The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “I wonder.” Peter interrupted himself for a breath. He had read the signs, heard the warnings in Charlie’s voice. Above all, they must avoid confessions. He didn’t want to have it all made explicit, for Charlie’s sake more than for his own. “We both probably have things to talk about. I hope we stick to the things that matter. We can sit up there on the wall and watch the sun set.”

  The stepped street opened out just ahead of them and became a sloping path where the houses dwindled off and were scattered about in their own rocky grounds. Farther ahead of them, they could see the rambling walls of their own impressive establishment. They continued to climb the rock-strewn path in silence until they reached the low wall above the steep drop of rock where Peter had first kissed Judy. A significant landmark now, a reminder. He turned off the path toward it and Charlie automatically followed without missing a pace. They moved in complete unison. Although they stayed close together, there was no friction in the touch of their bodies, no moment of getting in each other’s way. Every move they made was synchronized by time and a long awareness of each other. It made Charlie more wretchedly conscious of the outrages he had committed and deepened his guilt.

  Peter dropped his bag and sat on the wall facing the sinking sun, his feet propped on the narrow rock formation that dropped away to the circle of the port. Charlie sat beside him, facing the opposite direction. They turned to each other and their eyes met, clear blue in cloudy purple, not seeing details but registering an ensemble that represented for both of them the sum of delight in human intercourse. Peter leaned forward and their mouths met. Their tongues strayed briefly along each other’s lips and they drew apart. It was a casual kiss of a sort they exchanged a dozen times a day, exciting nevertheless for all it implied of the physical nature of their relationship. It made even a moment’s infatuation with Jeff wrong. Peter lay a hand in Charlie’s lap and chuckled at what he felt there.

  “Everything seems to be in order,” he said.

  “Christ, don’t do that,” Charlie burst out in an accumulation of self-loathing. “You’re so damn sweet and I’m a total shit. I’m really appalled by myself.”

  Peter withdrew his hand and looked at his mate with instant concern. “Now listen. I meant what I said about sticking to what matters. If this has anything to do with Jeff, all I want to know is whether you think he’s getting over it.”

  “Why do you go on harping on Jeff?” Charlie demanded, choosing indignation to mask guilt until he knew how much he was prepared to tell. Jeff was only part of it and he could talk about the rest more easily. “I’m talking about myself. Rushing after you yesterday, taking you on the bathroom floor to prove that I could do something for you that your girl couldn’t. I thought I’d got over that sort of thing. It was disgusting.”

  “Oh, darling. No.” His voice was reproachful, but rippled with laughter. “It was absolute bliss and you know it. All right. I’ll come clean. It’s what I want to talk about. I got in pretty deep with Judy. Only for a few hours—but still. Deep enough to wonder a little if we might work her into the family somehow. By the time I realized it didn’t make any sense, she’d made it quite plain that she wouldn’t have been interested anyway. Then you arrived, and boy—I’d almost forgotten what you can do to me. It did sort of kill my ardor for Judy. I couldn’t get it up for her afterward. And I was glad, you silly shit. It was heaven feeling that I belonged so completely to you again.”

  “Jesus.” Charlie almost groaned with despair. How could he hope to recover an even keel, retreat to the safety of their carefully disciplined life if he didn’t curb once more the exhibitionistic schoolboy craving of his cock for attention? Peter seemed bent on encouraging it. He felt Jeff’s skinny young body under him, arms and legs flailing, his big cock deep within it feeling almost as big as Jeff himself, claiming the boy as his own. He took a deep breath in an effort to loosen the grip of guilt. “I’m the one that talks about keeping ourselves open to new experience, I’ve carried on about not getting so turned in on ourselves that we can’t breathe, and then when something comes along that might be important for you I do everything I can to kill it. It is disgusting.”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Peter broke in with exasperated laughter, reading his mind. After twenty years, they could still play games with each other. What had Jeff said? Something about coming forth into light, in his usual literary way. They had come forth and lived in the harsh glare of their own reality and suffered the consequences of exposure. A necessary and beneficial experience, teaching them about essentials. They could allow themselves now to play in the tempting shadows. Still, he preferred the light. “I don’t want experience. I want your cock. I know you don’t like me to talk about it, but I’ve got to. I know it’s not the biggest in the world because I’ve seen a couple that were maybe bigger, but they weren’t attached to the right guy. Yours will have to do. It’s a fact of life. Our life. Let me be mad for it if I want. It’s ridiculous to pretend it isn’t there. I should think a moment would come when you’d want to wave it at the whole world. That’s why I say Jeff doesn’t matter. I was feeling very ready yesterday to hold him and comfort him. When that starts, especially with a kid like Jeff, there’s no telling where it might end.”

  “What if it ends with my falling in love with him?”

  “Did it?”

  There was a silence of shock, shared by both of them. Peter straightened. He began to talk rapidly as if to keep up his courage. “Well, well, well. Yes, I can see you’d almost have to. Well, if taking me the way you did yesterday arouses the old hunter’s instincts, that’s a risk I’m ready to take. I’ve always suspected that’s what it was all about. When you see how wild you drive me, you must be tempted to spread it around. Your theory about my being fucked by you making me want to be fucked by every guy in town never did make much sense. If I set out to find another cock that could do what yours does to me, it would probably take the rest of——” He broke off abruptly. “I’d better shut up a minute and let you tell me.” He lifted his fists to his forehead and held them there a moment and dropped them. “If I can stand it.”

  There was a knot in Charlie’s throat that made it impossible to speak. He swallowed several times and flung his arm across Peter’s chest and found his shoulder and pulled him close. “No,” he managed in a constricted voice. He had to clear his throat before he could say more. “There’s nothing to tell. Let’s say that I got in pretty deep with him for a few hours. That’s hardly being in love. It just seemed like a good idea to mention the possibility.” He felt his mate’s body go slack against him.

  Peter exhaled a long breath. “Wow. That’s the scariest moment I’ve had in a long time. I’m glad you said it. We may yet find we can say anything to each other. I’ve wanted to talk about your cock for a long time but—oh, lord, darling, when two people want each other as much as we do, it doesn’t matter how we do it. I love taking you, but when that giant charges into me and makes me really part of you, I know the things you worry about can’t possibly happen. I’m glad you got in deep with Jeff. It proves my point. Of course, if you hadn’t worried all these years, God knows what might’ve become of us. We haven’t shut ourselves off from the world the way we might have, and sacrificed all for our guilty love. We have the family, thanks to you. Judy made me realize how special Martha is. It’s all worked better than we had any right to expect. After twenty years, I think we can safely say we’ve made it.”

  Charlie doubted if they could say anything of the sort until they had both dropped into their graves. All the same, since he had blurted out the near-truth about Jeff, something extraordinary was happening to him, growing and taking hold in him. He moved his hand along Peter’s shoulder, feeling the beloved bone and sinew under his fingers, until it reached the strong neck. He folded his hand around it and held it firmly. It aroused the fierce possessiveness that had always frightened him. He wasn’t frightened now. Mine. But yesterday he had applied the same word to anoth
er. “I guess we can say it, baby, but I don’t think we’d better. It’s tempting fate.”

  Peter smiled into his eyes. “I’m even ready to do that. You’re my fate and I want to tempt you. You were pretty clever about the girls—they’ve had a lot to do with makine me more mature. I don’t think there’ll be any more. Judy’s the only one that really mattered and it came too damn close to being rough on her. There’re not many girls who can be faced with a limp cock, and know why, and not want to spit in my face. Fortunately, she likes girls and understood, so we were able to end happily. I’m glad of that. I learned something. I’m forty, for God’s sake. I think we might almost agree that I’m grown up.”

  Charlie saw the love in his eyes flowing to him deep and strong and direct. It blinded him. He looked past him across his shoulders to the limitless expanse of dazzling sea, and waited for guilt to bite into him again and poison all his responses. He had paralyzed Peter sexually for the sake of his goddamn phallic pride. But was it only that? He had dared assert his will to keep what was his and had risked defeat. Guilt receded.

  Sitting here alone with him, detached from the world, created a sense of indestructible solidarity between them that made his habit of caution seem alien; more appropriate was the reckless courage to gamble all of himself for the man he called his mate. Jeff was part of the gamble. He had a feeling that Jeff wouldn’t need him again, but if he did, they would be here, as Charlie had promised. Us. They would deal with it. They had perhaps achieved at last an odd perilous balance in which each dominated and submitted to the other. There was the danger of conflict in it and the promise of challenges he had disciplined himself to avoid during what seemed to him now a long stagnation. If he trusted their love fearlessly, in Peter’s way, perhaps he would be rewarded with some measure of Peter’s buoyant optimism.

  He burst into laughter that startled them both. “Yeah, yeah,” he exclaimed, almost incoherently. “I can’t wait to show you. You’re going to have a new commodity to peddle. How about that? My Cock Period. If you——” His voice broke and tears started up in his eyes. The tensions of the last two days gathered and crashed in him and were dispersed. All he needed to know was that here beside him was the source of all the peace he had ever known, all the joy and simple fun, the delight and agony. He couldn’t look at Peter; he felt shy with what seemed absurdly like the dawn of love. He gave his neck a little squeeze and stood up.

  Peter picked up his bag and fell into step beside him. The sun was setting spectacularly, but neither of them noticed it. Peter was aware that Charlie was moved in some way that involved them both profoundly. Explanations might be found, but he wasn’t interested in searching for them. It was enough to know that they were as close as they had ever been, as close as two people could ever be.

  Neither of them spoke until they had pushed open the heavy front door and crossed the threshold and stood at the foot of the marble stairs that led up to the first courtyard. There, Charlie drew Peter to him and they held each other and kissed with an intensified loving excitement.

  “Thank God for you,” Charlie said as they drew apart.

  “That’s my line,” Peter said. “Still, I sort of like the way you say it. My God, there’s still so much to tell you. I haven’t even told you about Mike being arrested, have I? Wait till you hear about that. He’s in for some trouble. He’ll pull strings and worm his way out of it, but all the same—Jeff has the last laugh.”

  A small blond figure came prancing into view at the top of the stairs. “Daddy,” he shouted to the household in general. “It’s my Daddies.” Little Pete came hurtling down the stairs, a brief golden streak in space (God, how beautiful, Peter thought. And then with quick alarm: take it easy, darling), hurtling down the stairs (Oh lord, Charlie thought, his chest stretching with uncontainable love for this splinter of Peter’s magic, reproduced in gold), hurtling down the stairs to greet them.

  Jeff was found the next morning at dawn by some fishermen, his bloody and broken body impaled on a rock above the sea, his upturned eyes staring at the sky, a terrible smile on his face.

  A cursory examination of his body revealed that shortly before his death he had engaged in carnal pleasure of a sort that many spoke of as unspeakable. Animals were mentioned in whispers. Had he been pushed? Had he slipped? Had he chosen to leap? He entered into island legend, an example to sinners, as a lovelorn boy who had been driven to destroy himself by the enormity of his unnatural crimes.

  About the Author

  Gordon Merrick (1916–1988) was an actor, television writer, and journalist. Merrick was one of the first authors to write about gay themes for a mass audience. He wrote fourteen books, including the beloved Peter & Charlie Trilogy. The Lord Won’t Mind spent four months on the New York Times bestseller list in 1970. Merrick’s posthumously published novel The Good Life, coauthored with his partner, Charles G. Hulse, was a bestseller as well. Merrick died in Sri Lanka.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Lord Won’t Mind copyright © 1970 by Gordon Merrick

  One for the Gods copyright © 1971 by Charles G. Hulse, Estate of Gordon Merrick

  Forth into Light copyright © 1974 by Gordon Merrick

  Cover design by Amanda Shaffer

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-4894-1

  This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  New York, NY 10038

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