One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (41 page)

“Can you really come like that?”

“I could.”

“Do it. I want to see.”

“You really want me to? You don’t think it’s shameless of me? Letting you watch and all?”

“What’s wrong with being shameless? It’s exciting to see you doing things with my cock.” He put his arms around her shoulders and leaned his head against hers as she gripped his sex and began to move it firmly within her. Her breath quickened.

“Oh, yes,” she gasped. “This is what I’ve always wanted and not known it. Holding a great hard cock and doing this with it. Oh, God. Just this much of you feels huge inside me. Let me do this.”

“I sure will. I’ll be ready to come with you.”

“Not yet. Wait. Please.”

“Don’t worry. I’m doing fine.”

She continued the movement while he stroked her back and breasts and thighs. She was panting and moaning. “Oh, yes. Yes,” she cried at last. She let go of his sex and gripped his waist and pulled herself to him, taking all of him into her. He put his hands behind him and propped himself on his arms and threw his head back and lifted his hips. He gave a shout as he felt himself exploding deep within her. She made incoherent sounds of satisfaction as she fell against his chest, her arms clinging to him as she bore down on his sex, driving it deeper into her as he rocked with the spasm of his orgasm. After a few minutes, he eased her back so that she was sitting on the deck once more.

“We do have fun,” he said with a chuckle.

“Was it good for you?”

“God, yes, considering we made it up on the spur of the moment.” His sex slowly slipped from her and lay on the deck. He reached for a towel and started to wipe it. She took the towel and did it for him.

“I hope you don’t expect me to be ladylike and hide how crazy I am for this. I still can’t believe you’re letting me hold it, that it’s all swollen like this for me, that it’s getting softer because it’s just filled me with you. I want to sit so I don’t lose what you’ve just given me.” She tossed the towel aside and lifted her legs from his thighs and folded them under her and sat between his outspread legs. One hand continued to caress his sex, keeping it extended and partially erect.

“I’m going to have to go pretty soon,” he said. “I’ve been thinking a lot. There’s so much we have to talk about.”

“Are you going to tell me you’re queer again? It’s not very convincing after the way you make love to me.”

“Oh, I’m probably bisexual. I think most people are if they’re relaxed about it. That’s one of the things I want you to understand. About me and Peter. Under different circumstances I suppose I might have had an affair with him and then gone on and had a family and all the rest of it. That’s the way I thought it was going to be when it started. We had to make so many sacrifices to have it the way we both wanted it. Complete and good. The most important person in my life was my grandmother before Peter. This can’t be very interesting for you, but it’s important. When we decided we really wanted to live together, that was the end of her. Disinherited and the lot. His family. My family. Friends we had to cut because they wouldn’t understand. The lying and deception to make it easier for people we had to work with. When you’re an outcast, you hang on to whatever good you have in life. Talk about bonds of steel. Even if we didn’t love being together, we’d probably hang on just to convince ourselves that it had all been worth it. My life in a nutshell. I want you to tell me about you. What about being married to Jack?”

“What about it?”

“I’m serious. I want to know. You’ve been together about as long as Peter and I. It must mean something to you.”

“No. Nothing. Not for a long time. When he bought this boat, I told him I couldn’t go on living with him. He doesn’t care. I’ve stayed on the way people do, waiting for something to happen that would force me to decide. I’m glad I did. I’ve been marvelously happy with you on board, so it’s not just the boat. When you go, I’ll hate it more than ever. I’ll go, too. Home probably. To my parents in Rhode Island, maybe, if I’m pregnant. I know I am. Money’s no problem, thank heavens.”

“Then what?”

“A divorce, of course. I’ve never known how to do anything, so I doubt if I’ll get a job. I’ll jog along. With a baby, I’ll be happier than I have been for years.”

She was so utterly undemanding. It was the quality in her that made him feel that almost anything was possible. “You’re sure you know what you’re saying? It might be pretty important. It’s really finished with Jack? Regardless of this, you’ve been planning to clear out?”

“Of course. Couldn’t you tell? If we didn’t have to get through this cruise together, I’d tell him today. As you say, I don’t particularly want him to catch us in the act, but I’m not even sure of that. I’d like him to see what a man should look like.” His sex responded in her hand and she began to stroke it more insistently. She knew her worship of it was the only hold she had over him, but he was opening out the situation much sooner than she had dared hope. His interest in her future, the hint that he wanted her to be free, it was all leading up to something. She chose her words carefully so as not to frighten him off.

“You’ve always been so sweet to me, much more than men who’ve said they love me. Will you want to know the baby?”

“God, yes. I’ve always wanted one, but my wife wouldn’t hear of it. Peter would adore a baby of mine. He’s always wanted me to have one, but it’s got to be his, too. I want it to be ours.” As he spoke, his sex surged out in her hand and hardened more. He laughed. “That’s what we get for being naked. No secrets. Now you know how exciting that sounds to me.”

“I don’t understand. What’s exciting?”

“I want Peter to have you. Now. Soon. So we won’t know who the father is.”

She stared at him, immediate shock banishing thought. “You really
are
mad,” she said.

“No. Don’t you understand? We’re practically the same person. I’d be much more yours when you’ve had him. He’s part of me. He’d make you more mine. I want him to make you pregnant with me.”

She became aware that his sex was standing erect in her hand. She watched it lift imperiously as she ran her fingers over it and knew that it commanded her. “It’s too late,” she said. “All night, I could feel you growing inside me. I can tell something’s happened. You’ve made me too completely yours. I can’t even imagine anybody else.”

“But that’s what I’m telling you. It won’t be anybody else. It’ll be all three of us together. He’d never do it unless I’m there. You’ll see. It really will be complete. As soon as we get to Mykonos, we’ll arrange something. We can’t do anything on the boat. I can’t even talk to Peter while we’re all cooped up together. When will you know?”

“About the baby? My period’s due in eight or nine days. I’ll know before that. Things begin to happen to me. They won’t this time.”

“That’s plenty of time for Peter.”

“Why do you think he’ll want it? He’s never given the slightest sign of it.”

“He’s never had a girl. I think he’s beginning to want one, without even knowing it. You’ll make him love it and you’ll love it, too. He’s so beautiful. I love the way his body works. I can’t wait to see him with you.”

She knew she had no choice. She could only evaluate the risks and be prepared to seize whatever advantages were offered her. Sharing herself with Peter might dissolve whatever slight possessiveness he might feel for her, permit him to disassociate himself from her completely. Yet she couldn’t understand his giving her his lover unless he too wanted to be free. If he wished to use her as the instrument to break the bond between them, she would willingly submit. He would be free for her. “Do you think you’ll still have sex with Peter after all this?” she asked, careful to make it sound as if it was of no great matter to her.

“Of course,” he said for the record, but he wasn’t sure of anything. He had always stubbornly insisted to himself that their “unnatural” love was perfectly natural, but it seemed to him at last that the label was applicable, not to the feeling they had for each other but to the acts with which they expressed it. They were endlessly repetitious, leading to nothing. Martha had introduced him to the reproductive rhythm of life, with all its shifts, its promises, its surprises. Her menstrual period had suddenly become a matter of intense interest to him. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said, putting his hand on hers as it moved up and down on his sex. “None of us do. First, we’ve got to know if you’re pregnant. I wish the child didn’t have to have Jack’s name. Maybe you should come live near us. Who knows? I’m thinking of lots of possibilities. Can you feel what it’s doing to me? We’d better stop this. We don’t have time for more. I told Peter an hour.”

He dropped his hand but hers gripped him more purposefully. “Let me do it like this. I want to see what it looks like when you come.”

“Really? Good lord. If you go on like that, it’ll only take a second.” His head fell back and he closed his eyes and she took possession of him. This sterile act had significance when performed by the mother of his child. Her interest was legitimate. There was no reason why she shouldn’t become part of their lives. Some arrangement could be worked out. One of them might even marry her and they could have more children. A child wholly Peter’s. The thought of it brought him immediately to orgasm. His hips lurched up from the deck with the spasms and he felt himself jetting into the air. She continued to stroke him until he began to subside and then he felt the towel on him again. He lifted his head and looked at her.

“You’re magnificent, like an erupting volcano,” she said. “I know what happens now when you’re inside me. No wonder I’m pregnant. It comes shooting out of you. I won’t do it again. It’s such a waste. But I have to see everything about you.”

“My bag of tricks is pretty limited. That’s about it.” He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Off to join the archaeologists. No more of this till Mykonos. We’ve got to keep Jack out of it till you know. After that, it’s up to you.” He rose and left her.

He found Jack and Peter digging about near the statues Peter had mentioned. Their eyes glittered with acquisitiveness.

“Look what I’ve found already,” Peter said, holding out an exquisitely carved bird’s head, a swan or a goose or a wild duck. “I know it’s awful to take things like this. It might be the missing link that’ll give the key to a whole epoch, and all that. But if I don’t take it, somebody else will. I don’t see why they don’t do something about it. Look what Jack’s found.”

Jack had dug clear a portion of a carved slab with a frieze of animals. It was too big to move. “Trust an art dealer to find something he can put in his pocket,” he said.

Peter conducted Charlie all over the wide hillside site with a proprietary air. Charlie felt the magic in it. The wind roared among the ruined walls. The great seas crashed against nearby islands. The light lay in the air like gold. It was all luminous and windswept and as old as time. He had to make an effort to speak above a whisper. Peter led him down to the row of eerie lions and the great smashed phallus. Vanished gods. He felt the melancholy of loss. He reached out and took Peter’s hand. After a moment, Peter started to pull away.

“Hey, this is Greece,” Charlie said, holding him. “This is Delos. Men can hold hands here.”

“I was thinking of Jack.”

“Who cares about Jack?” They strolled on hand-in-hand.

Charlie took Peter’s hand again when the three of them were returning to the boat for lunch. It amused him that Jack was probably thinking “Faggot!” about the man who had just fucked his wife.

Later in the afternoon, Jack proposed that they should all show Martha the site. Charlie glanced meaningfully at Peter and said he would stay on board.

“I might as well stay with Charlie,” Peter said.

They watched the couple walk up the beach and drop from sight on the other side of the ridge. They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.

“Were you thinking what I was?” Peter asked.

“What else? Listen, baby, I know you’re having a good time here, but is it all right if we try to get away tonight? Time is passing. We’ve been out almost a month.”

“Is that all? It seems more like a year. Sure, let’s go. I thought we were waiting for the wind to die.”

“That might take a year. If we get that lull before dawn, we can make it to Mykonos in no time. We still have a lot to see.”

“Fine with me. Now about that other matter I had in mind.”

“A quick swim and then let’s get at it, mate.”

They dropped their shorts on the deck and dived over the side. Charlie wanted to keep their sex life constant so that when he told Peter about Martha he wouldn’t think that she had intruded on them in any way. He couldn’t take Peter as he had taken Martha, but after his wholly masculine experience with her the thought of reverting to the feminine role he had recently assumed with Peter intrigued and excited him. Peculiar, certainly. Mad, perhaps? He hoped it would all emerge into the coherent plan that seemed at times within his grasp.

When he suggested over drinks that they should make another try for Mykonos early the next morning, Martha’s eyes widened and she glanced quickly at Peter before her regard returned questioningly to Charlie. Had he told Peter? He shook his head slightly. They all agreed to his suggestion.

He and Peter stayed on deck through the night, sleeping fitfully while Charlie kept an eye on the weather. He watched as the pattern he had already noted repeated itself. The quiet hour before dawn came. He leaned over and gently roused Peter.