Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (23 page)

“Why did you——”

The floor moved again and there was a crash of glasses from the shelves behind them. The whole building shook, there was an enormous crash outside, and the lights went off. Dimitri was gripping Jeff’s hand and pushing him out from the bar under the shelf at the end. They ran to the door still hand in hand. Dimitri stood close against Jeff while they peered into the dark. The great crash still seemed to echo in the air. They heard people calling out. The
Meltemi’s
handful of customers were dark shapes in front of them, all standing and talking excitedly.

“An earthquake,” Dimitri said cheerfully. “Not bad, if there’s no more of it.”

“An earthquake?” Jeff repeated, not yet grasping it.

Dimitri laughed. “At least this building won’t fall down. It’s solid rock.” He withdrew his hand and Jeff’s heart gave a great leap as he felt it exploring for his sex under cover of the dark. A thought of Peter flashed through his mind and he conquered an impulse to draw away, to hide himself. Immediately, all sense of place and circumstance was obliterated by the fact of a man making intimate amorous contact with his body. He reached out and encountered the sheer shirt and smooth bare skin and Dimitri was somehow enclosed in his arms. Their mouths found each other and their tongues met. Jeff’s heart raced wildly, responding to the willingness he felt in the body he had desired for so many months. He dropped his hands and found the full curve of buttocks. Muscles danced and quivered under his touch. His legs began to tremble. Eager hands worked his stiff sex up inside his trousers until it stood upright against his belly. They shaped the cloth around it and moved up and down on it. He was going to have an orgasm.

Dimitri drew his mouth away with soft laughter. “Good heavens. You’re not a boy, you’re a big man. Tonight will be exciting.”

Jeff’s chest was heaving with the inaugural impact of this love play, electric with desire. He realized how carefully Peter had handled him this afternoon, instructive but unengaged. Driven by the orgasm gathering in him, he reached out again and pulled Dimitri’s head back to him and took his mouth with his in a way he hoped suggested experience. He slipped the flat of his hand down inside the front of the tight trousers until his fingertips thrillingly reached fine hair and hard flesh. He withdrew his hand and moved it around inside the shirt and slid it under the waistband of the trousers, giddy at taking these liberties with an unknown body and at knowing they were wanted. This was life at last. His fingers caressed the velvet upper curves of buttocks and lingered at the cleft between them. He felt all of Dimitri’s body melt into his.

Thrilled though he was, he had an intimation of inadequacy. Dimitri had always been to him a figure of dazzling self-confidence and worldy authority, an older man of sophisticated tastes whom he could hardly hope to interest, yet he held in his arms a supplicant, all soft and compliant and yielding to male demands. It denied the child Jeff still felt in himself and called for an aggressive masculinity whose secret he didn’t possess. He had learned his true desire with Peter, but this was life and he hoped it might offer some further revelation.

Dimitri pulled away with laughter that had become slightly breathless. “You mustn’t undress me here,” he whispered with a hint of delight that suggested he would like nothing better. He turned his back quickly and gripped Jeff’s hips and pulled them up against him. Jeff’s hands slipped under the shirt again and caressed smooth skin of chest and abdomen and they remained locked together for a moment while Dimitri worked his buttocks against Jeff’s upright sex. With only a few layers of thin cloth separating him from the performance of the unimaginable act, Jeff gasped as orgasm threatened once more. A little whimper escaped him as he realized that the danger had suddenly passed and that his erection was subsiding.

The side of Dimitri’s head lay against his. “Like that, my Jeff. In a little while,” he whispered. To Jeff’s vast relief, he broke away. “Now we must get out lamps. Come help me.”

They both knew their way around the deep cavernous room. A row of lamps was always kept ready on a table in the rear to fill in the gaps of the town’s erratic electrical supply. They went back to them together, guiding each other with their hands in the dark, and Dimitri struck a match and got one going. In its growing light, they exchanged a glance. Dimitri smiled gaily into Jeff’s dark passionate young face.

“You mustn’t look at me like that. Not yet. I have my work to do first. We’re going to be very good together.”

Jeff lowered his eyes, wondering if he would ever again feel anything so intensely as their first brief embrace. They checked and adjusted wicks and lighted the other lamps.

Jeff set them about on the bar and the tables, thinking about the bargain with his father. He knew he shouldn’t be down here still, but surely an earthquake was an extenuating circumstance. As soon as he had helped Dimitri get organized, he would go upstairs and wait. Thinking it, he knew that if they had their talk now, his father could quite easily persuade him to go home. He still wanted it to happen with Dimitri, but the moment of physical intimacy had stilled his ardor almost as much as if the act had been completed. The undeniably small phallus he had briefly held couldn’t match his dream of the soaring male mystery possessing him. He was entranced by Dimitri, but Dimitri wasn’t worth the things he had done for him, certainly not worth the childish outbursts with his father. This knowledge enclosed him once more in solitude, but he was used to solitude. He was already beginning to learn something about life.

Dimitri winked at him as their paths crossed. “I’ll sweep up behind the bar. We’ll probably need more glasses. Bring down the carton that’s upstairs.”

Jeff hurried to obey. There was very little more he could do to help. Upstairs, he was aware of a growing din around the port. Apparently half the town was out. When he carried the glasses down, Dimitri was in back of the bar once more and he could see more people gathering outside.

“I think this is going to be good for business,” Dimitri said with brisk anticipation, not bothering to flirt with him. “Take those last two lamps outside, will you?”

Jeff went to fetch them, resolved that this was the last chore he would perform. It would be taking advantage of his father’s tolerance to hang around any longer. He took the lamps out and placed them. The tables were filling up rapidly.

He had started to turn back when Mike Cochran emerged out of the night. At his side was the blond Swiss boy everybody had been making jokes about for the last few days.

“Aha,” Mike said, approaching him. “Is this where the island’s youth and beauty congregate? I’m glad to see you survived the earthquake.”

“Good evening, Mr. Cochran. I was just going.” Jeff could feel his manner growing surly and withdrawn in spite of himself. There was something about the man that made him shy.

“Oh, dear. Couldn’t you at least make it Mike?” He stepped close to Jeff and put his hands on his biceps and held him in a firm and friendly grasp. “I wondered if I was going to see you again. You’re the member of the Leighton family I most wanted to make a good impression on.”

Jeff looked at him and looked quickly away. He was very sleek and handsome in the lamplight. He radiated the glamour of his successful world. He was rich, he was famous, he knew everybody. He had had a lot of wives. Mike Cochran couldn’t possibly mean what he seemed to mean, yet there was something special about the way he looked at him. There was the corroboration of the Swiss boy.

Jeff edged away from him. “I’m sorry, Mike,” he blurted. “I have to go. Orders.”

“I see. I’m sorry. We’re fated not to become friends.” He exerted an extra little pressure on Jeff’s arms and let go.

Jeff felt it as if some current had been turned off inside him. Mike’s magnetism was direct and compelling, somehow inflaming to his imagination. He was a satyr, faintly diabolical but irresistible. He turned his dark eyes back to him and tried not to let his shyness make his voice sound hostile. “We’re sure to see each other tomorrow. I have something to do in there. I’ll tell somebody to get your order.” Their eyes held a beat too long, a beat during which Jeff felt that he had completely given himself away; he had told Mike Cochran that he responded sexually to men. He didn’t want to let himself be ashamed of it (Peter said that was bad), but with Mike Cochran it was getting a bit close to home. He turned and fled, his heart drumming in his chest.

Mike watched him go with a touch of relief. He was very tempted by the thought of having George’s son—it would place an outrageous seal on his total triumph over his old friend—but those great passionate eyes were dangerous. Available, but at a price. Better stick to the easy bits like this little Swiss faggot or, he thought as he saw Dimitri approaching with a breezy swing of his hips, this quite gorgeous bar boy.

The lights blazed up suddenly all around the port as if on cue to celebrate the beautiful half-naked body; there was a great deep-throated “ah” from the crowd as if in appreciation of it. Mike met flirtatious, inviting eyes as Dimitri stopped in front of him and immediately dismissed the little Swiss faggot from his evening’s plans.

Sarah lay stretched out on the bed in their room, dressed, freshly made up, an untouched drink on the table beside her. By remaining absolutely still she could just barely prevent herself from sweating. She had never known anything like it. It was getting denser and denser, as if gathering for some sort of explosion. Somebody on the rocks this morning had said it was earthquake weather. That’s all they needed. George’s explosion was enough for one evening.

She was trying to imagine what mood he would be in when he came home. Something was happening; the mold into which their lives had frozen was breaking up. Now that he had actually expressed in words his case against her, anything might happen. She felt she ought to put herself through some sort of mental shadow-boxing, like a fighter tuning up for a match. She suspected that she was going to need all her resources for the next round.

After all these years, she still wasn’t sure what curious twists and turns might be dictated by his gentle, sheltered background. She had been trained to fight for what she wanted. It had been a struggle in the early years to adjust to his consideration of others, his respect for people he didn’t particularly like, his assumption of goodness where nobody else could see it. Too often, it seemed soft and self-abnegating until she had learned his strength and adopted his values.

She must be prepared to fight again to keep him if he had talked himself into thinking he had to leave. She could surely find a way to make it impossible somehow, although Mike’s damn check was no help to her. She needed him just as he needed her. Even if it could lead only to mutual destruction, they must see it through to the end.

Should she pretend to be sick? It had worked once before in the early days of his fame when he was taking too much interest in a girl he didn’t really want. What sort of sickness could she pretend to have?

The bed moved under her and she sat up hastily, startled by what might be an attack of some sort. It moved again, more violently. There was an odd wrenching, crumbling sound, and the lights went out. She heard a succession of thuds outside, heavy objects falling to the ground. She leaped up from the bed and instinctively turned toward the window. Her eyes were caught by stars, much higher than where the window was. It took her a moment to grasp the fact that she was looking through the wall. A wide rent ran down it beside the window. Her breath caught and she took several little running steps in different directions.

She heard shouts in the distance and then a strange rumbling roar that seemed to be growing. Since she couldn’t identify it, it terrified her. What was happening? The Bomb? Would the world really come to an end? She had to get out before the roof fell in on her.

She made a rush for the door, fearing for an appalling second that it might be blocked but it was open and she picked her way as fast as she could through the dark house and down the stairs.

Seeing the way clear to the open door, she ran out into the garden and stopped, panting and soaked with sweat. With her feet on solid ground and the sky above her, her panic subsided. She stood transfixed by the rent in the wall. A memory stirred in her. Something about earthquakes and a structural defect in the house when they had bought it. Could this really be an earthquake? She looked down at the rubble strewn over crushed flowers. As her mind encompassed the extent of the damage, she almost burst into tears. Then it occurred to her that she had an excuse to go look for George; the house wasn’t safe.

She uttered brief faltering laughter. She didn’t have to pretend to be sick. He would have to stay to put the house together again.

She became aware of the roar again but beneath it now, near at hand, she could distinguish its component parts—the sound of running feet and the babble of a thousand voices. She went to the garden door and found the dark street full of people all hurrying toward the sea. She had to find out what was happening. She stepped out and pulled the door shut behind her and plunged into the crowd. Its urgency was contagious and she found herself hurrying too, almost running. All around her she heard the word “
sismos
” being spoken. So it
had
been an earthquake! It wasn’t at all her idea of an earthquake. Those brief lurches of the bed. Nothing, really. She had always imagined the earth opening and swallowing everything up.

The port was chaos. People were running about and shouting and bumping into each other. She tried to get out of the crowd, but it was everywhere so she resigned herself to being jostled and pushed wherever it led her. There was no question of looking for anybody. At least George and Jeff had been out, presumably down here on the
quai.
If anybody had been hurt, there would be screaming and a concentration of people around the victims, rather than this aimless milling around. She heard something about the clock tower and, looking up, saw that the vertical accent of the tower was gone. The tower made her feel better about their wall. They hadn’t been singled out by a vengeful Providence. She bumped into a policeman she knew.