The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “That’ll be really exciting.”

  Peter considered filling the empty evening by calling the Congressman’s executive assistant who had given him his card and asked him to do so, but decided against it. He was pretty sure he knew what the Congressman’s executive assistant had in mind.

  THEN classes started, and everything changed. There were no more dinners with Charlie, no more long evenings. He had just time to give Charlie a welcoming kiss when he returned from work, and then he had to be on his way. More and more frequently, Charlie didn’t come home to receive it. When Peter got home, Charlie was sometimes asleep, sometimes not there. On the latter occasions, he would sit with a textbook propped in front of him, struggling against sleep, frequently losing the battle. Charlie would help him fumble his way into bed. When he automatically initiated the gestures of love, Charlie would kiss him and hug him and say, “We’re tired, baby. We’d better go to sleep.”

  Whenever there was time, Charlie told him all about his doings, the Princeton classmates he had encountered, the senior editor and his wife with whom he was becoming real friends, the important theatrical director who had preceded him at Princeton and the agent who had seen him there, both of whom held out hopes for the immediate future. There was mention of a girl called Hattie he had met somewhere. There was another mention of her, and another. Hattie became a presence.

  “Listen, baby,” Charlie said one evening as he was coming in and Peter was going out. “I’d like you to stay away tonight until eleven-thirty.”

  “Stay away?”

  “Yes, not come home. It’s only an extra hour or so. Hattie wanted to come over and cook dinner here tonight. It’s better if you’re not around. I don’t want her to get any ideas about us.”

  “You mean, she doesn’t even know I exist?”

  “Well, not exactly. There’s just been no reason to mention it.”

  “Has she been here before?”

  “Of course not. I’d have told you. She just got this idea she wanted to cook dinner for me. She lives with her family.”

  “Are you planning to do anything with her?”

  “What do you mean?” He caught Peter’s eye and added, “Certainly not.”

  “I don’t care about anywhere else. But not here. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Stop being so damn morbid. You’re going to be late.”

  Peter nodded distractedly and gathered up some books. Charlie grabbed him as he passed and kissed him. For an instant, all of Peter’s body flowed to him, then he pulled himself back and left.

  Shortly afterward, the bell rang and Charlie went to the door to admit Hattie Donaldson. She came whirling in with an armload of groceries. “Don’t try to take them,” she cried. “I’ll drop them all. Where’s the kitchen? Ah, here we are. It’s all mostly from the delicatessen, but I’m going to do something delirious with the steaks.”

  “All that’s supposed to be for two of us?”

  “I never know how much to buy of anything. You can have the leftovers for breakfast. How about a drink for the cook?” She had a face of wondrous eccentricity. Her features included enormous, mocking, protuberant eyes, a nose like a blob of putty that looked as if it had been added as a facetious afterthought, and a wide mouth that filled her whole face when she laughed, which she did frequently—crowing laughter, conqueror’s laughter, with a hint of warning. She was of average height, but very thin, all arms and legs attached to an angular skeleton. The Donaldsons, of whom there were many, were important in the cultural and philanthropic circles of the city. She had the supreme self-confidence of belonging, of having always moved in the centers of power. She dressed to accentuate the eccentricity of her looks, with fanciful hats and a great deal of jewelry. She unburdened herself now of an impressive collection of accessories: bag, hat, scarf, gloves, a couple of rings. “Strip for action. That’s my motto. Do we eat in here?” she asked, indicating the kitchen table.

  “Why not?” Peter always set up a card table in the living room, with candles and all the trimmings. The change of locale was appropriate. Peter would be pleased.

  “I’ll find everything. Out with you. I don’t give away my secrets. One must guard one’s assets.” She crowed with laughter as he left her.

  Listening to her clattering about in the kitchen, he realized that this was somehow the most intimate thing he’d ever done with a girl, more so even than a sexual exchange. Perhaps she would turn into “his” girl. He would be glad for a name to drop for C. B., and Donaldson was an impressive one. C. B. would be bound to find her above average, a manifestation of his cultivated tastes, even though being a girl would be a strike against her.

  “You can come back now,” she called after a reasonable interval. “How clever of you to live next to El Morocco,” she said as he returned. “So convenient. Shall we go over after and dance?”

  “Listen, I’m just a very junior editor making my way up in the world.”

  “I have money. That’s no problem.”

  “Fine. As a matter of fact, I’ve never set foot in the place.”

  “Oh, you must. It’s so awful. I love it. Wait till you see the palm trees. They’re hysterical.”

  They sat down to foie gras and a bottle of wine, followed by the steaks, which involved mushrooms in some sort of sauce. After, there was asparagus with hollandaise and some exotic preserved peaches.

  “It’s fabulous,” Charlie said, dazzled by the richness of the fare.

  “Don’t ask which is mine and which came out of cans. That’s one of my secrets.”

  When they were finished, she asked, “Is there a drawing room? I think it’s so important to have coffee in the drawing room. It’s one of my principles.”

  “Of course. The drawing room awaits.”

  “I do hope you don’t expect me to cope with all this,” she said, looking suddenly helpless as she surveyed the littered kitchen.

  Charlie laughed. “Certainly not. You’ve done more than enough already. It was wonderful. The servants will take over.”

  She brightened. “Lovely. Here. Take cups. Sugar. Coffee will be served in a moment.”

  When she had poured it, she surveyed the little room. “Nice. Ever so masculine. The bed’s a bit conspicuous, isn’t it? Shouldn’t there be a discreet curtain?”

  “I haven’t been entertaining ladies much. I suppose you’re right.”

  She studied him for a moment with great mocking eyes. “I wonder why you haven’t made a pass at me yet.”

  Charlie was taken aback, but managed not to show it. “Am I supposed to?”

  “I’m a girl. I’m rather funny looking, but all the bits and pieces are in the usual place. Men generally make passes at girls.”

  “And what do you generally do?” Charlie’s sudden anger came out as cool sarcasm. “Tease them and lead them on and slap them down when it pleases you?”

  “Oh, dear. Is that what girls have done to you? I suppose we all are the most terrible bitches.” She laughed, but turned instantly sober. “Of course, I’m quite different. I’m an actress. Actresses must lead rich emotional lives.”

  She said this with such intensity that Charlie flung up the first defense that came to mind. “Actually, this isn’t much of a place for making passes,” he said loftily. “I have a roommate. He might come in at any moment.”

  Hattie’s glance slid to the bed. “A roommate? In here?”

  “He sleeps here,” he said, indicating the sofa he was sitting on. He blushed and turned his face away, reaching for a cigarette. The business of lighting it gave him time to recover. “He’s a cousin of mine. Just a kid working his way through college. It was C. B.’s idea.”

  “I think it’s too glamorous, your being C. B.’s grandson. I’m dying to meet her. My family thinks she’s mad.”

  “How so?” Charlie asked, pleased at having skirted the question of Peter so easily.

  “Some story. I don’t remember exactly. Something about her having pr
actically kidnapped some young man. There was a frightful row with his family.”

  Charlie chuckled. “That sounds like C. B.”

  “Is she a lecherous old lady?”

  “Good heavens no. She just likes to have young men around. She takes an interest in their careers and all that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds like sex to me. But nobody ever knows anything about their own family. If you’ll let me meet her, I’ll give you a compete report.”

  “Fine. Any time you like. We always go on Sunday.”

  “Who’s we?”

  Charlie blushed again. He cupped his chin in his hands, covering his cheeks. “Oh, the usual group. C. B.’s circle.” She had an uncomfortable knack of crowding him into tight corners. He counterattacked. “How come you always call yourself an actress? You’ve never done anything.”

  “I’ve done heaps of things. I’ve just done eight weeks of summer stock.”

  “I mean professionally. Were you paid?”

  “Hank Forbes thinks I’m great,” she countered, referring to the distinguished director from Princeton who had promised to help Charlie.

  “Hank thinks I’m pretty good too. That’s something we have in common.”

  “Oh, you. You’ll never be an actor. You’re much too grand.”

  “Me? Grand?” he asked, laughing, not displeased with the epithet.

  “You’re frightfully grand. Other-worldly. Unattainable. You’d never communicate.”

  “That’s not what Hank thinks. He says something may be coming up for me very soon.”

  “Oh well, Hank’s probably after you. That’s one of the problems a girl has to face in the theater.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  “You can’t? Some imagination. I told you you’d never be an actor.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” he said with a dismissive shrug and she crowed over him. She was tough. She fought back. She wasn’t all cute and coy like most girls. It was the thing that had first struck him when he met her. He felt a resilient comradeship growing up between them of a sort he had known before only with other males. Except for her lapse about passes, sex had been agreeably absent from their preliminary contacts and he had no wish for it to be otherwise.

  “Did you mean it about going to El Morocco?” he asked.

  “Of course. I was just waiting for your roommate to burst in on our illicit tryst.”

  Charlie glanced at his watch. It was not yet eleven. “I never know when he’s apt to come in. We see very little of each other.”

  “But you say he sleeps there. I feel as if you’d been sitting on him for the last hour.”

  “Oh no. You’d have seen him. He’s real enough.”

  “Is he?” She crowed over him again as she rose to prepare herself for the nightclub next door. When they parted later under El Morocco’s marquee, gleaming expensively in artificial light, it had been agreed that she would attend C. B.’s gathering the following Sunday. She refused his offers to accompany her home. She was a working girl and rejected gallantries reserved for the weaker sex. Despite his insistence, Charlie approved this attitude. She wasn’t going to be a nuisance. When he went back to the apartment, he found Peter, heavy-eyed, finishing up the dishes.

  “Oh, lord, baby. You shouldn’t have done that.” He took a dish towel out of his hands and kissed his ear. He felt guilty.

  Peter offered him a wan smile of welcome. “I didn’t mind. I wanted to wait up for you. It was one way of staying awake. It looked as if you had quite a meal.”

  “It was terrific. She’s a good cook.”

  “Why did you eat in here?”

  “She seemed satisfied. Nobody but you would take all that trouble with the card table. I told her about you.”

  Peter brightened and his eyes filled with pride. “Did you? I don’t suppose it really mattered. I’m glad, anyway.”

  “Come on, baby. You’re tired.”

  HATTIE turned up at C. B.’s strangely bedizened, looking like a child dressed up in her mother’s clothes. Her crowing laughter soared above all the others’. When she had identified Peter, she devoted a great deal of attention to him.

  “I think one can safely say she’s extraordinary,” C. B. said over dinner with Charlie and Peter. “Not at all what one would expect of her family. They’re unmitigated snobs, like all New Yorkers who have the incredible good fortune to know who their grandparents were.”

  “I like her,” Peter said. “She makes me laugh just to look at her. Not in a bad way. She knows she’s funny-looking and plays up to it. I thought she was marvelous.”

  Charlie said nothing, choosing silence as the most provocative course.

  “She’s a deep one,” Hattie pronounced of C. B. when she met Charlie for lunch in a midtown restaurant a couple of days later. “That report will have to be postponed. There’s only one thing I’m sure of. She’s madly in love with you. But I’m beginning to think that’s true of everybody. Me. Peter. You’re having an affair with him, aren’t you?”

  “Me? An af—What in God’s name are you talking about now?” he demanded, outraged and blushing furiously.

  She gave him a mocking stare. “You do get strangely dense whenever it’s a question of gentlemen climbing into bed together. It does happen, you know.”

  “I suppose it does. I’ve never thought about it. I don’t know anything about it.”

  She laughed at him. “If I were a boy, I’d know everything about it. It must be so deliciously easy. No fuss about babies and all. You do disappoint me. An affair with Peter is definitely indicated. Why not admit it?”

  “There’s nothing to admit. I tell you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you just drop it?”

  “Oh, so grand,” she said lightly. “Very well. I’ll have to worm it out of Peter.”

  “You leave him alone.” His voice was savage with menace. “He’s a perfectly decent kid. I won’t have you upsetting him with your dirty innuendos.”

  “All right, all right,” she said, maintaining her mocking tone but shaken by the revelation of violence in his voice. “You can keep your secrets if that’s the way you want it.”

  “I trust you’d never talk that sort of stupid nonsense in front of C. B.”

  “What a terrifying thought. Actually, though, if she thought it would keep you out of the clutches of a girl, she might not mind the idea.”

  “Oh really!”

  It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that Charlie had calmed down sufficiently to become aware of her declaration of love.

  He got home ahead of Peter that evening. When he switched on the lights, the first thing that caught his eye was a letter in Peter’s handwriting among the books on the desk. Thinking it might be for him, he gave it a closer look. “Dear Jimmy.” He turned away, hesitated as he made the connection, turned back, and picked it up and read it.

  Dear Jimmy,

  You asked me to let you know how everything is going, so here I am. Everything is fine, more or less. I’m with Charlie, which is all that really counts. I’m not completely sold on life in the Big City. When you talked about guys living as if they were married, I guess I saw myself bustling around the house in a little apron. It’s not like that at all. I have this lousy job and it’s in and out of subways all day long and rush rush rush. The real trouble is these night classes I’m taking. Before I started them, everything was wonderful. We had all our evenings together, and it was heaven. But Charlie has his job, of course, and I’m out practically all day until ten or eleven at night so we almost never see each other. Of course, we always sleep together, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I’m seriously considering giving up school. God forbid my education should get in the way of my love life.

  I’m as much of a sex fiend as ever. Probably more so. That’s part of the trouble. Of course, Charlie’s cock is huge. I’ve been meaning to measure it to find out exactly how big. It must make a differe
nce. I guess when you get used to having something like that all the time, you miss it all the more when it doesn’t happen so often. It still happens pretty often. If I weren’t such a sex fiend, it would probably be all right. We’ve discovered this fantastic new

  The letter ended there. Charlie crushed it into a ball in his hand and started to throw it away. Instead, he dropped it onto the desk as evidence. He went to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink. His hands were trembling with rage. Of all the dirty, disgusting, stupid drivel. It had gone too far. Hattie at noon and now this. Peter must have lost his mind, describing his cock and the rest of it. He felt like beating him, pounding some sense into him. Phrases from the letter kept running through his mind. They made him sick. He drank the drink fast, standing in the kitchen, and poured himself another. He went back into the living room, his eyes drawn to the letter. He wanted to rip it to shreds.

  The drink began to take effect. His emotions smoothed out. The urge for violence receded. He would have to explain it all over again. Their making love together was just a phase. The words of love they exchanged were harmless so long as they kept the whole thing in perspective. Basically, they were simply good friends. Everything else was a sort of accident, something that might or might not happen, certainly nothing to dwell on and talk about to others. If Peter would see it for what it was, they could go on having a wonderful time together. Otherwise—well, there was no otherwise. Of course they would go on. He didn’t deny that he wanted it and would continue to want it until life took some new turn and they passed quite naturally into another phase. Apparently Peter needed to be slapped down from time to time to keep him from getting carried away. His mind revolved slowly around these thoughts until he heard a key in the lock. He drained off his drink and put the glass behind the lamp and assumed a grim expression as he faced the door.

  Peter came to a full stop when he saw him, and his face lighted up. “Hurray. You’re here. I was hoping—” He stopped and his eyes widened and his shoulders slumped as if a weight had been dropped on them. “What’s happened now?” he asked.

  “If you’re looking for your letter to dear Jimmy, there it is. Jimmy Harvester, I suppose.”