The Vincent Chronicles
San Francisco – July, 1976
I was standing in line at the cafeteria style counter—"cafeteria" in the sense that I had to wait in line, but the counter was very short and the selection of food was just the makings of one meal—when looking around I saw a man waving at me. I didn't know him, but he looked about my age and had an empty seat next to him.
I had arrived down to dinner late, the place was full, so the empty seat was welcome.
I had checked into the Marsden Residency Club earlier that afternoon and this was my first meal. The Marsden was similar to European hostels in some ways, different in others. Breakfast and dinner were included in the weekly rate. For lunch I would have to fend for myself. The dining room was in the basement and consisted of six long tables seating eight people each side positioned parallel in two rows and the food counter with its limited selection of food.
The basement dining room was pretty drab—painted concrete walls and no windows—but the rest of the old building was very attractive if not also showing its age. The outside was reddish brown stone blocks and large windows. The interior was polished, if not also scarred, wood fixtures, large ceramic tiles, dark wood paneling, and new, red carpeting of a modern design. I should say that the anachronistic carpeting was relatively new; it was pretty well worn as well. The Marsden had rooms with bathrooms or without (facilities down the hall), large rooms and very small, furnished or semi-furnished, shared or single—rooms for all needs and budgets, and therefore perfect for me since I was newly arrived in San Francisco, looking for work, and living on my meager savings.
Balancing my tray in front of me, I walked down the length of the room towards where the gesturing man was waiting. What caught my eye about him was that he had (there was no other word for it) an elegant face, expressionless, but very well designed. As I got closer I saw that the rest of him complimented his head: thin body and well, but casually dressed, slacks not jeans, shirt tucked in, a thin belt.
"Just arrived?" he asked. He gave me a small half-smile.
"This afternoon," I nodded.
As I was settling into the presented seat, he motioned to a woman directly across from him.
"This is Elizabeth." He placed his open hand on his chest with almost comical dramatic motion, "And I'm Cyril."
I looked at the woman.
She smiled back, "Call me Lizzie." She smiled. She had a British accent.
Her hair was deep auburn and was cut shoulder length. It rolled out and away from her head in swirls that, I thought, looked natural and not imposed by curlers. Her mouth was somewhat quirky, kind of an odd shape, but in a smile it was pretty, full and shapely. She was idiosyncratically beautiful because of her unusual mouth and her deep-set eyes—green, I noticed. Very attractive. She was older than either Cyril or me.
"I'm Vince," I replied.
We talked during dinner. Cyril had arrived just the day before. Lizzie had been at the Marsden for three weeks. We were all new arrivals in San Francisco. Lizzie had moved here from New York (she was from West London, but had been in New York City for a couple of years working for a British corporation) having accepted a job as one of four secretaries to the director of the San Francisco Opera, which fascinated me more than it did Cyril, especially since she said she could get me in for free via the green room. Cy (though he hadn't volunteered it right away, Cyril said his friends call him Cy) had moved down from Portland for no more reason than he had wanted to live in San Francisco. I was resettling here for the same reason.
We talked about how the Marsden's dinner reminded us of elementary school lunches (or in Lizzie's case, primary school lunches), that is: overcooked vegetables, salty, the type that came out of huge cans; meat of one type or another over cooked as well; white bread pre-sliced thin out of long plastic bags; and soggy, baked deserts, square-cut and baked in huge rectangular trays—it was a treat to get an crispy edge, and a corner piece was beyond luck.
Oddly enough and I found that, not only did we arrive at the Marsden one day apart, but he was born one day before me, on January fifth and I on the sixth. We laughed at the idea that I seemed to be living my life one day behind his.
After dinner Lizzie and Cy lead me to the lounge, a very large room with a television, quite a few well-used sofas and easy chairs, coffee tables and card tables, and a big window that overlooked the busy San Francisco street.
As we were talking, comparing notes on where we all had lived and what we thought of San Francisco, a women walked up to us, sat down beside me on the wide arm of my easy chair, leaned far in over me, and said, "You are so fucking cute."
She stared straight in to my eyes and continued, "With emphasis on the "fucking.'"
Cyril laughed. Lizzie looked a little stunned. I just sat there flummoxed.
At dinner, I had noticed this woman looking at me a couple of times but had been busy talking to Cy and Lizzie. I had paid enough attention to noticed that she had a strong face, very chiseled with sharp features, almost elegant but too hard—good-looking all the same. She had short hair, dark brown, almost mahogany, in hue, not over her ears or neck but very full and heavy with bangs. She wore a black top.
Now that she was perched over me, I could see that the top she was wearing was a tight, black tee shirt with, obviously, no bra underneath. Her nipples were hard and mere inches from my face. Her breasts were round, shallow but full. She had on black pants with gray, vertical stripes. And there was a kanji character, large and black, on her forearm. In the seventies, business suits might be black, evening gowns maybe, but other than that, people didn't wear black. And tattoos were still a rarity.
"I'm Bette." She spelled it for me. "It's pronounced like 'bet' and never, never-ever, like 'Betty'—Got it?"
I nodded.
"Who are you?" she demanded, smiling hugely.
"Vincent," I mumbled. I was feeling like a fox at bay with this woman looming over me.
I am shy, but generally I am also good at conversations so that after an initial awkwardness, a minute or two of trepidation, I am carried away by the talk and my timidity evaporates. But this woman intimidated me, and any words I might have had to say fled.
Bette—never Betty—leaned that last six inches forward and kissed me on my forehead.
"Well, I've got to go, but I'll see you later."
She bounded up and strode like a storm trooper towards the door.
Cyril was still laughing. "Well, you met Bette."
Lizzie said, "I call her Bête Noire."
"Appropriate," I stammered. I half scowled a sort of smile—I was still rattled. "Does she eat people?"
"Only young men," Lizzie stated.
We three continued our interrupted conversation until a few other people stopped by, suggested we all go out, and we went for some drinks.
During the following days, I spent a lot of time with Lizzie and Cy. There was a great place for lunch two blocks away and down around the corner. The restaurant had a long list of great soups and provided short baguettes with each order. The coffee and deserts were terrific as well. We spent hours there hanging out. In the evenings, a gang from the Marsden frequently went dancing at various clubs in the North Shore, and we three went often. The Bête Noire was never part of the group. She seemed to always be busy. The few times I saw her that week, she'd stop, coral me, and, smiling all the while, make insinuations about what she would do to me if we were alone. But we never were, alone that is, and she inevitable was in a hurry and dashed off whenever I did bump into her, which was fine by me. I was much more interested in Lizzie. And the Bête still scared me.
~~~~~~
One evening after I had been at the Marsden a week, I was in my room relaxing when I first heard the noises. I had been pounding the pavement, as the saying goes, all day looking for work—and pounding was correct because my feet hurt. I was in good health so I was surprised at how sore my feet were, but I figured that walking miles on hard concrete sidewalks was enough to wear out anyone's feet. I had declined a night of dancing with Lizzie, Cyril, and the gang, and was settled on my bed leaning back against the wall with a pillow as a cushion, barefoot, wearing jeans and a short-sleeve shirt. A neat scotch in the room's single water glass was in one hand and a book was in the other, when I heard the first sounds. My window was open—it was a hot night and air conditioning wasn't common in San Francisco—and the sounds of sex just drifted in.
I looked out the window. Across the alley in another old building, a hotel I thought, a window was open and light was streaming out. I was looking down approximately one floor at a room where, like my own room, the bed was under the window. And from the bed came the sound of soft moans, of rustling of limbs moving on the bed sheets, of wet, slobbery licking, sucking noises, all from a naked woman and man. He had his face between her legs, and she gripped the sheets in her hands, arched her back, and emitted loud, furry purrs.
The room's ceiling lights filled the entire area with harsh illumination displaying the couple on the bed very well. He had short-ish, shaggy dark brown hair and a slim body with dimpled buttocks. That was all I could see of him. His face, as I said, was buried. She had auburn, leaning to red, hair, acres of it tossed about the white sheets of the bed. A lone bottom sheet covered the bed, the rest of the coverings were puddled on the floor. Two pillows had joined the coverings. So the auburn lady was sprawled across a naked bed, legs wide, knees high, feet planted firmly, arms circling above her head framing her hair, face rolled to one side, and her mouth wide letting escape her pleasure in a stream of throaty sounds. Her back was slightly arched, and her breasts lay flat settling to either side of her chest and peaked with swollen aureoles and hard nipples.
