Perfect Freedom (53 page)

“Shall we give another great party for Carl?” Helene asked as dinner was drawing to a close. “The first one was the talk of the town. We'll have to think of something sensational if we expect to outdo ourselves.”

“Please. Spare me,” Carl protested. “Whenever people talk about giving a sensational party it always turns out to be fancy dress. I can never decide what I want to be.”

“We could make it fancy
un
-dress,” she suggested. “These two in nothing but loincloths the way Toni did his act—that would give people something lovely to look at. But we're half naked most of the time anyway. I hear there's a beach right out at the end they call Tahiti where people wear nothing at all. We'll have to be more original than that.”

They went on tossing fanciful ideas about. Stuart watched her slightly aloof grandeur dropping from her like discarded veils. She'd probably had an extra glass or two of wine. Her eyes sparkled. She was almost girlish. Robbie felt it when he left the table with her. She hooked her hand under his arm and pressed herself against him. He looked down at her and smiled and caught an almost flirtatious look in her eyes. Things were changing between them. He had felt it vaguely for the last few weeks but tonight it was so pronounced that it was impossible to overlook. The mother-son demarkation was getting blurred; they were becoming more aware of each other as people. He was beginning to think of her as a contemporary. The way she held him now gave him an odd little thrill that was almost sexual. It startled him. Was it possible that she was leading him to girls? He realized how comforting it would be if he could feel like this with a girl. No more deception. No more hidden lust. No more fear of discovery. He couldn't seriously hope for it but he supposed it might be a faint possibility.

“Aren't you pleased he's here?” she asked so pointedly that he wondered if she'd guessed about Carl, too. “Toni likes him, doesn't he?”

“Oh yes. He says he's like another brother.” Carl and Toni were still at table, finishing their wine. He wondered if Carl was talking about him. What could he possibly say? Carl would know how to handle it.

The two youths left their elders still drinking companionably at midnight. “I love being on vacation,” Toni said on their way up to the house. “No more asses to kiss until I'm back in Paris. Don't let me get silly about some girl, little brother. I want to be with you for the rest of the summer.” Robbie held his hand in silent happiness until they had closed their door behind them. “Shall we have some wine to put us to sleep?”

Robbie followed him to the kitchenette and watched him open a chilled bottle and fill two glasses. He moved in close to him to take his. Toni ran his fingers through his hair and held his neck. Robbie put a hand on his shoulder and looked into his great tranquil green eyes. His curls had smoothed out into waves. He looked more down-to-earth and ordinary, more farmboy than sylvan god. Robbie found the new natural Toni less glamorous and utterly endearing.

“I talked to Carl about you,” Toni said, looking at him thoughtfully. “Did you tell him anything about us?”

“I told him I'm in love with you and that you don't want me to be a
pédé
.”

“You've been to bed with him?”

“Yes. He was one of the nine or ten or whatever it is.”

“I thought so. It puzzles me. Why would he want you when he obviously wants women? I guess some men can make their own rules. He seems to think I should enjoy you while I've got you. Why does he think I'd enjoy it? That's what I don't understand.”

Robbie took a long swallow of his wine and hoped he knew how to take advantage of what Carl had tried to do for him. “Because you say you love me. He doesn't think I should pretend that you're curing me,” he said slowly. “He accepts the fact that I'm queer. He made love to me as if—well, as if I were a girl, so I guess he knows. At times, when I feel you're never going to want me, I start thinking about others. I don't want to but I can't help it.”

“Other men?”

“Yes.”

“But there haven't been any others since I've been here, have there?”

“Yes. One. He came with Pic—”

“You filthy little pig,” Toni cried. “I warned you I'd go if that happened.” He struck him hard across the face with the flat of his hand. Robbie's ears were still ringing from the blow when his glass was snatched from him and Toni's arms were around him and he was kissing him where he'd hit him. “No. Please. Oh God. I'm sorry, little brother. I didn't hurt you, did I?” He continued to murmur incoherently until Robbie kissed him in return. He held him close. “There. I love you so much that I almost wish I
were
queer. We belong together, I know that. I don't know what's happening to me. I get so wildly jealous. I can't stand thinking of Carl having you, or Edward or anybody else. I won't
let
anybody else have you. Come to bed, little brother.” Toni picked up the glasses and the bottle and gave him a little push toward the door. Robbie's heart was beating with reckless elation. Something had happened. He'd made Toni jealous. Perhaps he'd seduced him.

Toni put down the wine on the bedside table and quickly pulled off his clothes and turned to Robbie with an erection. Robbie stared at it, thrilled and amazed. Except in the sea, he had never had an erection with him without some preliminary stimulation. Toni saw the direction of his eyes.

“Yes, I want you with it,” he asserted vehemently. “I want to make you belong to me but I don't know how. Everything would be wonderful but we can't change our bodies. I won't suck your cock. I wish you didn't want to suck mine. There's nothing about your body I want.” He approached as Robbie removed the last of his clothes. “I like to look at it and touch it. I want
you.
I don't see what I can do about it.”

“Take me the way I want you to,” Robbie begged. “It won't be disgusting. Why don't you take me?”

“Because you're not a girl.” It burst out like an accusation. “I won't treat you like one or let you act like one.” He turned and flung back the bedclothes and pushed Robbie down. He fell beside him and gathered him into his arms. When their mouths met, Toni's was hungrily passionate in a way it had never been before. Robbie responded with all the love and passion that was in him. Their bodies writhed urgently against each other. Their kiss deepened and endured. Toni slid up on top of him and worked his hips in simulated copulation. Robbie could feel the need in him at last and all of him opened out to meet it. He moved his body and thrust it up to blend with Toni's. Their erections clashed and strained against each other and their breath grew labored. They were one and together and loved each other.

Their mouths broke apart with simultaneous cries and they shouted together while their bodies leaped and thrashed about with their orgasms. They remained as they were, Toni lying on Robbie, while their breathing subsided.

“There,” Toni said finally. He lifted his head and looked into Robbie's eyes and was stirred by the love that glowed in them. “Is that enough for you, little brother? That's the only way two guys can make love without turning into perverts. Cocksuckers. Sodomites. We've got to stick to the way our bodies are made. Do you feel how much I want you now? Is that enough to make you belong to me?”

“Oh God, yes. If we can have that, I don't need anything else. Nobody else will ever have me.”

“No. We'll pretend we're shipwrecked on a desert island. If we were, we'd be doing things like that soon enough. I don't want you to suck my cock anymore. Is that something you think you need?”

“No. I want to make love to you everywhere but I won't there if you don't want me to. You said you liked it.”

“I do but I hate for
you
to like it. Girls do. I want us to love each other like men. You're not some special third sex. Everybody has some female in him, you maybe more than most, but you're a man. I love you as a man. If that's queer, I can't help it.”

“You'll still want girls.”

“Naturally, but they can wait. I just want you for a little while. Do you understand? I'll be your lover always if you don't make me feel like a pervert. I feel so good with you.”

“Oh God, Toni. You don't know. When you say things like that I feel as if I've got everything I could ever want in life.” His eyes filled with ecstatic tears.

“It's true.” He kissed him and rolled away from him and lay on his back. “We better wash up. What a mess. That's part of it, I suppose—our sperm all mixed up together. I wish it were possible for two guys to fuck a girl at the same time. That's what I'd really like—you and me in the same girl. What an idea. Come on before I get hard again.”

Carl and Helene had their first time alone together the next morning on the beach. Stuart had gone into town on some errand and the boys had not yet appeared. She and the German were stretched out side by side on deck chairs wearing swimming things. Helene was alert and slightly on edge, wondering if he would take this opportunity to renew the declarations he had made in Greece. Keeping her eyes off his body required a much greater effort than she remembered; he was a magnificent physical specimen. The sun gave her an excuse to keep her eyes closed.

“You know why I have come here,” he said after a brief silence.

“Because we invited you, I should think,” she said lightly while her heart began to beat uncomfortably.

“I wouldn't have needed an invitation. I would have come. Life was intolerable without you.”

She uttered a peal of laughter and all her slightly jangled nerves smoothed out. She didn't have to fence with him; she could take him or leave him. She would leave him of course, except that it didn't have to be as simple as that. If life was intolerable without her, she could relax in the pleasure of his company without having to be constantly on her toes to please him. If she wasn't trying to please him, she would be less conscious of them as male and female. “Really, Carl,” she protested mildly, “what do you expect to gain by saying things like that? Where does it lead?”

“Into my arms, of course.” His smile was youthful but assured.

“I should think you've already been here long enough to see how impossible it is to conduct an illicit affair. We're all together all the time. Nobody has any privacy except Robbie up in his little house. One would have to be awfully rash and determined to even consider it. I'm afraid we're both too old to be either.”

“I'm not proposing an affair. I'm proposing a life. I would settle for no less.”

She laughed again. He was making it easier and easier for her. She let her eyes roam over his handsome body. An affair with him might be tempting under favorable circumstances; what he was suggesting was too farfetched to require comment. “No wonder you're still a happy-go-lucky bachelor if you always insist on your affairs lasting a lifetime.”

“I've bided my time. I have always known I would find the right woman before I was forty. I've let it go till the last minute, perhaps, but I am no longer in a hurry.” He sat back and admired her heroic beauty. He had never known a beautiful woman to successfully renounce passion. She was at the height of her ripe maturity, waiting to be plucked. He had no intention of forcing it but would give her a week or two, or perhaps more, to come to him. When her passion had been reawakened, she would fall as completely under his control as Robbie.

“You mustn't blame me when you discover you've been brought here by an illusion,” she said complacently after another brief silence. “I warned you my life was made. It shouldn't take you more than a day or two to see it for yourself.”

“So? This place is a beautiful shell. I've seen that already. Robbie is the only life here. Robbie and Toni.”

“Congratulations. I didn't think you were capable of saying an unflattering word to a woman. Are they having a love affair?”

“There is much love between them. I don't know how far they go in expressing it. Toni isn't a homosexual.”

“Good heavens, of course not. Do you think we'd have him here if he were? I wasn't suggesting anything vile. I meant a platonic love affair of the sort boys have at that age.”

He listened carefully to her choice of words. It didn't suit him yet to pursue the subject; there were other aspects of this situation he could exploit to propel her into his arms. He sat forward and looked at her. “Robbie has developed extraordinarily in the two months since I've seen him. His physical attraction is quite mesmerizing.”

“Yes. I might not have put it quite that way but I've noticed it too.”

“Of course. You're falling in love with him. I have come in time to save you from that.”

She stared at him for a paralyzed instant. Her hands flew to her ears as if she could block his words. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Why did she think she could relax with him? He was the devil incarnate. Her mouth dropped open and she shook her head dazedly. “You're evil,” she said barely above a whisper. “How could you dare say such a thing to me?” He looked coolly self-confident. A little smile played around his finely modeled lips.

“Come, come,” he said. “Do you think it so terrible because you know it's true? I'm sure it happens quite often and is sternly repressed. It would be the greatest calamity that could befall you. All your hoarded passion would wither and die. You would lose forever your chance for a full life. I won't let it happen to you.”

“You must be mad,” she said, recovering her voice and slowly stemming the flood of her horror. “If you mean I'm becoming aware of him physically, how could it be otherwise? I'm sure most mothers are thrown off balance by suddenly facing a young man, after living for years with a child. In Robbie's case, a strikingly attractive young man, as you've just pointed out. To call it falling in love is sheer madness. I don't think I'll ever forgive you for it.”