Screengrab by Various Today in Hooksexup's film blog: We list our greatest guilty pleasures. You can't imagine the shame!
61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Hooksexup's videogame blog: A piping-hot plate of Tim Curry, Half-Life for a dollar and adventuring with Adventure.
Winterland shut down that New Year's Eve, bringing to an end the era of Bill Graham Presents posters and concerts by Janis Joplin, Cream and the Jefferson Airplane. The place was an old skating rink that had been converted to a concert hall in the '60s. It was being torn down to accomodate a bunch of condos, part of the slow destruction of free love in San Francisco.
Because my boyfriend was a drummer in a rock band, he wanted to go to the final night at Winterland. Actually, he wanted to play there but wasn't famous enough. Instead, Johnny had to open for a ska band at a private boathouse party in Marin. I was at Julia's house for the night, with nothing to do. We were seniors that year. It was our last New Year's together.
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And we were bored. Julia and I peeked into the living room at her mom, who was spending the holiday where she spent every night: in front of the TV with her bifocals running down her nose, a glass of Chianti in her hand, painkillers already popped. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she switched back and forth from watching reruns of Upstairs, Downstairs on PBS to reading Jane Austen.
She had cooked us a turkey dinner before settling into her nightly stupor. Fresh, bitter cranberry sauce, stuffing with chestnuts, sweet yams and pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream were displayed, along with a half glass of red wine, on the big chopping block table in the kitchen.
Julia and I sat on stools, putting the food into our mouths, staring at one another with nothing to say. Something in Julia's eyes told me her silence was deliberate. The wine dripped hot down my throat, through my groin and down my legs. I had an idea.
"Do you have any pot?" I asked.
"Uh-huh," Julia said.
"Do you still have the snow?"
Julia grinned; she knew exactly what I meant. Sliding open the freezer drawer full of frozen meats, she reached into the bottom, rummaged through icy plastic and pulled out a white bag.
We stuck our dishes in the sink and ran out the back door — past the hot tub, around the labyrinth of flowers, through the door and up the stairs to the converted stable loft where her mom’s potting wheel stood. On the windowsill sat a set of coffee mugs-in-progress, made from clay she had excavated from a riverbed in Sonoma County. Hanging from the ceiling were sculptures she'd made from swigs and branches. They looked like hornets' nests — scary, prickly and gorgeous. They always made me wish Julia's mom was mine. She called them "Wombs and Basketry," and sold them on the weekends at Ghirardelli Square.
Julia stuffed Sensemilla into her tiny pipe as I prepared the treasure we'd been saving for three years: two snowballs from the time it snowed in San Francisco in 1976. I put each snowball in its own bowl — crystal from her grandmother’s set — and poured vodka and sugar onto each one.
Julia brought her lips gently down on mine. They felt small, slightly off-putting and intriguing.
We smoked the reefer and ate spoonfuls of vodka-laced snow as we listened to Loggins and Messina, face to face, on the double bed under the skylight. Then Julia lit a fire in the wood stove. Acting like a cross between a little girl and a mountain man, she grabbed a Captain and Tennille record and threw it into the fire. We giggled until we couldn't breathe as we tossed Bread, Peter Frampton and Gordon Lightfoot into the burning stove — a final goodbye to the decade we hated so much.
The burning records made the room smell strange, and I worried that the fumes might poison us to death. Out the window, I could see Julia's black cat run across the back garden. A wave of terror swept from my toes to the top of my head. I never did well with pot and was immediately paranoid. I opened my mouth, which felt like opening a dungeon door made of lead, and said, "I think I have to go to the emergency room."
Julia was used to my panic attacks. She took me in her arms, pressed the hair out of my eyes and smiled. Very firmly, she said, "Stop worrying." Christopher Robin and I walked along... The lyrics spilled out of the hi-fi as the two of us lay back on the bed, looking up through the skylight at the branches from the redwood that hung over their backyard. Julia grabbed my hand and said, "Let's pretend we're on a chariot, going through the clouds." I could feel her breath above mine, lightly scented from pumpkin pie and dope.
I looked into Julia's big blue eyes and now, on New Year's Eve, as the clock ticked from 1978 to 1979, and our classmates partied somewhere across town at a lacrosse kegger, we were in the quiet of this space, and we were going to kiss. Julia brought her lips gently down on mine. They felt small, slightly off-putting and intriguing. Like I wasn't kissing a girl, but a very small child. Before I knew it, my tongue was inside her mouth, racing across her teeth. I could feel her tits — protected inside her padded bra — pressing against my tits. I wanted her to smear her breasts across my face.
Then there was the quietest rap on the door of the stable house. The knock sounded again. We thought it was Julia’s mom, and we were terrified. Even though Julia’s mom acted like she was cool, we never knew when she was going to snap-to and realize she was, in fact, a mother. We ran to open all the windows. I turned down the music. "Yes?"
As the door creaked open a notch, the voice came, low, sweet and cautious. "Tria?" It was Johnny.
I rolled my eyes. Not now.
My boyfriend tiptoed up the stairs, sober because he was that kind of weird rocker who didn't partake. He always looked cute, with bitten nails and sinewy brown arms that were packed with lean muscle. He had on his 501’s that were worn at the balls and a green t-shirt that matched his eyes and made him look delicious.
I ran into Johnny’s arms and kissed him in front of Julia. I turned to her with blurry eyes that felt like they might fall out of their sockets and roll across the floor and said, "Let’s have an orgy."
Julia threw her face into the pillow, laughing. Johnny ignored the proposal. It embarrassed the shit out of him. "Let's drive over to Winterland," he said. "It's almost midnight."
I jumped on the bed, put my hand on Julia’s chin and kissed her. She was so startled that she tried to move her face away, but my firm grip made that impossible.
While we were kissing, I glanced over at Johnny and noticed that he was looking out the window, as if it were the only polite thing to do. As the next record dropped on the turntable — it was Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water — I questioned whether I really wanted to do this. Almost robotically, I lifted Julia’s blouse and put her nipple in my mouth. She jerked away, annoyed that I was suddenly so aggressive, but already aroused. I lowered my mouth back to her boob and sucked.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Johnny had begun to watch. He approached us slowly, then crept — still fully clothed and wearing his cowboy boots — onto the bed. His expression said, "Now what?" as if we were in a playpen.
"Maybe you should give him a blow job," I whispered to Julia, loud enough for Johnny to hear.
Julia practically choked, and Johnny froze — excited, then nonchalant, as if we weren’t talking about sucking his cock. He fingered the crucifix around his neck and looked at me with saucer eyes. So did Julia.
"Okay, I’ll do it first," I told them and unbuttoned Johnny’s jeans, pulling out his nicely large erection. Julia looked away and Johnny closed his eyes. I took him into my lips, moving up and down — my hand stroking in unison with my mouth — twirling around the head, an upward spiral.
She was suddenly a sexual genius.
When I glanced up, Julia’s eyes were glued to my cocksucking. "I want to try," she said. And I loved her for how sweet she was.
"Only put a little of it in at a time," I told her.Julia pressed her lips down on Johnny’s cock in a way that was slightly inept and pretty fucking sexy. She had full lips, and her eyelashes looked impossibly long and black.
Suddenly my cheeks and ears burned, and then so did my groin. I hated watching her. I wanted to throw Julia off Johnny's cock and impale myself on him. I wanted to slap her off the bed and go down on her, all at the same time.
Then Julia pulled up her skirt, brought her left hand down to her thigh and into her cotton panties. This was the shy and smart girl who was my best friend. She was suddenly a sexual genius, and I was left watching.
For a passing moment, I thought I was a lesbian. I imagined Julia and I setting up house together. And if Johnny needed to be there, that would be okay. He could buy groceries, and we would have a cottage full of ferns and barber chairs for living room furniture. We’d put a claw-foot bathtub in the garden in which we would bathe in the moonlight together, warmed by the water that Johnny would bring in boiling kettles from the stove.
Then Johnny couldn't take it anymore. He pulled his cock out of Julia's mouth, reached up my skirt, pulled my underwear to the side and entered me. I felt triumphant: I had my man back. As I fucked Johnny, I craned my neck to make out with her. She seemed oblivious and caught up in fingering herself. Her breath was getting faster and hotter, and I could tell she was close to orgasming. She moaned and almost cried. It made me want to come all over Johnny, and it was all Julia's doing.
I looked down to watch Johnny's prick push into me, and then I stopped. Shit, what was I doing here? Deep inside, a black and empty hole made me feel like I was cheating on someone and being betrayed at the same time. I pulled Johnny's cock out of me and got off the bed. I could tell that Julia was orgasming, but I had to go.I put all my clothes on in what seemed like half a second, and stood at the door.
Johnny ran to me, trying to put his pants back on.
"Don’t leave, baby," he said.
All I could say was, "It doesn’t feel right anymore."
"What doesn’t feel right anymore, baby?"
"Sleeping with you," I said bluntly.
"Why?"
"I don’t know."
"I’m sorry we did this. We shouldn't have. Let’s go," Johnny said.
"No. I just can’t. I’m freaking out." I was swaying my head back and forth, as if to shake off the whole experience.
"Stay here," Johnny said.
"No."
"I’m coming with you. I’m driving you home."
"No," I said firmly. "I’m walking home. I want to walk home. You shouldn’t walk me."
"I’ll drive you."
"Give me the keys," I replied.
He would make love to her. He would take her virginity.
"I’ll drive myself home," I said. "You can pick your car up in the morning,"
"What did I do?" Johnny handed over his keyring, practically in tears.
"You didn’t do anything. I need to be alone for a while."
And Johnny said, "For Christ’s sakes, Tria, you’re breaking up with me."
The next record dropped onto the turntable. It was Boz Skaggs. Julia had finally stopped climaxing.
Johnny grabbed my arm to stop me. I looked him straight in the eye and said, "If you don’t let me go, I’m going to start crying." He released me. I ran out of the garage, jumped into Johnny's Alfa Romeo and drove away. Moisture hit the windshield, making the streetlights fuzzy as I shifted into third.
I imagined Johnny and Julia back in the garage — face to face — below the woven baskets of wombs and nests. I fantasized that Julia would feel sorry for Johnny, wrap her arms around him and kiss him on the lips. Then Johnny would feel so angry with me that he would pull my best friend down and put his tongue in her mouth. He would make love to her. He would take her virginity. And when he came, he would repeat her name over and over again, "Julia, Julia, Julia, I love you." And she would believe, for that brief moment, that he did.n°
From the forthcoming book PHOTOGRAPHY LESSONS by Erin Cressida Wilson.
To be published in Spring 2005 by Touchstone Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved by the publisher. Reprint by permission.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Erin Cressida Wilson is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and a Professor in the Literary Arts Program at Brown University. She won the 2003 Independent Spirit Award for her screenplay, Secretary, which starred James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Her twenty plays have been produced regionally, Off Broadway and abroad. She co-authored The Erotica Project with Lillian Ann Slugocki, published by Cleis Press. She is writing the screenplay for the biopic of photographer Diane Arbus. Her first novel will be published in 2005 by Simon & Schuster.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
