Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

I was a sexist.”
    She snatched a piece of seaweed off the sand and draped it over his ear. “You’re a sexist, faggot prude, Michael Mouse.”
    There were thirty or forty naked men on the tiny patch of beach. Mona and Michael spread a towel. It displayed the words Chez Moi ou Chez Toi? and a life-size picture of a naked man.
    Mona looked around her, then down at the towel. “How redundant. Aren’t you afraid people will make comparisons?”
    Michael laughed, stripping off his sweatshirt, tank top and Levi’s. He stretched out in his green-and-yellow satin boxing trunks.
    Mona removed her own Levi’s and tank top. “How do you like my impression of the Great White Whale?”
    “Bullshit. You look fabulous. You look like … September Morn.”
    “A fat lot of good it’ll do me here.”
    “Don’t be so sure. There’s a nasty epidemic of heterosexuality afoot. I know lots of gay guys who’re sneaking off to the Sutro Baths to get it on with women.”
    “How bizarre.”
    “Well … everything gets old after a while. I personally get a little sick of wrecking my liver at The Lion for the privilege of tricking with some guy whose lover is in L.A. for the weekend.”
    “So you’re going straight?”
    “I didn’t say that .”
    Mona rolled over on her stomach and handed Michael a bottle of Bain de Soleil. “Do my back, will you?”
    Michael obliged, applying the lotion in strong circular strokes. “You do have a nice bod, you know.”
    “Thanks, Babycakes.”
    “Don’t mention it.”
    “Mouse?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Do you think I’m a fag hag?”
    “What?”
    “I do. I’m sure of it.”
    “You’ve been eating funny mushrooms again.”
    “I don’t mind being a fag hag, actually. There are worse things to be.”
    “You are not a fag hag, Mona.”
    “Look at the symptoms. I hang around with you, don’t I? We go boogying at Buzzby’s and The Endup. I’m practically a fixture at The Palms.” She laughed. “Shit! I’ve drunk so many Blue Moons I feel like I’m turning into Dorothy Lamour.”
    “Mona …”
    “Hell, Mouse! I hardly know any straight men anymore.”
    “You live in San Francisco.”
    “It isn’t that. I don’t even like most straight men. Brian Hawkins repulses me. Straight men are boorish and boring and …”
    “Maybe you’ve just been exposed to the wrong ones.”
    “Then where the hell are the right ones?”
    “Hell, I don’t know. There must be …”
    “Don’t you dare suggest one of those mellowed-out Marin types. Underneath all that hair and patchouli beats the heart of a true pig. I’ve been that route.”
    “What can I say?”
    “Nothing. Not a damned thing.”
    “I love you a lot, Mona.”
    “I know, I know.”
    “For what it’s worth … sometimes I wish that were enough.”
    Two hours later, they left hand in hand, parting a Red Sea of naked male bodies.
    They ate dinner at Pier 54, boogied briefly at Buzzby’s, and arrived back at Barbary Lane at ten-thirty.
    Mary Ann passed them on the stairs.
    “How was your weekend?” asked Mona.
    “Fine.”
    “You go away?”
    “Up north. With a friend from school.”
    “Have you met Michael Tolliver, my new roommate?”
    “No, I …”
    “Yes.” Michael smiled. “I believe we have.”
    “I’m sorry, I don’t …”
    “The Marina Safeway.”
    “Oh … yes. How are you?”
    “Hangin’ in there.”
    Back at the apartment, Mona asked, “You met Mary Ann at a supermarket?”
    Michael smiled ruefully. “She tried to pick up Robert.”
    “You see?” said Mona. “You see?”

Miss Singleton Dines Alone
    A FTER UNPACKING HER SUITCASE, MARY ANN PAD ded restlessly through her apartment in the pink quilted bathrobe her mother had sent her from the Ridgemont Mall.
    She haled Sunday nights.
    When she was a little girl, Sunday nights had meant only one thing: unfinished homework.
    That’s how she felt now. Anxious, guilty, frightened of recriminations that were certain to follow. Beauchamp Day was homework she should have finished. She would pay for it. Sooner or later.
    She decided to pamper herself.
    She quick-thawed a pork chop under the faucet, wondering if it was sacrilegious to Shake ‘n Bake meat from Marcel & Henri.
    Lighting a spice candle on the parsons table in the living room, she dug out her Design Research cloth napkins, her wood-handled stainless flatware, her imitation Dansk china, and her ceramic creamer shaped like a cow.
    Solitude was no excuse for sloppiness.
    She scrounged