The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “No,” he shouted. “I have to get off just after the Colette house.” There must have been eight of them in the Rolls, all sprawled on top of each other, all young and beautiful with the sun and high spirits. A boy put an arm around his waist. A girl held his hand. He pulled himself free. He was sick of being handled. When he saw the road through the vineyard, his heart lifted with relief and he shouted for them to stop. As soon as they had slowed sufficiently, he leaped off with a shout of thanks and went sprinting in through the vineyard. In a few moments, he caught his first glimpse of the house through the trees and, a moment later, the car, standing pretty much where he remembered leaving it so that it probably hadn’t been moved. Of course Peter hadn’t gone anywhere. He was just sitting there feeling quite confident of Charlie’s return. He probably wasn’t even aware of the havoc he had created. He would expect a few angry words and a tearful reconciliation and that would be the end of it. Only it wasn’t going to be like that. Rage began to boil up in Charlie again. He should have stayed away, let him suffer, given him a bit more of his own medicine before making the final break. He would look a complete fool rushing back so soon after his defiant parting words.

  He came to an abrupt halt and gave his lungs time to recover from their strain. He forced himself on as his breathing returned to normal. Anger was coursing through him and he made no effort to control it. Now that he was here, he would tell Peter what he thought of him once and for all and leave again. He should have stayed with the happy band in the Rolls instead of trudging home to a sordid little domestic scene. Married. Christ, he was sick of all of it.

  The house was silent as he approached it. He mounted to the terrace and went in. Peter was nowhere about. Panic stabbed through his anger. Was he upstairs packing? Had he done something really stupid? He sprang for the stairs and raced up them. Peter was emerging from their bedroom as he reached the top. Relief struck him with such force that it took him a moment to assume the coldly hostile mask behind which he wished to hide his feelings. Peter’s face had lighted up, though he didn’t allow himself to smile. They confronted each other thus for a long silent moment, their eyes probing each other, Peter’s full of an appeal that Charlie steeled himself against.

  “I thought you were leaving,” Charlie said finally, harsh and mocking.

  “I thought you weren’t due back till tomorrow, if then.”

  “Christ, you didn’t really think I’d spend the night with that dismal shit, did you? An hour was bad enough.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ve thought for the last week if I could just have a day with him, I’d never want to see him again. I guess he’s pretty bad.”

  “He’s pretty bad,” Charlie repeated with barely contained rage. “You’ve destroyed everything, for him. You had to have him no matter what it did to us. Now you decide he’s pretty bad.”

  Peter’s chin lifted defiantly. “You’d better think a little more carefully about who’s destroying things. You’ve done something really vile, much worse than anything I could think of.”

  “I might have known you’d work it out that way. You’re innocent and I’m to blame. Jesus Christ Almighty.”

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it.” Peter looked at him with blazingly honest eyes. “I can tell you now. All right. I really fell for him. I couldn’t control it. I got a hard-on just looking at him. It was the same with him. We’re not giants like you, but it’s not all that easy to hide. After it had happened a couple of times, I felt as if I’d practically been to bed with him. I just wanted to get it over with and forget him. Yesterday before lunch, with you, I knew it was going to be all right. If he hadn’t gone crazy last night, you’d never have known anything about it. It was all over.”

  “And that’s all it means to you. It was just a little affair that would’ve been perfectly OK if I hadn’t found out about it. The really bad thing is something I’ve done.”

  “Yes, it is,” Peter cried, matching Charlie’s anger with his own. “You didn’t even want him. You had to prove you could fuck him better than I could, as if there’s any doubt about that. I really hated you when you told me. It’s disgusting. But I’ve had time to think about it and I’m glad you did it. This morning, when Yvonne told me you’d gone, I was pretty sure why and knew you’d probably find out all about it. I was so ashamed I didn’t see how I could ever face you again. I thought I had to go away, or kill myself, or something. Well, that’s over. And I don’t hate you any more. I’m ready to accept the fact that we’re both human and try to make things right again.”

  “That’s damn decent of you,” Charlie roared. “Who said anything about being human. We’re a couple of faggots. We have to be goddamn supermen to get by. I though maybe we were, but no. You lie, you cheat, you go to the shit’s house and play around in front of his sister and risk other people seeing you there; you lie to me over and over again, all for the sake of a big, dull body. Some superman.”

  All of Peter’s body gathered together and squared up to him in protest. “I didn’t lie,” he asserted. “I agree with you about the big, dull body. When things like that are over, it’s impossible to understand why it ever happened. But I never lied. Granted you made it easy by not asking many direct questions, but I knew if you trapped me I’d have to tell the truth. I was scared out of my wits, but I never really considered lying to you.”

  Charlie looked at him. Peter’s face was grave, but composed and shone with candor. It momentarily blunted the edge of his anger. “Mnnh,” he grunted and went on into the bedroom. Peter followed him. The room was in order; there was no sign of packing. His anger revived. It was just as he had expected: Peter had assumed that everything would go on as if nothing had happened. He wanted to break through his complacency; he wanted him to suffer. He became aware that his hands were trembling and he shoved them into his pockets. Peter approached and he turned and moved away.

  “Please, Champ,” Peter said to his back. “Can’t we talk? We never have about certain things. I don’t know if it will make it any better but—well, maybe you can understand. I’ve been thinking and thinking, trying to figure it out. I’m a lot queerer than you. We know that. I’m much more curious about boys’ bodies. I’ve never been interested in a girl. You might never have been queer if it hadn’t been for me. You’ve said so yourself. I have temptations that you’d never know anything about. I can resist temptation, damn it. I always have. Something broke down this time.”

  “It certainly did.” Charlie swung around and faced him. “Can’t you understand that when something so important breaks down, you can’t put it together again? It’s finished. Look what happened. You said you had to have him once to forget him. You had him in Nice. Why did you go on here?”

  “You must know that now. You know what he wants. That’s never been for me, God knows, but all of a sudden I wanted it. I had to have it. For once, somebody was really mine. I didn’t want it to last, but it was all so new to me that it took me a few days to get it under control. It won’t happen again.”

  Charlie’s trembling hands were clenched into fists in his pockets. He couldn’t take much more of this. “Why not? Maybe you’ve finally found out what you really want in bed. You don’t seem to have a clue about what I want. I’m not as queer as you! What crap. Where’re all the women in my life? I was married for four months. Big deal. What do you think was going on while you were away in the Army?”

  Their eyes drilled into each other for an instant. Hurt sprang up in Peter’s and he looked away. “Other guys?”

  “I can’t remember how many. Boys, boys, boys. Six or eight at a time sometimes. But there was a difference. You were away, and I was going out of my mind. Never once since. I don’t let myself be curious about boys’ bodies. We’ve had each other. The next thing, you’ll tell me you’ve been sex-starved.”

  There was a beat of silence before Peter’s eyes returned to Charlie’s. They were unexpectedly peaceful. “Thanks. Maybe now we’re getting somewhere. If
I’d known that, maybe none of this would’ve happened. If I’d known there’d been others, I could’ve talked to you. Don’t you understand? All my life has been you, ever since I was nineteen. Loving you, giving myself to you, taking all you’ve given me. I couldn’t ever knowingly do anything that would change that. I need you. You’re the only reason I’m alive. When something seemed to be threatening all that, I was terrified, really lost. If I’d been able to talk to you, it probably would’ve passed. As it was, all I could think of was to have him so everything would come clear with you again. As it turned out, I was right.”

  “Right?” The calm conviction with which Peter had spoken the word was the final provocation. Charlie whipped his hands out of his pockets and stepped forward and smashed one of them across Peter’s face. “You little bastard. Do you think I’m going to have anything more to do with you? What’s right about that?

  Peter staggered slightly and supported himself on the back of a chair. He bent over it and lifted a hand to his face. For an unguarded moment, Charlie wanted to rush to him and hold him and make sure he wasn’t badly hurt. Peter shook his head and straightened. His eyes glistened with tears. “It’s pretty lousy of you to hit me when you know I won’t hit you back.”

  “I’d kill you if you tried.” Fury blotted out the brief spasm of tenderness. His fists were clenched, every muscle was knotted and aching with a passion for destruction. He grabbed a vase from a table near him and hurled it. Peter stepped aside and it crashed against the wall.

  “Don’t do that. We’ll just have to pay for it.”

  “You’ll have to pay for it. I’m the kept boy, remember?”

  “Oh, God, don’t start that again.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want the truth? Do you think I’ve liked being dependent on you? I could’ve had a decent job, but no—I have to be a painter so we can be together like man and wife and live happily ever after. We have to break with our families because our love is too great and pure to hide. Well, I can get along on my own now, thanks to ten years of being your paid stud. There’s nothing like a little whoring to launch a guy’s career. Christ.” He was finally attacking all that Peter cherished most in their lives and he could see it take effect. Peter’s face was drawn, his eyes wide with wounded protest. He found an ashtray and sent it hurtling after the vase.

  “Stop that.”

  “I’ll stop it soon enough,” he shouted. “You’re not leaving, but I am. I’ve had enough of it. Enough of you and your lies and the dirty joke you’ve made of both of us. The only reason I came back was to arrange to return your goddamn money.” He seized a chair and sent it crashing into Peter’s legs.

  “Goddamn it,” Peter cried as he skipped about to extricate himself from it. He set it on its feet. The light of battle came into his eyes. “All these years you’ve never seemed to realize that I might let loose and beat the shit out of you. Just watch it.”

  “Now you’re a tough guy. Jesus. Tell me about your heroic service to your country, tough guy.” This was hitting below the belt, and his breath caught as he said it. He wanted to hurt him, but something in him still resisted making the break irrevocable.

  Peter winced and passed a hand across his forehead. He had been prepared for Charlie’s anger and, because he deserved it, he was detrmined to bow to it, to accept any punishment. When it was spent, he would do all he could to heal the inevitable wounds. “Please, Champ,” he said mildly, when he had recovered his voice. “You know I don’t like to think about that.”

  “I thought you said we could talk about anything now that we’ve agreed we’re both cock-crazy.” Charlie charged a bureau and swept everything off its top. There was a crash as china candlesticks, two ashtrays and a collection of little glass animals shattered at his feet. He turned back to Peter, appeased by the noise of destruction. “Shall we talk about this morning? What makes you think I didn’t want Jean-Claude? It was very exciting being where you had been and being able to go those couple of inches farther that seemed to make all the difference to him. You’re not the only one who gets a hard-on just looking at somebody. You should’ve seen what I did to a cute American kid just now on the beach. He was embarrassed to take his trunks off like the rest of us until I talked him into showing it. It was quite a sight. I’ll probably go back and collect him when I’m finished with you. Shall I tell you about Tony and Milly and all the sailors and soldiers I’ve done threesomes with? Yes, with me in the middle as often as not. Have you ever tried that? You’d probably like to hear about the ones with the biggest cocks. That cute kid today might qualify, though I didn’t affect him as conclusively as apparently Jean-Claude did you. I’ll have to handle him a bit to make sure but he was very promising.” He talked on, waiting for disgust to drive him away, soiling them both, hoping that whatever it was in him that resisted saying the final definitive word would be buried in filth and he would be free. “Well, we’re both on our own now. Happy hunting. Perhaps we’ll find we’re sharing lovers, like Jean-Claude suggested.”

  “Oh, God, I can’t stand this,” Peter muttered. He moved nervously around the room before he faced Charlie again, and spoke in an agonized voice. “Forgive me, for God’s sake. I’ve forgiven you for what you did today. I’m begging you to forgive me.”

  “Forgive you. Then what? Do you expect us to just go on the way we were before? You’ve killed it.” He forced the words out. The brake was still operating that kept him skirting the point beyond which there could be no return.

  “But you’ve been unfaithful to me, for God’s sake,” Peter cried out in a plea for truth and reason.

  “Oh, I was. Hundreds of times. I hated it finally. And myself, but I was so damn lonely for you. I really believed we could make something good and decent together.”

  “We have. Who else do we know who has anything like it? I don’t mean just queers. I mean anybody. Look at all the married couples we know.”

  “You could have made a pretty good case for us until a week ago. Now we’re just like everybody else. And queers, to boot.” He realized that his rage had broken. He felt nothing in its place, only a great weariness and some dead area deep inside him. He added dully, “There isn’t any future. Can’t you get that through your head?”

  “No, I can’t. I can’t conceive of us not being together always.”

  “Chained together for life, no matter what we do to each other? That isn’t my idea of the way it’s been or the way it’s going to be. I believe in love being exclusive. The minute you give yourself to somebody else, everything changes. You’ve made me want to finish with love once and for all.”

  Peter was immediately at his side. He had felt the softening in his anger, but the weary hopelessness that had replaced it was almost more chilling. He had to win his way through to him somehow. He put his hand tentatively on his arm. “You can’t. You’d never succeed. It’s too deep in both of us.”

  Charlie pushed him aside and strode away. “I don’t want you to touch me. I’m sick of all that. How can it mean anything to me when I know you’re capable of touching somebody else in the same way? When I think of both of us wallowing around with your big, sloppy boyfriend, I really want to kill you. When I see what sex can make us do, I don’t want us to be together any more.”

  Peter’s body slumped and he crossed over to a chair and dropped into it. He stared at the floor. “Then what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not really thinking of leaving me, are you?”

  “At the moment, it doesn’t seem to matter much whether I go or stay. From here on, everything will just be dying. Do you want me to stick around for the end? I don’t know how much fun I’ll be, playing in the ruins.”

  “I want you to stick around, even if you’re right. You know that. But it’s not going to be the way you say. There aren’t any ruins. Now that I’m getting used to the idea of your having played around, it makes me realize that I could actually lose you. It makes us more the same,
more together. We’ve had our secrets. I don’t want them any more.” He looked up and found Charlie facing him across the room, looking down at him. “Please come here,” he said. He saw conflict and hesitation in every line of Charlie’s body. He offered him a faint smile. Charlie’s face hardened.

  “No.”

  Tears welled up in Peter’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks; his face remained composed. “You’re really punishing me. I deserve it. Punish me all you want, but please don’t punish yourself any more. I can’t stand it.”

  “It’s a bit late, but thanks for the thought.”

  Peter rose. “Please think about how much I love you. If you’d just let us put our arms around each other for a minute, you’d know we’re going to be all right.”

  “No.”

  “Well, perhaps I’d better go downstairs or somewhere. If I stay here I’ll just cry or try to touch you. You know I can’t be with you without wanting to touch you all the time. That’s the worst punishment.”

  “Your eye looks a little swollen. You’d better put something on it.”

  “It hurts a bit. It’ll be all right. I sent Yvonne away. I couldn’t stand having anybody around. Should I get her back?”

  “Why bother?”

  Peter wiped tears from his cheeks with the palms of his hands, reluctant to go yet uneasy about staying. He had succeeded in calming Charlie, but now he seemed almost too quiet. He had never seen him like this before. There was something lethargic about him, dead but explosive, that was frightening. Should he leave him alone to let him think his way through whatever he was feeling? Should he stay and woo him? “I could do with a beer,” he said, trying to create normalcy around them. “Shall I bring you one or are you coming down?”