"I'll introduce myself," Anne said, smiling prettily. "I believe you must be none other than the prexy of Midhaven College. Yale and Mat mentioned your name several times when we were in India."
"Really?" Doctor Tangle beamed, showing his interest.
"Yes. You remember, Yale," Anne went on, "we were discussing religion. Either you or Mat mentioned that Doctor Tangle was like so many other religious leaders, strong, upright, conscientious, able to inspire their congregations. . . ." Anne accented each word, leading the smiling and appreciative Doctor Tangle. Then she sprung the trap. ". . . but so puffed up, pompous and inflated with their own belief in their spirtuality that they hadn't had a sincerely religious thought in years."
It took Doctor Tangle a couple of seconds to shift the gears of his thinking from being flattered to this outright attack. Before he had accomplished it, Anne said, "I'm awfully pleased to know you. I'm Yale's other wife, Anne Marratt."
Yale, who was sipping his drink, started to laugh. He swallowed wrong and began to choke, helpless with his laughter. Even Cynthia who was at first horrified had to smile. Doctor Tangle's face turned a scarlet red. He stalked away muttering something about the vulgarity of today's youngsters.
"Anne, do you know what you've done!" Cynthia asked, shocked. "You've insulted one of the leaders of Midhaven society. Wait until he spreads this around."
"I don't give a damn," Anne said. "He's a pompous old ass, with his snide references to Mat. . . . Just the way he said, 'Well, that's very nice, Cynthia,' with that slippery accent on 'nice' that meant instead, 'Sister, you've had it.' He needs someone to deflate him."
Yale was delighted. Driving home, he kept reviewing the conversation, "I'm Yale's other wife . . . wonderful. The way you led him on . . ."
"Don't worry, Cindar," Anne said, breaking into Cynthia's silence. "He was so flustered he didn't even hear me say that about being Yale's other wife."
Cynthia sighed. "It isn't that I'm afraid of what we are doing. It's just that I don't think we'll get away with it."
Yale refused to be concerned. "Just what can Doctor Tangle or anyone do to us, honey? Unless either you or Anne decide that I am an evil bigamist, I fail to see how it can concern society or any particular individual. In fact it should be an article in the Challenge Creed that any action of man is acceptable so long as it does not result in harm to another human being."
Cynthia felt argumentative. She wanted to contend that Pat Marratt's idea of what "harmed" Pat might be something quite different from Yale's ideas. To Pat, a son living flagrantly with two wives might be "harmful." But it was no time to argue. They were on the long driveway to the farm. Cynthia's thoughts went forward to the coming night. She decided that the problem immediately ahead shouldn't be approached while they were arguing a philosophic point.
Ralph Weeks greeted them in the kitchen. He staggered a little when he got out of the rocking chair he had placed near the hearth of the huge fireplace. They couldn't tell whether his face was flushed from the heat of the fire or from whiskey. The odor of liquor that enveloped him was like a warm autumn smell of rotting apples.
His welcome was effusive. "Yale, it's good to have you back. House as big as this with two wenches, needs a master." He watched Anne and Yale checking the baby. "Youngster's fine, Mrs. Anne. Woke up about an hour ago and slopped up that milk faster than old Weeks could drink a glass of whiskey. Speaking of drinking, I want you to taste a recipe that goes with this house." Weeks pointed to a huge old tankard that was sitting near the edge of the fire. "Tonight in honor of your homecoming we will have my special rum flip."
They watched in awe as Weeks poured from one tankard to another a quart of boiling ale with a mixture that he claimed combined three eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and black rum. He poured the mixtures back and forth until they were creamy.
"Do we dare drink this?" Yale asked, looking warily at the mixture.
"Ain't finished yet," Weeks said, pushing him away. He took a glowing iron from the fireplace and plunged it into the tankard. It flared like a devil's brew. Grinning, he poured them each a glass.
"It's wonderful," Cynthia said, delighted. She felt the warmth spread to her toes. She finished hers first. "Pour me another."
In a few minutes they were all talking excitedly.
"First project for Challenge should be to bottle this stuff." Anne kicked off her shoes and started to dance to some imaginary music.
"First project for tonight is to take a bath," Cynthia said, slumping on an old brass bed that Weeks had put in the kitchen for them.
"You got yourself two of the cleanest women I've ever seen, Weeks said. He shook his head and started to put on an old mackinaw.
"Where are you going?" Yale demanded.
"Well," Weeks yawned. He looked like a subdued Falstaff. "That one," he pointed to Anne, "is a fresh one. She told me that she and that one . . ." he pointed to Cynthia, "was always to be addressed as Mrs. Anne or Mrs. Cynthia and I wasn't to get any ideas that I had any oats left to sow. She said that when they took a bath I could be a Peeping Tom, but I'd better do it so they didn't suspect." Weeks grinned. "Oh, she's a fresh one, I'll tell you. I might mention," he bowed toward Anne, "that I'm plenty old enough to be your father. Fact is I've got a daughter a good ten years older than you are. However, since there's no disputing with one woman, let alone two, I'm leavin'. I'll be out in the barn if you want me."
"Boy, you tamed him." Yale laughed when Weeks had gone.
"He's an old goat," Anne said. "If I hadn't clamped down on him, he'd be goosing Cindar and me every time we turned our backs on him. He told me I probably needed my bare bottom tanned."
Cynthia started to pump water at the old sink, "You should have heard how he rolled the word 'bare' around on his tongue. He was actually feeling Anne's bottom when he said it. Come on, Yale, you carry this water and put it on the stove. We have to heat gallons of it. If we don't start soon we will be all night."
Following Cynthia's and Anne's instructions, Yale pumped water into pails and big tin cans. He placed them on top of the old iron stove which was glowing red and gave off a stifling heat.
Anne dragged a large tin tub near the fireplace. Yale looked at it admiringly. "Just think, the bare bottoms of some of the founders of Connecticut probably sat in this tub."
"Pour in three pails of cold water," Cynthia commanded. "Then you add the boiling water when you're ready. You better get undressed."
"Not me," Yale protested. "I took a shower in the hotel, just before I left."
"Good," Anne said, "that means that you're the cleanest. You can go first. We'll use your water."
It took an hour to bring the water on the stove to a boil. By that time they had finished a pitcher full of Weeks' rum flips. Sitting naked in the tub, feeling wonderfully tipsy, with Anne and Cynthia kneeling alongside the tub, occasionally grabbing at him through the soapy water, Yale sang: "I'm the greatest man in Siam. Yes, I am." Every time he repeated, "Yes, I am," Anne and Cynthia chorused, "Oh, no, you ain't."
As he sang Yale wondered should they he more serious? Over and above their hilarity was the inevitable moral question: was this right or wrong? Could it degenerate into an orgy? Could they hold onto the essential wonder and dignity of their love for each other?
He got out of the tub. "Come on, it's your turn."
Embarrassed to undress in front of Yale, Anne deferred to Cynthia.
Yale dropped his towel. He stood on the hearth, feeling the heat from the fireplace on his back. He demanded that they look at him.
"Look, we are adults, I've seen you both naked. You've both seen me. Now I'm going to see you naked together. Is that bad?"
He watched them as they slowly took off their clothes. Under her dress, Anne was wearing a brassiere and a garter belt. Cynthia simply wore a bra and anklet stockings. From the hearth Yale examined them appreciatively. Blushing, Anne unhooked her garters. She took off her stockings. Cynthia undid her bra.
"Oh, I'm so horri
ble looking," Cynthia said disgustedly. She touched her belly timidly. "Honestly, Yale, undressing this way makes me feel cheap and shoddy, somehow. I look so ugly . . . when a woman looks like this she shouldn't be seen naked." She turned away from Yale's frankly curious stare. "Please stop looking at me like that. You make me feel ashamed."
Yale took her by the shoulders. He guided her to the rocking chair at the edge of the hearth. He touched her swollen belly gently. "Is it kicking?" Cynthia shook her head. She tried to hold back the tears in her eyes.
Anne had poured more hot water in the tub. She tested it with her toes. In contrast to Cynthia with her blooming body, Anne was lithe and boyish. Sitting in the tub, her face glowing from the firelight, she started to sing her own version of the "Yum-Yum, Peep-bo and Pitti-Sing's Song."
"Two little maids from school are we. Pert as schoolgirls well can be. Filled to brim with girlish glee."
"Come on, Cindar, you can sing this too."
Catching desperately at Anne's gaiety, Cynthia sang, "Two little maids from school! Everything is a source of fun."
They both stared at Yale, enjoying his sudden embarrassment.
Together they sang: "Two little maids who all unwary. Come from a ladies' seminary. Freed from its genius tutelary." Then, enjoying the innuendo in the song, they sang it again. They stopped in a gale of laughter.
Yale was delighted. Both Anne and Cindar seemed to have discovered a way of recovering themselves when they approached the brink of possible tears or misunderstanding. If all three of them could develop this ability, they would achieve a greater maturity and understanding than any of them had known before. Wasn't this a part of the challenge? For each individual to learn to reach out with his mind to the minds around him; to learn to convey, even with the weakness of words, true emotions and feelings.
"You know, Cindar, you look very lovely to me." Yale sat down on the hearth, feeling the stones cool and hard against his buttocks. "I mean it, honey. You're the first woman I've ever seen pregnant." He grinned. "I mean who wasn't wearing clothes."
"The female animal isn't very beautiful when it's carrying its litter," Cynthia said. She felt very naked and ugly. "Most psychologists think that a man and woman should be very careful about revealing themselves naked to each other. It destroys the mystery and illusion."
"It hasn't been destroyed for Yale, yet," Anne laughed as she soaped herself. "Stand up, Yale. I dare you!"
Blushing, Yale stood up. Both of the girls laughed at his rampant condition. "Wash my back," Anne said, "that will clear your mind."
Soaping Anne's back, Yale continued the discussion. "You know I disagree completely with the idea that nudity is something to be ashamed of . . . or that the half-nude is more sexually stimulating to a man. The whole false premise starts with our educational and religious systems. It seems to me that if men and women were taught to really see the human body, and to appreciate the vast wonder of it -- whatever condition it might be in -- in sickness or in health or in performing its functions -- that the amazing, inexhaustible beauty of the human body would always be exciting. I look at Cindar with her swollen belly and I am delighted. She is a woman. As a man I am awed by her fertility. I am proud of the transformation of her face and her breasts, firm and proud, ready for the milk that will come. Did you ever see Picasso's painting The Embrace? It's a gentle thing: a naked pregnant woman with her arms around her man's shoulders. Her face buried in his shoulders. You don't see reproductions of it very often -- most people think it's repulsive or dirty or something -- but to me it's the consummation of the idea that Rodin tried to embody in his statue 'The Kiss.' . . ."
"And you, Anne," Yale laughed as he cupped her breasts and gave her neck a fleeting kiss, "are soapy and delightful . . . with an impish grin. . . ." Barefoot, Yale paced the hearth, oblivious to the warmth and affection that shone on both Anne's and Cynthia's faces. "I can't seem to corner the thought, but I believe that if each man and woman were indoctrinated from childhood into an atmosphere of human idealism -- to appreciate the essential wonder of each other . . . the miracle of man and woman eating, sleeping, copulating, thinking -- even the miracle of defecating and urinating -- eventually hatred and fear would disappear. . . ." Yale stopped. He suddenly realized that he was declaiming like an orator. He had been waving his hands to emphasize his feelings.
"Hear! Hear!" Cynthia cried, clapping her hands delightedly. "Yale Marratt's Utopia . . . and he's his own press agent!"
Anne got out of the tub. She ran close to the huge fire, and started to dry herself vigorously with a towel. "You know it's kind of chilly in here despite the fire. After all, it's only March. Too early for a nudist convention." She shivered. "Okay, since neither of you seems to wish to face facts, I'll be the blunt one. I'm going to bed upstairs. Yale, you sleep down here with Cynthia."
Cynthia shook her head worriedly.
Anne said, "Look, you know we've discussed it, Cindar . . . there's only one other solution. Yale could sleep alone. That would be silly. I was with him last. It's your turn, Cindar . . . and . . ." Anne said, with mock fierceness, "you better be nice to him, because I love him, too."
Anne picked up her clothes. "I'm going upstairs to bed. Yale, you can carry Ricky up." She looked at the clock. "Good God, it's two o'clock, he'll be awake by five." Grinning at Cynthia, she picked up a flashlight. "You've got three hours before I'll be poking around down here -- warming a bottle."
Yale followed, on her heels, carrying the baby who was snuggled in his crib blankets. Stepping into the corridor was like stepping into a freezer. The damp cold air chilled their naked bodies.
"I feel like a nude Eskimo," Yale muttered. Ahead of him he could hear Anne's teeth chattering as she probed the darkness with her flashlight. He was suddenly aware of her swaying behind as she mounted the stairs ahead of him. He leaned forward and bit her lightly. She yelled.
"Couldn't help it." Yale chuckled. "Your fanny was so tantalizing I just had to."
Yale held the flashlight while Anne tucked the baby into his rocker crib. Before Anne could get in bed he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. She snuggled against him for a moment, thinking: Yale, this is crazy, I want you, too! I won't share you! But she didn't say it. Instead she smacked him lightly on his buttocks in a farewell gesture. "Okay, lover, your other woman is waiting. You are going to have to be a demon lover to keep us both satisfied."
As he left the bedroom, he heard her whisper, "I love you, darling. Good night." Poking his way slowly down the stairs, shivering a little, he wondered how long it would take Bob Coleman to get the place rebuilt.
He had forgotten to look at the plans. They must be in the kitchen. He decided to look at them with Cynthia. As he opened the kitchen door he realized that the rapid-fire thoughts he was thinking were simply a cover-up for his real feelings. He tasted the salt from Anne's tears that had brushed off on his own cheek when he kissed her. She had been crying silently in the dark . . . wanting him . . . trying to be generous . . . against every natural female impulse. He felt strangely torn . . . wanting to be with Anne and wanting to be with Cindar.
Cynthia was in the tin tub. She grinned at him. "If I am always going to be last, I'm going to make sure that you and Anne keep good and clean."
Yale poked the fire. He threw another huge log on it. The heat was so intense on the hearth, he drew away quickly. He liked the sounds of the sputtering fire, and the quiet intimacy of the shadows flickering on the ceiling and walls. A kerosene lamp glowed dully on the kitchen table. The stinging odors of kerosene mixed with the heady odor of a batch of liquor that Weeks was fermenting in a corner of the room.
Yale sat on the bed. It responded with a noisy squeak to his weight. He watched Cynthia dry herself, enjoying the movement of her breasts. They arched as she dried her back, and then hung in ripe fullness as she bent over to dry her legs. When she finished Yale pushed her gently back on the bed. Taking the towel from her, he dried between her legs. Smiling at her embarrassm
ent, he bent over and kissed her on the lower curve of her belly. He felt the baby shift in her womb. He looked at her with amazement. "It moved! I felt it."
She nodded. "I wish it were ours," she said quietly.
Yale lay down next to her. He pulled the covers over them. "Honey, it is ours. This child is ours." She kissed him on his face with hundreds of little kisses. She told him of her love for him and the loneliness and fears of the past weeks.
Her fingers reached for him and guided him. Gently, he pressed against her, liking the fullness of her stomach. She gasped, held him hard, and they were joined.
As one -- they talked. She told him about the days with Anne, and the joy of planning the house. "It is going to be a lovely house, Yale. We told Bob Coleman to bring it up to date, but not to lose its early New England charm." Yale liked the way that she included Anne in her thinking. Her conversation was studded with "Anne and I wanted this" or "We thought this would be best."
He mentioned it. "You and Anne seem to be getting along all right. No conflict, no jealousies."
Cynthia wiggled against him. "Only jealousies over you," she breathed in his ear. "Right now I'll bet she is feeling very sad and neglected."
Yale looked at her, surprised. "How do you know?"
"Because, my hungry love-bug friend, she loves you, too. No woman in her right mind would share her man with another woman."
"But she is doing it and so will you."
"Oh, God, Yale, stop talking for a minute!" Cynthia grasped him with an abandoned passion. For a long time they were lost in the ecstasy of each other's desire. Then they lay quiet, breathing heavily. Cynthia kissed him tenderly.
"To love you like that, darling," she said, "I have had to learn to love Anne, too. No, dopey. Not like a lesbian -- but with a real affection that people say is not possible between women." She was silent. "People are wrong. That's a false idea. Actually two women really in love with the same men are sharing the ultimate physical intimacy. If they make an effort they can share the even deeper emotional intimacy. I have come to care for Anne very much, Yale. I think she feels the same way about me."
The Rebellion of Yale Marratt Page 51
