An Idol for Others (55 page)

Walter went on into the living room, examining the potent pull his son still exerted on him. It wasn’t, never had been unmanageable, but it was there. It probably always would be. As Tom said, it wasn’t like a passing affair. Jerry joined him in a few moments in the brief trunks. Walter saw at a glance that he had arranged his cock to make it as conspicuous as possible, upright against his belly, inviting instant surmise about its potentialities for expansion. His body, which Walter hadn’t seen since he was 18, remained almost completely hairless, lightly developed and long-limbed, a smoother, less masculine, more urban version of Tom’s. The tanned skin had a satiny texture. The head, with its extraordinary burnished hair, was a pretty girl’s head. The prominent sex added a troubling hermaphroditic note. He was much more tempting now than he had been 12 years ago.

He stood close to Walter, looking at him with flirtatious eyes. “This is thrilling, sweetie. I can’t stop thinking about it. You here with a boyfriend. I should never have let you get away. You’re as gorgeous as ever. Why don’t you get older? That body. I’d forgotten how sexy it is. My word.” He dropped his eyes and looked up with a naughty smile. “I haven’t forgotten
that
. It’s been my goal in life to make mine its equal. Tell me about lucky Tom. I know he’s a divine writer. Is this his house?”

“Yeah, we’ve been here a couple of months. Getting on to three, I guess. We met, and we’ve been together just about every minute since.”

“What heaven for you. I’m going to hate him for getting you.”

“Come on and meet him. He’s looking forward to it.”

“He knows I was one of your weak moments?”

“Sure. I heard you were out here and told him all about you. Now that we’ve got together, I hope we’ll be seeing something of you.”

Walter was careful not to touch him as he ushered him out and across the terrace. He dropped behind as they started down the wooden stairs and observed that Jerry’s bottom was rounder and friskier than Tom’s. He used it as bait. Tom was lying on a towel on the jetty and rose to greet them. The little boat bobbed innocently in its mooring. They stood together exchanging pleasantries. Walter noticed that they were all almost exactly the same height. He saw Tom glance from Jerry’s hair to his own. Something else Jerry had inherited from his father. He waited for Tom to take in the well-filled trunks. He did so very discreetly as he was spreading towels. Walter wasn’t surprised to see his eyes lingering after the first quick reconnaissance.

“Have you been in yet?” Walter asked hastily.

Tom looked at him dutifully. “Yes, for a minute.” He looked at Jerry, his eyes darting all over the place as he tried not to fix them on one area. “If you get hot enough, it feels wonderful,” he told him.

They sprawled about on the jetty together. Jerry made much of their love affair, teasing them and congratulating Tom for “bringing Walter out,” flirting with both of them. It was all light and frivolous, but Walter could feel it reinforcing his sense of being joined, mated, paired. Tom sought his eyes with amusement and complicity and love. Walter was pleased with Jerry for making a point of their union, but he knew it wouldn’t stop him from making a pass at Tom if he struck his fancy. Walter watched for an arm or leg to make an artful contact. When a move was made, Tom made it so overtly that it might not have been intended as sexual. Tom sat up and lay his long strong fingers on Jerry’s back.

“You’ve got a good tan. You should put some suntan stuff on it.”

Walter’s stomach turned over. He wanted to tear the hand away. Jerry was lying on his stomach. “Be a doll and put some on me, will you?” he suggested.

Tom lifted himself to his knees over Jerry and began to apply it. The association of tubes and ointment and Tom’s caressing had unsettled Walter’s nerves. His heart raced. A vivid picture of them making love together flashed through his mind and gave him a perverse thrill. They were a study in contrasts–light and dark, strong and weak, genuine and artificial. Their long hair gave them a heraldic beauty. Walter amused himself by imagining them in various period costumes and stage roles. He saw Jerry look up over his shoulder, his hair falling over the side of his face, and slowly, lingeringly assess the body that was bending over him. Walter checked Tom’s trunks. They were tight and confined him snugly so that he could be aroused without it showing.

Tom sat back on his heels and asked Jerry about some people they apparently both knew. Walter breathed more easily. Under the guise of gossip, Tom was asking writer’s questions, drawing Jerry out. He was evidently interested in him, but it was natural that he should be. Tom and Jerry. He almost laughed as he made the connection. Cat and mouse? Lovers and sons. Fay would be fascinated.

Jerry sat up and swung around so that he was sitting with his legs spread out flat in front of him, his hands on his upper thighs, his back slightly turned to Walter. Walter craned his neck and saw that lying on himself hadn’t diminished Jerry’s display. On the contrary, it had probably been stirred up by Tom’s hand on him.

He dropped his head and stopped listening to their words and concentrated on their speech pattern. Their voices overlapped, building to laughter, coming to sudden stops, wandering in soft murmured bypasses before getting on the track again. It was a vocal flirtation, the melody carried by Jerry in a voice filled with flutes and strings, complete with obbligatos, the bass accompaniment provided by Tom. Walter picked up every shift and nuance. There was a passage in Tom’s play that might lend itself to this treatment. He made a mental note to check the script tomorrow and see what he could do with it.

There was a silence, and Walter lifted his head. Tom began to speak animatedly, and Walter saw why he felt a need to. His son’s cock had developed a strong outward curve and slanted along the top of his trunks, stretching the fabric and barely covered by it, obviously aroused. Jerry was running his thumbs along the inside of the elastic near his hips in a blatant tease, as if he were about to expose it. Walter felt himself stirring as Jerry flaunted himself.

He turned away and missed something. The other two suddenly sprang up, laughing, and took a running step to the edge of the jetty, their backs turned to him, and dived in. The splashed around together, laughing and shouting. Walter rose and dived in after them and shouted with the cold and climbed right out again. The other two soon followed him, spluttering and gasping. Jerry paused at the top of the wooden ladder and reached into the front of his trunks and lifted his strikingly shrunken cock upright once more. He caught Walter’s eye on him and smiled mischievously. They all moved toward each other and stood together rubbing themselves down and exclaiming about the icy water. Jerry’s hair hung in long glossy strands. Tom was toweling his vigorously. He tossed his head about and threw his arms around father and son and drew them closer.

“I’m fascinated by this guy,” Tom said to Walter. “I’m glad you found him again.”

“You two are a heavenly pair,” Jerry said. “Walter knows I’ve always been mad for him. Now there’s you. I don’t know which of you to try to seduce first.”

Their eyes roved from one to the other, conveying private messages, taking each other in. Walter felt a strange collusion developing among them. For an exquisite moment they seemed to achieve a perfect physical and emotional balance. Then he saw Tom’s and Jerry’s eyes meet and hold a beat too long, their bodies sway almost imperceptibly toward each other, and he broke away. It was natural. In the complexities of connection, they were the two who were strangers to each other. Again he felt a perverse thrill at the thought of their bodies’ meeting.

“We’d better go up and put some clothes on. It’s going to start getting chilly soon,” he said.

They gathered up towels and started up the stairs.

“It’ll take me an hour to get my hair under control,” Jerry said. “Can anybody lend me a brush?”

“Sure,” Tom said. “Your hair’s beautiful. Mine’s getting there.”

“I adore streaky blonds. What do you do when it’s wet?”

“I just sort of shake it and hope it’ll fall into place.”

“I have a whole routine. It’s a bore, but the result’s rather gorgeous. Would you like me to show you?”

“Sure.”

Walter listened to them and wondered where they thought their flirtation was leading. He knew, as certainly as Tom knew that everything was theirs, that they had to be true to each other. He saw Tom put his hand on Jerry’s shoulder as they entered the house. A hospitable gesture. They parted in the corridor, and Tom and Walter went along to their room.

“Don’t forget the brush,” Jerry called.

“I’ll bring it in a second,” Tom replied.

Walter closed the door on them. Could he allow Tom to be alone with Jerry? He didn’t see how he could prevent it. Tom would be justifiably indignant at his making a fuss if all he wanted was to have his hair arranged. They peeled off their trunks. Not to his surprise, he saw Tom’s cock spring out stiffly. His own was conspicuously elongated. Tom eyed it and laughed as they dried themselves more thoroughly.

“Your son is quite a number. We need hardly comment on the obvious. Is it as big as yours?”

“Practically.”

“Not quite, I’ll bet I have an eye for such matters.” He turned to the mirror and ran a comb with difficulty through his hair. He tossed his head and picked up a brush and started for the door.

“Where’re you going?” Walter demanded.

“Taking him the brush.”

“Put something on, for God’s sake. You’ve practically got a hard-on.”

Tom chuckled. “That’s been going on all afternoon. We might as well look. That’s better than getting mysterious and uptight about it. If it weren’t so public down there, I’d have suggested we all take everything off. I’m not going to let him do a big production with my hair. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Wait, damn it,” Walter said as he watched the naked body stride swiftly out the door.

The process Walter had seen beginning was quickly concluded in the corridor while Tom hurried to the other room. His erection was satisfyingly complete when he pushed the slightly open door wider and called Jerry’s name. He appeared around the bathroom door holding a towel in front of him. He looked at Tom and dropped it and uttered silvery laughter.

“That’s the way I like a gentleman to come calling.” He advanced into the room with a slight sway of his hips. The visible evidence of his pleasure grew spectacularly as he approached.

“Let’s get a really good look,” Tom said briskly. He tossed the brush on the bed and went to meet him. They reached out and held each other and moved their bodies tantalizingly against each other. “You’re such a tease. I’ve been dying to get my hands on this all afternoon.” He was holding, being held by Walter’s son. He felt an intense sexual curiosity about him and an extraordinary instant affection for him.

“I’ve been dying to have them there, Thomas,” Jerry said with a little thrust of his hips to show himself off to advantage. “At least, I show what I’ve got. Those trunks of yours are so chaste. I can’t make head or tail of cocks and balls when they’re covered up. Who could guess you had all this tucked away in there?”

“All what? Tell me about it. You and Walter are apt to give a guy an inferiority complex. It’s not much more than average, is it?”

“Average! We’d all be so lucky if it were. You’re one of nature’s noblemen, Thomas. Hasn’t anybody told you? Aside from Walter and half a dozen others encountered in a long and busy sex life, you’re about as big as they come. An eight-incher if I ever saw one. I never allow myself to dream such extravagant dreams. Life is full enough of disappointments.”

Tom laughed, ridiculously pleased with himself. “It’s about time I knew how I stack up against the other boys. You’re a pal, Jerry.”

“I want to be much more. Hadn’t we better lock the door?”

“Of course not I’d never do anything I didn’t want Walter to see.”

“Really? In that case, we’d better concentrate on your hair. Come over here.”

Tom saw that he had placed a chair in front of the long mirror on the closet door. He could give himself a couple of minutes more. He slumped into the chair with his legs sprawled out indolently in front of him and watched Jerry come up behind him in the mirror holding a comb. His big cock came sliding over his shoulder and up along the side of his face. Tom swung around and took it in his mouth. He drew back and measured it with his eyes. “You and Walter,” he murmured. “If you only knew. What a pair.”

“You do that divinely. Don’t stop. It’ll only take a minute.”

Tom stood. “No. You’re too tempting. I better do my own hair. I told you I won’t do anything behind Walter’s back.”

“I’d adore for you and Walter to do things behind my back.”

Tom chuckled and put his arms around him and pulled his hips in against his. “I’m excited about your being here. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe you should consider staying all night.”

“I always consider staying all night when I’m with beautiful men.”

Tom pulled him closer, and their open mouths met. Walter’s flesh and blood. A delectable mouth that Walter had made and that he was making his. All sorts of fragmentary thoughts tumbled around in his mind. He broke away. “OK. Make yourself pretty and come join us for drinks. There’s no rush, but I’ll be waiting for you.” He gave Jerry’s frisky behind a caress and briskly left the room.

Walter sat on the end of the bed, where he had collapsed. He felt as if all his senses had been knocked out of him. His stomach was in a turmoil. What was Tom doing?
Nothing’s wrong
, he insisted to himself. Tom wouldn’t have gone charging out intent on sex under Walter’s very nose. It was all perfectly innocent–as innocent as it could be, given Jerry’s nature and Tom’s nakedness. Kids these days didn’t think anything about being naked together. That was all very well for Jerry’s generation, but Walter didn’t want to feel a generation gap with his lover.

He stood up and sat down again. Jesus. His son, the stripteaser. Enough to unsettle Tom’s mind. Damn Jerry. Why didn’t he go watch them doing their hair? There was nothing private about it. And if they weren’t just doing their hair? Tom wouldn’t let anything happen. He wouldn’t even if they were off alone somewhere. Tommy was his, and they both knew it. If he took the trouble to go into the hall, he’d probably hear them talking cheerfully together.