Honey

from the new book

Hers was never an easy life. The lady the world has come to know as Honey Bruce--beautiful stripper, ex-junkie, wife of Lenny Bruce, the comie some called sick, others called martyr--was born Harriett Jolliff in a rural area of Arkansas in 1927. When Harriett was still a toddler, her father deserted her mother. At 17, she herself ran away--to Florida, where she was arrested when the boys she was with ripped off a service station for pocket money. That was the beginning of a long road that led not merely to fame and fortune but also to time served in three penal institutions; six abortions; one near-fatal auto accident; and 16 years of addiction to heroin.

Lenny Bruce is dead, victim himself of a drug overdose. Honey has finally kicked her habit. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she has been quietly rebuilding her life--and writing, with Dana Benenson, the book "Honey: The Life and Loves of Lenny's Shady Lady," from which this excerpt is taken. We pick up her story in 1950 in Miami Beach, where, as Honey (continued on page 193) Honey (continued from page 166) from my earnings at the Chez Paree, I bought my first car--a 1949, canary-yellow Chevy convertible. Right away, I had it completely upholstered in leopardskin. A commercial-artist friend painted on the driver's-side door a foot-high caricature of me wearing just my pasties and G string, with my flaming-red hair touching my toes. Under the drawing, he printed in gold letters, hot honey harlow. Outrageous. A classic ego trip, but somehow it fit--for the times and for me.

The six months I spent at the Chez were very productive for me. I found myself able to really enjoy the sensuality of my body as, little by little, I languorously removed first one piece of clothing and then another. The furthest I stripped was down to a teeny string bikini bottom and pasties, little round cones that just covered my nipples and their pinkish-brown are olae. The Chez was a very elegant club, with conservative customers. As a featured dancer there, I had no trouble finding men. Neither did my roommate Bobbi, the female impersonator; in fact, we finally decided to split up and get separate apartments when we found out we were dating the same man!

After a while, I was beginning to get bored with the Chez. I heard of an opening for an exotic dancer at a big club in Panama that was owned and operated by a young woman, a Miss Iris Landers. I sent some eight-by-ten glossies and applied for the job. I was accepted--but at the last moment had second thoughts about working in a foreign country and decided to stay in Miami Beach.

I'd settled back into my routine at the Chez when, one night, a waitress came backstage to tell me that I had been asked to have a drink with a woman seated alone at a ringside table. I hesitated. Never before had a woman asked me for a drink. Was this some irate wife, pistol in her purse and megaphone at her mouth? I had the waitress point the lady out to me from the wings. She was very pretty, about 30, with shoulder-length brown, wavy hair à la Barbara Stanwyck. Even from backstage, I could see she was wearing some lovely pieces of jewelry--rings, bracelets, gold and topaz. No woman looking for a fight would risk wearing expensive jewelry to the bout, so I told the waitress to say I'd join her for a drink. The room was crowded with noisy drinkers, but the stranger's voice, smooth and deep, cut through the din effortlessly.

"Hi, Honey. I'm Iris Landers from Panama. I'll never completely trust a photograph again. Your pictures are beautiful, but they don't do you justice!" She ordered champagne cocktails for two and turned back to me, a soft, slightly self-mocking smile flickering back and forth across her lips. "You turned down the job I offered you. I'm a very determined person. I decided to meet you--in the flesh."

I was impressed. I was used to men promising me everything and giving me a hangover, but this was the first time I'd had someone travel from a foreign country just to see me--and it was a lady, not a man!

The dull roar of the room drifted away from our table, like early-morning fog running from the warmth of the sun. We joked a lot, teasing each other. Iris loved to laugh; her Cupid's-bow lips seemed permanently turned up at the corners. There was no escaping this lady's magnetism. I was having a great time and I didn't want it to end.

Suddenly, it was time for my next show. Iris leaned across the table, running her hand lightly back and forth over my wrist as her eyes looked into mine.

"Have breakfast with me after you're through." Her soft smile was like an electric heater, sending out sweet ripples of warm sensuality filled with longing that hit me like waves on the beach, covering me from head to toe with tiny tingles of excitement. Of course I'd join her for breakfast, I said.

As I moved seductively onto the stage, the icy splash of the twin follow spots moving with me blinded me, as always. But I could feel Iris' eyes on me, clinging, caressing my body as, piece by piece, its covering dropped away. I wanted to do the best show of my life. It was the first (and only) time that I longed to go all the way, to dance and writhe my way out of everything until there was nothing covering my body except the lights as they followed me, playing on my breasts, then my belly and thighs, then back again. I totally involved myself in the sensuality I was creating. The top of my gown peeled away from my breasts. I moved my hands over them, touching their round softness with my finger tips, offering them delicately out to the audience. And for an instant, to Iris, barely visible through the haze of lights. I could feel an urgency, like electricity, growing inside me. I pranced slowly over by--Iris' table and turned away, pulling my gown from my body and holding it in front of me. Arching my back, I slowly squeezed my buttocks together, then relaxed, then squeezed tight again. Spreading my legs, I bumped and ground a teasing message of love to an invisible demon waiting in the darkness toward the rear of the stage. Although my back was to the audience. I knew they and Iris were watching my bottom--naked except for a band of sparkling silver that ran down between my cheeks--and my thighs as delicate shudders of excitement ran through them. Suddenly, I whirled around, playing hide-and-seek with my body behind the gown held out in front of me like a screen. I danced faster, faster, and then it was over. I pulled the gown completely away from my body for one sweet instant before the room went dark. As I ran off stage, the applause told me what I already knew--I'd never danced better.

Alter my number, impatient to be with Iris, I slipped into a dotted-swiss, off-the-shoulder blouse and a royal-blue skirt. In my haste, I forgot my strapless bra and left my pasties on!

It was a great evening. We caught Martha Raye's show at the Five O'Glock Club, checked a couple of strippers Iris was thinking of hiring at the Paddock Club and had blintzes at Wolfies on Collins Avenue. Finally, we caught a cab to the beach-front hotel where I had the free use of a penthouse suite for two weeks, in appreciation for my having represented the hotel in a beauty contest.

I knew Iris wanted to make love to me. Was I really going to let her? What would my mother say if she found out?

The penthouse express elevator squished to a discreet stop. Laughing and giggling, still a little boozy from all we had drunk the night before, we kicked off our shoes and ran around on the carpeting for a while, our toes deep in its luxurious thickness. Out of breath and dizzy, we fell onto the mammoth blue-velvet bed.

Iris ran her tongue lightly over my neck and shoulders, nibbling and licking her way along the edge of my scooped-neck blouse. Her slim, tapered fingers fondled my breasts through die thin cloth. Then she softly crawled directly on top of me, sucking everything she could reach with her mouth while her hands busied themselves with the buttons, zippers, snaps and straps on her clothing. Finally, she knelt over me, her slim, soft body naked except for brief, shocking-pink bikini panties. Beaming her Mona Lisa smile at me, she began to rotate her pussy on the soft flesh of my upper thigh while she took off my clothes. She bent over and sucked at my belly with her mouth and her tongue, her hand lightly brushing the soft nest of red hair between my thighs, turning it into dandelion fluff in a summer breeze.

Slowly she began to lift off my right pastie, all the while rubbing her pussy along my thigh as she straddled it. She started to moan deep in her throat, "Oh. baby, oh, baby, oh, baby." I could feel the hot wetness of her pussy coming through her silk panties. The moment she peeled the silver pastie from my right nipple, I felt it harden into a tight rosebud. (continued on page 208) Honey (continued from page 193) Cupping my breast in her two hands, Iris bent over me, bringing her mouth down onto the naked nipple, sucking and nipping at it with her sharp little teeth. It wasn't Iris who was moaning now. It was me. Iris' eyes opened wide in fascinated amazement as she watched the silver pastie on my left breast pop off and land on one of the pillows, a victim of my swollen, stiffened left nipple.

Iris pulled back, sliding silently down my body and in between my thighs. I stroked her fluffy brown hair while her mouth moved over my belly and the soft flesh inside my thighs. It was a delicious feeling to be unafraid to let my feelings flow; from deep inside the inner pink caverns of my womanness, through all my body and out to Iris. Trusting and open for the first time in my life, all my barriers disappeared and I felt myself swept along, floating on a swift-moving stream of passion, headed for the falls nonstop!

Her lips teasingly plucked at the tender skin around my pussy. She moved slowly, never rushing, but I could feel her own intensity as she rubbed her swollen, silk-clad pussy up and down my leg in steady rhythm. Holding my thighs open wide, she led my pussy closer and closer to the edge with her swirling, bright-red tongue. The tempo of her educated tongue picked up, moving faster and faster. I closed my eyes. The sound of someone moaning brought me out of my hot?pink dream. It was my own voice I had heard! Circling, swirling, moving in and out, Iris' tongue had crystallized my passions into a single, fluttering pearl in her mouth. I clutched at her head as I felt myself being taken. And then, suddenly, I was there. I exploded in her mouth in total, exquisite abandonment, holding on to her as she continued to drink and soak up my woman's nectar.

I had never felt anything like it. Iris had possessed a certain something about me as woman that I hadn't known. It was the first time in my life that the fear of getting pregnant didn't inhibit me. I felt free sexually, and so I climaxed!

We lay quietly in each other's arms until sleep washed over us, taking the hours away. Late that afternoon, Iris jumped out of bed and went to the bar to check out the refrigerator. It was filled with bottles of champagne and boxes of chocolate-covered cherries. Iris served me champagne in bed and then placed a chocolate-covered cherry on each of my breasts. As you might expect, she was a very sloppy eater. Nibbling a hole in the chocolate, she let the thick cherry syrup ooze down and over my breasts. I might have been furious with her, but she did such a great job of cleaning up!

Iris and I spent two glorious weeks in my penthouse. When she suggested that we drive to her apartment in New York, I quickly agreed. I was eager to see New York and, besides, I needed a vacation. I had been working the Chez Paree for 23 weeks without a day off!

Iris didn't waste any time introducing me to gay New York. Whatever I needed, she had a friend in the business or knew someone who did. Within the first week, we visited her friends in rickety second-story Seventh Avenue garment showrooms, where she bought me a wool-and-cashmere wardrobe. We frequented the jewelers' exchange for a gold ring with an inch-long topaz and a chunky pink-gold bracelet. Her furrier fitted me with a gorgeous, curly black Persian lamb coat and her connoisseur-quality weed connection delivered to the door. On New Year's Day, after a night of champagne, I awakened in Iris' seven-foot bed to find fresh, plump strawberries--covering the sensitive parts of my body. Iris' gentle mouth was eating away the strawberries lying on my nipples. Then she moved down toward my tummy and ate the strawberry she had placed in my belly button, ending her berry hunt in the curls of my pussy.

Though I loved those weeks of intensity with Iris, I was always ready to work. So when my agent called to say that I had a four-week booking--headlining, no less--at the Club Chanticleer in Baltimore, I was eager to go.

Iris drove me to Baltimore, but after three days, she had to return to New York on business for four weeks. It would be our longest separation since we'd met. I was on my own again.

•

Every city has a 24-hour deli and, if you're a night person, you locate it as soon as you hit town. In Baltimore in 1951, it was the Mayflower Coffee Shop; plastic-fantastic, iridescent-fluorescent, fresh bagels and strong coffee. Most of the entertainers in town stayed at the Mayflower Hotel, so, from three A.M. on, the coffee shop was filled with the machine-gun-like chatter patter of strippers, comics, dancers, singers, managers and club owners unwinding from work. It was on one of those ordinary, "I'll have two eggs over easy, marmalade with my toasted bagel and coffee, please," kind of nights that I met Lenny Bruce.

It was about 2:30 A.M., a little early for the club crowd. I was having a nosh with Tommy "Moe" Raft, a baggy-pants burlesque comedian. We'd just about finished eating when absolutely the most handsome man I'd seen in my life walked in the front door, a curvy-cutic showgirl on each arm. My jaw dropped. Grabbing my coffee cup, I casually sipped at the ice-cold dregs as the beautiful stranger, dressed in a slim-fitting tuxedo, white-on-white shirt and pencil-thin black tie, walked by. Lenny--for, of course, that's who it was--paused to say he?lo to Tommy, whom he'd known in New York. He flashed me a boyish grin and I felt a sensation like something melting inside me. Tommy did the honors.

"Honey, I would like you to meet Lenny Bruce, a very funny young man and a good friend of mine. Lenny's working at--Where you workin'?"

"I'm at the Club Charles."

"Yeah, that's right, at the Club Charles." Tommy beamed at me, like a doting uncle. "Lenny, I would like you to meet Honey Harlow, the feature stripper on my show and a very lovely lady."

All I could do was smile. Lenny was so handsome. Black wavy hair, smooth, olivetinged skin, full, naturally arched eyebrows, deep-brown eyes: very sensitive yet demanding at the same time. Everything about him looked beautiful to me.

Tommy had bought a matchbox of grass, so after we'd finished eating, he invited Lenny and the chorus girls and me to his hotel room for a "j." Marijuana wasn't taken seriously in those days. It was more like birthday cake: Once in a while you ran into it and between times, you did without. It was in the late Fifties that the in-between times started getting progressively shorter. The five of us piled into Tommy's room and passed a couple of joints around. By the time we'd finished smoking them, Tommy's tiny room was a mellow haze of smoke and everyone was smiling. When dawn broke, the girls had left and Tommy was out on the couch. I felt great. Lenny had kept me high all night with a nonstop stream of laughs, most of them played to me. I knew I didn't want Lenny to go, but I crossed to the hall door to leave. We stood facing each other for a moment, and then Lenny placed a Sen Sen in the palm of my hand. He looked deep into my eyes, cupped my hand in his and slowly bent forward. I felt his breath on my hand and then the warm, wet fleshiness of his tongue stroking my palm while he picked up the Sen Sen with his lips. I thought I'd melt into a puddle.

We walked up the flight of stairs to my room on the floor above without saying another word. My hand was cradled inside Lenny's hand and the electricity flowing between us was like Dexedrine to my heart and champagne to my brain. Once inside my room, Lenny pulled me to him--not just my face or my ass, all of me. I felt my body pressing against his. I was desperate to find and press myself against every dip of his body, every curve, every muscle. We closed the door and, although I don't remember, I'm certain I locked it and bolted it. But short of an earthquake, a fire raging in the halls or a (continued on page 257) Honey (continued from page 208) foreign missile making a direct hit on Baltimore, nothing could have stopped the hot chemistry bubbling between us and through us. Lenny's sexiness settled down, over me and around me, slowly, gently but steadily. There was no room nor world outside. There was just Lenny and I was his. My body moved on its own, responding to every move, every subtle demand from Lenny's.

Lenny had me stand by the old double bed while he unzipped my dress and peeled it down my hips and off. He took off my bra next, squeezing my nipples until they stood out hard and erect for his lips to suck on. I slipped off my heels and bent forward to roll my stockings off. Lenny's hands were like fiery butterfly wings, touching my breasts, caressing my flanks, the inside of my thighs, cupping the cheeks of my ass in his palm; first one side, then the other. He gently pushed me into bed. I lay there, watching Lenny undress, my pussy a hot pool of need. The soft flesh of my inner thighs was slippery with wanting him.

Slowly, Lenny undid his studs and took off his tuxedo shirt. My mouth went dry watching him strip. Lenny had broad shoulders, firm, rounded biceps; his belly was taut and smooth. His chest was silky with a soft cluster of hair in the center. He had a high ass that tapered in and flared out slightly, flowing into his slim but beautifully proportioned thighs. His cock stood out from his body, hard and erect, trembling in space. In the dim light ?f early morning, Lenny looked like the dark and handsome sheik-lover of my fantasies come to possess me.

Lenny slid into bed next to me and it was as if he'd always been there. That fiery chemistry between us had first settled deep inside my stomach, and then it spilled over, sending rivulets of electricity through my pussy, my legs; through my breasts, my arms, shooting up through my neck and into my brain, drowning everything in a bubbling pool of wanting, red-hot and molten. I call it that electric-belly feeling. It takes over a woman's body; it can't be denied and when it's there, no zippers in die world can turn it off. It can last a lifetime or it can be satisfied in a hallway, but once the electric-belly feeling hits you, nothing matters, nothing intrudes until relief is reached. The shame of it is that a bachelor girl's belly doesn't turn electric every day. It takes a very special person to do it.

Lenny spread my legs and slid his cock up and into me. His hips moved smoothly and steadily, in and out, rubbing against the soft flesh of my inner thighs. My body found his rhythm and, instead of turning me off, for the first time in my life, fucking a man felt good to me. He whispered "I love you" in my ear, warm and wet, like a jungle steaming in the noonday sun, just before I felt his body stiffen as his cock burst open, spurting creamy pollen into my fiery-hot pollen catcher.

We spent that day in bed--making love to each other; searching out every soft, secret hollow. Lenny's skin felt like electric velvet. I couldn't touch him enough. His skin seemed to pull at my finger tips, guiding my hands over endless miles of beautiful man flesh; now hot, now soft, now warm, now hard. Lenny was so, so beautiful. He was why God had made me.

For the rest of that week in Baltimore, we were never apart except when we were onstage. When we weren't making love, we were laughing. Lenny could make me hysterical with just about anything as he splashed word paintings--zap-zap-zap--in front of my eyes. Everything was fun with Lenny: A penny arcade became a carnival, grade-B movies at all-night theaters became hilarious with a few choice comments from Lenny.

Seven nights and seven days.

On our last night together, we stood on the bridge overlooking Chesapeake Bay and watched the sun rise. Lenny had his arms around me from behind and I nestled the back of my head against his chest.

Whispering in my ear, he broke the news. Before we met, he had signed up as a merchant seaman on a ship that was to pull out of New York the next day. He would be gone for three months.

•

When Iris arrived ten days later to drive me back to New York, I was glad to see her--but more as a friend than as a lover. That night, Iris couldn't wait to get into bed. She made love to me, but the turn-on was missing. My body just didn't respond to her caresses. I asked her to take her panties off and let me make love to her. But she refused, saying in her precie voice, "I will not be the first one to turn you on to pussy. If you had already had another woman, then it would be different."

When I pressed her for an explanation, she described the intimate relationship she'd had with another woman for years. They had a successful union only as long as Iris played the fem role. But at some point in their love affair, Iris tried the male-aggressor role and dug it so much she couldn't assume the passive role again.

It was bitter cold in New York. I was bored and restless. Thoughts of tropical weather prompted me, a few days later, to pick up the phone and call my agent in Florida, Sammy Clark. Dear Sammy found me an immediate booking at the Paddock Club in Miami Beach. Iris wanted to go with me, so we packed our light summery clothes and stored our winter ones in her specially built insulted cedar closet. The douoble locks sealed my Persian lamb coat inside the closet, forver.

One night, I got a telephone call at the Paddock Club. It was Lenny, calling to say that he had jumped ship. One month away from me had been too much. He had called my mom and found out where I was. "Honey, I'm taking the next flight to Miami to see you." Click.

I could hardly do my first show. When I got off stage, there he was. more beautiful even than I'd remembered. I fell into his arms and he nibbled and sucked at my throat, whispering "I luff you!" in his Bela Lugosi voice. I could feel my pussy turning into hot sauce, just standing close to him. But I had a second show to do. so we agreed that the second it was over, I'd go straight to my room and wait.

After my act, I dashed off stage and ran to my dressing room. Iris was there, waiting. I didn't know quite what to say to her, since she knew nothing about Lenny, but I had the feeling that it didn't matter if I said anything--it was all going to come out in the wash, and soon. We crossed the street to our hotel and went directly to our room.

We walked into a blizzard of flowers. I couldn't believe my eyes! Everywhere, literally everything was covered with flowers--lavender, pink, red, white, yellow--an explosion of colors before my eyes. Dozens of long-stemmed gladioli (288, to be exact). were artistically arranged in huge cans, pitchers, wasiepaper baskets covered with Reynolds Wrap!

Iris and I stood in the open door. I knew it had to be Lenny, it was so outrageous. Iris just stared and muttered. "How did these flowers get in our room? Who sent them?"

Spotting a small white card tied to a red flower, I lifted it off and scanned the lines. Lenny was upstairs in the room directly above us, waiting for me! I ran out as fast as I could and called over my shoulder to Iris that I'd explain later.

I flew up the stairs and into Lenny's arms. We smothered each other with kisses, hugs, caresses. Laughing and crying, we stood in the middle of the room, happy to hold each other, touch the reality of each other.

"Honey, sit on die bed and close your eyes. Now, when I count three--open up! One-two-three!"

I opened my eyes to see a full-sized suitcase filled with goodies for me--souvenirs from every port. There was a small bottle of banana cordial from Spain, wine from Portugal, lime-green slippers with curled-up toes from Turkey, silk scarves, bottles of expensive perfumes.I was going through Lenny's "Santa bag" when he pulled me down onto the bed. "Here, my lady, is your last gift," as he handed me a gorgeous, elaborately carved tortoise-shell comb for my long red hair. As we lay together, he told me the O. Henry story of The Gift of the Magi. It was so sweet I couldn't help but cry, which made Lenny cry, so that pretty soon, there we were, the two of us, crying our little hearts out.

Lenny turned onto his side and began stroking my hair. "Baby, you're so beautiful; the combination of alabaster skin and red hair everywhere chives me crazy!" Lenny's touch made my skin feel like satin and I felt completely uninhibited in expressing my feelings to him. His low moans as I sucked his hard little man nipples brought the aggressor out in me. He let me play with him while he lay passively on his back, I brushed my hair over his face, his chest, his gorgeous cock, stiff and trembling. He field on to the cheeks of my fanny and used them as handle bars, rotating my pussy against his groin. Then I began to tease his cock with my boobies. I moved down along his torso and began to flick my tongue rapidly from one end to the other of his perfect manhood. I opened my mouth and sucked deeply, wanting all of him. When he couldn't hold offcoming any longer, I stopped sucking and we lucked with me on top of him.

I could hear Lenny whispering, "Oooow, I'm coming, luck me." Then we were coming together. With Lenny's beautiful shaft reaching deep into me, I climaxed for the first time with a man! I held on to Lenny, wanting my body to stay wired to him.

Lenny started talking quietly. "I love you. Honey, ?eally love you. You're all I could think about on the ship."

I rolled over and looked into his beautiful baby-sparrow eyes. "Lenny, you know I love you, but I want to tell you about my past. There are kinky parts to it."

Lenny cooed, "Yummmm," and stroked my bottom. "Hey, Honey, I love you. I don't give a fuck what you've done in the past."

But I insisted and Lenny held me in his arms while I described my year in Florida's Raiford Prison and my unhappy marriage to the original King Kong.

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly, my eyes on Lenny. "For the last six months, I've been having an intimate relationship with a woman. I really thought I was in love with her. She's been very good to me, but then I met you ... and you are all I want."

Lenny pulled my head down against his chest. His face seemed to glow with love.

"That's great, baby," he said. "That just makes me want you all the more. It isn't every day a guy can take a woman away from a dyke! Anyway, who isn't homosexual to some degree?"

"Did you ever have sex with a man?"

"Oh, sure! A few months ago, I was in San Francisco and saw a small blue neon Sign--Finnish steam bath--Open All Night. Beautiful. It was late and I wasn't tired enough to sleep. I went on in. Inside, the steam room was filled with hot fog. Three cement tiers, like shelves, lined the sides. It was all green-tiled, like the Y but steamier, right? I put the towel down on the tiles and sat naked. I was just getting into relaxing when a distinguished-looking middle-aged man with silver sideburns walked in. He said hello to me. Would I mind if he sat down on the first level next to me? Pretty mild opener, right? But dig--I was the only person in the steam room!

"Now, I'm getting really wiped out from the heat and the steam, so I decided to lie down. The next thing I knew, this dignified-looking man with his neato silver sideburns was kneeling on the bare tiles alongside of me--looking at my cock! He didn't touch it. He just looked at it, like he'd lost his and was checking to see if I had it! I wasn't in the mood to hassle, so I took my towel and covered my act up.

"'Oh, my lad, please let me see it. Just for a minute. Don't cover it, please. Your cock is beautiful. I do believe it's a perfect penis!'"

"God. Lenny, whal'd you do?"

"Well, I was going to punch him in the mouth, but when he told me it was perfect, I took the towel away to look myself!

"Honey, before I knew what was happening, this guy had my cock in his mouth. This dignified gentleman--down on his knees, with my cock in his mouth!"

"Oooh, Lenny, did you like it? Did it feel good?"

"Well, the first two times I came in his mouth, it felt OK. But when he asked if lie could kiss it just once more, I drew the line."

"Ah, come on, man," I complained. "You had me believing that steam-bath sex trip."

An hour before I was due onstage, I kissed Lenny goodbye and went downstairs to my room. Iris was there, looking grim. 1 chattered away about being late for work and having to hurry and take a shower. Iris followed me into the bathroom and began quizzing me. I quickly got into the shower.

"Honey, who is that guy? I know that you've been upstairs in his room all night. What the hell is going on? What did you do all night? Have you lost your mind? I have a right to know!"

I had to stick my head out around the shower curtain to answer. "Iris, it's really hard to tell you this, but I've fallen in love--I mean deeply in love." I told her about Lenny.

Iris' voice leaped a few octaves higher as she began arguing. But I was firm about my decision and secure with my love for Lenny. Alter a few minutes of bickering, Iris finally released me.

"GO, go on and go, Honey. I don't want you, if you don't want me. But don't come crying to me, asking me to take you back, when you realize what a mistake you're making. Leaving me for a man, no matter who lie is!"

Iris stomped out of the bathroom, slamming the door in a fury. 1 could hear her rummaging around in the bedroom, kicking things, pulling out drawers. Suddenly, she popped her head back into the bathroom. "And don't dry yourself on my bath towel!" Slam!

That night, Lenny picked me up after my show and we spent another delicious night together. The next day we went over to the Floridian Hotel and checked into adjoining rooms.

Lenny wasn't working steadily, but lie always had money. When I asked him where he was getting it, he told me such a fantastic story that I didn't believe it. He had been impersonating a priest and going around to the wealthy neighborhoods in Miami Beach soliciting funds for the poor blind and crippled lepers supported by the legally chartered Brother Mathias Foundation. But the foundation existed in name only: Several years before, Buddy Hackett, Arnie Sultan, Marvin Worth and Lenny had formed it as a gag. Later, when Lenny thought of the priest idea, he got a charter for it and bought the rights from each member.

It was still hard for me to believe Lenny's scam. I couldn't imagine how he had the nerve to actually dress as a priest (in stolen vestments, no less) and solicit funds for the lepers.

But the next day, I walked into a shoe store on Lincoln Road and there was Father Bruce, looking holier than John the Baptist's head. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I watched as the manager wrote out a check and gave it to Lenny with a grateful smile. On his way out, he turned and tipped his somber black hat. He winked at me obscenely and exited with a gracious "May God bless and be with you, madame."

Now, I knew plenty of people who could sell the Brooklyn Bridge or even San Francisco's Candlestick Park, but a Jewish priest selling lepers? I couldn't wait to get back to the Floridian and talk to Father O'Lennygan. I opened the door to my room, threw my packages down onto the bed and rushed through our connecting bathroom to find Lenny standing and smiling in the middle of his room. He was gleefully holding the check for $100 donated by the shoe-store manager for those poor lepers. Lenny ran around the room, emptying secret stashes of money. Handfuls of green stuff. Money scooped out of socks, dumped out of shoes, coat pockets, inside the Gideon Bible. When we counted it, I was durn-founded. Eight thousand simoleons, collected in cash and checks in less than a week! "Don't worry, Honey," lie soothed, "I'll send the lepers some and only keep six thousand for 'operating expenses.'"

"But, Lenny, where'd you get the nerve to impersonate a Catholic priest?"

"Relax, sweetheart, I've got it covered. I've seen enough Pat O'Brien movies to portray a priest. It's just a role with a uniform. I'm holding confession," he smirked, "in five minutes in the bathroom, where I'd be happy to listen to your sins, you gorgeous little sinner!"

"Come, come, my child," Lenny chanted from the bathroom. "Come and confess to Father Bruce."

I went into the bathroom, where I could see the outline of his body behind the shower curtain. I began confessing, "Oh, Father, my pure one, my idol." (Lenny always loved that.) "My celestial being. Forgive me for sinning."

"Don't worry, my child. Take off your clothes, so that I may cleanse your body with my holy water. After you are completely naked and have completed your penance of five Hail Marys, close your eyes and open your mouth, so that I may give you my holiest communion."

I sat down on the toilet seat and closed my eyes. After mumbling my prayers, I promptly opened my mouth and waited for a cue from his holiness. Naturally, he filled my open mouth with his cock. I couldn't stop laughing when I opened my eyes and saw Lenny in front of me completely nude--except for a white clerical collar around his cock!

"Father Bruce" wasn't mentioned seriously again until I nearly died in a car accident when a truck rantover the lower part of my body. On the critical list, momentarily regaining consciousness, I heard Lenny the atheist talking to God. He was pleading: "God, if there is a God, I beg of You, let Honey live. If You do, then I'll promise to give up my Brother Mathias scam, even though I know it's a winner scene. I'll give it all up, if You just let her live." And he did just that. After that accident, he hung up his habit forever.

Lenny and I got married June 14, 1951. We were in Detroit, visiting my mother, who had been in the hospital. A judge performed the ceremony in the city hall; afterward, we decided we should do something to celebrate.

"I've got a great idea," said Lenny. "I'm hungry, and I know a place where they make absolutely the best buttered popcorn in town."

"Where's that?"

"The Fox Theater. Let's go see a movie."

You know, it's funny--I don't remember a tiling about the show. Nothing mattered except one thing: I was Mrs. Lenny Bruce!

Over the next several years, our careers continued to grow. The only fly in the ointment, besides the auto accident, was die fact that I kept getting pregnant--and Lenny kept insisting he didn't want children. I hat! had five abortions when I finally put my foot down: I wanted a baby. No baby, no sex. Lenny finally agreed, and on November 7, 1955, Brandie Kathleen Bruce was born at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood.

Daddy and me and baby make three.

Kitty was a perfect baby. She hardly cried, and when she did, it was a delicate sound. By the time she was six weeks old, my figure was back in shape.

Joe Maini, the blues sax man, and the trumpet player from the burlesque club where Lenny was working in L.A. were at our house every day. Lenny was working out an idea for a bit that included them. One afternoon, I sang Sweet Sue and Joe harmonized with me. We were sounding pretty good together, especially when the trumpet man added his harmony. Lenny loved it.

"That's it, Honey! We'll have a group. I'm writing a satire on The Man with the Golden Arm and with the four of us in the bit, it will be dynamite!"

I wanted to go right back into show business and I knew by Lenny's enthusiasm he definitely wanted me back in showbiz. But underneath, I was disappointed in myself for not wanting to stay at home and take care of Kitty.

Every night after work, Lenny and the musicians would snort a little smack before they started rehearsing. Joe always fixed. I didn't use any drugs during my pregnancy, to make sure I'd have a perfect baby, but I figured it would be OK now, so I started snorting every night, too. I wanted to feel what everyone else was feeling. Maybe I would sing better loaded with smack. In 1955, most of our jazz-musician friends were using heroin and they were the best musicians around. Besides, it was easy to bury my guilt feelings about being a mother on the run when I snorted a toot or two. As soon as I felt strong enough, I nervously hired my first baby sitter and went with Lenny to the club for the evening.

The audience was predominantly male, with two middle-aged women near the back. The only ones paying attention to Lenny were Joe and me. With that much attention, however, Lenny could be tempted to do damn near anything. As the last stripper was taking her bow, Lenny was to come out and close the show. On cue, he walked out on stage, nude except for black shoes and socks. Before the audience had time to react, he was urging them to join his sing-along, like in the Forties, when the lyrics of a song were shown on a screen and a small ping-pong ball bounced in tempo over the words. Lenny, naked, hopped across the stage, singing, "Now let's watch the bouncing ball and everyone sing."

One of the women in the audience jumped out of her chair and ran to the owner-bartender in a rage: "I want to talk to the owner."

"I am the owner; what can I do for you?" he replied.

"I think that young man onstate is disgusting and I'm going to report him to the police. I demand to know his name."

"Oh, him? That's Tony Curtis!"

Joe, Lenny and I laughed all the way home when we heard that the irate woman was going to report to the police that Tony Curtis was performing an indecent act on the Cobblestone Club stage. As soon as we were inside, Joe got a spoon and started cooking up some stuff. I watched him fix and then I watched him fix Lenny. They were high on a crest. I couldn't resist the temptation; I wanted to be up there with them. Joe coolly coaxed me to try fixing in the vein. He explained that an intravenous injection creates an incredible flash and injecting heroin meant getting high on less dope. (It's ironic now to think that I embarked on a 16-year journey with heroin and the needle partly through an argument for thrift!)

Lenny was already floating in his private cloud. He was all smiles, but they were obviously not for me. I wanted to be there with him. I needed to know he saw me. I let Joe tighten a belt around my upper arm and made a fist, as he instructed. Petrified of needles, I turned". my head and shut my eyes.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on our bed with an ice pack on my forehead. Through a haze of lovely calmness, I heard Joe explain that I had passed out from sheer fright before he even finished fixing me. But I was finally feeling what addicts crave--a sudden sensuous warmth flowing through my lower parts and settling in my pussy. Inhibitions numbed. I felt as though I could dance and sing my ass off!

Stoned on smack, kibitzing with our jazz friends till dawn, Lenny began formulating ideas for his own group. The owner of Duffy's Gaieties on Cahuenga Boulevard, a retired pharmacist from Chicago, was looking for entertainment. Lenny managed to convince him, "You need a comedian, a cool jazz trio--sax, piano and drums--but you can't cook without a bass, of course; a cooing curvaceous lady up front would be dynamite, and then a fine trumpet to round out the group." Our seven-piece group was booked. Booked and hooked.

We practiced and partied day and night. Words and sounds blended. When everyone was stoned on smack, it was easy for all inhibitions to ooze away. One night, I planned a surprise birthday party for Lenny. Barbecued chicken and ribs and our two-quart Sparklet bottle filled with champagne punch. Lenny was like a kid, bubbling with happiness. He couldn't believe that anyone could make such a fuss over him. It was his first birthday party. Imagine that! I One of the girls brought a bottle of Drambuie as a birthday present. She wanted Lenny to take out his cock so she could pour a small amount of the liqueur on it and lick it off! It was certainly a different present. But, after all, it was his birthday and everybody was there, so I went along with it. It wasn't as if they were "making love." That was my big mistake.

The next night, the guys in the band wanted another party. They invited two strippers from our show, plus the chick with the Drambuie tongue. The scene was set. Night after night, the after-work orgies continued, and the Drambuie Lady was a regular. She always tried to talk me into a Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice scene--only the players were to be some guy, Lenny, me and Drambuie. I always refused. But one night, in a euphoric state of drugs, I agreed. The four of us got into bed, Lenny and me in the middle and our guests on the outside. Within minutes, a football player was kissing my pussy and Miss Drambuie had Lenny's cock in her mouth. Lenny started to moan deep in his throat, exactly the same as with me. I opened my eyes and looked at him. The look of pleasure on his face, that electric-belly feeling I'd thought he got only with me! I couldn't stand seeing that. I felt fury fill my body and jumped out of bed. Grabbing a shoe in each hand, I began hitting Lenny and Miss Drambuie with one and the football player with the other. They couldn't believe what was ?appening. At first, they thought I'd come up with some kinky sex trip. I was livid. Lenny was laughing like a madman as our guests ran down the driveway, still putting their clothes on.

"Now, come on, Momma. You don't have anything to worry about, baby. I love you and don't give a damn about that chick. If you don't want her here again or don't want the parties, then we won't have any more orgies. That's all; it's as easy as that."

But it wasn't easy at all. A pattern had been formed. Heroin continued to poison our relationship.

(From then on, it was mostly downhill for Honey and Lenny Bruce. In Hawaii, where they went to work, Honey was busted for possession of marijuana--six joints she still wonders if Lenny may have planted in her bag as a means of forcing her to break her heroin habit. They quarreled; Lenny took Kitty to Los Angeles and filed for divorce Honey was sentenced to two years in Federal prison at Terminal Island, California. When she got out, they reconciled--but were soon back into their pattern of drugs, lovemaking, drugs, quarreling, drugs, separation.)

Lenny and I made up, broke up and made up so many times it was like playing Scrabble with a bag of blank disks. No matter how we tried to mix them up, the little wooden chips came up blank, forcing us to say what they spelled out. And we could only see one word on the board--Nevermore. It simply didn't work. The complete trust and love I had once felt for Lenny had evaporated like water from a kiddie pool on a hot summer's day, inch by imperceptible inch.

Our big attempt to reconcile was when Lenny bought the famous House on the Hill--a $60,000 unfinished shell with a pool in back overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Once again, we rolled out the old dreams of our little family, making it together. We had literally everything a young couple could ask for. Kitty was adorable and healthy and happily adjusted to school. Lenny was a hit comedian. the darling of the jet set, and I was still his young and beautiful wife.

Then Lenny started getting arrested for obscenity. Soon the arrests became more frequent; plainclothesmen were planted in club audiences, waiting to hear Lenny say "clap" or "cocksucker" or any other "dirty" words. Arrest, bail, court. That was to become the pattern of his life.

Lenny was out of town most of the time, so his mother, Sally, moved into the house to keep Kitty and me company. Sally and I kept getting into bitter arguments about the shifty-looking connections who came to see me. Two hens could not rule the roost, so I moved out and from then on, I went up to the house for only a few days at a time to see Kitty and Lenny, when he was there. I drifted in and out of their lives for the next few years.

As time went on, Lenny's notoriety was splashed across the front pages of newspapers from coast to coast. The harassment and persecution continued; added to obscenity busts were narcotics busts. The police came barging into the House on the Hill so often that Lenny finally moved Sally and Kitty to an apartment in West Hollywood.

•

Saturday, July 30, 1966. It was late in the afternoon when Lenny called. "Hey, baby, come on up the hill, I have a surprise."

My poor Lenny Penny. I couldn't believe how awful he looked. The beautiful body I'd fallen in love with was flabby, swollen with edema. He hadn't left his office in days; obsessed with his ever-increasing legal problems, he'd been poring over lawbooks, playing tapes, gathering evidence to defend his career onstage, his freedom of speech. Once a fanatic about clean white underwear, he no longer even took time to shave or bathe. I knew he seldom slept, living on junk food and diet soda, dropping uppers until he couldn't concentrate any longer, then downers for four hours' sleep and back at his cases again.

Lenny's usual smile of greeting was missing. I followed his bulging form into his office. He'd scored some "outasite" dope and h? was in a rush to fix. He shuffled toward the bathroom. He no longer felt secure leaving his drugs in the medicine cabinet. Instead, he'd had two large pockets sewn onto his custom-made denim muumuu, and there he kept all his precious drugs. His drugs, his words and his tapes had become his world, his salvation, his last lines of defense against the terrors of a national conspiracy to wash the "sickness" from his brain and make him "well." As he hobbled into the bathroom on his swollen purple legs, the various pills and bottles rattled in his pockets, like a metronome gone mad. (Tika-tika/clicka-click/I got my dope/to keep me sick.)

We couldn't wait to blot out the horrors of our reality, put ourselves into euphoria. We locked the bathroom door and cooked up the stuff. Before I got the needle out of my arm. I felt the potency gush warmth through my body. It was the strongest of anything I'd fixed. Lenny was jabbing his callused veins frantically, looking for a hit; it was like drilling for oil in a field tapped dry. I briefly nodded out from the strength of the drug and when I opened my eyes, Lenny was out cold! The needle was still in his vein, his arm tied up. His lips were already turning blue.

I tried to pull him up, so I could walk him around and keep his circulation going. But he was so obese, I couldn't lift him. I screamed for help. Luckily, John Judnich, who was living with Lenny at the time, was home. I put ice cubes on Lenny's balls, forced an upper down his throat and we walked him around and around the pool until Lenny, blurry-eyed, smiled again. I thanked God he was alive, but I didn't feel like smiling. All I felt was panic. I knew Lenny's health couldn't take this sort of thing anymore. He had been in and out of hospitals almost as many times as I'd been in and out of jail. He had a 20-inch scar on his chest from a recent operation for a collapsed lung after shooting too much speed. He wasn't strong enough anymore to mess with heroin and I told him so.

"Honey, I don't fix that often anymore. I don't have the bread--just a treat once in a while."

He was back at his desk, busying himself with some tapes he was working on for his defense. I kissed him goodbye on the forehead and told him. "Daddy, you're playing with fire. I'm not ever going to fix with you again. Your health can't take it."

Two days later--Monday, August 1. 1966--Lenny phoned again and invited me for another "surprise." I refused. "Lenny, I meant what I said about your health. I'll come up and see you in a day or two."

But that was never to be. Wednesday. August 3, 1966, I was watching the seven-o'clock news. The announcer was talking about Lenny. Not my Lenny! "Lenny Bruce, the sick comedian, died today in his Hollywood Hills home from an overdose of heroin...." Oh, nooo, it was Lenny. I grabbed the phone and dialed his number.

John answered, "Yes, Honey, it's true. I'm sorry. There was nothing I could do. His face was purple and foam was coming out of his mouth and nostrils. He was dead, Honey; it was too late."

Crying, moaning, sobbing, I prayed he was only pretending. "Please, Lenny, please let it be a bit, a skit, anything; don't leave me on this planet alone!

Friday, August 5, 1966, he was buried in the Eden Memorial Park. San Fernando Valley. His name was misspelled on his grave marker. He probably would've laughed at that.

Harlow, she had landed a job as a stripper at the Chez Paree.