THE FIFTH DATE

When I tell people I’ve had maybe four dates in my entire life, they think I’m kidding. Yeah, sure, you’re from Hollywood they say, like I’m always turning down invites to premieres, wrap parties and après Oscar soirees from Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

 Oh, I’ve had plenty of relationships- not to mention numerous affairs, love triangles, on-going fuck buddy assignations and one-night stands… as well as trysts, booty-calls, and hook-ups. But it’s the honest truth: punk rock ruined me for dating. The way I was socially conditioned, you went out for the night -or out on tour- and if you wound up with someone and had sex, then the next day you both knew it was either a little fling or the beginning of a relationship. Dinner and a movie? Wining, dining and flowers? I had no clue. This was not my reality.

A few years ago, after a lengthy and traumatic break-up, I figured it was about time to get my ass back in the arena, and hell, maybe even date.  Conveniently forgetting my junior-high level of dating inexperience, I prepared to jump into the fray and be a social butterfly, dating different people every night.

I met Enrique at Go-Go’s rhythm guitarist Jane Wiedlin’s Weimar Republic-themed birthday party. The music was cranked, champagne was flowing, and there were two strippers in 1920’s drag writhing around on the coffee table. To add to the Berlin Between The Wars feeling, guests were attired in leather trench coats, flapper dresses, even Eric Von Stroheim-style riding britches. A male servant with a bleached crew cut, copious amounts of eye-make-up and a Hitler Youth uniform was chopping up cocaine on an antique stand from a church that had once been used for holding Holy Water.

 Grabbing a flute of Cristal, I stepped over the leashed slaves huddling on the floor to get a better look at a guy who definitely stuck out in the crowd. He was, for lack of a better word, a “hunk”.  Tall, bronzed and body-builder-buff, he had a curly, oiled pompadour and teeth that were so white they couldn’t have been real. He was wearing slacks, a fishnet body shirt, and a big gold medallion. It was as though Erik Estrada- by way of Chippendale’s- had been dropped into the set of The Night Porter.

“Isn’t that guy hot?”  I whispered to a drag queen standing next to me, who was also captivated,

“ Do you think that’s a costume, or is he for real?”

 Tossing back errant strands of hair from his Louise Brooks wig, the queen’s immediate response was:

 “ Giiiirl, if he’s straight, you should totally fuck him!”

Might as well expand my horizons, I thought. DATING!

 Out on the terrace, a coterie of my gay male pals were ensconced around a table, deep into speculation about the mystery hunk.

 “ Oooh miss thang…all that’s missing is a mullet,” cooed one.

“Or a pony-tail!” sighed another.

“He’s the suitcase pimp,” said my friend Willy, daintily sipping a champagne cocktail.

 “Huh?” I asked, baffled.

 “He came with the strippers.”

As if on cue, the scent of very pungent men’s cologne filled the air as a prelude to Enrique’s entrance, which immediately hushed everyone on the patio as they went into observation mode. He made a beeline to me and introduced himself in a heavily- accented voice dripping honey. When he said “Enrique”, his R’s rolled like no tomorrow, like an announcer on a Spanish Top Forty radio station.

 I asked what he did; he answered that he was an actor.

“Well, of course you are,” I said, my tipsy flirtatiousness barely concealing my utter sarcasm. Why else would he look that way?

 He turned out to be funny, smart and charming, in town from Venezuela to work on a TV show. It was-as is it wasn’t perfectly obvious- a soap opera.  I later verified with a telenovela-addicted girlfriend that he was actually a big daytime TV star in South America, but at this point, I didn’t care. It was all kind of funny and exotic.

 As I left the terrace to visit the powder room, Enrique followed me up the stairs, his eyes glued to my buttocks, commenting in his silky Fernando Llamas voice,

 “Nice view!”

It took him three weeks to call me, but when he did, he apologized, saying he’d been on vacation “ in Cabo”, a perfect place, I thought, for a guy who wore fishnet body-shirts and probably spent his free time downing Jell-O shots with strippers who were Pamela Anderson look-alikes. Thankfully, I resisted the urge to ask if he’d seen Sammy Hagar there… mainly because when he called, I was literally out on a limb.

 A stray cat had brought three kittens into my house, and on their first venture outside, one had gotten stuck up a tree. I tried to ignore it; it would figure out how to climb down by itself with it’s own natural instincts. Stressed out and cranky, I was already late for a   photo-session.  It was smoggy, about 103 degrees and humid… my false eyelashes weren’t sticking, and I was about to get my period at any second. But the kitty was so tiny and so scared; I woke up my actress/model/bartender neighbor and forced her to hold a rickety ladder while I climbed up into the tree to rescue the panicked baby.

 I was getting covered in sticks and twigs, sweating profusely. My neighbor broke an acrylic nail and was whining about it…and her hangover. The kitten was wailing, and I was beginning to think maybe I should call the fire department. The walk-around landline phone was shoved my back pocket; I’d been trying to call the photo studio to say I would be late. When it rang, I answered, assuming it was the photographer.

  Enrique laughed when I told him I was up a tree, thinking I was kidding.

 “Joo are an interesting girl,” he said, intimately, as though he knew me. You don’t know the half of it, I thought.

We made a date for that night.

 The photo session sucked. Not only did I feel bloated and ugly, the “studio” was in a garage behind the Fat Burger on Santa Monica and Gardner. There was no air-conditioning, and the smell of grilled onions permeated the air.  I got my period, and also got a flat tire on the way home.  By twilight, the heat hadn’t let up. But Enrique called again to cajole me into going out, and I figured a cocktail would do me good. He picked me up in a new car that smelled like one, with a metal flake paint job that gleamed as seriously as his teeth.

 “Joo look maaaaah-velous,” he purred sincerely, and I reveled in his ultra-clichéd Don Juan/ Suavecito/Rico Suave cheesiness.

 I selected a bar called Daddy’s on Vine Street, because it was nearby and dark …but more importantly, air-conditioned. My sisters and I had recently discovered it, having gone there once to toast the memory of our deceased Papa on Father’s Day. I remembered it as being quiet, but when we got there, it was absolutely packed with what seemed like the entire cast of every season of American Idol contestants. Enrique and I stood at the bar, unable to talk because of the din, and had martinis while waiting for a booth to open up. Finally, one did- it was cozy and intimate.

 Enrique immediately ordered another round.  I felt light-headed, and remembered that due to the kitten, photos and flat tire, I had forgotten to eat. I tried to switch my position, but my platform boot got wedged in the cramped space between the couch and coffee table, so I swung my legs up onto his lap, effectively breaking the ice.

 “So,” he asked, stroking my legs with one hand and practically bottle-feeding me my martini with the other, “How did joo lose your virginity?”

 Just as I was about to answer, a woman’s voice screamed into my ear:

“EXCUSE ME!! CAN WE SHARE THIS BOOTH WITH YOU?”

I turned around and it registered how pretty the girl was. Then, in a dreamlike spit-second, I realized it was my sister Eddie… and that it was so dark, she also didn’t recognize me. A second later, we both shrieked loudly in shock. Even over the noise of the crowd, our screaming duet was so loud it caused Enrique to spill the martini all over both of us.

 “THIS IS MY SISTER,” I yelled.

 “WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE?”, Enrique yelled back.

“ IT’S JUST A COINCIDENCE!”, I screamed back in disbelief, laughing hysterically. What are the chances?

  Enrique looked dubious, and then I noticed that my sister had in tow her twin Cupcake, both of their boyfriends, and another pal to boot.

“CAN WE SHARE YOUR BOOTH?” Eddie howled.

Flustered but ever the gentleman, Enrique moved over,

 “JOO ALWAYS BRING YOUR SISTERS ON DATES?” he bellowed.

 “YOU’RE ON A… DATE?!?”  The twins managed to raise the decibel level to new heights in shocked unison.

 The whole crew all crammed into the booth, and ordered us two more rounds, one for intruding, and one just because.  Since conversation was nearly impossible and their scrutiny was so intense, Enrique suggested we go back to his place.

 “I have vodka there,” he hollered.

 When we got outside, stumbling into the still-stifling night air, I realized I was beyond tipsy. I was drunk as a skunk. The ride to Enrique’s apartment was a blur, although I do recall the hellish scent of his aftershave filling the car, and that I couldn’t figure out the seat belt and he had to do it up for me.

  As we pulled into his driveway, I imagined what his apartment looked like- I just knew it would be a bachelor-pad. Not the sloppy, plaid couch and leftover pizza-box Monday Night Football kinda place, but a swinger-ish, sterile playah kind of place. I clairvoyantly saw Ikea-type brushed metal CD stands filled with lame R&B, an eighties black lacquer bedroom set, and triptych Southwestern paintings. Maybe a copy of Playboy or a car magazine laying on the glass coffee table. A gooseneck lamp, track lighting on low.  What could I possibly have in common with this person?

 I was immediately thrown into a moral dilemma:

 Would I…could I…fuck a guy who had Eighties furniture?

I should have recognized this as a portent of disaster, but decided instead to continue with my anthropological experiment. The interior was worse than I thought.  He switched on the stereo, and some god-awful New Age crap was playing. I took a seat on a big, plush cheap couch upholstered with Jackson Pollack / Art Director Scrawl splashed material, while Enrique made drinks. He handed me one, immediately getting out a bong and offering me a hit.

 I cannot smoke pot. I just can’t handle it at all. I turn into such a raving lunatic, that it’s impossible for me to even form the simple sentence, “I’m so high” without collapsing into painful hysterical laughter complete with tears, aching sides, and snot shooting from both nostrils.  I used to joke that I’d only ever smoke marijuana if I were on three or four other substances.

 So I politely declined the offer, we sipped our drinks, and made small talk. He got really high quickly, giggling like a school kid, his deep dimples looking adorable. He was giddy and fun, dropping the Latin Lothario thing.

 Cool, I thought, a new side of this guy, all little boy!  Still woozy from the booze, I remembered I had a tiny bit of coke in my Santee Alley Luis Viutton knock-off wallet. He refused, saying he didn’t do it, but I figured if he was indulging in something I didn’t do, then it wouldn’t be rude to snort it by myself. It energized me and woke me up, but instead of snapping me back into reality, it merely enhanced my drunkenness.

 Maybe I wanted some pot after all. Enrique made it look so… attractive. I took a big, bubbly hit, and as it filled my lungs, I immediately got incredibly, ridiculously high.

“It’s good stuff, huh?” he choked, holding in another hit.

 “Can you turn this shit off?” I asked abruptly, gesturing towards the stereo in a dismissive sweep.

 He seemed kind of hurt, but obliged.

 Change the subject, I thought, deflect your bad-manners faux pas.

 “Say your name.” I commanded, rather loudly.

“Joo know my name,” he said looking at me quizzically.

 “But just say it, so I can hear you,” I whined.

“ENRRRRRRRRRRIQUE” he said, and I yelped loudly, bouncing up and down in delight. He started snickering at my display.

 “SAY IT AGAIN!!!” I practically yelled. This was turning out to be fun.

He repeated,“ ENRRRRRRRRRQUE!” and this time it was so gratifying I couldn’t contain an orgasmic squeal, getting so excited I knocked my drink all over the carpet.

“Shhhhhh!” he said, holding his hands to gesture Quiet Down, while trying to mop up the mess.

 As he went to make another drink, he took a large geode off a shelf and handed it to me.

“Look at that,” he called from the kitchen, “Isn’t it incredible?”

 It was beyond incredible… huge, oddly shaped, almost like a stone boat.  It was so heavy I had to hold it with both my hands, like a big meteoric watermelon slice. The outer shell was rough, bubbled, pockmarked and rust-colored like iron ore, but the inside was filled with   thousands of otherworldly aquamarine crystals, clustered together in all shapes and sizes. Some were milky, some iridescent. It seemed to glow from within. I was rendered speechless with its beauty.

“When I found it on the beach in Cabo”, he said, stirring the drinks,  “Only about two inches were sticking up from the sand! Can you believe it?”

 I held it up to the light to admire it, turning it slowly, but it seemed to emanate it’s own light. Suddenly, holding it and observing it just wasn’t enough. I had an overwhelming urge to taste it. If it looked this way, certainly it must taste … like…some luxurious outer space wintergreen candy… maybe…or at the very least, salty and wonderful like the tropical waters of Mexico.

 Ok, the 80’s furniture was one thing- I could stretch my personal boundaries to accept that. But I instinctively knew that, stoned or not, there’d be no way in hell Enrique would understand my desire to lick his crystals. The need to taste it was irresistible. I stole a furtive glance at the kitchen, and thought maybe I could sneak in just one satisfying taste on the sly. He’d never be the wiser!

 Swiftly I brought the rock up to my mouth, but sadly, due to the marijuana, I had lost most of my motor control skills.  As I lifted the geode to my lips, I misjudged the distance and the boulder smashed me in the face. I was so shocked that I dropped it, causing the entire apartment to shake.

Jumping at the noise, Enrique spilled both drinks, and ran to my side. The whole bottom of my face was numb. I could taste blood filling my mouth, and sliding my tongue gently and exploratorily around my front teeth, my heart sank as I felt a jagged edge.

 I babbled what I hoped sounded like,  “Did I chip my tooth?”

 Enrique took my chin in his hand, trying to discern the damage done to my face.

 “Well,” he said slowly, “ Maybe just a little,”

  Full of adrenalin, I raced to the bathroom to get a look in the mirror, and tripped over his gym-bag, sailing through the air like Superman before falling flat with my full body weight hitting floor in a sprawled –out heap, this time shaking not just the apartment, but probably the entire building.  Picking myself up with great difficulty, I staggered to the mirror and when I saw the chip on my right front tooth, I began to cry inconsolably.

 Enrique offered ice in a Whole Foods bag as I blubbered. When the swelling went down and the blood stopped gushing, I demanded to go outside.

 By now it was about four am, and Enrique was not at all enthused by the idea. Outraged that he didn’t think I had enough party-savvy to behave for the neighbor’s sake, I had completely forgotten the fact that I’d not only been screaming hysterically earlier but also had dropped the huge rock and then fallen down myself.

 Reluctantly taking my arm Enrique brought me onto the terrace for air. It felt good, it felt healing. I needed oxygen!  He practically had to drag me back in a few minutes later.

 Pouting, I flopped onto the couch and crossed my arms like an irate five-year-old in the throws of a tantrum.

 “I need air!” I whined obstinately.

 “Please…” he pleaded, “We have to be quiet!”

 By begging non-stop, I finally wore him down enough to open the door a sliver.  Then I took a drastic measure, a last resort, since he was being so mean … and I needed air.

 I lay down on the floor with my nose to the crack of the door, like a dog.

 Finally relieved, I opened my eyes and noticed he was staring at me. In what could only be described as a colossal understatement, I mumbled,

 “I should go…”

 “No!” he said swiftly, “Don’t go!”

  Even in my deteriorated condition, this struck me as straight outta left field. The only reason he could possibly want me to stay, I realized, was for sex. But who in their right mind would have a fling with a drunken, stoned, gakked-out, swollen-faced maniac who was laying across the door sill, gasping for air? Who would want to make out with a meteorite-licking lunatic who not only had reefer-induced cottonmouth, but bloody lips and a chipped tooth? What a sicko! More than a little concerned at this turn of events, I said I’d call a cab.

 “I’ll drive you,” he offered, to which I replied without an ounce of social convention,

“NO WAY!”

He’d been smoking way more of the pot than I had, and if I was in this condition from just a couple of bong hits, how in God’s name did he think he could operate an automobile?

 Enrique handed me the phone, but I was too wasted to even dial the number for Celebrity Cab, which I’d committed to memory two decades ago. After three attempts, he grabbed the phone and, rolling his eyes, dialed it himself.

 I don’t remember most of the ride home, but do recall the cabbie asking me if it was ok if he picked up a hooker.  Bouncing her head and entire spine against the front seat and plexi-glass panel, cackling incoherently and high on crack, she almost gave me hope that maybe I wasn’t the most fucked up person on earth.  As a gesture of good will, the cabbie didn’t charge me for the ride.

 I woke up the next morning on my couch, fully clothed, with dry contact lenses adhered to my corneas, and my false eyelashes still intact.

 That afternoon, while carefully repairing my tooth, my dentist asked me how I’d managed to chip it.

 “I… bit into something,” I said. It sounded reasonable.

Two weeks later, Enrique left a message on my voice-mail, asking me to go out again.

I never called him back.

#

 The story you’ve just read is from my book  “Showgirl Confidential: My Life On Stage, Back Stage And On The Road” (Punk Hostage Press, Sept. 2013).

You can order a signed copy here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

THE MINX

Welcome to my new blog! 

The story you are about to read is an excerpt from my forthcoming memoir, "Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage, Backstage And On The Road" which will be published Fall 2013 by Punk Hostage Press...enjoy!

 In the late Seventies, The Palomino was the nerve center of country music in Los Angeles. The famed San Fernando Valley roadhouse had hosted Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Jerry Lee Lewis and, like, and every other country star whose name meant anything. “The Pal”, as regulars affectionately called it, might as well have been the West Coast wing of The Grand Ole Opry or Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, that’s jes’ how country it was. The air was so thick with a haze of cigarette smoke and clouds of cheap perfume that it seemed like a gardenia-scented bomb had recently gone off. It was the type of place where the patrons really did sit at the bar drinkin’ doubles and feelin’ single.

The cocktail waitresses, all genuine Honky Tonk Angels and Buckle Bunnies who’d moved to LA from places like Bakersfield, Needles, and Lone Pine all had aspirations of being the next Crystal Gayle.  Their faces were uniformly hard-lined and overly made-up, and instead of Farrah-do’s, they had big Nashville hair, teased and sprayed. Stealthy and discreet, with the finesse of thieves, they’d sidle up to tables on the pretense of clearing empty glasses, while surreptitiously slipping their demo cassettes into the suit pockets of their Music Biz clientele.

As a  rockabilly blonde, photo by Gary Leonard 

 I frequented The Pal but never really fit in, even though my boyfriend was the lead singer of the hugely popular neo-rockabilly group, Levi & The Rockats.  Whenever I was there, it always felt like I was on a Black Ops mission, or as though I doing anthropological research. I was a stranger in a strange land- a clandestine punk rock refugee, living a make-believe life, trying to pass as an urban cowgirl.In reality, even attired in my vintage 1950’s Western wear, I was only fooling myself.  With my bleached white, greased Elvis pomp and chipped metallic blue nail polish, I stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the embroidered Nudie’s rodeo duds and the tight Spandex, Tanya Tucker-iffic jumpsuits.

 At least had company-I was usually with my all-time favorite partner in crime, The Minx. Not only was her guy the drummer in my boyfriend’s band, The Minx shared my secret punk rock past. In her rockabilly phase, she looked like a miniature Italian movie star, circa 1959. 

But I knew better: it wasn’t always that way.

 The Minx swears I was the first punk rocker she’d ever met; that I changed her life. We’d first bumped into each other two years previously in 1976, at Granny Takes A Trip. The trendy, world-famous glitter-rock-gone-punk boutique had become famous on King’s Road in London, clothing everyone from Marc Bolan of T-Rex to The Sweet and Roxy Music.  They had had just opened an offshoot store on Sunset Strip. Teenagers on leave from Suburbia, The Minx and I arrived there at the same time, both trying to sell T-shirts we’d made. Mine had dirty words stenciled in spray paint all over; hers had two zippers down the front which, when opened, would reveal the breasts. Initially, I looked upon her as my competition, but her lurid blue eye shadow, breathy voice and tiny hands immediately enchanted me.

The Minx herself

 Dainty and adorable, The Minx was- and still is- one of those girls who’ll never look like a woman. With unusually large doe-eyes, a perfect tiny nose and close-cropped hair, she’s the ultimate gamine. If you dressed her in a toga and put a wreath of flowers in her hair, or maybe added a set of gossamer wings, she could be reclining in a Maxfield Parish print.

Compared to her stature, her personality is over-the-top; she’s smart, brash and vibrant, more like an idealized Japanimation character than a real person. She was FUN in big, fat primary-colored Fisher-Price letters, letters with googly eyes and little cartoon smiles. Fun like a tawdry carnival sideshow, Fun like an old-time whorehouse, it’s hallways filled with drunken conventioneers in boxer shorts and Fez hats. Fun like a dimly lit back-stage of a run-down cabaret in Weimar Republic Berlin. The Minx was always up for anything.

 We became fast friends, seeing each other regularly at The Whisky A Go-Go for Ramones and Blondie shows, at The Masque for Germs gigs, and at many a drunken party at The Canterbury Arms, a run-down apartment building on Cherokee, just off Hollywood Boulevard. Many punks took up residence there, because the place was cheap… they rented to anybody, it was full of junkies and hookers, the manager was running scams with the landlord, and probably running drugs.  The elevators were full of   graffiti; constantly out of service. Rigs and beer cans were discarded on the shredded carpet in the hallways, which probably hadn’t been replaced since the McCarthy era. The apartments themselves were great- or had once been.  Big starlet singles from Hollywood’s Golden Age, they had built-in vanities and Murphy Beds.

 There was typically a lot of Mickey’s Big Mouth beer involved in the Canterbury shindigs.  The stereo would be blasting latest The Clash or   Adverts import 45 while people who were too young to drink legally locked themselves in the bathroom to do drugs. The walls in the Canterbury’s kitchenettes were splattered from food-fights with day- old Top Ramen or Kraft Macaroni and Cheese; people were always passed out on ratty sofas salvaged from the trash. Inevitably, a lot of drunken pogo dancing took place, and usually, a Murphy bed would come loose from it’s hinges and slam off the wall and onto some hapless kid’s head.

  None of us had jobs, because you couldn’t get hired if you had pink- or even dyed black hair. Our clothes came from dumpster-diving Salvation Army donation boxes, and we were always on the guest list for shows. As long as you had enough cash for cigarettes and beer, you were dandy.  Nobody wanted a regular job, anyway.  It would interfere with our parties.

 We were wanna-be musicians who were also painters, photographers, performance artists, clothing designers, writers, dancers, actors and smart -though disenfranchised- teenagers. There was also a bunch of older, off-the-wall types, refugees from the Midwest and New York, ex-hippies from Haight Ashbury, ex-Beats from North Beach and Greenwich Village, and former Superstars from Andy Warhol’s Factory.

  Lots of us had come from the glitter rock scene, and so were comfortable with multiple partners and bisexuality. There were openly gay folks, but also people who were into experimentation, people who didn’t really believe in labels or conventional lives.  For a while, at the Canterbury, there was even a frisky, all-female club- or gang (a la West Side Story) called the Piranhas. They were rumored to be a bunch of dykes, but were more like raunchy party girls, out for a good time and outrageous fun…. and sex with anyone cute who presented themselves. All of us were infinitely unemployable, and we had to do something with our time, so we drank a lot, had tons of casual sex, formed bands, made Xeroxed fanzines, and drank and fucked some more. 

Everything trendy in New York or especially in London had a huge influence on us, so when English punks started getting into Teddy Boy culture, listening to American roots music, wearing drape coats, suede Brothel Creeper shoes and voluminous poodle skirts, we all followed suit. It was only a matter of time until it was de rigueur to have a rockabilly paramour.

 Always a step ahead of the crowd, The Minx and I swooped in and got the pick of the litter before any other punkettes got hip to the scene. Our boyfriends had migrated from London, via New York’s Lower East Side, and were in the hottest- and at that point, only   rockabilly band to hit the US, making all the girls in the audience swoon the way the chicks did in those ancient newsreels about “The Devil’s Music”.

 It was a novelty to stand at the mouth of the stage and see handsome guys in suits and string ties crooning love songs. Much better that standing safely away from a roiling mosh pit full of boozed-up jocks slam dancing, or watching pasty-skinned, pimply guys covered in spit and beer screaming out one-chord songs about war and The Government … with fake English accents. Rockabilly was sexy. It was about being horny, not being on The Dole.   Punk chicks by the dozen were abandoning their Converse high tops in favor of saddle shoes, trading in their Dead Kennedys' T-shirts for bullet bras and tight cashmere sweaters, all to catch the eye of these cool hepcats.

 My Cockney boyfriend Levi was a bona fide English Ted, and Dean, his drummer, whom The Minx was seeing, originally hailed from Kentucky, giving him even more rockabilly cred.  He had a bleached blonde pompadour and a sleepy, Eddie Cochran smile.  Our boys were in the band that was the toast of the town. We were madly in love with them, and the envy of every girl who hadn’t already been growing her spiky hair out long enough to make a ponytail.

 

Ray Campi & The Rockabilly Rebels, tearing it up at The Palomino

 So there The Minx and I were at The Pal, already tipsy and excited because our hepcat beaux were opening for Ray Campi And The Rockabilly Rebels. Stand-up bassist Ray Campi was a living legend, a Texan who’d been at it since the early Fifties. His singer, Colin Winski, was tall and loose-hipped, with big sideburns and a cool yelping wail. Jerry Sikorski, the lead guitarist, looked like a cross between slightly wall-eyed, bleached blond teddy bear and blank-faced Barney Rubble in the Flintstones… but he could do back-flips and summersaults with his axe strapped on, not missing a note. Our guys were duly impressed.

 Of course there was an after-party, and The Minx and I steeled ourselves for the inevitable: hours of the guys spinning rare 45’s and one-upmanship over who knew more facts about the obscure one-hit-wonders who were probably fat, old, John Deere cap-wearin’ rednecks pumping gas in rural Arkansas by now.  But, dutiful girlfriends that we were, we tagged along anyway.

The party was at Jerry Sikorski’s place, a neatly kept Post WWII ranch house in the depths of San Fernando Valley tract-house suburbia… where he still lived with his parents. They happened to be gone for the weekend, he said enthusiastically, so it would be possible for the guys to jam together. The Minx and I could barely help rolling our eyes. These post-gig after parties had become a monotonous routine for our punkette souls, even though we wanted to be “good” girlfriends. It was hard to tell what was a worse fate: standing around listening to the fraternity of drunken Sun Records wannabees warbling out Gene Vincent hits, or sitting there unable to get a word in edgewise while they played the entire collected works of Bill Haley and The Comets- or their offshoot band The Jodimars- on scratchy 78’s, while everyone argued passionately about the bass-line.

 The Sikorski house was comfy, homey and cluttered. Hand-crocheted afghans draped the couch; a pile of Family Circles was stacked neatly on the oversized television set. The super-sized fridge was full of beer, and things brightened up considerably when Colin passed a joint around while everyone plugged in mics and amps.

 Bored already, I wandered through the house, impressed by the rampant normalcy, so inviting after staying at series of punk crash pads where the main source of nutrition was ketchup and mustard stolen from fast food joints. In the bathroom, I admired the ceramic angelfish figurines floating up the wall with morbid fascination. The Minx sauntered in, her crinolines swishing. I took a sip of the cocktail she offered, while re-applying my Revlon “Cherries In The Snow” lipstick. It was the perfect sex-kitten shade - the ultimate in ‘50s glamour.  I had recently switched from using the punk lipstick of choice:  Artmatic’s Black Orchid, which was only forty-nine cents at Woolworth’s. It was a deep, matte burgundy…suitable for extras in Night Of The Living Dead, Puerto Rican drag queens or those endless Canterbury parties.

The Minx powdered her nose and feigned a yawn as I lit a cigarette. In the den, our boys were murdering The Johnny Burnette Trio’s “Butterfingers.”

Together we inspected the master bedroom. The double bed had a golden vinyl headboard and a quilted yellow-ochre satin spread. A pair of bifocal reading glasses and a dog-eared Reader’s Digest sat on the bedside table.  I flopped onto the bed to adjust the seams of my hose, and The Minx sat down next to me.

Glancing down at my black fishnets which would’ve been much more appropriate for The Rocky Horror Show or a spread in a late 1950’s pulp detective magazine, suddenly everything became clear to me: all this rockabilly stuff was wearing thin. While the music was great, the teen idol stuff only went so far. Sure, our guys sang about back-seat, drive-in-movie sex and burnin’ desires, but all they ever wanted to do in real life was have a couple of beers and boast about the rare records they’d found at swap meets and junk stores. The biggest drag was that they were constantly telling you not to mess up their hair, even during sex. Carefully coifed into brand new “Rebel Without A Cause” DA’s and sculpted with Murray’s Pomade, the rockabillies would spend hours hogging your bathroom mirror in displays of vanity that would’ve been off-putting even to Little Richard.

 The punk guys, I recalled with new-found nostalgia, would let you dye their hair green, dripping Krazy Kolor all over their leathers and the bathroom floor. They’d allow you put make-up on them and would dress up in your underwear, dancing around to Donna Summer disco songs.  They wanted to get wasted on hallucinogenics and have sex up against a dumpster in an alley…which might not have been the height of romance, but was far more exciting than listening to a bunch of guys in sharkskin suits jabbering away all night about Carl Perkins and Ersel Hickey.

 The Minx and I, it occurred to me, were just as trapped as real 1950’s women.

 It was only through obligation and loyalty that we found ourselves listening to endless sermons about the early days of Sun Records, dressed in our little Peter Pan-collared blouses, playing Suzi Homemaker, Donna Reed, and June Cleaver rolled into one. On the outside, we appeared to be Atomic Age arm-candy. Inside, we were both secretly pining away for some good old-fashioned debauchery.  We didn’t want to be prettyprettypretty Peggy Sue, or the virginal Deborah Padgett, Elvis’ love interest in the movie “Loving You”. 

 What we really wanted was to be was Priscilla Presley after Elvis turned her into a hooker-looking version of “The Bride Of Frankenstein”, with gobs of black eyeliner, wearing Bob Mackie gowns and drinking champagne while The King got wasted on Quaaludes and Dilaudid and shot out television sets in a Vegas penthouse suite.

For weeks, our old punk rock selves were coming back to re-claim our surrendered power and individuality. Slowly but surely, subversive black fishnet hose and garters started replacing our bobby sox. Ticking like teenage time bombs, our latent desire for something more decadent was coming to a head.

  The Minx reached up to my face and gently wiped away a lipstick smudge. The next thing I knew, we were kissing.

It was tentative for a moment, but got increasingly wild and passionate. Coming up for air, we shared a brief, charged glance. I reached across her to the lamp on the nightstand and switched it off; we resumed kissing. I gently pushed her down onto the bed, and, as they say in romance novels, she yielded to me. We writhed around, breathless. Her lips were pillowy; I tasted our recently applied lipstick. She kissed in a languid, leisurely way, like a courtesan in a harem. She tasted like a divine mixture of cinnamon gum, cigarettes and vodka. Running her hands through my hair, her  ‘50’s crystal  “grandma” necklace clattered against my teeth as I covered her neck with a flurry of love bites.  My head was spinning from a combination of cocktails and lust.

Suddenly The Minx sat up, grabbed my face, and whispered urgently,

 “I’ve fantasized about this for so long!”

Dumbfounded for a moment, almost expecting her to say she was joking, I stuttered,

“Me, too!”

“This has been a dream of mine,” she said, as she rolled over on top of me, started undressing me slowly.

 I felt goose bumps covering my entire body as her hands slid up my thighs, lightly snapping the elastic of my vintage garter belt.

 We fooled around for a long time, our purses, petticoats and pumps littering the floor. We squirmed our way through the guys doing Billy Lee Riley’s “Flying Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll”, Jack Scott’s  “The Way I Walk”, Warren Smith’s “Ubangi Stomp” and – how utterly appropriate- Buddy Holly’s nasty jump blues song about a cheating woman, “Annie’s Been Working On The Midnight Shift”.

 It was not only completely thrilling to be with her- we were both feeling an illicit, delicious charge- having sex on a pristine bed, our friend’s parent’s bed, in a suburban ranch house, knowing that our unsuspecting boyfriends were in the very next room, completely oblivious to what we were doing. It was fabulous, wanton, and dirty as can be.

Finally, we both felt that we’d been AWOL for too long. I could hear my boyfriend and Colin belting out “Wake Up, Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers, so we took that as a call for reveille. Giggling and conspiratorial, we buckled up our push-up, bullet-shaped brassieres and hit the bathroom to comb our hair and fix our smudged lipstick.

The guys barely noticed us as we waltzed into the living room, asking like perky Eisenhower-era housewives if anyone wanted a cocktail. It was as though during our secret encounter we’d slid into a private Twilight Zone of teenage lust… and our boyfriends had no idea they’d provided the soundtrack!

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