The Rebellion of Yale Marratt

by Robert H. Rimmer

  "From what I hear about your marital life I would assume that you were quite casual about sex . . ." Barbara said, ". . . and 'doing what you wish' in that area, too."

  "As a matter of fact, I am," Yale said equably. "If you would like to come out to the pool, you can show your good intentions by shedding your clothes. You can leave them upstairs. I'll wait for you. But hurry. You've interrupted a fascinating discussion about the new book that Challenge Incorporated has just published."

  "Do you think I'm crazy? I'm not walking around naked in front of a lot of people," Barbara said. "Not this chicken!"

  "Okay, you can go home." Yale started for the jeep Weeks had left. "I'll drive you back to the gate."

  Barbara's mouth sagged as she realized that Yale meant what he said.

  "All right, I'll do it," she said, thinking that if this was the only way to find out what was going on . . . well, what the hell. Wait until Liz heard about this!

  Yale told her to undress in the large bedroom, second door on the right at the top of the stairs. He was sitting on the carpeted stairway, waiting for her when she finally returned. He watched her coming slowly down the stairs. Barbara blushed. "You look pretty good for a gal of thirty-two," he said, enjoying her embarrassment.

  Barefoot, they walked over the soft grass and along a narrow pathway through the woods in the back of the house. Ahead of them Barbara could hear the sound of voices. "Listen, I'm pretty broadminded," she said nervously, "but this gives me the cold shakes."

  Yale looked at her sympathetically. "It's only for the first time . . . after that if you ever come again you can wear your clothes or not as you wish. The idea is that by arriving nude you will create a tacit bond of fellowship, and give assurance that you'll keep your mouth shut. None of us are militant nudists. We have simply discovered that sometimes being nude is very comfortable -- especially on a day as hot as this."

  They walked into a huge clearing girded by pines that cast inviting shadows over a tremendous swimming pool. Barbara guessed it was nearly a hundred feet long. At one end there were cabanas. Near them, on a patio, a number of people were sitting in beach chairs, talking excitedly. As they walked closer, Barbara realized that they were talking in different groups. Several different subjects were being discussed.

  "Cindar! Anne!" Yale shouted. "Come help me introduce my sister."

  Barbara recognized Cynthia coming toward her wearing a skirt but nothing else. Cynthia's breasts swayed as she walked. Abreast of her . . . about equal in height was a blonde girl who was completely naked. She was as darkly tanned as Yale.

  "It's nice that you have come, Bobby," Cynthia said, smiling at her. Barbara, forgetting that she, too, was naked, tried not to look at Cynthia's breasts. They seemed to stare at her; proud with their weight of milk.

  "I'm Anne," the blonde girl introduced herself. She smiled easily at Barbara. "I suppose Yale gave you the business on how you simply had to undress. He just does that to make himself comfortable. You should have told him you had your period. Clara Higgins did. You should have seen Yale blush."

  Anne and Cynthia led her toward the others. "Come on, we'll introduce you."

  Barbara was led from one group to another. She met Sam Higgins and his wife. Sam, sprawled in a beach chair, his fat stomach protruding, looking white and indecent to Barbara, leered at her. He said, "There's no doubt about you being a beauty, but where in hell did you get a brother like Yale Marratt? Jesus, I've been around plenty, but I've never spent an afternoon like this. My brains are fagged." Sam took a swallow of a drink he was holding.

  "Yale and Peoples McGroaty have been discussing the philosophy of Challenge. They are trying to get Sam as a director of the foundation," Cynthia explained. "This is Barbara Marratt, Clara. Clara is Sam's wife."

  Clara, a rather hard-looking, silver-dyed-blonde, greeted Barbara suavely. "Hi -- get Weeks to make you a drink and sit down."

  Barbara noted that Clara was wearing a Bikini type bathing suit, it occurred to Barbara that Clara looked far sexier than Anne or Cynthia, though it was obvious she had no better figure.

  "That's a good looking rear end." A voice behind Barbara startled her. "Introduce me."

  Barbara turned, blushing.

  A man in his late fifties, wearing old-fashioned steel-rimmed spectacles, stared at her, amused.

  "You're Pat Marratt's daughter." He put out his hand. "Glad to know you, I'm Harold McGroaty."

  Barbara realized that he was the famous Peoples McGroaty who was editor and owner of the Midhaven Herald .

  "After you've met the others come back here," Peoples said. "We've got a most interesting discussion going. Yale is trying to convince us that his multiple marriage is simply a by-product of a philosophy of life that believes that human beings can be the masters of their own destinies."

  Anne, who had gone over to an impromptu bar that had been set up near one of the cabanas, returned. She handed Barbara a drink. "Here's a vodka and tonic. Give you something to do with your hands. When Bob Coleman, who isn't married, looks wolfishly at you, just take a swallow and stare very coolly back at him. Come on. Bob is worth meeting." Anne introduced Coleman as the wizard architect.

  Coleman, nude and tanned, stood up. He grinned at Barbara. "Lady, do you take after your brother? If so, I want to know you better."

  Anne was right, Barbara thought, Coleman was a six-footer, and handsome. She took a swallow of her drink.

  Coleman was obviously studying her with interest.

  "Which do you like best, my breasts or my legs?" Barbara asked. She tried to return his stare just as coolly. She hoped she wasn't blushing.

  "Touché -- stabbed to the quick." Coleman chuckled. "Yale says you get used to it, but so help me if I design the most beautiful edifice in the world, it wouldn't compare to the wonder of your shoulders, and the grace of your clavicle . . . not to mention the proud curve of your breasts . . . any female's breasts, human or animal, are among the graceful wonders of the world."

  Yale walked up beside them. "He's quoting from Mat Chilling! He's not original. Don't let him fool you."

  "But damn it! I believe it," Coleman said. He handed Barbara a book from a pile of similar ones on the table. It had a brilliant orange cover. Barbara read the title. It was lettered in black: Spoken in My Manner .

  "Who is Mat Chilling?" she asked.

  "One of the wise men . . ." Yale said, shrugging. "This book is the manifesto of Challenge. In a sense, Mat Chilling is the real father of Challenge, Incorporated."

  Both Cynthia and Anne joined them. Cynthia shook her head, denying Yale's statement. "I'll tell you something, Barbara. Yale is pleased to credit this book to Mat Chilling -- but make no mistake, Mat left it in pretty crude shape. Actually, Yale and Anne and I spent nearly three months rewriting it, while we tried to keep warm in front of the kitchen fireplace . . . at the same time Bob Coleman and at least fifty men were tearing the house down around us and rebuilding it."

  "All three of you are nuts!" Coleman said. "I'll prove it to you, Barbara." He called Weeks from behind the bar. "Who wrote this book, Weeks?"

  Ralph stroked his beard. He smiled broadly. "I did. My picture is on the cover."

  "That's not your picture, Ralph." Anne laughed. "That's a background vignette of Socrates."

  "Yale said it was a picture of me. He told me that without me the hook wouldn't have been written," Weeks said affably. "Anyway, how could the three of you have written it? So far as I could figure, you've spent the last three months in bed."

  "You're a damned old Peeping Tom," Anne said calmly. Cynthia blushed.

  A short, dark man joined them and introduced himself. "I'm Harry Cohen," he said. Barbara had an impression of flashing white teeth, an aquiline nose, and very spirited brown eyes. She realized suddenly that he was naked, but was surprised to notice that her reaction of shame and dismay was fading.

  "That's my plump wife, Sarah, sitting over there talking to Auntie Agatha. We've been discussing the labor
situation in Midhaven." Harry asked Barbara if she could identify the title of the book, Spoken in My Manner . Barbara shook her head. "To tell you the truth," she said, "I don't know anything about the book . . . or anything else about my brother's mad doings." She tried to remember where she had heard Cohen's name, and then remembered, startled, that he was the union organizer with whom Pat had had so much trouble.

  Coleman took her arm. "Come on for a swim. Let me bring you up to date on this fabulous brother of yours."

  As she followed Coleman toward the pool, Barbara noticed that the others had gravitated around Aunt Agatha. The whole party and the strange bits of conversation she had heard so far were crazy . . . only partly intelligible. It reminded her of something. As she dove in the pool, delighting in the wonderful coolness of the water embracing her naked body, she remembered. She emerged from the water exploding with laughter. Coleman, swimming ahead of her, asked what was so funny.

  "I've been trying to recall what this afternoon reminds me of. It just came to me . . . it's a re-creation of the Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland . My brother is the Mad Hatter. . . ."

  Coleman swung easily onto the edge of the pool. He offered her a hand. She sat beside him, and they dangled their feet in the water in silence.

  "Is he really married to both of them?" Barbara asked.

  "What's marriage?" Coleman countered. "Was it a marriage when some minister spoke some accepted words and pronounced you and that Texan man and wife?"

  "I see you read the scandal sheets." Barbara's voice was bitter.

  "Don't get upset. There's a rule of Challenge that if you ask a serious question, you get a serious answer."

  "Look, what in hell is Challenge?" Barbara demanded.

  Coleman grinned. "Damned if I can answer you. It's a way of life, I guess. Some of the clue is in the title of that book. It's Yale's title. A quotation from Plato's dialogue, Apology . 'I would rather die,' Socrates said, 'having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live.'"

  Barbara looked at Coleman, a puzzled expression on her face.

  Coleman shrugged. "Yale would say to you, I think, that marriage is an act of faith between a man and a woman. The measure of the faith is made by the participants. No outside source, neither religious nor State, can insure a marriage or make it valid. Yale has made his act of faith with two women. He fascinates me. In him you can see . . . on a different plane, of course ... Lenin, the doer the man of action discovering the thinker, Marx. Then excitedly the doer translates the ideas of the thinker into a way of life. Mat Chilling parallels Marx with his book, of course. And, while your brother is a thinker, he is the revolutionist, too . . . the man of action."

  "I still can't believe that two women could get along. They must have moments when they are ready to tear each other's hair out."

  "I've known them for three months," Coleman said. "Of course I don't see them all the time, but I've never seen them angry. They are, all three of them, argumentative. Give them a chance, they will discuss and disagree all night long, but whenever one of them brings an argument to a point of dealing with personalities, one or the other of them will twist it into its humorous aspects. I mentioned it to Anne once. She said, 'There is only one thing of ultimate importance in the world, and that is the magnitude of our understanding, and love for each other as mortal, fallible human beings.'" Coleman was silent, thinking his own thoughts.

  "Sounds like some of those sweetness-and-light religions that appeal to old ladies," Barbara said sarcastically. "God's in his heaven, all's well with the world -- and my brother is some twentieth-century Candide. According to his theories, and the placid little harem he has accumulated, I suppose he would accept that a man like my ex-husband was just a nice little fallible mortal . . . only problem: Tom is a little stray-pussy happy, that's all. . . ."

  Coleman smiled. "According to Mat Chilling, if you really loved him you wouldn't resent that. What you might resent was that as a person he did not love you."

  "You mean so long as he professed to love me, he could love anyone else he might he attracted to?"

  "Not professed, but actually did love you."

  "Balls. Would Yale accept it, if Anne went to bed with you? Would he be all sweetness and light? I doubt it. Yet, what right has Yale to have two women?"

  Coleman shrugged. "You'll have to read Chilling's book. Actually you equate loving a person with having sexual intercourse with him. Anne loves me. I love her and Cindar. While I might be agreeable to enticing them into the sack, if I could, believe it or not they want to reserve that intimacy for Yale. But I care for them . . ." He grinned. "Just as I care for you. You are a very pretty woman."

  Barbara got up. She realized again that she was nude. She noticed that Coleman was surveying her body very carefully. She blushed and walked away, thinking how silly she must look.

  He didn't follow her. Barbara wondered what Coleman was thinking. Probably awful things. Then reluctantly she admitted that even while they were talking so calmly she had a quick picture of herself being held by him in a close sexual embrace.

  Barbara approached the rest of the group. Agatha Latham was sitting in a wicker chair with a back so high that it gave its occupant a regal appearance. The rest were sprawled on straw mats, beach chairs, or cushions in a semi-circle listening to her, as if she were holding court, and this motley, half-naked group sitting at her feet were her serfs. As Barbara sat down next to Yale, Agatha eyed her imperiously, but she kept on talking in a surprisingly strong voice.

  "I've had plenty of time to read Mat Chilling's book and think about it," Agatha said, "and I have seen your advertising plans. I just want to say, Yale Marratt, that I'm enjoying what you are doing. But I'm an old lady and my long life has convinced me that if you expect to change the world you won't do it by appealing to the better instincts of man. Your ideas are too Utopian. You have too high a faith in the goodness of individual men and man in general. Most men would rather grovel in the mud. The leaders to whom they give their utmost are the leaders with a high-sounding idea rooted in sadism. Look at what Hitler did with Nietzsche's idea of a superman. He created an Aryan world with a superiority complex. It became more fun to make lampshades out of Jews, than to accept a stranger as your brother. . . ."

  Sam Higgins burst out laughing. "That's what I've been telling Yale. He thinks he's a twentieth-century jet-propelled Jesus Christ. When this campaign breaks, there are going to be groups all over the country ready to nail him to any handy cross. Ye gods, a million dollars to promote a book . . . and such a book . . . something is bound to explode, and my guess is unpleasantly. . . ."

  "And wait until Cynthia and Anne really have a falling out," Clara interrupted. "This namby-pamby niceness of two women adoring one man, willing to share him, is a bit thick to me!" She got up and walked over to the bar to make herself another drink. "Sam may not be the best in the world but I wouldn't share him. Only a slutty woman would share her man."

  Barbara gasped at the remark. Cynthia said nothing but the expression on her face showed distaste. Sam tried to pass it off. "Clara didn't mean that, kids. She just gets too blunt when she's drinking."

  Anne got up. She followed Clara to the bar. "You think we're kind of sappy, don't you?" she asked her softly. "The kind of adjustment that you would expect Cindar or me to make, is for one of us to leave Yale. That's the brave modern solution. The trouble with most females is . . . they are little bitches like you who think the thing between their legs is an indescribable treasure. . . ." With incredible swiftness Anne snatched at Clara's bra with one hand and with the other whipped off the panties of Clara's Bikini bathing suit. "Now, baby," Anne laughed, "you look a little less like my idea of a slut."

  Screaming, Clara attacked Anne. She tried to claw her. Everyone started yelling at once. Yale moved with precision. In a second, he reached Clara . . . swept her into his arms, and ran with her to the pool. When she realized what was going to happen to her, Clara stopped screaming and yel
led, "Sam! Stop him! Stop him! He's going to drown me!" She pounded at Yale's chest. "You rotten bastard, let me down."

  At the edge of the pool, Yale smiled, and said to her softly: "You are acting disgracefully, Clara. This will cool you off a little." He tossed her in. She went under, swearing obscenely, and then came up sputtering.

  Sam patted Yale on the back. "She'd like it better if I tried to punch your nose," he said, "but damned if I don't think she deserved it."

  9

  Later, when Yale followed Cynthia and Anne upstairs to their bedroom to get dressed for an evening cook-out on the back patio, Cynthia admitted that her silence and preoccupation was due to the fact that she was worried.

  "I don't care about Clara. She had it coming to her," Cynthia said as she lifted her baby from her crib, "but I still don't think that you two can act that way and get away with it. You were both lucky that it didn't end in a free-for-all."

  Entranced, as he always was when he watched Cindar nurse Adar, Yale said nothing. Talking softly, Cynthia placed her nipple in the baby's mouth. In a second Adar was sucking happily and kneading Cynthia's breast with her tiny fingers.

  Anne lay on their huge canopied bed with Ricky noisily gurgling into his bottle beside her.

  "You worry too much, Cindar," Anne said. "Aunt Agatha was positively delighted. She told me that she was acquainted with several Belmont ladies who could benefit from a similar dunking. I think she's planning to ask you if she could invite them down here for a few weeks to stay with her," Anne grinned. She changed the subject. "You know, Yale. when I see you watch Cindar nursing and see the glazed look of awe that comes into your eyes, I get jealous. I wish I hadn't stopped nursing Ricky so soon."

  Yale jumped up. He grabbed Ricky, who had finished his bottle, and to Ricky's delight swung him around in the air. Finally, Yale plunked Ricky in his crib, and made several crazy faces while he murmured silly baby conversation at him. Then, before Anne could jump away from him, Yale grabbed her . . . rolled her over, and cracked her smartly on her bare fanny. "That's what happens to jealous women," he said, laughing. He started to tickle her until she was gasping for breath. She begged him to stop. Cynthia watched them, smiling.