One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (44 page)

Charlie put his arm around her and led her to the door and gave her a hug as he let her out. He turned back to Peter with a happy grin and went to him and mussed the hair he had just smoothed. “She’s marvelous, isn’t she? Tell me about it.”

“About what?”

“For God’s sakes, you’ve just had a girl for the first time. Wasn’t it good?”

“It was all right, I guess, if you happen to like girls. Everything
we
do together is a lot more exciting and satisfying and—well, you name it.” He went and poured wine for them and handed a glass to Charlie.

“Well, sure, baby. But still. Didn’t you feel there was something sort of special about it—I don’t know—natural, and the idea that you’re doing it to have children?”

“I thought that was the only point—your wanting me to be a father with you because you’d already done it. That part’s nice. I didn’t know it was supposed to make me want to rape every girl in sight.” He dropped down on the end of the bed. “I’m all fucked out. I don’t like that, not when it could have been with you.”

“But we have each other always, baby. This has to do with life and the future. Don’t you want to have children?”

“I’ve always loved the idea of little Charlies. I don’t seem to feel any great procreative urge in myself. I don’t know. Maybe the idea of little Charlies is a bit silly, we being what we are. I mean, if two people who love each other can’t have children together, they should probably learn to get along without them.”

“Now
you’re
being silly. What about adoption, for God’s sake?”

Peter stretched out on the bed and laughed. “Can you see us, Mum and Dad, being allowed to adopt children?”

“No, but there are other ways. Like tonight.”

“Yeah. Like tonight.” Peter sipped his wine. The more he thought about it, the less he liked it. It had been forced, extreme, basically uncharacteristic of all of them. Martha was too sensible and nice to get involved with a couple of queers who didn’t pretend to care about her particularly. Charlie was too good to allow it. As for himself, he had simply gone through motions that were totally alien to his nature. The only excuse he could find for himself was that he had had to try it to make sure. “What it boils down to is that I don’t see much sense in having children unless you’re going to bring them up yourself.”

“I quite agree with you.” Charlie brought the bottle of wine and refilled Peter’s glass and sat at the head of the bed.

“Bringing up children means giving them a normal home life, and ‘normal’ in this case means something. It means a woman in the house and the maternal element and all that. So.” Peter shrugged.

“You’re absolutely right. I’m thinking of all that. Martha wants the baby. We could sort of look after them, have them live near us. It all depends on how it works out. I could marry her if there was some reason to. Or you could, as far as that’s concerned. We don’t know what might happen. We’d always work it out so we’d be together.”

Peter sat up. “You must be completely nuts,” he protested. Some of it seemed to make a little sense momentarily, but he was sure that if he had time to think about it, none of it would.

“It’s not as nuts as all that. Tonight was only the first time for you. After you’ve done it a few more times, you might find you like it.”

“You expect me to do it a few more times?”

“Of course. There’ll be lots of opportunity before the trip is over. Martha obviously loves it.”

“Thanks a lot. You can have my share.”

“But think of the alternative, baby. Doesn’t the future scare you sometimes? We’ve known enough old queens. In another few years, we might not find it so easy to turn down pretty boys like your Dimitri. In another few years after that, they won’t be offering themselves any more. That’s when the horror begins. We’ve seen it. How can we know. we’ll be exceptions? We’ve already seen how easy it is to be tempted.”

Peter looked at him and the open, happy animation drained from his expression. “I see. I should’ve known you hadn’t forgiven me. I suppose that’s what this is all about.”

“I have, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. We’ve got to accept it as a warning. It doesn’t matter which of us it happened to. I’m trying to find something that’ll give more stability—no, a broader base for our lives so that we’ll be better prepared to cope when time catches up with us. What’s wrong with having a normal home life? Having a woman in the house that we both get along with wouldn’t kill us.”

“Maybe not. But what would it do to the woman, especially if she happened to be in love with you?” Peter noted that the unnamed woman had already moved into the house.

“People can make adjustments. Women don’t get as emotionally involved as we do. There’d be children. Yes, plural. Yours and mine. It would hold us together. I’m not talking about tomorrow or even next year. It’s something to keep in mind and maybe work toward. I’d never want to do anything that you didn’t agree to.”

Peter gazed into his glass. Charlie was speaking persuasively, even pleadingly, but there was the melancholy he had noticed before that neutralized it. He felt a great sadness in him, and something else he couldn’t quite define. A tightly controlled, undirected rage? Something intense and potentially dangerous. This sharp swing from his earlier exuberance suggested an instability of mood that was unusual even for Charlie. All his instincts were alert to defend his own; he couldn’t bear even the suggestion of the intrusion of a third person into their lives. In a brief instant of panic, he thought of refusing to go on with the cruise, but caution prevailed. The experience with Martha was obviously reviving in Charlie all the old conflicts about his sexual tastes. He would help him through it as circumstances indicated. He couldn’t stand Charlie being sad; he felt his responsibility for it so deeply that it made him want to cry. He forced himself to speak. “When you put it like that, there’s not much I can be against, is there?” He looked up at Charlie with a little smile.

“No, there isn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, baby. I think there’s something good in what’s happened with Martha. Please don’t cut yourself off from it. I want it for both of us. I don’t mean it’s going to make us straight but your having sex with her is part of everything else I’ve been talking about.”

Again, Peter felt he was being offered a freedom he didn’t want. Perhaps he had to take it before Charlie would understand what it could lead to. He didn’t feel Martha as a real threat, but it might not be a bad idea to take steps before all this went too far. “We’ll see. I just wish you wouldn’t talk about being scared of the future. Faggots are always carrying on about
old
faggots. What about old anything? What about Jack when Martha leaves him? He’ll probably start running after little girls. The fact that he won’t dye his hair and wear a little eye makeup doesn’t make him any less pathetic, just less conspicuous. People who don’t make something good of what they’ve got are bound to end up desperate.”

“Sure, baby. I just want us to keep open to experience, and growing. I know it can’t be good for us to be sealed off hermetically from everything outside us. I left you on purpose that night in Poros. I wanted you to have your chance with Dimitri.”

“Thanks a lot. Honestly, darling, what is a quick fuck with a little Greek boy going to do for my future? Come on. Let’s finish the wine and sink inert into the sheets. I’m going to have to take pills or something if you’re going to go on shoving all this extramarital sex at me.”

They went back on board the next evening to be ready for the predawn lull the following morning. It came and they set off once more. They were trending south now, their course set for fabled islands, Naxos and Paros and Ios and Santorin, with Crete their ultimate destination. Within hours, they had left the fierce wind behind them and encountered gentle southerly breezes that doubled the distances but made for relaxed sailing. It took them all day to reach Naxos and by noon the next day, they were ready to make the short run to Paros, having found nothing of great interest to keep them.

They stayed over a day in Paros and visited the ancient marble quarries. The wind was still light and southerly when they set off for Ios. By choice, Charlie was almost always on the wheel, while the others came and went, sunned themselves, napped. He was bringing them into Ios on what he hoped would be the last tack of the day when Peter came aft wearing brief swimming trunks and flopped down beside him.

“She’s really something, our Martha,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I was lying down in my bunk a while ago and she came along and insisted on going down on me. I tried to stop her because of Jack, but she swore he was sound asleep. She’s no amateur. I almost choked trying not to make any noise when I came.”

Charlie felt his smile freezing on his lips. He glanced down at the object of Martha’s attentions where it made a trim, appealing bulge in his trunks and was outraged by what she had done. But why shouldn’t she? he demanded of himself angrily. He was reacting with the blind possessiveness he wanted to break them both of. He had asked Martha to make Peter feel that she wanted him. He forced his smile to become more genuine. “I told her she’d be crazy about you.”

“Did you? It seemed a bit funny without your being there, but I figured it was all part of what you were talking about the other night. I certainly felt no pain once she got started.”

“Is that the first time since Mykonos?”

“Of course. Oh, she wanted me to kiss her boobs yesterday or whenever, when we were sunbathing forward. She seems to be nuts about that, but it was only for a second when the coast was clear. I have the feeling she’d like me to go all the way down. Have you ever done that?”

“No.”

“I don’t see how anybody could. All that hair and—” Peter made a little face. “Still, if she’s going to do such dreamy things to me, I suppose I ought to reciprocate. I’d just as soon not get the chance.”

“Play it the way you feel it, baby.” Charlie congratulated himself for having overcome his brief, quite unreasonable displeasure.

An hour later, they sailed into a lovely wooded bay that they could identify as Ios by a light tower and a small church mentioned in the pilot book, but there was no town in sight, nor were there any mooring facilities. They anchored off a long sandy beach and when the boat was shipshape, Charlie and Peter rowed ashore, having been assured by Jack that a town was clearly marked on the chart, slightly inland. When they came back, they reported that the town was, indeed, in front of them, hidden in a fold of the hills. There was no hotel but a
taverna
with a few rooms above it. Charlie and Peter had rented all six beds in one so that they could have it to themselves.

“Well, if the accommodations leave something to be desired, I’ll tell you what I’d like to do,” Jack said. “We can stay here for the day tomorrow and leave in the evening. That’ll give us the next day for Santorin and I’d like to leave there in the evening, too. Crete’s a good day’s haul and we don’t want to arrive there after sunset. You’ll have two nights in a row on board. You don’t mind?”

They agreed to the schedule and Jack rowed them back to shore. The next morning, they had towels and trunks with them and were wandering through the town on the way to find a place to swim when they ran into Martha.

“I was going to see if I could find some fresh supplies,” she explained after they had greeted each other happily.

“I’ve seen a couple of vegetable shops,” Charlie said.

“We’re going for a swim. Come with us,” Peter suggested. “There’s plenty of time to shop later.”

“I haven’t anything with me.”

“We can probably find a place where that won’t matter,” Charlie said.

They wandered on together to the other end of the town, Charlie and Peter greeting everybody they encountered. “We had the usual welcoming party last night,” Peter said. “We know every man in town.” The road dwindled away and they took a path leading in the direction of the sea. It descended steeply through a pine wood and came out into a cove with a curve of sandy shore enclosed between rocky promontories. It reminded Charlie of something and he remembered Porquerolles. A world away. Anne had perched over there on the equivalent of that point.

“How about this?” Charlie said as they strolled toward it. “We don’t have to wear anything here.” They spread out their towels side-by-side when they reached a place that pleased them,

“You’re turning me into a nudist.” Martha stepped out of her simple cotton dress and with a few quick movements was naked. Charlie stripped, noting with satisfaction that all trace of her white patches was gone, except for a slight paleness along the upper edge of her pubic hair. Peter was undressing slowly.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we all know each other well enough for you to see what this is doing to me.” He peeled off his undershorts and his sex sprang out straight in front of him, slanting downwards.

“Look at the cocky one,” Charlie cried. He ducked down and took it in his mouth and felt it leap up instantly with a lively life of its own. He released it and straightened.

Peter’s eyes were wide, staring at him in wonder. “Jesus,” he muttered. For an instant he wanted Charlie to go on and take him in front of Martha.

“Martha love, there’s a gentleman here who appears to want a word with you.” Charlie laughed and slapped Peter on the back and ran down the beach and plunged into the sea. He swam hard until he was winded. When he turned back, he could see them locked together on the towels. His Peter. He could hardly believe it. They weren’t playing fancy games; Peter was on her, riding her hard. Even at a distance, the working of his body delighted him. He thought again of Porquerolles; this was better than hiding around the corner with a vicious boy. Clean and healthy. His grand design was filling out; soon Peter would be even more in favor than he was of keeping Martha near them.