she'd apologize and we'd make love until we were both fucked out, and sleep in each other's arms. And in the morning she'd say it wasn't the booze that had made her that way; it was because she was about to get her period, or had just had it, or because she was upset at work the day before. I had been on the street too long; I knew a gin mad when I saw one. But the sauce wasn't her only problem.
Mora came home tired from working a fashion show one Saturday. I had a job to play that night and Mora said she hoped I wouldn't mind if she stayed home and rested.
It was a wedding reception dinner-dance in Marin. We were supposed to play from eight-thirty to twelve-thirty, but something unforeseen happened. We were setting up at about eight o'clock, while the guests were still eating dinner, when everyone was startled by a loud crash and a scream from the head table. There was a lot of commotion and people running frantically all over. The father of the bride had collapsed and died.
The party broke up, of course, and we were dismissed. I was just loading the last of my equipment into the car when the ambulance arrived. None of the musicians even knew the man. Nevertheless, being in such proximity to sudden death had depressed all of us. Only the family was left, and they were beside themselves with grief. What a hell of a way to start a marriage, I thought.
Suddenly very tired, I drove home in a dull, contemplative mood, and walked in the front door about nine. The house was dark, but unmistakable sounds of love-making were coming from the large bed in the living room. Silhouetted against the city-bright night sky of the windows, I could make out two figures bolting upright in bed at the sound of my entry.
Mora's voice was shocked, but commanding. "Go into the back bedroom and don't turn on the light."
I was confused, startled. I might have been ready for any reasonably unexpected occurrence, but this was totally beyond my understanding.
Saying nothing, I went into the kitchen and, walking quietly, put my head around the doorway from the kitchen to the dining section of the living room. I could make out their figures and hear voices whispering excitedly in the gloom.
My fear and surprise turned to anger, and then to rage. Whoever it was, I was going to kill the sonofabitch. When I got through the ambulance crew would have to mop him up with a blotter. My adrenaline surged hard, my heart was beating too fast, and my kidneys hurt. Getting ready to charge, I flicked on the dining-area light, which brightened the entire room.
But my rage was not to be satisfied. Within an instant it reverted back to surprise and uncertainty. They were both sitting up naked in bed, staring at me, Mora and a very pretty blond girl. "I told you to stay in back," she scolded, as though it were all my fault.
"Jesus Christ!" I said.
There was a silence, then the other girl looked at Mora. "Do you want rne to go?" she asked in a soft, frightened voice.
Mora sighed and shrugged her shoulders in silent acceptance of the situation. "No," she said, "Stay. I want you to stay."
There was another silence, until finally Mora smiled at me. "I was going to tell you, anyway. It was just a matter of time. I didn't think you were ready, yet."
I was paralyzed. So many different emotions were playing upon me so rapidly that I couldn't cope with them. I stood there like a dummy.
"Come over and meet April," she said. "April, this is Richard."
I shook hands with April, who in a sudden burst of modesty was trying to cover her breasts with the bed-sheet.
There I was, shaking hands with my girl's girlfriend-lover. It was ludicrous, but there seemed to be nothing else to do.
Again there was an awkward silence, broken when Mora asked me why I was home so early. She patted the bed to indicate that she wanted me to sit there. I told them what had happened at the wedding reception and they both were sympathetic, as persons often are when told about tragedy striking strangers. We talked self-consciously of nothing for a while, then Mora lay back on her pillow, with April sitting on one side of her and me on the other. "Poor Richard," she said softly, reaching out to stroke the sleeve of my band jacket. "First a man dies on him and then he finds his girl in bed with another woman. Not a very good day, was it baby?" There was just a hint of mockery in her voice.
"It's all right," she said. "You should know that I'd never be unfaithful to you with another man, but April is a lovely girl and there's no reason for you to feel jealousy because I wouldn't hurt you for the world. So come lay your head on my shoulder and let me put my arm around you."
April watched me intently as I crawled forward on the bed to lie beside Mora. My emotions were still unsettled, but my cock, with a mind of its own, was beginning to rise in my pants. I lay with her arm under me, and she began to rub my back and neck. I could smell the sweet liquor on her breath. April, forgetting her modesty again, let the bed sheet drop, exposing her naked body. She sat beside Mora with her legs folded under her, a honey blonde with light brown cunt hair, almost the same color as Mora's. She seemed a bit thinner than Mora and somewhat smaller, with thin, down-covered arms and legs. Her blue eyes were serious and questioning, as though she, too, was uncertain as to what was happening. She appeared to be about twenty and, from her boyish build and small breasts, I guessed that she, also, was a model. As Mora stroked me with her left arm her right reached up and began gently feeling April's breast, tracing the roundish outline of it with the flat of her hand, then slowly massaging the small, pink nipple. April caressed Mora's forearm with both hands for a few minutes, and then lay beside her, with her head on Mora's other shoulder.
By now I had a for-real hard-on and was wondering if I would get to fuck April, or if Mora would consider that being unfaithful. But, knowing Mora, I figured that she must have had something in mind.
She did. Mora turned her head toward me and we kissed, gently sucking each other's tongues. Then she turned her head the other way, and she and April kissed, while I moved up over their faces so I could see better. The two girls were kissing full on the mouth and sucking each other's tongues, as Mora and I had done. Then Mora turned her head back to me, and we kissed again. I felt Mora pull April closer, so that our three faces were together, and I felt April's arm slide smoothly over my back for support.
Mora held the back of April's head, pushing her face over until all of our lips were touching. The three of us kissed for a long time, our lips and tongues intermingling. April and I kissed, while Mora licked around the sides of our lips and our faces. Of all the new erotic feelings I had experienced with Mora, the feeling of the three of us kissing was the most sensual yet.
Finally Mora whispered to me to get undressed. I got off the bed and began peeling clothes, tearing off my cuff-linked shirtsleeves over my hands while the girls continued kissing each other. When I had finished, standing naked, with my prong in the air, April looked up and gasped a little, an odd expression on her face.
Mora, seeing all of this, told me, "It will be beautiful if the three of us make love, but you must stay faithful to me. And you must remember always that April has a great fear of men's sex organs. So be gentle and don't do anything to hurt her."
I promised that I wouldn't, trying to hide the disappointment I felt at not being able to show off my new sex prowess to a different woman. I got back onto the bed and we kissed and fondled a bit more. Mora moved to April's other side and told me she wanted us both to make love to the beautiful blonde, who lay back and sighed as Mora began sucking one breast, and I the other. We ended up between her legs, feeling the very soft skin of her lower buttocks and thighs and running our fingers over her clit and in and out of her cunt. She began to moan and pump up and down slowly on the mattress.
I leaned down and put my mouth over her nipple, drawing it out gently until it was fully erect. Mora kissed her belly and thighs, and, moving around between her legs, began to lick April's cunt. April drew in her breath the second she felt the tongue touch her, crying out in pleasure. I could see Mora's nose and closed eyes over April's mound.' She pushed April's legs back to her breasts.
"She's almost ready. Suck her cunt," she ordered breathlessly. I moved my head between her legs, licking her from above as Mora licked from below. Mora licked lower and lower, until she was at April's ass. Immediately the blonde began to scream, grabbing my hair with her hands and pushing my head hard into her, as her whole body arched to rigid and she vibrated rapidly, yelling out a prolonged orgasm until her voice became hoarse.
The three of us rested for a few minutes. Then April took Mora into her arms, kissing her softly and thanking her. It seemed strange that she should give thanks to a girl who had just made love to her, but she kept saying how happy she was, and thanking Mora over and over again, while nearly ignoring me.
Mora was in April's arms, but she reached over and started playing with me, rubbing my legs and balls. At that point it wouldn't have taken much to set me off. The newness of the situation and the knowledge that I was in bed with two women were almost enough by themselves. I could feel my juices pretty high and, to make it worse, Mora leaned away from April and started sucking me. April moved down close to watch, fascinated as Mora's deft tongue licked me up, down and around. Mora took the back of April's head and, using gentle pressure, brought her lips into electric contact with my cock, murmuring softly that it was all right, that I would not come on them.
Looking at the two girls' lips moving up and down me, I didn't have Mora's confidence in myself. At first April didn't seem to enjoy it that much. I think she just did it to please Mora, who grabbed my shaft with her hand and guided the head of it into her mouth, kissing and licking around April's lips as the blonde hesitantly sucked me. I could tell that she had never sucked a man before. Her lips were wet and warm, but she didn't lavish the affection on it that Mora did, or any of the earlier girls, for that matter. She just kept her mouth moving on it, her eyes looking lovingly at Mora for approval. Controlling the action with her hand, Mora withdrew the tip from April's mouth and slipped it into her own, then back into April, then back into her own, and the two of them kissed, running their tongues into each other's mouths and using the head of my cock for a third partner, licking it as they licked each other.
Mora said she wanted me in her, and turned onto her back. Sitting upright on my knees, I slipped it into her as April, who, like me, had evidently never been in a threesome, maintained her voyeurism by bending down to watch. I was so near shooting that I was afraid to move very much. Mora told me to stay on my knees and not move over her. Then she took April into her arms. April was lying diagonally on her, while Mora slipped her left arm under, and up between April's spread legs to feel her cunt. I was stroking April's hair and back as she moved down to suck Mora's breast, working on it for quite some time, then brushing her lips over and down to Mora's cunt. What a sight. There I was on my knees between Mora's legs, with April's blond head bobbing in the space between our bodies. As she licked Mora's clit I could feel her tongue on the top of my sliding cock. Mora began pumping frantically. It was too much for me to bear; the semen boiled out of me and I had as quiet an orgasm as I could, so as not to scare April.
My cock started to shrink in Mora but she was too far gone to feel it. She started jerking wildly and I slipped out of her, but neither of them seemed to notice. April moved down farther, getting a lot of my semen, which was running out of Mora, right in the face. Mora screamed and bucked for over a minute and then collapsed, spread-eagled on the bed.
I looked at the clock. It was ten. The whole thing hadn't taken even an hour. We moved up close to one another and fell asleep in a pile that must have made us look as though we had all dived for a fumbled football.
Sometime later, noise and bed motion awoke me. I looked over to see Mora lying on top of April, between her legs, rubbing and bumping herself against April's pubic mound, then moving down to slide her cunt over the top of April's leg. April had reached behind and had her fingers in Mora's cunt from the rear. They were breathless and sobbing, kissing each other and moving frantically. With a last gasp of effort Mora clasped her lips over April's and moaned out another orgasm.
I got hard again, watching them as they rolled over and April began to rub herself against Mora. I moved closer and caressed April's back and ass and legs as she humped. I slid my arm around and between their bodies, feeling their glistening skin slip smoothly over the top and bottom of my hand. I moved around behind her and put my tongue into the crack of her ass, but she was moving too fast for me to keep contact. Shortly she had another tense, shuddering orgasm, similar to the one she had before, and lay still on top of Mora.
After a while April got up and started dressing, picking up her clothes, which were scattered on the floor by the bed.
"Aren't you spending the night?" I asked, surprised that she would leave so abruptly after all of that heavy action.
"I'd like to," she smiled, "but my husband is waiting at home for me, and it's getting late."
Only then did I notice the wedding band on her finger. I had been blown by a lot of married Johns who liked to swing both ways, but I had never thought of women being that way, especially April, with her fear of cocks.
Mora saw the look of puzzlement on my face. "April's husband is a theatrical producer," she said, and her look explained it all.
Mora had been introduced to lesbian practices while in modeling school. She was awakened one night by her roommate, who had pulled down the covers and was trying to masturbate her in her sleep. When Mora started to protest, the girl put her tongue to Mora's cunt and made her come as she had never come before.
"Loving a woman is so different from loving a man," she said. "The sensations are so different. A woman's touch is so light and soft, her lips so soft, her body so soft, while everything about a man is hard. I like to stand and let the nipples of our breasts touch just slightly, and then rub, nipple to nipple, back and forth. I like to push the tip of my breast into my lover's cunt, and excite her by rubbing it up and down over the clit, and I like to have it down to me. I like to lick a woman's cunt, to smell its quiet fragrance and feel its delicacy and see its beauty. I like to lie cunt to cunt, with my legs scissored around my lover's body, and friction back and forth all night, labia against labia. I revel in the beauty of the female breast and nipple, and love the feeling of them in my mouth. I like to do sixty-nine with my lover and have her suck me while I'm sucking her.
"It's all so soft and so feminine that it must be hard for you to understand. It wasn't that I preferred April to you. You must know that. It's just that it's so different with her, and I didn't think you'd mind, once you knew how I felt. You're my beautiful steak, but April is my soft, mashed potatoes."
A couple of years later I read in the newspaper that April had committed suicide.
But April wasn't the only girl who Mora had. There was also Carol, a hairdresser who worked for the I. Magnin store on Geary Street, and Joan, with whom we spent a wild, three-way weekend at the Russian River, playing tennis, swimming, and fucking each other silly. Maybe it's just because I was outnumbered two to one, but I always felt like an outsider when she had a girl staying with her, as though they were together and I was the guest.
Some of her lesbian girl friends were not at all bisexual, and didn't dig men under any conditions. Then I would -stay in the back bedroom. It was tough trying to study in the evenings with all of those moans and cries coming from the living room. I could hear them even with the door closed. Strangely, outside of-the noise it didn't bother me. I felt no jealousy at all, knowing that Mora was in the other room sucking off a girl friend. Possibly it's because no sense of male competition was involved, so my position didn't feel threatened. I don't know.
Her passion for her own sex also explained a lot of mysteries to me. She gave the painting in the back of her closet to Carol, the dykish-looking hairdresser. I watched her complete several paintings; one of two women kissing, one of breasts touching, and a painting of a girl standing behind another, one arm around her breasts and the other across her stomach, pointing down between her legs. This was the only one she had done that had faces. But they weren't really faces; they were heads that appeared to be covered by stocking masks, features smoothed over and bearing no marks of identity or personality. Her colors were always in somber tones of blue or gray. Only on one other occasion did she ever try to explain her liking for girls. We were driving back from a job I had played, joking around, and I had called her a lovely lezzie.
"I'm not a lesbian, you know," she said, becoming quite serious.
"Sure," I said sarcastically.
"Well, you let men suck your cock for a year and a half, so I guess that makes you a queer, right?"
She always knew how to shut me up.
"Okay," I said. "Why aren't you a lesbian? Don't forget, I just did it for money, but you do it for fun."
"Well, I may do it for fun, but not because I'm basically a lesbian. If anything, it's autoeroticism with me, and also I think with a lot of other women who like their own kind as well as men."
"What do you mean 'autoeroticism'?"
"Well, I obviously can't make love to myself. But I'd like to be able to do it. So this is a substitute. I love myself, love my own body, love to look at myself in the mirror and see how beautiful I am. And when I see myself, I'd like to make love to myself, but I can't. I can't kiss myself, or suck my own breasts or lick my own cunt. And masturbating isn't really that satisfying for me. So I get other girls, girls with beautiful bodies like my own, and who look as much like me as possible. Then, when I'm making love with them, I guess I pretend that it's me, making love to me. And I find that very exciting… Haven't you ever wanted to suck your own cock?"
"I'm not limber enough," I said.
"But suppose you could find some man who had a cock that looked just like yours. Wouldn't you like to suck it-just to see what it would be like? And pretend that you were sucking your own?"
I had to admit that I had never thought of it, but at the same time I understood what Mora was trying to tell me. I never judged her and, whatever her reasons for liking girls, they remained her own.
But for all the months I had known her, she still remained a mystery to me. Bits and pieces fell together once in a while, but Mora was like a jigsaw puzzle that had been purchased with parts missing. I resolved to do something to try to make the picture complete.