The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “Like standing there all gorgeous and naked in front of me?” They looked at each other and laughed. “If you still feel like fucking somebody, I have a suggestion to make.”

  “No, darling. Please. The other way around. Make me yours. I need it.”

  “There’s no law against doing it both ways. You first. I want what your boy didn’t get.” He watched the quick lift of Peter’s sex as he approached the bed.

  They slept late and dressed hurriedly and gulped down some coffee, feeling like naughty children for not having reported back to the Kingsleys sooner. As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. They found Martha and Jack looking relaxed and content.

  “It’s been dead calm so far,” Jack said. “Something seems to be stirring now. Do you want another night here or shall we go on if we get a bit of breeze?”

  Charlie questioned Peter with his eyes. Peter shook his head. “We had a fabulous night. We’ll tell you all about it. I don’t see much sense in doing it again. Let’s go.” He was thinking primarily of Dimitri. He didn’t want to go on teasing the boy. If they stayed, they would surely see him again.

  “Right you are. There’s an island called Hydra that people say is worth seeing. It’s only a couple of hours away. Let’s have some lunch and see if it looks as if we can make it for tonight.”

  Charlie looked at the sky and felt the air against his skin. “I don’t think we’ll get anything much, Jack. Maybe enough to get us part of the way.”

  “Well, that’s all right. It’s close enough so I don’t mind falling back on the motor if we have to.”

  “We’re getting to be regular tourists,” Charlie said to Martha with a laugh.

  “You must tell me about your night. We saw you go by with swarms of young men.”

  “The segregation of the sexes. It’s amazing. I haven’t seen a single pretty girl. You’re a lovely novelty.”

  Martha laughed and looked prettily flustered as she put a hand on his arm.

  They reached Hydra in early evening after having spent most of the afternoon wondering if they were going in the right direction. Even Jack began to question his chart readings. The island had been partly visible from the time they left Poros and when they cleared a point of the Peloponnesus, all of it was stretched out before them, a long, high barrier of land with no sign of a town. They could see only a few big white buildings on high ground, which they identified as monasteries. They had a southwesterly breeze again so they couldn’t follow the southwesterly course Jack had given them but fell off toward the eastern end of the island. They had a rather lethargic sail while Charlie and Peter and Martha chatted about Poros and drank cold beer in the cockpit.

  “Why don’t you go forward and get some sun all over?” Charlie suggested impulsively to Martha. He had finally said it. If he was ever to know her naked body, he wanted it without the white patches. “It’s silly to have all those strap marks. We’ll give you fair warning if we have to come up for anything.”

  “What a good idea,” she said. They looked at each other and he let his eyes be held. Hers were full of questions, primarily searching for the answer to whether she had finally stirred him physically. He allowed his eyes to answer with a cautious affirmative. He had taken another step toward what was becoming perhaps an inevitable confrontation. A joyful acquiescence lighted her face as she rose obediently and did as she was told.

  As the afternoon waned, Jack turned on the motor and headed them for where he insisted the town must be. “We’re bound to be to the east of it,” he asserted, as if to convince himself. “We’ll just follow the coast and we can’t miss it.”

  Slowly, it revealed itself, first in a big house set on a high promontory, then in what appeared to be a ruined fort and small light-tower on a headland opposite. They rounded a point and within minutes the whole town was before them, a perfect amphitheater descending in tiers to the still circle of the small harbor. The upper tiers were streaked with ochre and showed other signs of ruin; only the lower town was whitewashed and looked intact. There were a few unexpected Italianate stone mansions down around the port. They motored in and were enclosed by the twin promontories and moored against the quai in the middle of town. Bulky, gaily painted caiques were tied up here and there.

  “This really is turning into an adventure,” Charlie said as he and Peter were preparing to go ashore. “Coming into port in the evening, not knowing what to expect.”

  “Every place is so different. Poros already seems long ago.”

  When they went up on deck, their welcoming committee was still gathered at the foot of the gangplank, a knot of children and young men. Jack and Martha were having their martinis.

  “Aren’t you going to have a drink?” she asked.

  “We’ll go check the hotel situation and come back,” Charlie said. They descended the gangplank and welcoming youths fell into step around them. They were led to an old man sitting in front of a cafe who spoke atrocious English. He plied them with ouzo and told them about his life in the United States while the youths stood around and watched. At last, the old man spoke peremptorily in Greek and they were all allowed to proceed to the hotel, again a big, converted private house a few dozen yards behind the huddle of buildings around the port and set under a vast magnolia tree. The town rose steeply around it. When they had washed, they found the youths waiting for them under the magnolia tree. They had been joined by a weedy figure with a droopy moustache who introduced himself as Will Barstowe. He was very English. When Charlie and Peter said their names, he was visibly impressed.

  “Of course. I know of you. Mutual friends, I dare say. How extraordinary. I’m a painter too, after a fashion.” He released a torrent of Greek and the youths dispersed. “I told them they could come stare at you later. The town will be en fête tonight.”

  They wandered back toward the port, dropping conversational bits of information about themselves. It turned out that Barstowe had been living in Poros for some time and was in Hydra only for a visit. Costa was his friend. The way he said it left no doubt as to his meaning.

  “Tell us about everything,” Peter demanded, fascinated by this congenial world they were discovering. “How does it work? I mean, where do the children come from?”

  “Oh, they all get married. Costa’s wife has already been picked out for him. I’ll doubtless help them set up housekeeping. Some of them continue their amorous romps with boys afterward, some of them don’t. Nobody pays any attention. It’s all pretty much as it was in classical days, I should think. Do you know if there was a lovely lad called Dimitri with you last night?”

  Charlie laughed. “He was, indeed. He fell in love with Peter.”

  “I’m not surprised. I’ve watched him develop. He’s just begun to join in manly sport. I rather suspect he might turn out to be queer in the way we mean. Very few of them are. Quite utterly dreary in bed, actually.”

  Reminded of his amorous assault in the Gulf of Corinth, Peter told Will Barstowe the story, still seeking enlightenment.

  “Ah, yes. Well, you see, the civil war left behind a certain number of dissidents,” the Englishman explained. “A few still roam the more remote districts. They’re usually armed. Their Marxist principles are easily adapted to simple banditry. And most Greeks regard male foreigners as fair game, in any event. I’m afraid rather a lot of us have been more than cooperative. They were probably most astonished when you resisted. A bit of robbery. A bit of buggery. It keeps the revolutionary spirit alive.”

  They all laughed and Charlie and Peter invited him to the boat for drinks and introduced him to the Kingsleys. He was full of local lore about the days when Hydra had been a great sea power during the Napoleonic wars. He entertained them while they sat in the cockpit and watched laden donkeys tiptoe past the gangplank on dainty feet.

  “I know!” Peter exclaimed suddenly. “The quiet. I haven’t heard a car since we’ve been here.”

  “Good heavens, no. No roads, you know. Nothing but steps. No elect
ricity worth speaking of. It’ll come on in a while and stay on till midnight. No telephones. A boat comes from Athens from time to time with mail. This is real Greece. Ah. Just as I expected. The foreign colony will now make a subtle play to be invited on board.”

  “Invite them, by all means,” Jack said.

  The foreign colony was embryonic, at best: a young Hungarian woman with an Italian lover who had recently bought a house, an English couple who were renting one for the summer. Their subtle play consisted of pausing at the gangplank and waving at Will Barstowe.

  They were invited aboard. The foursome on the boat became, for the first time since they had been together, social entities instead of a working team. Martha kept a hand on Charlie’s arm and referred all questions about the trip to him. Jack flirted with the Hungarian. Peter charmed everybody. When the sun had set and a few dim lights had come on along the port, they all went ashore and a few paces up a side street to where some tables had been set out on the cobbles. They were served some very bad food and worse retsina. Peter paid. In time, the foreign colony drifted off, except for Will Barstowe.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Jack said. “That English couple asked us for drinks tomorrow. I’ve got some odds and ends I want to get done on the motor. Why don’t we stay here another day and then really get cracking?”

  They left it at that and the Kingsleys went back to the boat. Barstowe led Peter and Charlie up another side street to a big bare taverna that already looked familiar to them. The clientele was similar to the night before except that there were many fewer of them and none to compare to Costa or Dimitri. The atmosphere of male camaraderie was the same, as were the sexual undertones. Their entrance caused a stir and they quickly had a group around their table. With Barstowe as an interpreter, they were able to really learn some Greek. Peter was becoming adept at stringing words together and completing the meaning with his hands. Boys danced what appeared to be the same dances. They drank too much retsina and slept late again the next morning.

  When they returned to the port, they felt as if they had been living there for days. The town was so small and so sparsely populated that they kept waving and smiling at people from the night before, both local youths and foreign colony. It was like living in a large open-air club. Martha joined them and took Charlie’s hand and suggested a swim. Peter fetched their trunks and towels from the boat and they started around the port. Will Barstowe joined them and told them where to go. He pointed out a great, crumbling stone pile of a house on the opposite arm of the harbor and told them it was for sale for two hundred dollars. Peter wanted to buy it on the spot.

  Charlie laughed. “What in the world would we do with it?”

  “What difference does it make? I want it.”

  “We’ve just started our cruise. We may find houses all over the place. We can’t buy them all.”

  “I love it here. Two hundred dollars, for God’s sake.”

  Barstowe settled the question by pointing out that the owner was in Athens and the sale could hardly be completed by next morning.

  “All right. At the end of the trip. If we haven’t found anything else. Promise?”

  “Promise,” Charlie agreed. Barstowe wrote down the owner’s name and address.

  A northerly wind was rising, whipping up the sea outside. They swam off rocks. They ate. They slept. They climbed steep steps to have drinks with the English couple and sat on a magnificent terrace overlooking the town and the sea. Peter kept talking about the great pile of masonry on the other side of the port. “The sunset must be glorious from over there,” he said. And, “It’s not as high as this house. Not so much of a climb.”

  Charlie was aware that Martha was always at his side. He felt quite differently about her on land than on the boat; she seemed much more a part of real life. From this perspective, he was struck by how completely she had cut herself off from Jack since the start of the trip. All her points of reference were to Charlie. She was making them a couple. He was sure it must be noticeable to everyone. It was very agreeable to turn to this sweet, pretty young woman and find her eyes on him, ready to agree with him, eager to show him off in his best light to anyone they were talking to. The pleasant warmth she stirred in him became at times a surge of genuine desire. If the looks she gave him meant anything, she would probably make him a memorable bed partner.

  He and Peter wandered around town after dinner with Will Barstowe and parted from him like old friends and went to bed early. They were up not long after dawn. The northerly wind was already picking up when they went down to the boat.

  “Looks as if we’re going to get a blow,” Jack said as they came aboard.

  “Yeah. We’ll get the old tub moving,” Charlie agreed with an eager light in his eye. A group of idlers gathered as they pulled in the gangplank and they all smiled and waved back and forth as they motored out of the port. The sea pitched them about as they struggled with the sails. Peter came running aft and helped Charlie trim the sheets as the bow lifted and bit into the sea. They looked back and had one last glimpse of the great amphitheater shining in the morning sun.

  “We’ve got to come back here,” Peter said.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Maybe we’ll have time at the end.”

  The wind grew stronger and rolled up big seas as they progressed. It was on the quarter, which gave them a clear reach to their destination, Mykonos, with a stopover in Siros that night. With all sails set, Charlie and Peter pushed the boat like a racer, heeling over and sending spray flying across the deck. They made good speed. By midday, they were approaching the islands of Kea and Kithnos, which formed a sort of portal to the Cyclades and between which they would pass. They had accomplished a bit better than half the day’s run to Siros. The sea was piling higher, battering them and knocking them over on their side.

  “What happens if it gets worse?” Peter asked. He had to raise his voice to carry over the roar of the wind and the crash of sea.

  “It’s beginning to kill our way. I’ve been thinking of getting the jib down, but then we’d really stop. The pilot book says there’s a current running against us between these islands. You see those rollers? I wonder.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “Good lord, no. It’s a goddamn bore. This nutty sea. You don’t know what it’s going to do from one minute to the next. You better get the master of the charts.” The land ahead of them was beginning to have an appeal even for Charlie.

  Peter scuttled across the deck to the companionway, one knee crooked oddly to compensate for the slant of the deck. Jack appeared with Peter following. They careened into the cockpit.

  “We’re going to have a hell of a time getting through here,” Charlie shouted. “Is there any shelter on this side?”

  Jack pointed to the southern tip of Kithnos. “It looks good. I didn’t want to butt in. There won’t be any hotels.”

  “Don’t let’s get an obsession about hotels. I’m ready to pack it in.” He turned to Peter. “OK, Slugger. Let’s ease the sheets. We’re going to fly. Keep clear, Jack.” Charlie pulled the helm over and they fell off the wind as he and Peter played out the sheets. Cassandra rose and raced in a long slide down the slope of a wave. Charlie grappled with the wheel. “Hell and damn. Whenever I give in, I always wish I hadn’t. We probably could’ve battled our way through.”

  Peter laughed. “You kill me when you turn into an old salt.”

  Martha appeared, looking radiant, and joined them in the cockpit. “We’re going in? I wasn’t frightened. Honestly. I never am with you. But I can’t pretend I enjoyed the last hour. Shall I fix you some food?”

  “If you think you can on this roller-coaster. We won’t be in for an hour or more.”

  Cassandra lifted and went scudding down the side of another wave. “This is rather fun after what we’ve been doing. I think I can manage.” She waited for her moment and made a dash for the companionway. Jack was standing in it with a chart, gazing at the coast ahead. Charlie noticed ho
w she seemed to shrink as she squeezed around him to go below. Jack turned and nodded.

  “You’re about on it,” he called. “It shouldn’t be difficult to find.”

  It wasn’t. They sailed into a deep, wooded, deserted bay, passing in a matter of moments from the wild turbulence outside into still waters. The sudden peace of it was paralyzing. Charlie turned the motor on briefly to get into shallower water. The anchor chain rattled. Silence enfolded them. Charlie stretched to ease his tense muscles and became aware of the nervous hum of cicadas. A good land sound. They all joined in getting the sails down and furled. Peter jumped overboard.

  “Ohhh,” he groaned when he surfaced. “It’s bliss. Everybody in.”

  “We can still get to Mykonos tomorrow,” Charlie said to Jack. “There’s nothing special about Siros, is there?”

  “Not that I know of. We can give it a miss and go right on. It was very sporting of you to put in and not attempt the impossible. It shows consideration for the rest of us, even though you’d like to do it differently. I admire that.”

  “Thanks, Jack.” Charlie felt sorry for him. He had become so completely irrelevant. He wondered why he had been so bothered by him at the start. Charlie hung the swimming steps over the side and jumped in after Peter. Martha joined them.

  As the afternoon wore on, Charlie began to find the boat cramped and confining. When they were at sea, handling the wheel and the sheets, there seemed to be plenty of room, but now Martha filled every corner of it. It made him restless. He avoided her eye and her touch. There was something explosive in all four of them being crowded together like this. He would have to study their itinerary more closely and make sure that they didn’t leave port unless they were sure they could get to a hotel at the end of the day.