An Idol for Others (10 page)

“David let everybody go till 3. Do you suppose he did it for us? I mean, everybody knows about you and David. I was amazed when he actually seemed to want to hand me over to you.”

Walter tried to exempt Philip from his indignation. “What does everybody know about me and David?”

“Well, you live together, don’t you?”

“Sure. We share the same house. That’s all there is to it. You thought we were having an affair, and you still wanted this to happen with us?”

“Well, of course, if you wanted it. It wasn’t up to me. How amazing.” The angelic head lifted, emphasizing the thrilling line of chin and neck. “That’s absolutely wonderful. I’ve been wondering how we were going to go on from here. He won’t mind me being with you?”

“Why should he? It’s none of his business. That’s the way we’re going to keep it.” He gave his shoulder a pat and moved thoughtfully toward the kitchen.

Philip followed him. “I don’t understand. If that meant anything, won’t you want us to be together.”

“Here? Of course not.” Walter began to get things out of the icebox.

“How else can we be together? If there’s nothing going on between you and David, he couldn’t mind. He’s already doing it with Bill.”

“Not here, he isn’t.” Walter distractedly started to make sandwiches. “If people talk about me and David, what would it be like if there’s really something going on?”

“You mean with us? They’ll talk anyway. They can’t say anything bad. I mean, they’re all doing it themselves. They’ll be wildly envious, but that can’t hurt us. What’re you afraid of.”

Walter stiffened, a knife poised in midair. “I’m not afraid of anything. You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?”

“Not if you don’t want me to, but they’ll know. It’ll probably show, whether I like it or not Everybody will see how happy I am. No matter how hard we pretend, they’ll see we’re lovers. If that’s what we’re going to be.”

It was impossible. It would always be impossible. Walter felt threatened by the crushing weight of anonymous condemnation. The brand. He couldn’t face it. He hurriedly finished the sandwiches and poured glasses of milk. He motioned to Philip to take his and went into the small dining room and sat. Philip sat beside him. Walter avoided looking at him. “We’d better talk about this,” he began uncomfortably. “It’s obvious you can’t stay here. Is that what you were talking about? Sort of moving in?”

“I would if you wanted me to,” Philip said. “I don’t know what this means to you. It can’t be just sex. Half a dozen of the kids are a lot more sexy than I am.”

Walter put a hand out to where Philip’s was resting on the table and held it. “I hadn’t noticed. I haven’t noticed anybody but you. That’s the trouble.”

“It’s a bit new for me too. I’ve been sort of in love before, but not like this. It happened the minute I saw you. I want to live with you.”

Walter lowered his head over his sandwich and took a bite. Philip’s cultivated voice touched Walter’s ears with music. It made everything he said sound intelligent. Humor seemed to lurk beneath his impassive surface. Walter sensed in him a delicacy of spirit that matched his physique. An illusion? He was talking to a homosexual about entering into a homosexual liaison. Was he prepared to go so far? He had been kept awake half the night just wondering if he would let himself go to bed with the boy. Now that he had, nothing was resolved. He didn’t understand the rules or know even if there were any. His experience with Harry suggested that there weren’t any. In any case, there had never been any question of living with Harry. They had talked about fixing it so they could go to college together, but they had already been committed to different schools. They had been kids, with kids’ incomprehensions about tomorrow.

He pressed the hand he held and raised his head and looked at Philip. His pale hair floated around his head after the vigorous toweling he had given it. The hollows of his cheeks made him look touchingly undernourished. His enormous eyes offered himself. Walter hadn’t even known what color they were. More gray than blue, he noted. Walter’s throat tightened with a rush of tangled emotions. “I just don’t know,” he said. “Don’t expect me to be in love with you. I don’t mean I’m not fascinated by you. I obviously am. But then what? We’re too busy ever to be alone together. I can’t let you actually live here. I guess we could fix it so it would seem natural for you to stay here sometimes. Maybe I should talk to David about it. How does he manage with Bill?”

“They go down to the beach during performances. It’s different for them. I happen to know what Bill likes. Anyway, it’s just sex.”

“What if it’s just sex with me?”

“All right. But you act as if you’ll want it to happen again.”

“You all seem to know so much about each other.”

“Well, naturally. You’re the only mystery man. What about Clara? Are you really interested in her, or is she a blind?”

“A blind?”

“You know–to make people think you like girls.”

“I do like girls. There’s been only one guy–over three years ago. Now you.”

He gripped his hand and pulled him up with him as he stood. Towels dropped from them. Philip looked down at him and ran a hand lightly along him. He looked up with a smile of angelic purity and innocence.

“No wonder you’re god around here. We’ve all been guessing about this. They’d love to know. I promise not to tell,” he added carefully.

Walter ran his hand through his pale hair and dropped it to his smooth flat chest. His other hand moved over his behind. “You do fascinate me. You’re so slim and elegant. Even your cock is elegant. Mine looks indecent next to it. It seems almost indecent to want you the way I do.”

Philip laughed lightly. “I’d like to go to bed so you can be as indecent as you like. There’s nothing elegant about where I want you.”

Philip’s body vanished into his light embrace, responding to his slightest pressure, so that he felt in total control of it.

Philip closed his eyes. “Oh, darling. I’m about to come just feeling your hands on me. Oh, please. Not yet. Let me go for a minute.”

Walter withdrew his hands, and Philip dropped down onto a chair and pulled him close. Walter saw his mouth opening to receive him, and a shiver ran down his spine–an angel in thrall to the beast. He had always refused to perform this act with Harry. Was that all that separated him from the queers?

It another moment Philip rose and kissed a nipple and looked up at him. “I’d gladly go on, but I want so much what you did before. I’ll do anything you want.”

Walter put his arms around him and bent to kiss the exquisite mouth. “Let’s go upstairs where I can have all of you.” They stretched out on Walter’s narrow bed, and he gathered Philip to him with a long, voluptuous sigh of contentment. He didn’t have to be alone here again. Philip would make no demands. He simply wanted to be taken. David would have no objections.

He made a mental note to get something to replace the suntan oil while he prepared them for union. Philip lay in an inertia of surrender, making his small sounds of pleasure. What would Clara think if the “silly little faggot” moved in with him? Exactly what they would all think. Impossible.

Walter made love to him with tenderness and care. He felt none of the self-absorbed aggression he remembered with Harry. It had been a contest in which he had been barely a match for his voracious partner. His body moved on Philip’s in deep, gentle communication. He was the guardian, the protector. Was homosexual lovemaking so different from any other? He had to know and know what he was risking. He could still isolate it from life for a little while, but life had a way of taking charge. Philip had already gained a dangerous hold on him.

“It’s good, baby,” he said when he lay at rest, dwindling but still joined to his boy. The endearment came easily, and he offered it gladly. He wanted to give whatever he could find in himself to give. “It’s wonderful. I hate not knowing when we can be together again.”

“I can’t imagine not being with you all the time. Nobody’s ever made love to me like that. If that’s just sex, I’ve never known anything about sex.”

“Don’t let it get too important to you. Not yet. I just don’t know. Can we have beautiful times like this together without my hurting you?”

“You can’t hurt me unless we discover we mean something to each other. If I can be important to you, I’m willing to be hurt. I worship you, but maybe I better stop saying so. Just let me be your love.”

There was an undercurrent of melancholy in him that Walter had detected earlier. He was finding the person called Philip. He wanted to make him happy. Could Philip understand that without thinking it was more? His hands moved over him with caressing possessiveness. He took his mouth with his and kissed him until Philip was whimpering, and he had begun to stir in him again. He drew back gently. “We’ve got to go. You see what I mean? We’re together all the time, but God knows how we’ll ever be alone together.”

“If you want me, there’ll be ways.”

Walter withdrew from him and sprang up. There was no shower in the little old-fashioned bathroom so washing was a nuisance. This was the part of it he had never been quite able to accept Philip took his turn in the bathroom, and Walter remade the bed and put towels away so there would be no traces left for David to see. They dressed and went downstairs together. Walter stopped at the door and held the white-clad body close against him. Philip’s chin lifted. His great eyes looked up with peaceful adoration.

“You know, these last few weeks when we’ve been looking at each other all the time,” Walter said, “I knew we might go to bed together, but I didn’t think about what it would be like. I never thought of really liking you.”

“Just another little faggot? I know. Do you like me, darling?”

“Very much.”

“That’s the best thing you could’ve told me.”

The kissed lightly on the lips, and Walter let them out of the house. They walked together to the theater, but when they were within a few minutes of it, Walter sent Philip on ahead. It took a concentrated afternoon’s work to make him feel at ease once more in the familiar surroundings and confident that he wasn’t marked by the brand.

He frequently walked Clara home after the show, and he made a point of doing so that night, knowing that there would be no loving arms waiting to hold him when they arrived. As they were leaving the theater, he caught sight of a solitary figure in white loitering under the trees and felt as if Clara were tearing him away from something precious and necessary to him. When they reached the garage, he hesitated, considering another attempt at softening her with kisses, but she showed no signs of being receptive, and he let her close her door firmly on him.

He ran most of the way back to the theater. The figure in white had vanished. David was waiting to drive him home.

He spent another hot, restless night. He no longer thought of Harry. The feel of Philip’s body was imprinted on his hands and arms and torso, and he wanted him. He hadn’t expected it to happen again, but it had, and there was no point denying himself. He was still young, younger than Philip. When he was Philip’s age, he would have found a girl he really cared about and who cared about him, and he could start thinking about marriage. Meanwhile, he didn’t have to go around telling everybody he’d turned queer overnight. It was a question of caution and discretion. This was the last night he would let Clara come between him and the boy he wanted.

The next day was a scorcher. They were all streaming with sweat by the time the morning’s work started. Walter gave Philip assignments that kept them in frequent contact. When their eyes met, they held with desire. They no longer questioned. At a break in rehearsals, Walter gave him a look that summoned him and went outside. Philip followed, and Walter committed what seemed to him the enormous indiscretion of walking with him a few yards out under the trees.

“I almost went mad wanting you last night,” he said quietly.

“Did you? I’m glad. So did I. Do you want me tonight?”

“Yes. Is it all right if you come out for an hour or so and don’t stay all night? We could go down by the pool. Even David needn’t know.”

“I like what happens down by the pool. People saw me leaving with David yesterday. They all think he’s had me. Bill is livid. I just looked mysterious.” They laughed softly together.

“Don’t get far away from me. I can’t work if I don’t see you around.”

“Oh, darling. What an incredible thing to tell me. Maybe you’re falling in love with me.”

“We’ll talk tonight, baby.” He forced himself to turn from the elegant figure in white and congratulated himself for not having touched him. He felt as if the whole company were watching him.

As the day wore on, he grew dissatisfied with his arrangements. He didn’t want to send Philip away alone as if his body were a convenience. He wanted to keep him all night. The possibility that David might hear them at the pool made it more reasonable for him to know. He encountered David in his shirtsleeves in front of the theater before the show.

“I’ve got to put on a tie and jacket,” David complained. “We all ought to be in swimming trunks.”

“Hey, why don’t we drive down to the beach after? We might be able to cool off. The pool’s getting like soup.”

“A proposition, at last. Fine.”

“If we drive a little way out of town, we wouldn’t have to wear anything.”

“Better and better. An indecent proposition.”

“How about taking Philip with us?” Walter suggested, steeling himself for a barrage of gleeful innuendo. “We had a good talk yesterday. I like him.”

“A threesome. Why not,” David agreed briskly, for once even sparing him a leer. “He’s a toothsome morsel. We’ll dance in the moonlight at the edge of the sea, our lovely young limbs intertwined.”

Despite the facetiousness, the image stuck in Walter’s mind. It was there when he found Philip at his usher’s post and told him of the plan. His reserved expression brightened.

“With David? You suggested bringing me? That’s marvelous. Have you told him?”

“Not yet I’m sure. he’ll approve.”

Walter spun out a fantasy during the evening, the details vague but involving kisses exchanged, all three of them lying naked together, ending at home with David giving his blessing as Walter took Philip to his bed. Walter would have an adult affair with a boy and find out what if offered. He sensed a world of fraternity and comradeship opening to welcome him. He already felt a weight lifting at the thought of sharing his secret with David. If he was headed for a crisis of decision, a turning point, he might as well meet it and get it over with.