One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (28 page)

The three had entered into lively conversation, during which Yanni kept looking at Peter and laughing slyly. Peter began to wonder if they knew why they had brought him here.

After a few minutes, he put his glass down with a little thump and interrupted firmly. “I have to go.” He pointed at himself, he pointed at his watch, he pointed at the door. Yanni leaned toward him and gripped his hand and twisted his wrist to see the watch better. He removed the hand from his knee and put it on his arm and openly caressed it. He spoke, touching the watch and pointing at himself. Peter shrugged uncomprehendingly. Had he never seen a watch before? He lifted Peter’s hand and unfastened the watchstrap and handed the watch across the table. Peter yanked his hand away and made a grab for it, but it was gone. That was that. They had brought him here to rob him and he had nothing else for them to rob. He stood up. At a word from Yanni, the other two were immediately upon him and forced him back into his chair. Yanni swung his chair around and faced him. The Greek eased himself back and slid his hips forward and put his hands on his thighs. The thick fabric of his trousers made a great bulge between his legs. He ran his fingers back and forth over it and said something and they all laughed.

Peter was getting angry. He cursed himself for having smiled so amiably; it had obviously been interpreted as giving consent to whatever Yanni had in mind. He wasn’t smiling now. Yanni continued the tease with his crotch, looking at Peter expectantly as if he were bound to react to it. If he was so self-confident, why didn’t he send the others away? Peter had no fears about handling him alone. He sensed suddenly that whatever they had planned for him, they were all in it together, although he had detected no caress in the others’ hands. A gang-rape? Alarm sharpened his anger. His eyes shifted as he tried to settle on the best means of escape. Yanni spoke again and Peter was seized and flung to his knees between his legs. Yanni tangled his fingers in his hair and jerked his head back. Peter’s mouth dropped open. Yanni’s was immediately on it, his tongue thrusting into it. Peter clamped his teeth together hard on it. He was released with a shout of pain. He snaked through three pairs of legs and scrambled to his feet and turned to face them, his fists ready. Yanni was almost on him, glowering with rage. He made a grab for him as if he wanted to take him in his arms. Peter sidestepped and swung his fist. He was off balance and it was a glancing blow, but Yanni staggered back with a surprised look in his face. Then the other two were on him.

He flung them off and struck out at them, but they crowded in on him, shouting and laughing, so that he had no room to maneuver. He felt a sort of idiot innocence in them; it was a sadistic schoolboy prank. Since they clung to his arms, he brought his knees into play, trying to get them in the crotch. He thought of making a break for one of the guns, but the thought went as quickly as it came. This wasn’t a movie. He didn’t want to kill anybody or get killed.

Yanni returned to the fray. He flung himself on Peter’s back and put an arm around his neck and got a lock on it. His hips ground up against his buttocks. Peter could feel the sex against him. They pulled and pushed and dragged him toward a bed against the wall, while Yanni’s hand fumbled at his crotch, apparently baffled by the pouch that held him all bunched together. None of it made any sense unless they were convinced that he was willing and was just putting up a token resistance, like a girl. Perhaps Yanni had boasted of what an easy conquest he would be and the other two still believed him. Otherwise, what did they think they could do with him on a bed? Thinking of Jeannot, he expected them to start pulling his clothes off and the forbidden memory came rushing in on him. A beefy, sneering face from long ago filled his mind’s eye. He went wild with rage; his body heaved and lunged and twisted in a frenzy of resistance. Yanni was no threat to his self-respect because they were linked by shared tastes, but they would have to knock him out before he’d let himself be stripped in front of the other two. Their grip was hard on him as they swayed with him toward the bed. Yanni hooked a leg around his and he lost his footing and they surged forward almost to the edge of it. He could feel their balance going and they all crashed to the floor. An elbow smashed into his eye as they went and his head reeled until he was brought up hard on the floor. They were a sweating, panting mass of tangled bodies. His face was crushed against somebody’s chest. One hand was trapped under a leg. He was reminded of schoolboy grapplings, tests of strength, with their constant threat of ending in disgrace for him. He had always had a tendency to get an erection at any close physical contact with other boys. He hadn’t known what it meant until he met Charlie. Unlike Charlie, he had always shunned the experiences that this tendency might have led him into.

There was no risk of his getting an erection now, even though a hand had found the pouch again. He couldn’t imagine what he had done to encourage such persistence. The chest rolled off his face. He wrenched his hand free and twisted his body clear of other entanglements and for a moment felt no hands on him as he sprang to his feet. Yanni came up with him, reaching for the top of his trousers. He knocked the hands away, stepped back, tripped on something, swung at him. It was another glancing blow, but it momentarily removed Yanni from his immediate vicinity. The other two were up now and lunged at him. He squared off, took aim and drove his fist with all his weight behind it into an approaching chin. He felt the shock all the way up his arm. There was a gratifying crack and his assailant crumpled to the floor. He turned quickly and brought his knee up hard into the other’s crotch. There was a shriek of pain and the Greek staggered back and fell onto one of the plank beds writhing in agony. Maybe this
was
a movie. Bodies were disposed picturesquely around the room. Only the one he had found attractive remained in the field. Peter was breathing hard and his eye felt as if it were swelling shut, but he was spoiling for battle. He watched warily as Yanni approached, smiling ingratiatingly again. He stopped a few feet away and spoke, pointing at himself and then at Peter.

Still propositioning him? Peter pointed at the door. “I’m going. Understood?”

Yanni pointed at himself and Peter and then at the door and spoke again.

Did he want them to go together? Peter shook his head. “I’m clearing out. Goodbye,” he said as he started to turn away. He just had time to register the murderous look that sprang up into the fierce eyes before Yanni sprang forward and smashed his fist into Peter’s mouth. “You son of a bitch,” he muttered as he regained his balance. He shook his head and went at the Greek with his fists. It was quickly evident that Yanni knew nothing about defense. He met Peter’s attack by swinging at him in return, leaving himself wide open. Peter methodically pounded his face with his fists, backing him across the room until his hands hurt and his arms ached. At last, Yanni fell to his knees with his arms around Peter’s hips and swayed forward and buried his face in his crotch. Peter’s sex swelled with triumph. He had beaten the Greek into submission; his body was his by right of conquest. He realized that the thrill of cruelty coursing through him was an aspect of desire. He wanted to go on hurting him. His sex grew against the battered face that was pressed to it.

“Christ, I should fuck you till you couldn’t see straight,” he said hoarsely. His chest was still heaving. He thought of Charlie, worried and waiting for him. He pulled the Greek’s arms from him roughly and flung him to the floor. He lay on his stomach, shaken by silent sobs. Peter lingered over him another moment while his sex subsided. Cruelty was replaced by pity. Poor bastard, he thought, he must be really hard up if he was ready to go through all this for it. It was tough for faggots everywhere.

He turned and rushed to the door. He had some difficulty with the big key that projected from it, but after turning it back and forth in a screeching lock, he got the door open and was away. He stumbled over rough terrain and found the road and set off at a fast pace. He hoped Charlie hadn’t worked himself into a state about him. The fight had dislocated his sense of time, but he didn’t think the whole thing had taken much more than half-an-hour. That wasn’t too long; Charlie was probably just beginning to worry now. Walking jarred his wounds and made his head throb, but he didn’t slow down. The vision of his left eye was dim, and it was swollen almost closed now. His mouth was more painful. He supposed some teeth had been smashed through it. His lips were stiff and felt enormous on one side. He kept them parted to ease the pain. He would probably have trouble speaking by the time he got back to the boat. That would be a nuisance because he was bursting to tell Charlie all about it.

The memory that he had successfully isolated in some mental limbo all these years, the memory that had stirred during the fight, crowded his mind once more and for the first time since the event, he didn’t resist it. After ten years, his honor had been vindicated. The three Greeks had been an adequate substitute for the sergeant. He had almost forgiven Hal years ago. Silly son of a bitch.

He had known from the beginning that his commanding officer had been on the make for him, although nothing overt had been said or done. When Hal returned from a leave and told him about meeting Charlie, it all came out into the open.

“I told him I’d do anything to get you,” Hal said with a smile when he had summoned Peter to his office on some pretext to tell him about the meeting.

“What did he say?”

“He said I’d never succeed.”

Peter laughed fondly. “That’s my Charlie. I’m glad he knows that.”

Months passed and it became a sort of joke between them. Whenever Peter had a weekend leave, Hal would send for him on his return and quiz him.

“Have you been a good boy? You haven’t succumbed to temptation?”

“That’s what’s so amazing. I’m never tempted. I meet guys who would normally bowl me over and nothing happens. Like you, for instance, captain honey.” Peter smiled into the fascinating green eyes.

“I wonder how Charlie’s doing.”

“I don’t wonder. I know. It’s the same for both of us. I guess we were born for each other.”

As the months passed, Peter longed for Charlie to move to San Francisco where they could be together at least for weekends. They had agreed before he was inducted that it would be easier for both of them to make it a clean separation, rather than subject themselves to the strains and frustrations of brief, irregular meetings. He still thought their decision valid, but being able to talk about him with Hal made a single-minded acceptance of military routine more difficult. He had been destined for West Point from birth and had always hated the prospect so that he hadn’t hesitated to resign his appointment in order to live with Charlie, but with the country at war he was proud to be in uniform. He was doing his duty and sharing his generation’s experience. He wished he would be shipped overseas so there could be no more question of having Charlie near him.

He was killing a Saturday night as best he could on a weekend pass in San Francisco when he ran into Hal in a flagrantly queer bar. Peter noticed immediately that his captain had had a lot to drink.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Hal said. “So this is the sort of place you frequent.”

“Sure. I love joints like this. They’re so crazy. You up for the weekend, too?”

“No. I told you. I was looking for you. I’m OD in the morning. I was having a drink or two with my fellow officers and gentlemen when I suddenly couldn’t stand not knowing what you were doing. It’s getting bad, soldier,” He drained his drink and rattled the ice in his glass for another.

Even drunk, he didn’t lose his aristocratic look. Peter found his voice thrilling, deep and melodious, with haunting, dark resonances in it. “You’re planning to drive back tonight? You’d better take it easy on the booze.”

“It’s a little late to worry about that. I’m properly potted. Do you expect me to really believe that you’re not out cruising?”

“No. Honestly. I had dinner with a damn nice couple I’ve met here—guys, I mean. They don’t do the bars. I’ve been wandering around waiting to get sleepy.”

“Well, here I am. I’m not bad, as pickups go.”

“I’ll say, captain honey. You shouldn’t waste your time on me. Why don’t you circulate? There’re some very pretty numbers around.”

Hal had been given a fresh drink. He drained off half of it in one gulp and stood looking at Peter, swaying slightly. “No. I’ll tell you what. If you’ll help me find my car, I’ll buzz on back. I just wanted to show myself. I suddenly got a funny feeling that tonight was the night you’d change your mind. I wanted to be available, in case. You can’t say I’ve pursued you up until now.”

“No. It wouldn’t have got you anywhere, but I appreciate it. OK. I’m ready to go. Let’s have that old, crisp, military bearing. The streets are crawling with MPs.”

Hal finished his drink in another gulp. They put money on the bar and collected change and left. Hal walked straight but with great deliberation. He didn’t seem to know where the car was or particularly care. They walked back and forth slowly and finally turned into a side street and found it. Hal offered to drive Peter to his hotel and got in behind the wheel. After Peter had seated himself beside him, nothing happened. Peter looked at him. He was sitting very straight, but his eyes were closed.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Peter shook his arm and he came to with a start. “You can’t do a two-hour drive in this condition.”

“Maybe better have a little snooze. Sleep it off in the car.”

“You’re nuts. MPs don’t like officers sleeping in cars. If they found you, they’d wake you up and you’d have to drive.”