An Idol for Others (11 page)

The three of them gathered at the station wagon right after the performance. Walter felt a trifle self-conscious, but their being three made it irreproachable. He put Philip in the middle and sat with his arm along his shoulders with a hand just brushing his chest. He felt Philip’s eyes on him, and he gave him a secret hug. David started the car.

As he did so, Walter’s eye was caught by a flurry of movement under the trees off to his right, the blur of something light moving.

In another moment he saw it was Clara, advancing on them like doom. Why didn’t David get moving? He didn’t want her to catch him with the “little faggot.” He felt his mouth going dry, and a tremor shook his hand as he moved his arm up on the back of the seat away from Philip. He thought of getting out to head her off, but it was too late. She was approaching rapidly. In a moment he could feel her breath on him, and she put her hand on the window frame of the car. David flicked on the light, and her face sprang up close to him, her mouth set but with a small quiver in her chin. She ignored the others’ existence; her attention was fixed on him.

“Where are you going?” she demanded in the flat, level tones of barely controlled fury.

“We’re going for a swim.” He tried not to cringe from her. Nothing had occurred between them to prepare him for this, nothing that could be interpreted as having established claims on each other. It hadn’t occurred to him to protest when she seemed to be getting very friendly with a couple of the actors. He wanted to get away from her. “Let’s go, David,” he urged.

“If you go with them, I’ll kill you,” she said, her voice hard and flat.

“Oh, God, another nut,” David said wearily. “We do get our share of them. Do you think you’d better stay with her, Walter?”

“He doesn’t need your advice, David.” Her voice began to lose pitch and develop little quavers and breaks. “He can make up his own mind.”

“But we’re just going for a swim,” he repeated. “What is all this? You’re welcome to come, but we don’t have suits. We want to cool off.”

“If you go with them, I’ll–” she began.

David cut in. “Maybe we’d better drop it, Walter. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I gather the lady disapproves of your taking a dip in the ocean. It’s a bit eccentric, but I don’t think we want to make a major issue of it.”

“Well, I do,” Walter said. “Come on, David. We’re going for a swim. Let’s go.”

“Now, let’s not be hasty. Remember Steelman. He wouldn’t want us to make each other unhappy. I think you’d better get out and soothe her shattered nerves. After all, you can’t blame her. You might’ve drowned.”

“Don’t you move just because he tells you to,” Clara commanded him. “You can make up your mind for yourself.”

“Now, listen …” He wanted to go for a swim. He wanted his fantasy to unfold. Philip’s hand was hidden on the seat between them. Fingers moved against him in a desperate plea for him to stay. He glanced at David, who gestured with his head toward Clara and turned off the motor. He wouldn’t mind so much if they didn’t go without him. He released a resentful sigh and opened the door and let himself out, sliding his arm caressingly along Philip’s shoulders to reassert his possession of him.

Clara turned on her heel and strode off. He trailed angrily after her. In a moment they were out of range of the car’s lights. He heard a motor start up, the grinding of gears, and sound fading. Had they gone off together? He hadn’t heard a door slam. He couldn’t blame David for taking what he could get. He didn’t know Philip was his. Philip was in love with him. He wouldn’t give himself to David.

He moved forward and fell into step with Clara. He was so preoccupied that he didn’t wonder immediately why he was following her. “Where are we going?” he asked absently.

“I’m going home. You can walk with me if you want.”

“Thanks. You’d better explain why you carried on like that. I don’t understand it.”

“It just makes me mad, that’s all, to see what David’s trying to do to you,” she said.

He blushed and was glad for the dark. “You must be out of your mind. David isn’t trying to do anything to me.”

“Really? Then it’s your little faggot, is it? I thought you made a big point about liking girls. If you’re queer, just say so. Lots of men in the theater are. I just can’t stand you letting him act as if he owned you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“God, you’re dumb.”

“You mean David? All his talk about … well, you know, all his joking about himself and all that. It’s just a joke.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” She uttered the monosyllables hollowly, and then inexplicably she really laughed. She doubled over as she walked, then straightened and threw her head back. “Some joke. Are you queer?”

“You mean … certainly not.” He blushed again. He still found it difficult to believe that she or any girl could know about such things, let alone talk about them.

“Well, then, I made a big fool of myself, didn’t I?” She laughed again, full-throated and not remotely apologetic.

At least she seemed to accept his denial. It emboldened him to attack. “You’d better apologize to both of them. You’re really impossible, screaming your head off and making all sorts of dirty suggestions about David and that kid and then laughing uproariously as if it were a big joke.”

“I can be awful, can’t I? Nobody else seems to mind. I’ll apologize if you think I should.”

He wasn’t inclined to be appeased by her sudden docility. By now the three of them would have been naked together–floating, touching, and playing together in intimate comradeship in the sea. As it was, he was still sweating, locked in conflict once more with Clara. It was impossible to remain indifferent to her. She strode along as if she didn’t care whether he was there or not. He felt like tripping her. The thought of her in a heap at his feet pleased him enormously. The thought of helping her up evoked different emotions–tenderness and the excitement of holding her.

“How come you turned up just when you did?” he asked.

“I was watching you. I waited until I was sure you were going off somewhere together. I was spying on you. There. Something else awful.” She sounded quite delighted with herself.

“I suppose I should be flattered you took the trouble.”

She turned her head quickly to him. He knew they were looking into each other’s eyes, although he couldn’t really see hers; her face was all shadow and odd highlights. “There’s nothing flattering about it.” Whatever was happening in her eyes, her voice made no concessions to him. “I did it to thwart David. If there’s nothing to thwart, it was a waste of time.”

Just as his walking home with her was a waste of time, he thought bitterly. They walked the last few hundred yards in silence. Fireflies winked in the shrubbery. The still, hot air throbbed with the song of frogs. He wondered if she would ask him in and whether he would accept if she did. Why bother? She had ruined his evening. If he tried to kiss her, she would laugh at him. She could never be a comrade.

When they reached the short drive leading to the garage, she stopped and faced him. Again he knew that their eyes were meeting, but he still couldn’t see into hers.

“If you’re so keen on a swim, why don’t we have one?” she asked. “It is hot.”

“I told you–I don’t have anything to wear.”

“That shouldn’t make any difference. David isn’t the only one who’d like to look at a beautiful naked man.”

“I thought you said you weren’t a tease.” He was so angry that he didn’t stop to wonder if she meant it. “I do like girls. You better believe me. If we were naked together, I’d–well, things would happen. I can promise you that.”

“You mean, you’d stand up all lovely and hard with desire? I’m dying to see a man like that Girls are curious too, you know. We talk about the most scandalous things. I have a wicked friend who says that some men are like stallions and others are so small that you can hardly feel it. Which are you?”

“Come for a swim,” he said curtly, waiting for the blow of her iron fist. “You’ll find out for yourself.” He knew there was a trick in it. She was the last person in the world to romp around naked on a beach.

There was a brief silence while he could feel, rather than see, her look deepening. Her voice had softened when she spoke. “I told you I’d let you know if I wanted more. I do. I want everything. And don’t think I’m a loose woman. As it happens, I’m a virgin.”

He didn’t know how long it took for his ears to communicate her words to his brain. He found himself standing in front of her, stupefied. He seized her and drew her a few feet into the drive in an ineffective attempt at finding privacy and took her in his arms. She clung to him and thrust her hips up against his and swayed against him. When they broke apart for breath, there was a thrill of laughter in her voice.

“You feel like a stallion. Come along. I won’t be a second. I might as well simplify matters for myself.”

“What about–you know, babies and so forth.”

“We’re going for a swim first, aren’t we? Anyway, you don’t have to worry. My mother practically invented Margaret Sanger.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he accepted her assurance. It was to be expected that the Washburns weren’t subject to the natural laws of procreation.

She found explanations demeaning; she had no intention of explaining that some games invented by naughty cousins one summer years ago at Cap Ferrat had left her with only a theoretical maidenhead, that her mother had approved of her being one of Mrs. Sanger’s guinea pigs. She led him up the exterior stairs and stopped at the door. “If you come in, we may never get to the beach. Wait here. We’ll come right back. I promise. I’m not a tease.”

He stood at the door, scarcely knowing how he had got there. All the events of the evening were wiped from his consciousness. Everything began with this moment. His mind struggled to encompass the impossible: Clara Washburn was going to give herself to him. The momentous fact enclosed him and cut him off from all other experience. In what seemed like seconds, she was back, wearing toweling cut into a robe of a sort he had never seen before. She handed him a towel and left the door open and the lights on and swept him down the stairs with her. He saw that her feet were bare except for the thongs of sandals.

They quickly reached the end of the road and were climbing dunes. They laughed and giggled together as they stumbled and fell against each other in loose sand. They reached firmer footing, and Clara set off along the sea. Small breakers rolled in toward them. The uneven segment of moon lit the beach more brightly than it had the town and drained her hair of color. Her hair was as dark as the hollows of her face, and she looked like a ghost in her robe.

“Right along here,” she said. “The houses stop in a minute. Oh, do you feel it? It’s almost cool.”

He put his arm around her waist as the going got easy and ran the other hand through the opening of her robe and found the infinitely soft skin of her breasts, punctuated with nipples that grew hard under his touch. He loosened the tie of her robe as he ran his hand down over the slight swell of belly and ruffled the pubic curls.

“Oh, Walter, dearest, wait,” she begged breathlessly. “I’ll faint. You don’t want to have to carry me.”

The endearment seemed to shatter his ears. He caught the first note in the surrender he had so often dreamed of. He lifted his hand and held first one breast and then the other in its hollow and felt the soft weight of them as they moved with her movement. They walked another few minutes, and then she stopped and moved in against him and lifted her head.

“This is far enough,” she said.

He ran his hands over her bare shoulders under the robe and pushed it from her. Their mouths opened to each other again, and his hands flew over her, and he let her feel his nails on her until she was shivering and making sounds of protest. He drew back and surveyed her as his fingers tore at buttons and cloth.

Her breasts looked fuller than he had expected, young and firm and proud. Her hips were ripe without being wide, and her long legs gave graceful support to the slight curve of belly. He threw clothes from him and stooped to disentangle his feet and stepped free and stood before her, his hands at his sides. His eyes bored into hers, intent and searching for signs of misgivings or withdrawal. She met his look for a moment, and then her eyes wavered and fell. Her lips parted with a quick intake of breath.

“Aren’t we beautiful?” she said with a touch of wonder. “Adam and Eve.” She raised a hand and ran her fingertips over his chest and down along the muscular concavity of his abdomen and held them trembling near his pubic hair. “Will anything terrible happen if I touch it? Is it very depraved of me to want to?”

“Not that I know of. I want to touch all of you. Nothing terrible will happen.”

“I was afraid I might make you come.”

He laughed, finally relaxed and carefree. The straightforward expression coming from her lips transformed her. Why had he allowed her to bully him into thinking of her as a sort of sanctified presence he must approach with awe? She was a girl who wanted her first man. He had the power to make it thrilling for her. “You’d have to touch me a lot for that to happen.” He moved her hand down to his cock and left his hand with hers to share what she was feeling. Her fingers moved timidly the length of it and grew more confident as they encircled it and moved back and touched his balls. He dropped his hand and left her in possession as it leaped up to her.

“It’s marvelous,” she said. “It’s so alive. If this were mine, I’d want to use it all the time. What makes it so hard?”

“You.”

“That’s not very scientific. Never mind. You can tell me all about it later. I want to know lots of things. You are a stallion. Are some boys even bigger?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so.”

“I doubt it. I always get the biggest and best for myself. I’m trying to imagine it later. It’s going to enter me and take me.” She spoke thoughtfully, weighing each word. She had never liked the idea of allowing any mere male to violate her body in that way; it seemed to put the woman in such a subservient position. Now, looking at this vigorous part of his beautiful body, she realized that she would be taking him while she was being taken. She felt an unexpected satisfying equality.