South of the Pumphouse. Les Claypool
heavier than usual, because the sex just a few hours earlier had been on the more passionate side. Not that the sex wasn’t always passionate, but this was exceptional. An occasional tingle kept her from falling into a truly deep sleep. Normally she associated that tingle with the urge to urinate. Most nights she stumbled instinctively to the bathroom for her mid-nightly pee, but tonight it was more than the urge to pee that made her tingle.
Earlier that day she had visited Inca-do’s, the local tattoo and body piercing shop, to get her hood pierced—the clitoral hood at the top of her vagina. She’d talked about having this particular piercing done for a while, but her man Ed had always seemed uncomfortable with the whole subject. Finally, in a rampant display of female bonding, she and her best friend Leela threw back a few shots of tequila and, as Tasha would later describe it, went out and “got our pussies pierced.” It had all been in good fun, but once the buzz started to fade, Tasha grew concerned about what Ed would think. Not that he was the type to get angry. More likely, Ed would simply grow quiet, calmly and carefully voicing his disappointment.
This time, though, Ed surprised her. Upon entering the house that evening, he was greeted by Tasha sitting on the couch wearing nothing but a vintage yellow Welcome Back, Kotter T-shirt and a pair of high-top Converse All-Stars. She sat well-postured and upright, smiling from ear to ear, with her knees spread wide. Ed instantly noticed the silver gleam from the stud at the top of her well-trimmed pubic hair. His cock grew hard, poking at his pants. He smiled and moved toward her.
No one had ever made Ed feel the way Tasha did. She was more exotic than any woman he had ever dreamed of in his teens. She grew up in Berkeley, the daughter of a prominent neurosurgeon. Her father, Dr. Nicholas Taylor, was an African-American, who had started his training as a medic in Vietnam. He had fallen for a local woman while overseas, and much to the chagrin of both families, the two were wed.
Bringing an Asian bride home to the United States was becoming more and more common in those days, but racial tensions in Nicholas’s home state of Georgia still made it a less than appealing place to raise his newborn daughter. After a stint with the local community college, Taylor made his way to the University of California in San Francisco, eventually relocating to Berkeley, a place where an interracial couple drew little attention. With the progressive social and political climate of Berkeley in the early ’70s, Nicholas and his wife Mai Pan found a place they could truly call home.
Though not a classical beauty, Tasha exuded a look that was uniquely striking. She had dreaded hair, about shoulder length, and her big brown eyes were accented by a thick pair of black horn-rimmed glasses that teetered on the edge of her button nose. Her caramel skin was dotted on various parts of her body with small tribal-patterned tattoos. Showing a unique flair for casual thrift fashion, she favored old hats, work boots, and campy handbags, drawing double takes from men and women alike as she walked the avenues of Berkeley. She was medium height, with a wide smile and a feminine face, yet her saunter was confident, almost masculine.
Ed had a moderate share of girlfriends growing up in his small hometown, but the first time he met Tasha, he was immediately taken aback by her presence. Though at times she was playfully childlike, she was intelligent and extremely independent. If one were to identify the dominant party in the relationship, it would be her. She was far from being a hard woman, however, just a bit more outspoken than Ed, who by all standards was considered a nice, easy-going guy.
Tasha was relieved to find her piercing decision so well received. Ed walked over to her from the door and dropped to his knees.
“It’s beautiful,” he said as he moved his face between her legs.
He flicked his tongue once across her labia, just below the piercing. He always loved the soft, salty taste. Tasha smiled and put her hand on the back of his head, kneading her fingers through his hair.
“Is it all right to touch it?” asked Ed, licking her again.
“Yes, just be careful. They said we should avoid sex for a few days.”
He ran the tip of his tongue across the silver stud. It was smooth and cool. It made his pants throb.
“Mmmm, I don’t think I can hold back, hon. I got me quite a boner going here,” he whispered as he reached into his underwear.
Tasha pulled him up toward her face, slipped her tongue between his lips, then said softly, “I’ll put it in my mouth for a while, if you want.”
He kissed her and then spoke coyly, “Can I rub it against your butt?”
Tasha gave a sly laugh and pulled him in tight with her legs.
So went the night. Apart from the tingling, Tasha slept well. So did Ed. The past few weeks had been rough for him. Though he had been brought up in an environment where men suppressed any feelings of sensitivity, Tasha had been able to get Ed to open up for her during their handful of years together, and with the recent loss of his father, she could sense his confusion and struggle with grief.
Ed’s passion for Tasha was intense, but when it came to sleeping, rarely did he hold her. She, on the other hand, was a cuddler, and would have very much enjoyed it if Ed held her all night every night as she slumbered. On the occasion that they did fall asleep entangled in each other, the morning would find him on his own side of the bed, more often than not with his back to her. He was very protective of his space, another result of his upbringing.
Ed reached over his bride to turn off their Euro-style Braun alarm clock. The gentle beeping only aroused a furrowed brow in Tasha. Hamster, the large yellow dog sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed, raised his head in mild interest. Ed’s main concern was to shut the alarm off before it woke his young son.
Ed pulled himself out of bed. He was on the tall side, on the border of lean and skinny. He stood naked. Between his navel and genitals was a tattoo of a Celtic design that stood out starkly against his pale skin. It had been awhile since Ed had seen 5 o’clock in the morning, and it took him a moment to collect his thoughts. He patted Hamster on the head, pulled on his pants, and headed for the bathroom just a few feet away. Ed was careful to be as quiet as possible, peeing toward the side wall of the toilet and then not flushing. He made sure not to bang his toothbrush on the edge of the sink. Reentering the room, he pulled on a shirt and grabbed his jacket, some keys, and a wallet. He leaned over and kissed Tasha on the forehead, before patting the dog again. Moving over to the corner of the room behind a big screen painted in an Asian motif, he stood hovering over a small bed containing a dark-haired, curly headed, sleeping toddler.
“See ya later, kiddo,” he whispered as he reached forward to stroke the child’s little hand. He stared for a moment, watching the tiny nostrils flare with each inhale. Ed smiled, then turned and left the room.
* * *
It wasn’t Ed’s idea to put the MEAN PEOPLE SUCK sticker on the back of the van. It was bad enough letting Tasha talk him into a Volkswagen. At least it was one of the newer models from the ’80s, not one of those painfully stereotypical hippie busses from the ’60s and ’70s. Since his move to Berkeley—much to his family’s and hometown friends’ surprise and dismay—the notion that he might be anything but a liberal-thinking man hadn’t once entered Ed’s mind. But the word “hippie” was just a bit too much for his tastes. He squirmed at any symbol that might place him in that particular category. He and Tasha had purchased the van locally. It came decorated with an array of colorful window stickers, which Ed promptly removed with a trusty razorblade.
Unfortunately, the one decal that was particularly troublesome was affixed directly to the paint right smack in the middle of the rear hatch.
What kind of lame jackass would put a sticker on the fucking paint? Ed had asked himself on several occasions. And a goddamned Phish sticker at that.
Ed’s remedy for the situation, after a valiant but unsuccessful removal attempt with various carburetor cleaners and other nasty chemicals, was to paste a Fishbone sticker over the wretched blemish, thereby counterbalancing, at least in his own mind, any hippyish perceptions.
The VW was a good van, though. It was always quite reliable and made for