The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “I don’t know.”

  Charlie’s smoky purple eyes were fixed heavily on him. They stirred a little flutter of fear around his heart. “Well, give a shout if you want anything.” He started for the door.

  “Wait!” Charlie saw Peter’s face brighten as he turned back. Now that passions had subsided and tensions eased, he realized that, for the first time, he was seriously considering their parting. Earlier, when he had been driven by jealousy and a thirst for revenge, it had been a safety valve, the obvious thing to think of while he raged through the situation. Now the possibility was cloaked with the reality of quiet deliberation. How could they stay together? He had been right: trust had been essential. It had been the balance to his constant inner struggle against the public stigma of their relationship. Would he begin to wonder about every unaccounted hour they were apart? Would he check telephone calls for discrepancies and try to catch Peter in errors? Every day would be intolerable. Perhaps the deadness in him was the realization that their life together really was over. Had he said, without knowing it, the irrevocable word that closed all avenues of reconciliation? The desolation of a future alone was too great to be grasped. If he was still capable of wanting anything, he wanted to retain control of the situation until he had time to explore all its implications. Peter stood before him expectantly. “Take your clothes off,” he said.

  Peter looked startled. “What?”

  “Get undressed. If anything can make me want you again, it’s looking at you naked.”

  “Please, Champ. Do you want to make me feel like the cheap little fairy you like to say I am?”

  “You know I don’t mean anything I say when I’m angry. No, you may be right. Maybe sex is the only way through this. I want to see if you look any different to me now that I know you’ve been to bed with somebody else. If you don’t, then as you say, how can anything have changed?”

  Peter looked at him searchingly. “Won’t you kiss me and then maybe go to bed with me naturally, the way we always do? I want you so.”

  “No. I’ve told you. I don’t want to touch you. Maybe that’ll change. Take your clothes off.”

  Peter looked at him for another hesitant moment and saw nothing recognizable in the brooding, withdrawn eyes. He dropped his own eyes as he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it aside. He kicked off his sandals and removed the rest of his clothes without lifting his eyes again and stood submissively before him.

  “You’re so damn beautiful,” Charlie said dispassionately, after a silence. His eyes were taking a purely esthetic delight in their study of the graceful, ruddily bronzed body. The loins were only slightly paler, a subtle gradation down to the patch of golden curls and the peculiarly pleasing proportions of the sex. It was very much in evidence and manly, but not obtrusively sexual, as he felt his own to be. His intense physical appeal was distributed throughout every inch of him, in the golden hair falling across the broad brow, along the line of the neck and the wide but not massive shoulders, in the gentle swell of the smoothly muscled breast, down the thrillingly flat abdomen, in the narrow, finely articulated hips and the long shapely legs. This body had been his alone for so long. Was he trying not to want it now? He made an effort to loosen and relax everything inside himself so that his responses would flow naturally. He felt that any hope for the future depended on this moment. He had taken Peter back after he had been one of New York’s most pursued and available boys. They had had another ecstatic reunion after Charlie had been through a similar period. Was fidelity an intellectual conception that the body didn’t recognize? Was it a mistake to place so much value on it? The memories that had been recurring during the day had evoked a young, vigorous intensity that he had perhaps lost in his tranquil preoccupation with Peter. Perhaps he had cut himself off too completely from new experience. In responding to Jean-Claude, perhaps Peter was demonstrating that they could find renewal only in others. A startling thought, heavy with consequences.

  When his glance returned to it, he saw that Peter’s sex was growing. It never had an ungainly or misshapen moment when it passed from quiescence to erection. It filled-out evenly in a slim, straight, ever-lengthening line until its head lifted joyously. He gazed as it happened now, to him a miracle of unprovoked response, since he was not aware of the naked, longing love in his watching eyes. He raised them to Peter’s. He felt his body jarred into life. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Thanks yourself and God bless Narcissus,” Peter said in an attempt to recapture the gaiety that had always marked their intimacy. “We’re built so much alike, you might just as well have been looking into that pool.”

  Charlie smiled faintly and shook his head. “I know all the differences. I’m just plain and solid where you’re all delicacy and beauty. Go get in bed.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Peter turned from him and obeyed. Charlie’s eyes were fixed on the exquisite curves of the shifting buttocks. Peter stretched out and his sex made a little slapping sound as it fell against his abdomen and pointed at his chest. Charlie stood without moving for another moment, studying the body spread out on the bed and waiting for him. Infidelity had broken his mastery of it. He felt a sudden, fierce lust to reassert his exclusive possession of it. Perhaps when his domination of it was once more firmly established and acknowledged, he would voluntarily abdicate—free Peter, free himself. The guidelines they had adopted for the conduct of their lives were dissolving. He felt as if he were faced with a blank canvas, blank with infinite potentialities.

  He went to the side of the bed and stood over him. Peter’s sex gave a little leap at his proximity. He lifted a hand to Charlie’s sex where it was confined in his shorts.

  “Oh, God, there it is, all huge and hard. Take me. Always. Always keep me yours.”

  Charlie looked down into his face, strained and yearning with love, and felt a little quiver of contempt (for Peter? for himself?) as he waited for the hurrying hands to remove his clothes and prepare him for the act.

  When they had showered, they hitched towels around their waists and went down and fixed themselves sandwiches. They carried them and a bottle of wine out to the shade of the vines on the terrace. Peter knew that everything was still not right; there had been no gaiety in their love-making. Charlie had taken him savagely, almost as if it were the first time. It had been curiously exciting, with the startling novelty of a seduction, but lonely. Yet he was so happy that they had got beyond that major hurdle that he was bubbling with carefully restrained high spirits. In a few days, the wretched episode would have been forgotten and their life would have returned to normal.

  “You know something?” Charlie said when they had begun to eat. “I want to get away from here. I’ve had enough of it.” Just saying it gave him an enormous sense of release. The hell with its all having been planned and paid for by Peter. “I had a long talk with the Kingsleys—” He started to say “last night,” but it made everything that had happened too immediate and he altered it to “—at the Graumonts’. I want to go with them.”

  Peter felt a slight chill at his use of the first person singular, but he knew of course that he meant them both. He wanted to ask if this decision had been influenced by the morning’s events, but decided against it. “Really? Well, if you want to, I’m all for it.”

  “I told the Kingsleys you might have to stick around here for business.”

  Was he hinting that he might go alone? Peter thought of Paris and Nice and wished he had never heard of the de Belleville deal. It might fall through if he were out of touch, but he didn’t care. “It’s practically all sewed up. I’ve forgotten—how long did they say we’d be away?”

  “About six weeks. Eight maybe. Practically the whole summer.”

  “Yes. Well, I was pretty tempted when they first mentioned it, but I thought it was out of the question because of your work.”

  “That’s the only rub. I’ve got quite a lot of things pretty well started now. If we ship them back and go right home after the cruise, I think I
can make it. I’ll have to work like a fiend but that’s all right.”

  Peter was glad he hadn’t asked if he would go without him; better not to ask too many questions for the time being. He put his hand on Charlie’s where it lay on the table. “Of course, I don’t know anything about boats except for the sailing I’ve done with you. And I have my problem about touching you. Will we have our own cabin? Will we be able to go to bed together?”

  Charlie intertwined their fingers and gave Peter’s hand a squeeze. “Probably not on the boat. But Jack says that except for—I think it’s the long haul from Sicily to the Gulf of Corinth, wherever that may be—he says we’ll be in port almost every night. It would have to be understood that we get off and go to hotels. They’re bound to want to be alone themselves.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I forget—” He started to say “that other people have sex lives,” but this put an ill-advised emphasis on sex and he ended, “well, that other people want privacy, too.”

  “It’s a shame wasting all the rent here but Jack says that we’ll spend so little on the boat that it’ll all balance out in the end.”

  “Oh, that’s just money. I want us to do what you want to do.”

  Charlie started to make a joke about how rich he was, but suppressed it. He had said enough about being kept. He was still feeling his way in this nerve-wrackingly unfamiliar situation. He didn’t want to hurt Peter needlessly now; the time might come when he would have to deliver the big irreparable blow. He was beginning to experience long moments when it seemed as inconceivable to him as it did to Peter that they could ever part, but having seriously faced the possibility, he didn’t see how his old, blind confidence could ever be restored. Even if time proved that they could survive this crisis intact, he suspected that their relationship would have to yield to adjustments. The new nagging urge to try to free himself from it remained in him. The yachting expedition had suddenly become much more than an exciting supplement to their holiday: the promise of salvation, an opportunity for trial and testing. Communal living would enforce a sort of separation on them, create space and distance between them. Perhaps this small experiment in separation would train him for a real separation if that was where they were heading. He didn’t know; he knew only that there was no longer any question of an abrupt, immediate break. He said, “We can go see them this evening. Unless something turns up we haven’t thought about, I think we should go.”

  “That’s marvelous. Do you have any idea when they’re planning to leave?”

  “I think next week.”

  “Golly. So soon? I’d better check our dates and write some letters. I know we have a couple of things week after next, that dinner in Cannes for one. Well, yo, ho ho. Sailing to Greece. That’s fantastic. Will you teach me how to sail?”

  “Sure. We’ll all have to know how to handle the boat. It’s—well, exciting and peaceful at the same time. You’ll love it.”

  “When you look like that, I wish we were leaving tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to see if I can’t get them to start sooner. I can’t afford to waste any time.”

  Peter rose to clear the table, but first went around behind Charlie and put his hands on his bare shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “You have forgiven me, haven’t you? I’m so completely yours, it’s impossible to believe that all that awful stuff really happened. I’ve got to know you’ve forgiven me.”

  For answer, Charlie reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him on the mouth. “I love you, baby,” he said into his eyes.

  For the rest of the day, they continued to treat each other as if they were both recovering from a serious illness, careful to avoid any shock or upset. Behind his courtesy, Peter sensed a distance in Charlie, a cool, speculative withdrawal with no precedent in his long experience of his shifting moods; he simply accepted it as part of the price he would have to pay for his transgression. So long as they were together, Peter didn’t care how long it took to dispel the cloud that still hung over them.

  At sunset, they dressed in crisp white and drove to the port to announce their decision to the Kingsleys, Charlie parked on the quaiside beyond Senequier’s cafe, the social center of the town; he hoped to avoid a chance encounter with Jean-Claude. All the buildings along the waterfront were just beginning to emerge from the rubble the Germans had left behind them five years earlier. A great unsightly crane looked as if it had been abandoned near the entrance to the harbor. They left the car and strolled along the rank of moored yachts, sleek racing sloops, more imposing yawls and ketches and schooners, big, luxury motor cruisers, looking for the Kingsleys. They found the boat hidden beyond a miniature liner with a smokestack. The deck was deserted.

  She was a sixty-foot double-ended yawl, with a black hull and teak decks, called Cassandra, to remind them, Jack had explained rather heavy-handedly, to pay attention to any warnings she might issue. There was nothing sleek about her, she sat solid and broad in the water. The bowsprit gave her a rakish, piratical look. Charlie had liked the look of her when he had first seen her.

  Peter had paid little attention to the boat before, but now, thinking of the next six or eight weeks, he thought she looked rather small. They stood at the foot of the gangplank, and Charlie called out, “Ahoy, Cassandra.” In a moment, Jack Kingsley’s head bobbed up in the open hatch. When he saw who it was, he climbed nimbly out on deck.

  “Is this the boat that’s going to Greece?” Charlie asked. “Are you looking for a crew?”

  Jack laughed. “Come on aboard. You make a devilishly handsome crew. And stylish too. I’m afraid the old tub can’t live up to you.” They all met on the narrow stern with a good deal of laughter and backslapping. “You really mean it?” Jack asked. “We’ve finally won you over?”

  “We’d better go over the details again but I think we can work it,” Charlie said. “We definitely want to. Right, Pete?”

  Peter agreed, pleased at being consulted, pleased with the diminutive even though it was Charlie’s usual signal that they must assume the protective coloration of the straight world and beware endearments.

  “Well, this calls for drinks for all hands,” Jack exclaimed. He was looking very much the seafaring man, wearing only jeans cut down to shorts, frayed around the bottoms. His body was hard and trim, with a furring of gray hair on his chest. He waved a hand around him. “Watch the varnish. She’s pretty nearly ready to go. Hey, Marty.”

  Martha appeared in the companionway wearing a crisp, blue cotton dress and stepped out on deck beaming at them. “I don’t believe it. What a glorious surprise. Are you really coming with us? “They all talked at once for a few minutes and then the three men settled into the roomy cockpit while Martha went below for drinks.

  “I know neither of you will regret this,” Jack said. “It certainly solves a big problem for us. You can’t take just anybody on a trip like this. You two guys obviously get along well together. I’m really delighted.”

  “She must be beautiful under sail,” Charlie said. “She’s much bigger than anything I’ve handled.”

  “With all your experience, you’ll probably handle her better than I do. I’ve read all the books, but I don’t kid myself. There’s no substitute for growing up with it. I’ve had people out on her who can turn her into a racer. Peter and I will crew for you.” He slapped Peter’s knee. “What say, mate?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” They all laughed at nothing in particular. Martha’s head appeared in the hatch with a tray bearing ice and glasses and a bottle of pastis. Charlie sprang forward to help her. She smiled her thanks up at him. While Jack poured drinks, she took Charlie’s hand and looked him directly in the eye.

  “I can’t tell you how pleased I am. I think we’re going to have a glorious time.”

  “I don’t see how we can help it.” He smiled at her, liking the look of her. He was reminded of some Dutch painter, he couldn’t remember which one, but one of them had done women with Martha’s very feminine but no-nonsense quality. Her
heavy, fair hair, her direct blue eyes, her round cheeks, her pretty, easily smiling lips, her trim but ample body all evoked some earlier, more disciplined era. He wondered if Anne was still expecting him. Anne had reminded him of his wife—skinny little strings of girls, both of them. Martha was a full-blown woman, competent and self-contained; he felt again that he could be friends with her without fear of misunderstanding. The way she looked him in the eye and held his hand communicated only outgoing, uncomplicated good feeling.

  Glasses were handed around. They all lifted them to each other. “Happy sailing,” Martha said. Peter and Charlie exchanged a look that registered the felicitous moment. Jack rattled his glass.

  “I hope you won’t expect all these frills at sea. I understand ice is a problem in Greece. Not much yachting in those waters since the war.”

  “Haven’t they been having a revolution or something?” Peter asked. A rich Greek client had said something to him about it.

  “There was some sort of trouble, as I remember,” Jack confirmed. “That was a couple of years ago.”

  “I should think the most important thing is to decide when we want to leave,” Martha put in. “When will we be ready, darling?”

  Jack scratched a graying temple. “Under a week. Say by Monday. I don’t want to take up any of Charlie’s painting time, but if Peter could help with some of the chores, we could make it even quicker.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Charlie said. “I only need a day to finish up some things I want to get done. The sooner we go the better, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t you agree, Pete?”

  “Absolutely.”

  It was decided that they would leave no later than Saturday. They moved on to other matters—supplies, how expenses would be shared (the Kingsleys would be responsible for fuel, harbor charges would be split between them and so forth), the route they would follow. When questions of sailing and navigation were touched on, Peter dropped out of the conversation and observed with delight the transformation that had taken place in Charlie: his eyes were bright, his expression eager and interested, he was completely himself again. Peter was deeply grateful for the miracle; Charlie had known what he wanted and had said so without wasting time with regrets for the rented house. The house had been a mistake. If Peter had known they were going to find such a blatantly queer community, he would have chosen some other place. He could sense the potential of boredom in this nice, straight couple, but better that than the hazards he had allowed to ensnare him.