One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (7 page)

“I tell you, I must talk with you. I can’t stand it any longer.”

Peter looked quickly around him. Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Better to get him away before he said something that would attract everybody’s attention. Again, he felt that the boy might be capable of anything. He looked at him and nodded. “All right,” he said.

Jeannot turned and disappeared quickly around the back of the dressing pavillion. After another quick glance around him, Peter followed. Jeannot was waiting for him and put his arm around his shoulder and led him to a path under the trees.

After a moment, they came out into a small clearing at the head of steps leading down to the sea. Light from the party filtered through to it. Jeannot stopped and pulled Peter to him and kissed him avidly.

Peter drew back with a little laugh. “Take it easy, I’m only going to stay a minute.”

“I’m not surprised. All evening, you flirt with everybody, but you can’t even look at me.”

“Don’t be an ass. Being polite to people at a party isn’t flirting. And it’s none of your business anyway. We’re not setting up housekeeping, so don’t start getting ideas.”

“You’re mine.” He ran a hand down to Peter’s crotch and found his sex and gripped it. Peter resolutely pulled the hand away before he could be further aroused. Jeannot burst out, “Why do you do that? You want me, but you always pretend you don’t. It’s been like that all day.”

“All day? What about this morning? I almost let you make me come in front of Anne. What’s pretending about that? Come on. Tell me what you want to say.”

“Everything. Why can’t we go somewhere now? I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

“You’re really nuts. You know that’s impossible. Charlie’s beginning to get ideas. I’m still not even sure about tomorrow.”

Jeannot seized his arms and shook him. “What do you mean? You’ve promised. You say shopping is always a good excuse.”

Peter’s first impulse was to pull himself free and hit Jeannot if he made any more trouble, but he knew it was safer to humor him. He didn’t want complications that might keep him here more than a minute or two. “I just said I wasn’t sure,” he said placatingly. “You never know when something might turn up. I’ll probably make it, but we both know this can’t lead anywhere. You mustn’t take it so seriously.”

“I must take it seriously. I’m in love with you. I want you to be in love with me and then we’ll be together always.”

The grip on Peter’s arms was tightening. Jeannot was stronger than he realized. “You can’t turn love on and off when you want to. You know that,” Peter said as if he were addressing a child. “I’ve told you I’d have to break it off if Charlie gets the least bit suspicious. You’re not helping any.”

“If you try to break it off, I’ll tell Charlie everything. I warn you.”

“Now, Jeannot, don’t say things like that. You’re not a shit. You’re a sweet guy and I’ve loved what we’ve had together. Let’s keep it that way.”

“You speak as if it were over.” The tensions within him were visibly surfacing. The instability Peter had become aware of earlier was manifesting itself in the wild, jerky rhythms of his speech. “I know what it is. You’re not happy with the way we make love. I know now. You want me to fuck you. Charlie fucks you. He fucked you before lunch. How do you think that made me feel, with everybody listening? I heard you. I’ll fuck you. I’ll make you shout like that for me.”

Peter’s longing to strike out at him was nearly irresistible but he warned himself that he might only make matters worse. “For God’s sake,” he said roughly. “You know perfectly well we both want it the other way around. But what the hell—if you want to experiment—well, we’ll see. That’s enough of this now. Leave it for tomorrow. I’ve got to go back to the party.”

With a quick movement, Jeannot seized Peter’s shirt at the collar and yanked. Buttons flew and the shirt ripped down the middle. “There. Go on back to the party now,” he shouted.

Peter stepped back and his fist lifted. In the split-second it took him to direct the blow, he envisioned the consequences. He didn’t think Jeannot would put up much of a fight, but he couldn’t be sure. If they really slugged it out, neither of them would be able to put in an appearance. He needed time to figure out how to get out of this predicament. He had to make Jeannot go back so that at least Charlie would know they weren’t together. His hand dropped to his side, but his fists remained clenched. “You really are a shit,” he said out of the depths of his anger.

“I don’t care,” Jeannot cried wildly. “It is better for you to hate me than to go on like this.” He grabbed the top of Peter’s trousers with both hands and yanked again. More buttons popped and there was another sound of tearing fabric. The brief silken thing, even flimsier than his swimming trunks, that he wore as underpants was gone with one quick painful rip. The trousers fell down around his ankles. He was trembling with rage, but all he could think of was to make Jeannot go back to the party. The forbidden memory nudged his brain, less memory after the years of scrupulous obliteration than a series of reflexes triggered by involuntary physical exposure, all commanding violence. He almost wished for somebody to find them like this: it would free him to attack. His fists ached with longing to smash into flesh. This was part of the memory, too, along with the enforced shaming frustration of his impulse to fight back.

Jeannot’s voice sounded appeased when he spoke again. “There. Now you are naked the way I want you,” he said softly. “I’ve never seen you naked before without your being hard. You’re so beautiful.”

“I doubt if you’ll ever see me hard again.” Peter was surprised he could speak through his choking rage. “Please, Jeannot. There’s nothing more you can do here. Please go back to the others.”

“No.” He fumbled with the ruined shirt and got it off and threw it on the ground. His hands were everywhere, touching all the places he had discovered where Peter was sensitive. Peter’s body felt dead except for the blazing anger that shook it from head to foot. Jean unfastened his own trousers and released his sex and pressed it against Peter. “Now. We are together. Now you will get hard.”

“Please, Jeannot. We’ve been here too long already.” His voice broke with desperation. “I’m begging you. Go back. Let everybody see you.”

Jean-Claude’s hands continued to roam over him and hold him as he moved around behind him. He slid his hands down to his thighs and pulled him in tight against him. Peter felt the hard, naked flesh pressed up flat between his buttocks. Christ. Did the disgusting shit think he could compete with Charlie? “You see?” Jean murmured. “I will fuck you. You will be happy.”

“All right. Tomorrow. I’ll let you do anything you like tomorrow. Just go now.”

“No. I want to make you hard.”

“Then we’ll be here all night. Do you think I’m enjoying this? I’ve never been so angry in my life. If you ever want me to speak to you again, go, for Christ’s sake.”

“You mustn’t be angry. Everything I do is because I love you. I’ll suck your cock. You like that.”

“What’ll it take to convince you that I can’t do anything now? The only reason you’re still alive is because I want you to go back.”

“I want to see you hard with me.”

“Oh, Jesus. Forget about that. I’m too angry now. Listen. Maybe we don’t have to wait till tomorrow. I’ll try to come tonight.”

“Yes. Tonight. Now.” He turned Peter in his arms and took his mouth in his. His tongue probed deep. Peter suddenly felt it as a violation of some sacred, private area of himself. His hands grew insistent again. Peter waited long enough not to appear too obviously repelled and then drew his head away.

“All right. Now go.”

“You promise you will come tonight?”

“I’ll come if it’s humanly possible. I’ll have to wait for Charlie to go to sleep. Otherwise, I swear I’ll be there in the morning.”

“No. Tonight. Promise.”

“All right. I promise.” The appalling possibility that Jeannot might come to the rented villa crossed his mind but he had to deal with the immediate peril. “It may be very late. Just wait for me.”

“Yes, I will wait. Anne says I must think of you first.”

“Button yourself up,” Peter ordered brusquely. “Now listen. Go right back there. Make sure Charlie sees you. Find him and ask him if he’s seen me. Make it clear that you’ve been looking for me. You understand?”

Jean tucked himself in and fastened his trousers. His hair was no more disordered than it had been before. “Of course, my lover. What will you do?”

“That’s my problem. Just get going.”

“I can count on you?”

“Yes, definitely,” he said to speed Jean on his way. He would go as soon as possible to prove to him that nothing he could do would ever stir his body again. That should settle it once and for all.

Jeannot hesitated and then gave his sex a final caress and turned and went back up the path. Peter pulled up his trousers and retrieved the tattered shirt and put it on as best as he could. He had to hold everything closed. The little undergarment was beyond salvaging. He left it where it lay. He continued to be shaken by waves of anger, but he hadn’t time to give in to them now. He would settle with Jean-Claude tomorrow.

Although it had seemed an endless nightmare while it was going on, he realized that the incident hadn’t taken much more than five minutes. Something to the good. He would have to try to get away from here without anybody seeing him, rush home to change and get back as fast as he could. The drive would give him time to make up a story for Charlie. He didn’t know what he would say if anybody saw him now. A fall? Not very convincing. With his fly ripped open and his shirt in rags, he looked quite simply as if he’d been raped.

Clutching his clothes together, he started off cautiously after Jean-Claude. When he saw the dressing pavillion looming up in front of him, he turned off the path away from the pool. It was rough going. The ground sloped away and rose again. There was a good deal of undergrowth to slow him. Every root that tripped him, every spikey branch that tore at his trousers added to the anger that burned in him. When he thought of Jean-Claude, unscathed, enjoying himself at the party, while he stumbled around in the dark with his clothes torn off, he wanted to shout with frustrated rage. At least he should have found Charlie by now. Seeing Jean-Claude should keep him from imagining things for a while. If he could make it home and back in under an hour, if Jean-Claude did as he was told without wasting any time, Charlie might not even notice that he was gone. He
would
notice that he’d changed his clothes. How in the world was he going to explain that? Even as he tried to fabricate some plausible tale, he knew he was going to have to tell the truth, the truth arranged slightly, perhaps, but still the truth. He was going to have to admit going off into the dark with Jean-Claude. If he could think of some mitigating excuse for doing that, he could pose as an innocent victim. Which was what he had been, goddamn it. Charlie would be furious with Jean-Claude. There was the danger of confrontations, of angry words, of the whole truth coming out. Could he invent some other culprit, an unknown stranger, and keep Jean-Claude out of it? No, not with Charlie. He stumbled over a rock and swore violently.

He had reached the last rise leading up to the great house. He broke out of the trees and stood watchfully for a few seconds on the edge of a large clearing. Through lighted windows ahead, he could see people working in the kitchen. He was safe from guests here. He ran up the last steep ground and made a dash around the side of the house and across the parking area to the car. It occurred to him with a lurch of his heart that Charlie might have taken the keys, although he usually didn’t when they were together so the car would be available to both of them. His breath caught as he pulled open the door. The keys were dangling from the dashboard. He leaped in and was away.

The road was mercifully free of traffic. As far as he remembered, there was no risk of taking a wrong turning. He drove as fast as he dared. He hadn’t really noticed how long the trip had taken earlier. He calculated that he’d been driving about twenty minutes when he turned into the drive through the vineyard in which the rented villa was set. He raced upstairs and let the clothes fall off him and left them on the floor. He was washed and dressed again in minutes and back in the car. At this rate, he wouldn’t be gone much more than three-quarters of an hour. He was panicky all the way back as he encountered turnings and forks in the road he hadn’t remembered. He had the feeling that the return trip was taking much longer. He came at last to the left turn he knew now and triumphantly gunned the car up the hill through the cork trees.

When he was once more under the bright lights of the terrace, he felt as if he’d been gone for days. As he stepped out, he wondered whether he should blend into a group and let Charlie find him as if nothing had happened or go to him directly. He was spared the choice. Charlie had obviously been watching for him and was immediately standing in front of him.

“Well. You decided to come back.” His voice was ominously calm and his face set and his eyes steely as he surveyed the fresh costume. “You’ve changed your clothes? What’s the story?”

“I had to go home. It’s all right. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“I think we’d better go now.”

“I’ve just got back. Isn’t it too early?”

“Some people have left already. We won’t be the first. I know you weren’t with Jean-Claude. He’s been here. Who did you go off with?”