Free Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand by William J. Mann Page A

to make love Barré had stopped midway through because he didn’t have protection. He’d made that mistake before, and he told Barbara they should plan their first time carefully. They should pick a night, he said, and he’d buy some rubbers, and she’d bring some baby oil. Barbara complained that this didn’t feel very spontaneous, but she went out and bought the baby oil.
    Now, watching Barré lather his facein the bathroom mirror, wrapped only in a towel, she told him she’d never seen a man shave before. Sheldon had been out of the house by the time she was paying attention, and she’d certainly never looked at Lou Kind for any longer than she absolutely had to. That Barré’s beard was so heavy intrigued her. Barbara found it “very masculine,” she said, so much so that she couldn’t resist lifting a corner of Barré’s towel and purring like Mae West, “Whaddya got under there, big boy?”
    Barré had told her that he was bisexual. While other girls might have been taken aback by such an admission from a boyfriend, Barbara had seemed to view it as a challenge. In the last few weeks she’d become increasingly sexually aggressive, quite a step for a girl whose mother had done her best to instill in her a fear of sex. “You don’t screw anybodyuntil you get married,” Barbara remembered her mother saying, or words to that effect. And Barbara was hearing such admonitions from her mother more frequently these days. Her lack of funds had forced her into the once-unimaginable scenario of retreating back to Brooklyn several nights a week.
    Making love to Barré was the logical next step, and a little bisexuality shouldn’t prove to be an obstacle. They were always flirting, throwing around Mae West double entendresthat they had picked up from late-night movie viewings. And so Barbara kissed the back of Barré’s neck and played with the towel around his waist. “What’s the matter with your animal?”she cooed, using their favorite West line. But Barré once again begged off, arguing he’d be late for rehearsals. Barbara wanted to know when they’d finally make love. He promised her soon.
    He kept that promise. On a night after Barbara had wowed them yet again at the Lion and agreed to defend her title once more the following Tuesday, Barré took out a canister of marijuana, rolled a couple of joints, and taught Barbara how to smoke. Soon they were both high, and naked, and making love. Nothing the matter with the animal now.
    Barré believed that he was Barbara’s first lover. She told him he was, and that she was giving herself to him. Holding her in his arms, he felt her tremulous vulnerability. During daylight hours she might believe fervently that she could do anything and be anyone. But at night—naked in Barré’s arms—the little voice that insisted she wasn’t good enough, or beautiful enough, was as real as anything else. In these more vulnerable moments, Barbara needed reassurance, and Barré did his best to give it to her. Lying there with Barbara in his arms, he felt the enormous weight of the trust she had placed in him, and he hoped he would never hurt her.
    Of course, she wasn’t entirely vulnerable. With sensuous strokes of her long fingernails, Barbara caressed Barré’s back, a sensation both relaxing and arousing, but occasionally painful, too. Barré realized that Barbara’s nails—by now three inches long, forcing her to use a pencil eraser to dial a phone—would forever “prohibit a certain degree of intimacy” between them, or between Barbara and anyone else. Never could she fully touch another human being with her hands. And if her nails symbolized her own reluctance to get too familiar, they were also ever-present reminders that if anyone trespassed too closely, she could, and would, fight back.

7.
    Burke McHugh ran the Lionlike his own little Vegas showplace. It didn’t matter that the club was just a cubbyhole in a brownstone on West Ninth Street near Sixth