Back to the Bay

After an adventurous freshman year in the Ames, Iowa writing program, away from my repressive family, I was happy to sneak back to Berkeley and stay with ‘the sisters', Ella and Grace, in their rambling shared house on upper Virginia Street. If I’d had to stay with my parents, even Ames would have been preferable. Maybe I‘d make a ‘surprise visit’ to them before returning to college?

My months in Ames were a revelation. In 1967 the difference between the San Francisco Bay Area and the middle of Iowa was close to diametrical. My over-protective family prepared me to navigate around the edges of my classmates’ conservative upbringings, who were intrigued beyond bearing by my California-Eurasian self. (Maybe I’ll let you read that chapter one day.)

I was more than ready for a summer’s change of scene.

The first Friday evening home, my adoptive sisters were occupied with their continued dalliance with their Lit professor – I’d had enough of that in Ames! – I accepted my tiny Korean housemate Lynn’s offer to visit a ‘studio’ in the City that she was unable or unwilling to describe fully beyond, “it’s a very sensual place, beautiful people, utterly free and safe. You can just watch. Dress girly,” she advised.

It had been ten days since my last intimacies, and horniness was looming, so I chose a push-up bra beneath a low cut knee-length red silk summer dress with off-the-shoulder potential and, San Francisco summers in mind, a warm wool shawl and modest heels. I was lookin’ tasty if I thought so who shouldn’t.

“Ooooh, you nailed the look, Seestah,” assessed Lynn. “We’re gonna have a goooood night.”

We bussed, trolleyed, and walked to a large, shabby redwood shingle mansion near the intersection of Market and Castro where Lynn showed a red picture ID to an enormous uniformed door person of undefined sex, who queried, “And your friend?”

“She’s a first-time voyeur, so she gets in free, right?”

After being asked to spin around and yielding our clutches for inspection, feeling thoroughly examined, the grand door was opened, and we were instructed to sign in at the desk. Within, a dark wood paneled entry that might once have been a Gold Rush era hotel reception area. Behind a desk, a chipper blond fellow in a tux jacket and tie greeted Lynn by a name I didn’t know.

“Lara, so nice to see you again! I think you’re in the Zee line-up tonight, right? And your friend’s name?”

“Yes, Rod, it’s my Zee virgin night. This is my sister, Abby,” Lynn answered before I could, turning to me and winking. Hmmm: Anonymous. Sisters. Okay.

Clearly assessing my chest, “Abby, nice to see so much of you. Please fill up this card, although, if I may, I already see your form is nicely filled!” Chee-key!

Lynn / Lara said, “Abby, I need to go to the baths, but Rod will take good care of you. Okay?”

Rod smiled reassuringly, and I sent her on her way. Rod produced a Polaroid camera and asked politely, “Abby – is that short for Abigail? May I take a picture for your application?”

While slipping my left shoulder into view, nudging my girls to best advantage, and draping my shawl over my right shoulder photogenically, I was happy to pose, but curiosity overwhelmed: “Abigail it is, and what exactly am I applying for?”

“Well, Entry to Wonders for one thing, but I promise you’ll enjoy yourself so much you’ll want to come back, and so you might as well be a member . . . like Lara. Don’t you think?”

I didn’t mind at all. Rod was a cutey and, card full and picture taken, he came out from behind his desk and I saw that he was wearing tights below his formal jacket, nicely filled out and possibly just a little engorged? Taking my arm a little too solicitously, he guided me through a swinging door while giving me a quick orientation. I didn’t resist the urge to snuggle his hand up against the side of my boob.

“I’m taking you to the voyeur seats in the public Salon. It’s Friday night, so we’ll be a full house, but you’ll be able to find a seat with a good view. Are you and Lara really sisters?”

“Oh, no, she’s a close college friend. She promised me I’d like this place, but I have no idea . . .”

“Well, if you’re as open-minded as your dress suggests, I think you’re among friends. This place is called Teaze with a Z, and we strive for full satisfaction of all the senses.” With this he took a yellow rose from a vase of red, orange, and yellow roses, sniffed it appreciatively, and ceremoniously handed it to me. It was one of those old-timey scented roses I like so much. “Carry this with you,” Rod said, “it will help us know who you are.”

The Public Salon

Rod guided me past a room with comfortable sofas and a bar complete with mirror and a scantily clad female bartender. A scattering of people were talking, holding hands and kissing; a mostly unclothed couple were dancing close to quiet music – well, you could call it ‘dancing’ but their dancing was mostly below their waists. I began to wonder if I might be over-dressed?

Rod delivered me through double doors to a dramatic room and said “Make yourself at home. Drinks and snacks are back in the lobby. Find a seat when you’re ready – the red and blue ones are reserved. The show doesn’t start for half an hour.”

The public Salon had probably been two large rooms, living and dining, perhaps with a wall removed and stage lighting on the timber dividing the rooms. A back wall covered with bookshelves attracted my attention: coffee table books of a certain kind, erotic photography, a folio of photos by Imogen Cunningham, a volume of atmospheric images by Anne Brigman; and a collection of smaller leather-bound books from the literary pornography genre: The Story of O, the Tropics, an illustrated Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a copy of which in Ella’s mother’s library had already provided me with private stimulation.

Like the folks in the lobby, the people already seated in the salon were haphazardly dressed, as if some had removed clothing upon arrival. I guessed that many of these folks were habitués, or members, and that Lynn’s, I mean Lara’s, reference to the baths implied the existence of lockers somewhere. The audience tended to be young, professional-looking, well-exercised and fed, singletons, couples, and groups of four or five; quite a few naked breasts, male and female; public displays of affection, sensual but not overt. I noticed that there were roughly equal numbers of men and women, and the groupings seemed to represent most of the imaginable options in the City’s burgeoning gender circus.

What looked like a cross between a king-sized bed and a stage in what theater people call three-quarter thrust filled the floor. A low upstage headboard with flower arrangements and an assortment of cruets that I guessed might be oils backed up to a curtained wall. The ‘stage’ was pitched slightly toward the center audience, the better to be seen. The audience, who by now I had concluded were the voyeurs, assembling in seats arranged in three gently rising tiers. I counted forty-five comfortable seats, all without armrests. The first rows on the sides of the stage were red on the right, blue on the left, and no one was sitting there. I found a seat at the end of the second row center beside a white-haired man and much younger woman who were engaged in whispered conversation. Once seated, I noticed that when she leaned toward him, her rouged nipples were visibly erect, and his pants revealed a suggestive bulge. Full satisfaction, Rod promised. Seemed to me like the smell of sex was in the air, but that just may have been me after an unaccustomed week of celibacy?

The man turned to me, caught me noticing his bulge, and unselfconsciously rearranged himself before greeting me. “Hello, are you a first timer? I haven’t seen you before.” I introduced myself as Abby, and he said he was Sam; the woman reached across to press my hand and called herself Sorah. I admitted I was new to the scene, still not quite grasping what that scene might be. Hadn’t Rod said the place was named Teaze? After holding my hand a beat too long, Sorah let her hand drop into Sam’s lap and caressed his bulge. In reply, he turned and kissed her. That, I decided, would be another clue. Holding my rose, I primly crossed my hands on the shawl folded in my lap.

A sudden uptick in the room’s awareness, and a statuesque woman entered from backstage, naked, carrying a red rose; she scanned the audience, then proclaimed herself to be Ariadne, and sat in a red seat. A slight man, also bearing a red rose and wearing a sheer white robe open in the front announced, “I’m Peter.” I thought I noticed an outsize penis swinging just out of sight behind his robe. Next, unexpectedly, came Lynn, I mean Lara, wearing a thong, her nipples the same color as the rose she was carrying. Her tight little body surprised me, but most unexpected were her firm half-melon-sized breasts. “I’m Lara,” she told the audience. While I was struggling to integrate my housemate’s appearance with the modest Korean girl I knew, two more partially dressed red-rose bearing men entered, named themselves, and sat down. Finally, another woman, magnificently naked, her brown hair tightly bound in a coil at her neck, entered carrying a red rose. Thirtyish, tanned all over, proud shoulders, high conical breasts with prominent areolae, flat belly, slender hips and a rounded bum, long legs, evenly defined muscles from shoulders and arms to ankles. She stepped past her colleagues, bowed left, center, right to the seated audience, and spoke in a throaty voice, “I am Amber, and we are tonight’s Zees. Thank you for . . .” She paused a moment as if searching for the right word, then resumed, grinning, “being here. I almost said ‘coming’, but that’s for later.”

Amber carefully placed her rose in one of the vases on the stage headboard, pirouetted, and lay on her belly, her legs toward us, slightly spread. The house lights dimmed, and her body showed honey colored against the black silk sheet. A pregnant pause, and then six people filed in, all but one of them sitting in the blue chairs stage right. The sixth, a slight fellow shaved bald, wearing an open blue silk robe, stood in front of the stage, surveyed the audience in the darkened room, and spoke:

“I am Art, and Amber has chosen me to be her teaser tonight.” Oh, I think I get it! TeaZer and teaZee! Art continued, “Her terms of engagement are wide open, no holes barred. Amber and I are work colleagues, taking shifts here at Teaze. This is a first time tease for me, and for us, and she asked me to tell you that she will do her best to entertain you. I will too.”

Art knelt beside Amber’s head, bent to whisper something in her ear, and then began lightly running his fingertips over her upper body, beginning with her luscious bum and tracing along her spine. Sitting beside me, Sam, who had apparently appointed himself my color announcer, leaned close to me and whispered, “Effleurage.” He pressed a pair of opera glasses into my hands and added, “See if she gets chills, or her skin gets goose bumps.”

Art moved Amber’s arms away from her sides, so he could touch the sides of her breasts. At first, his soft touch tickled her, but with patience he worked from her spine outward, and we could see her relax while lifting herself to be more accessible. I couldn’t decide whether I liked looking close up with the glasses, or watching the effect on her whole body of the gentle play of fingers on skin. I enjoyed feeling my own body beginning to respond in sympathy with Amber’s as she moved to follow Art’s feathery touch. I couldn’t see any goose pimples, but I thought I saw her skin beginning to glow.

At first the only sound in the room had been the audience breathing, but soon we could hear Amber mewling softly when Art’s fingers worked between her buttocks and the sides of her breasts. After attentively caressing the tops of Amber’s shoulders, neck, and scalp, Art reached for a cruet and poured a thin stream of light oil down her backbone and began a firmer fingering of the well-defined musculature of her back. Almost at once, she began purring. “Petrissage,” whispered Sam, relieving me of the opera glasses to zoom in himself. Amber was now arching her back, rising to Art’s slow-moving but firm hands.

Art moved so his folded legs were on either side of Amber’s head, and for a moment I worried about where he was fitting his unit. As he made a firm pass from shoulders to bum, his robe obscured our view; noticing this, he shucked out of it and for the first time we could see his trim but muscular swimmer’s body, hairless except the shadows between his legs and Amber’s head.

From firm fingering to whole-hand massage, Art continued to work the oil into Amber’s back, bending to reach beyond her rounded bottom to the backs of her thighs, and in doing so nearly flattening his upper body on Amber’s back. For her part, Amber had worked her arms under her, lifting her body so that her breasts were just visible, the nipples touching the silk sheet . . . and her hands? What were they doing there by her head, hidden between Art’s legs?

Accepting the challenge, Art worked his hands along Amber’s sides; running out of lubrication, he poured a bit into each hand and firmly cupped her breasts. Her sigh of pleasure set off an answering sigh from us voyeurs, and I felt my own nipples erecting. I unbuttoned the top three buttons of my dress and ran my fingers lightly over my sheer bra, enjoying the electricity of desire.

While Art reset himself at Amber’s waist, I looked aside to Sam, and saw that he was gently stroking his companion’s naked right shoulder and upper arm, his fingers ‘accidentally’ straying to tease her breast. Her hand was firmly encircling and squeezing his erection through his thin linen pants. I thought, Bet those guys go home and party! Looking around the audience, I saw more exposed skin and appreciative touching, along with rapt attention on Art and Amber.

Still on her belly, Amber spread her legs further. I reached to take the opera glasses out of my neighbor’s lap, but encountered his partner’s soft hand. She quickly placed her hand over mine, and pushed it down over her partner’s bulge before guiding me to the glasses. Distracted only a moment, I bent forward enough to see her face turned toward me, an indulgent smile on her lips. I mouthed, ‘Thank you,’ before returning my gaze to the stage, where Art was trickling oil down Amber’s ass crack. With the glasses, I thought I could see her asshole twinkle, just as Art’s second finger covered it, hesitated, then plunged further, spreading her flower petals and revealing an engorged clitoris. Amber let out a soft moan, and the audience responded in kind.

For me, time seemed to have stopped or been somehow distorted, but not for my informant, Sam. “Well done,” he opined, “Five minutes and she isn’t even halfway there.” I wondered momentarily, where ‘there’ might be, then realized that my body knew. It was throbbing in sympathy with Amber’s; were I in her place, I would be yearning, in the parlance of the massage parlor, for a happy ending. Was that the theme of this place: slow-building sensuality leading ideally to a release? I could use something like that. My nipples tingling insistently and I thanked myself for wearing a front-latching bra, unclicked it, and softly touched my eager nipples. Suddenly sensing that I was not unobserved, I saw that Sam was watching me approvingly. “Can I help you with that?” he asked. Not waiting for an answer, he helped me slip my dress down toward my waist. Bra straps quickly following, the girls liberated. I indulged myself in a bit of nipple teasing, enjoying the hot current that flowed right to my clit. I sensed Sam looking on approvingly.

Meanwhile, Art had pushed Amber’s legs further apart, and was rubbing her pussy and the insides of her thighs with both hands. His little finger was flirting with her rosebud while two fingers were occasionally delving between her labia and disappearing in her well-lubricated cunt. Her moans were louder, and followed his fingers’ insertions.

Her moans intensified, and Art wisely moved his attention down her thighs, repeating the effleurage on the backs of her knees and shapely calves – dancer’s calves, I thought. I could almost feel fingertips on the sensitive skin on the backs of my knees, with the inside of my elbows some of my secret erogenous places. Amber’s vocalizations cued Art, and he dwelled on the backs of her legs, carrying up and into her pussy, then returning all the way to the soles of her feet.

Repositioning himself again, with Amber’s feet covering his still unswollen cock, and I took a moment to watch my neighbors and other voyeurs close by. Indeed, still raptly following Art’s every touch, but also not so idly stimulating themselves and their partners. The couple beside me had their hands deep in each others’ laps, and Sorah was gently pulling on her left nipple with her left hand and licking her lips suggestively.

Art administered a foot rub to die for, oiling the bottoms of Amber’s surprisingly flexible feet, working along the sensitive meridians that I recognized as the points reflexology associates with body organs. Was he especially attentive to the heel and back of the arch, reputedly the gluteal muscles, anus, and genitals? If he were doing me – increasingly, that was how I found myself thinking: my body, not Amber’s there under Art’s caring hands – then I hoped he would be one day. Wind me up tight as you can!

“Ten minutes,” Sam whispered admiringly. “I think he can do it, first time out.” Sorah reached over and turned his head toward her, and kissed him with the thoroughness of long practice and present affection. After a long moment, she leaned forward, smiled knowingly at me, and winked.

“He’ll turn her over soon,” she predicted.

“That’s when it gets really intense,” he whispered back.

With one smooth unexpected move, Art began at Amber’s toes, across ankles, calves, thighs, buttocks, sacral dimples, the deep valley of her backbone – did I forget to mention that Amber’s sacral dimples were gorgeous? – sides, shoulders, and neck, ending up with his whole body pressed against her. She had been on her elbows, relieving the pressure on her breasts, but collapsed with a happy moan, which quickly became a growl as Art’s hands, trapped beneath her breasts in the collapse, squeezed and massaged her fullness. His lips near her ears, Art whispered something to Amber, and then gracefully reversed the move, ending up kneeling between her legs. For the first time, I noticed that his prick was responding to their sensuality. I realized that in my focus, my right hand had wandered under my wrap, between the buttons of my dress and my legs to fondle my slit, where I found my pussy to be wet and tingling.

Art helped Amber turn over, resetting himself beside Amber’s waist. Her beautiful breasts relieved of their burden stood invitingly, the nipples very erect. A moment of intimate regard passed between Art and Amber before she closed her eyes and gave herself over to the inevitable finale. After brief effleurage that had Amber arching her body to follow his fingers, Art dribbled oil along her centerline from collarbone to clitoris and commenced gradually intensifying his ministrations, accompanied by a crescendo of purring and moaning from his subject.

Sam’s increased attention to his watch led me to suspect there was some kind of magical limit approaching, but does watching a beautiful person slowly building up to an orgasm ever get old for you? For me, at least, not so far! Imagining my own body’s response to Art’s gentle, firm, intimate and respectful teasing, I felt an explosion looming.

“Fourteen minutes,” Sam announced. “Wow,” Sorah mouthed. By now Sam had worked his hand under her skirt and, although the angle wasn’t perfect, I could tell by the way she had spread and leaned back in her seat, she welcomed his touch.

Lifting Amber up to make a pass from her neck to her feet, through the glasses I was sure I caught a glimpse of Art’s now swollen member, its head shining with pre-seminal fluid. Sure enough, settling back, he held himself, squeezed, and harvested a healthy viscous smear, and immediately used it to lubricate his plunge into Amber’s vagina.

And so began the endgame. At first, her toes curled, and we could hear her breathing accelerate. Her nipples, already erect, seemed to extend, and her puffy areolae puckered. Where before, she’d been arching her body to seek firmer touch, she now arched involuntarily, and then crumpled as Art appeared to be curling his fingers inside her to find her spot while rolling her clitoris with his thumb. Stopping for long enough to reach the cruet and trickle a bit more oil over his hand and her pussy, there was a momentary lull, and then when he plundered her pussy, the storm broke. Amber bucked and stifled a howl with one hand, then grasped her breasts and pulled her nipples while her legs shuddered. Art’s left hand remained embedded while he stroked Amber’s belly lightly, following her contortions.

After a huge sigh of held breath among us voyeurs, applause broke out. “I hope someone takes care of Art’s cock” offered Sorah. “Bet you’d volunteer,” replied Sam, who was breathing heavily. I looked, and there was a suspicious wetness in the crotch of his linen trousers.

Reminding me of the ‘cool down,’ when distance runners continue around the track after the finish, Art continued to relax Amber, who was convulsing occasionally. Finally, having fully regained her body, she rose up on her elbows, then moved beside Art, wrapped her arms around him, and whispered something in his ear. He smiled and bobbed his head affirmatively, turned slightly and whispered back; I thought I could read his lips: “That won’t take long.” Gathering juices from her quim, Amber deftly grasped Art’s still erect cock. He threw his head back, arched, and two strokes later ejaculated mightily to a second round of applause and a scattered ovation by those whose clothing wasn’t too disordered to stand.

Amber continued pumping until the last spurt emerged, then stood, took Art’s hand and helped him stand. Turning right, center, left, they bowed to another burst of applause, and stepped off the stage. Art retrieved Amber’s red rose and handed it to her with a sketch of a bow, picked up her robe, and they exited through a door stage right to a round of Bravas.

“Tough act to follow,” essayed my informant Sam. “Want me to take you home?” He was looking straight ahead, but I was pretty sure he was addressing Sorah.

“Not quite yet,” Sorah replied, “but I do want to switch seats with you. Abby deserves to hear the womanly commentary during the next round.”

- - o - -

While they switched, a team of four black-dressed ninjas – fugitives from a Noh play? – stripped the sheet, wiped down the rubber sheet beneath it, unfurled a fresh ivory fitted sheet, and departed unseen. Once settled, Sorah placed her hand on my arm (the one that was still in my lap), leaned toward me so our thighs touched, and whispered, “Is this anything like what you expected?”

I admitted it surpassed expectations, and that I was thrilled to my core.

“Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Quite the opposite,” I admitted.

She continued confidentially, “Sam and I come here whenever our spouses are out of town, luckily something that happens often enough.” She turned back and glimmered at Sam, who smiled indulgently. San Francisco Rules circa 1978, I thought to myself. Love ‘em!

Ariadne arose, put her rose in the vase, then glided back and forth in front of the stage sizing up her audience, smiled and arrayed herself breasts up parallel to the front of the stage. Her legs, crossed at the ankles, pointed toward her fellow Zees stage left. A pause, and then an equally statuesque woman arose from the blue seats, shed and neatly folded her robe, set it on her seat, walked stage center, shushed the audience, and whispered, “I am Phaedra, Ariadne’s twin. Tonight it is my turn to pleasure her, but we have been teasing each other since before we were born.”

Where Art and Amber had been passive and Art’s tease had been all about hands, Phaedra and Ariadne’s tease was all about willowy womanly bodies rubbing against each other in ways I had never imagined bodies could touch. Phaedra squatted above Ariadne’s hips facing her feet, oiled her legs and then, one at a time, clasped a knee and rose gracefully as she drew the upper leg up between her legs against her labia; when she got to the knee she rubbed the shin back and forth between her legs, then straightened her legs to clasp the foot tightly against her sex while she carefully rubbed each toe against her neatly trimmed mound.

Sorah leaned toward me, casually brushed the hand she had never removed from my arm across my breast before slipping it firmly under my wrap, between my legs, and whispered, “An amazing gymnastic move, no?” Her hot breath in my ear, the ‘accidental’ contact, and her slight weight in my lap sent a shock of pleasure through me; turning quickly before she could turn away, I sketched a kiss on her slightly open lips.

Finishing her sister’s second leg, Phaedra turned to face her, lifted Ariadne’s legs one at a time, and carefully pulled her erect nipples between her sister’s big and second toes, and then leaned forward while Ariadne flexed her knees, took her sister’s weight, and lowered her until their bodies were nearly parallel and Phaedra’s hands cupped and pressed Ariadne’s breasts. After several achingly long moments, Ariadne pushed her sister back up as Phaedra pulled and twisted her nipples.

Taking a step forward, Phaedra arched and took her weight off Ariadne’s feet, but not without first strongly tweaking her own nipples as they decoupled from her sister’s toes. Who’s teasing whom, I wondered. Ariadne’s feet now disengaged, she opened her legs, and her sister dropped down and back until her face was firmly planted in Ariadne’s pussy. Ariadne crossed her legs behind Phaedra’s back and held her there while we voyeurs shifted in our seats, knowingly imagining what was going on out of sight.

More remarkable choreography followed, and time seemed to stand still for me. Clearly this was a rehearsed dance the sisters were showing us, with both of them sensuously involved. Sorah’s husband, the Timekeeper, whispered, “five minutes,” as Phaedra stood facing us, again lifted her sister’s legs, and while sucking each toe, rotated herself and her sister, and spread her legs wide so Ariadne’s glistening cunt pointed toward us in the center seats. After favoring the voyeurs in the center section with a challenging stare, Phaedra lowered herself into a perfect 69.

Except for a heart-stopping slow move during which Phaedra teased and caressed every part of Ariadne’s long slim body with her own, the performance was beautiful and curiously sensual but somehow lacking the raw eroticism of the previous tease. We voyeurs could see that both women were aroused and enjoying themselves, yet release seemed not to be their goal. The audience’s attention to their seatmates increased; Sam found my hand on Sorah’s thigh and guided my fingers under her skirt to encounter no underwear and a swampy cunt. “Ooh, yum,” Sorah exclaimed while continuing her ministrations to both Sam’s erection, the moist tip of which was now visible through his fly, and my own sex. She’s a gifted multi-tasker,” thought I.

At sixteen minutes, a gong sounded, and the twins rose, arms around each other, collected their roses and robes, and exited through the Zer door accompanied by applause. Moments later, Art and Amber returned to the blue side, holding hands, and sat together.

“Intermission,” explained Sorah, who reordered her clothes, stood and leaned in to give me a thorough but quick kiss, and left for the lobby, Sam trailing behind her, hands on her hips as soon as she reached the floor. I too, attempted to gather my disordered clothes and my racing thoughts.

- - * - -