The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “Sensational. Exquisite’s hardly the word.” Hattie looked at her with something approaching a leer and laughed softly in her throat. Since C. B. had raised the question, she could allow herself to gloat a bit. He was, after all, hers now.

  C. B. responded with a worldly smile. “You’re a very fortunate child. There is one thing, however, that I must tell you. This may come as a great blow to you. I’m sorry, but it’s my duty to speak. You must never bear him children.”

  “Children?” She crowed with laughter. “I should hope not. I’ll probably marry several more times before I even think of that. But what do you mean, ‘never’?”

  “There are certain things one doesn’t discuss except in the strict confines of one’s family. I would have been obliged to speak to Charlie if he’d given me any warning. Of course, you are family now but very newly so. Are you quite sure you know what you’re saying? In my experience, when a girl is in love, the first thing she thinks about is having a child by the man she loves.”

  “Not me. Don’t worry. If anything went wrong, I’d have an abortion.”

  “I see.” C. B. appeared to be in no way discomfitted, though there was perhaps a trace of regret in her voice as she added, “In that case, there’s no need to pursue the subject.”

  “How fascinating. Is there a lot of madness in your family?”

  C. B. waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t always understand you modern young people. You don’t consider your marriage to Charlie permanent?”

  “Good heavens, no. I’m madly in love with him now, but an actress can’t shut herself off from new experiences. I don’t think Charlie would want to stay married if I were unfaithful to him.”

  “I should think not. How extraordinary. Aren’t you being rather heartless?”

  “Heartless? You mean by talking about being unfaithful to him? Married couples are always unfaithful, aren’t they? I just know that when it happens, I won’t make any pretense about it. I’ve told Charlie I expect to have at least four or five husbands.”

  “I see. And what did he say?”

  “Oh, he doesn’t listen to half the things I say. He’s terribly removed, you know.”

  “No doubt. Well, I confess I find this conversation unusual, but I think we’ll be friends, my dear. If you change your mind in the future, come to see me. Meanwhile, I shouldn’t discuss with Charlie what I’ve referred to. He knows nothing.”

  “You’re so gorgeously mysterious, C. B. I absolutely adore you. I thought we were going to be enemies.”

  “I see no need for that, my dear.”

  THE next weeks were filled with family, both Millses and Donaldsons, although the latter had a vast numerical superiority. Since Christmas was coming, there appeared to be no end to it. There were cocktail parties and dinner parties and over the weekends there were parties all day. One of the first was C. B.’s Sunday affair, filled out for the occasion with unaccustomed females. Charlie had no difficulty in having a private word with Tommy Whitethorne.

  “Now that you’re married, I don’t know whether you’re interested, but I might as well tell you all I know,” Tommy murmured. “In case you’re wondering, to begin with, the answer is no. When he called, I assumed that all those insidious looks I’d been giving him here were paying off, but it was no go. He said he wouldn’t do it with anybody you knew. He’s such a sweet guy that I didn’t insist. It’s not like me, I can assure you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He left me a couple of days ago. He was going to the YMCA. I warned him what to expect. He’ll be torn to pieces. I think that’s really what he wants. He hopes he’ll forget you that way, poor kid. He’s dropping Columbia. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s quit his job by now. He was planning to.”

  “What’s he intend to do for money?”

  “He doesn’t think about it. He’ll probably get away with it, too. He’s the sort people fall for hard. I did, God knows. Just having him around the house was better than any lay. I’d have kept him with pleasure without asking anything in return. Well, maybe that’s going a bit far, but I thought about it. Are you in the clear with C. B.?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And now you’re married. That’s the safest way. I’m planning to do the same thing myself. Anyway, our friend will keep in touch with me. He wants you to be able to find him in case you want him. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, just drop a hint.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, happy marriage. It’s lousy, isn’t it? I mean not being able to come right out and live the way you want to. That’s what he just can’t understand. I tried to make him see it our way, but it’s like speaking a foreign language to him.”

  “Thanks again.” Charlie turned away, not caring whether he was rude or not. Tommy Whitethorne took much too much for granted. Charlie got himself a fresh drink and went and stood beside Hattie.

  It was a pose that was to become familiar over the weeks, drink in hand, Hattie at his side. The drinks were consumed in large quantities. His capacity grew so that he was drunk a large part of the time, but rarely noticeably so. He got very little sleep. He postponed a decision about his job from day to day, but he insisted on making the rounds of her theatrical haunts whenever they could get away from a party early enough. She couldn’t accuse him of neglecting their careers. As he never had with Peter, he also felt obliged to make a daily affirmation of his potency. That, after all, was what marriage was to a great extent about. By the time they got to bed, he was usually too dazed with alcohol and fatigue to care about anything, but in the morning he could count on performing quickly and efficiently. His awareness that she always had her diaphragm in place robbed the act of its initial joy of procreation; it was as sterile as any of his play with boys, but nobody could accuse him of being an inactive husband.

  A selfish one, perhaps. On one of the few evenings when they stayed at home, Hattie made just such an accusation. He had had less to drink than usual, but by now he was accustomed to having a drink in his hand during all his leisure hours, so he was far from sober when she suggested going to bed. She was already in it when he had finished in the bathroom and snapped out the living room lights. Her eyes held a speculative look as she watched him approach.

  “There’s no denying it’s a compelling apparatus,” she said, with laughter breaking through the words. “I just wonder if we’re realizing its maximum potential. There must be a way for us to keep it operational longer.”

  “What’s that supposed to be all about?” he demanded, sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Girls like to have orgasms too, you know. At the beginning, the average was a bit better, but in the last three weeks I’ve come exactly twice. Bang, bang, bang, and it’s all over.”

  “Why do you take so long? Has it occurred to you that you might be frigid?” His sex, which had been extended in the preliminaries of erection, began to shrink as he realized its performance was being criticized.

  “Me? Frigid?” She crowed at him. “It’s a well-known fact that most girls do take longer. There are books about it. Maybe you should read one. Marriage Can Be Fun and things like that. You see them in all the Broadway drugstores.”

  His sex shrank still further. “Oh, for God’s sake. Are you trying to suggest that I’m not good in bed?” His tone was incredulous; his prowess had never been questioned.

  “Good heavens, no. You’re so good that one wants more. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong.” She reached out and put her hand on his diminished sex. He pushed it angrily away. “Oh dear, now I’ve hurt your feelings. You’re no good to me at all like that. Forget everything I said.”

  “Forget it? Maybe you should read one of those books yourself.” The confidence he had acquired over the last weeks, the conviction that he was a success in his marital role, was rudely shaken. His sex was useless; his mind was clogged with rage. “Goddamn you,” he shouted. “Just when I’m about to fuck you, you start a discussion of orgasms. Don’t yo
u understand anything about the way a man is made? By God, I’ll show you some things.” He leaped up and charged into the bathroom. He scattered her cosmetics as he fumbled about and found the tube of lubricant where it had been left weeks earlier. He applied it to himself, swaying slightly and deeply absorbed. Associations crowded in on him. His sex reared up and grew under his knowledgeable touch and locked into rigidity. He grabbed a towel and lunged back into the alcove. “There, goddammit. Take a look. Is there anything wrong with that? Now turn over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You heard me. Turn over. On your stomach.”

  She stared at him and then did as she was told. “So now we begin the fancy games. I’m warning you, I probably won’t like this.”

  “Why shouldn’t you? Lots of people do.” He straddled her and applied the lubricant roughly. He took her hips and lifted them and drew them to him. He guided his sex between her buttocks and shifted her hips and entered her. She screamed. “Shut up and relax, goddammit.” He continued his penetration.

  She cried out again. “Oh, no. Oh, God, no. Please Charlie. Don’t. Stop it. You’re too big. I can’t take it.”

  “Why can’t you? Plenty of others have.” He held her hips firmly and forced his way slowly into her. His chest was heaving as if he had run a race. She whimpered, she cried out, she cursed him through sobs. As he completed the long, inexorable penetration, he reached around instinctively between her legs to grasp what wasn’t there. His hand remained to caress what was. Her body shuddered, and she began to respond with cautiously gyrating hips. She sobbed and crooned and cursed him some more. Her movements became freer and more agitated. Her hair fell over her face, her breasts swayed from her chest, she hung on his sex as she struggled for satisfaction. He felt moisture accumulating as her excitement mounted. He laughed. She looked so like a little animal, abject, totally subjugated. Her crooning rose to a wail. At last, it was broken by a succession of strange barking coughs. Her body was shaken by spasms, and he drove his orgasm into her as she collapsed beneath him. She burst into tears as he lay on top of her.

  “Stop it, goddammit,” he commanded when he could speak. “You came, didn’t you? Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what are you crying about? You like it.”

  “Get out. Get out of me. You’ve ripped me apart.”

  He withdrew slowly and wrapped himself in a towel and lay beside her. “What’s all the fuss about? You liked it. Why not admit it?”

  She rolled over onto her back, and her weeping abated. She wiped her eyes with her hands. “I’m in love with you, you lousy shit. I’d probably like it if you nailed me to the wall and threw darts at me. Don’t push it. That’s all. Just don’t push it.”

  He laughed at her warning. There was a brief silence.

  “You said plenty of others,” she said more calmly. “Since when have there been plenty? Is that what you did with those three or four girls?”

  “Don’t be silly. Haven’t you ever heard about boys in school?”

  “Is that what you did with Peter?”

  “Yes, dammit, if you’re so damned anxious to know. That’s what I did with Peter.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “He also liked to suck my cock, in case you’re looking for ideas. Why not try it all, since you’re not interested in having babies?” He laughed again. Let her know everything. What difference did it make? He felt free at last for the first time in months.

  “Goddamn you. You bastard. You can’t have babies, anyway. C. B. says so.”

  His laughter died, and he stared at her heavily. “What are you talking about?”

  “Something about your family. I don’t know what. The Mills Madness. She told me weeks ago.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Ask her yourself, if you don’t believe me. She said I must never bear your children. As if I ever intended to.”

  He lurched up out of bed and careened back to the bathroom to wash. He couldn’t seem to make his mind work properly. Couldn’t have children? It didn’t make any sense. People were always making up these idiotic stories about C. B. Hattie was just trying to unload onto him some of the blame for her own decision to remain childless. He damn well would put it to C. B., except that it wasn’t something he would like to talk to her about. Maybe an opportunity would turn up when he could touch on it naturally. It obviously didn’t matter as far as Hattie was concerned.

  His sense of freedom was fleeting. Christmas came and went, and he felt more and more trapped, trapped in the endless round of office and parties and bed, trapped by her clothes, which were everywhere so that he could never find anything of his own, trapped by the bills that now began to come flooding in. He could make no sense with her about money.

  She had only a vague idea about how much she had and when she received it. Even though their expenses for food and drink were minimal, she could go through his salary in an hour of shopping “to keep the house stocked,” as she put it. He couldn’t imagine how they would manage when the parties stopped, although the parties carried built-in expenses of their own. She took it for granted that their hosts must be thanked with gifts; flowers, candies, exotic fruits, or bottles of fine wine were dispatched to all but her immediate family.

  “Listen, I know we have to do something about the Jamiesons,” he remonstrated after they had been to a flower shop together one evening, “but does it always have to be dozens of roses? What was the matter with that plant?”

  “Oh, God, are you going to start whining about money again? It’s mine, isn’t it?”

  “How should I know? We’ve got bills right now for over four hundred dollars and you haven’t got twenty-five in your account. Who takes care of the balance?”

  “I’ve got credit in this town. The Donaldsons are good for four hundred dollars.”

  “The bills are addressed to Mrs. Charles Mills.”

  “Well, why don’t you go out and do something about it if you don’t like it? No, you’ll go grubbing along at that office just so you can count your pitiful little earnings at the end of the week. You’re not even a clerk. You’re an accountant. Imagine adding up all those bills.” She laughed at him and swung forward on his arm and looked up at him teasingly. “I know somebody who needs a drink.”

  HE was thinking about a drink on his way home one dark winter afternoon when he stopped for a look at Bergdorf’s windows. He had come to the last one and was about to go on when he became aware of a man moving in close beside him. He froze, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him so as not to give any hint of interest.

  “Doing anything this evening?” a voice murmured close to his ear. A rude dismissal sprang to his lip in the instant before he realized who it was. He turned slowly, not knowing what was happening to his face, knowing only that he was totally unprepared for the encounter. Peter threw his head back and laughed.

  “How’s my best boyfriend? I told you I’d follow you if I saw you in the street. This was bound to happen sooner or later. I thought I might as well get it over with.”

  Charlie looked at him. His beauty was as troubling as a half-remembered dream. He was dazzling. He wore a handsome overcoat flung picturesquely over his shoulders like a cloak. There was an air of expensive carelessness about all his dress. His skin, which had long retained the ruddiness of the summer tan, now was pale and luminous. The golden hair was ruffled by the wind. Charlie was speechless. With embarrassment? With delight? Because there was simply nothing more to say? He didn’t know.

  “You all right, honey?” Peter’s eyes filled with solicitude. “You don’t look too hot.”

  Charlie glanced about him nervously. “Hey, take it easy,” he said, finding his voice.

  Peter laughed. “Still worried somebody’ll get ideas? Listen, champ, New York is teeming with faggots. One more or less won’t frighten the horses.” He gave an effeminate flip of his hand. “All right. I’ll try to stay within a fo
ot or two of the ground. Are you on your way home to the little wife?”

  “You heard about that, of course. You’re looking wonderful.”

  “Your sister manages. Come on, let me buy you a drink. You look as if you could use one.”

  Charlie looked at his watch to give himself something to do. He knew he should get away as fast as he could. There was a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. His chest ached with the beating of his heart. He felt dangerously close to tears. “It’ll have to be quick,” he muttered.

  Peter gave a hitch to his coat, and they fell into step beside each other. “It’s amazing running into you like this,” he said in a breezy chatty tone that was new to Charlie. “I mean, right now, of all things. You’ll never guess who I’m going to see in a little while. Sapphire.”

  “You’re kidding.” The summer was evoked. Charlie found conversation possible. “I’ll be damned. I read all the reviews, of course. She’s made quite a hit. C. B. went to the first night. I must say she’s eaten all her words very handsomely. Have you seen the show?”

  “Not yet. There’s this party up in Harlem that Hughie Hayes asked me to. She’s going to be there before the theater. Golly, I wish you could come. How about this joint?” They turned into a bar. A blowsy hatcheck girl was crowded in behind a little counter in the entrance. Peter shrugged off his coat and laid it before her. The girl looked at him and smiled appreciatively.

  “My, my, a real beauty. What’re you doing later, beautiful?”

  “I won’t tell.” He grinned and added a suggestion of a lisp. “As you see, I’m with this gentleman for the moment.”

  She laughed. “Wouldn’t you know. Us girls don’t stand a chance these days.”

  “Oh, come on. There’s plenty for all of us.”

  “I guess that’s the truth.” She laughed again. Charlie’s face was burning as he handed over his coat. The girl was looking after Peter and chuckling.

  They sat on stools at the bar. A bartender came lumbering over to them. “Two whiskies, please,” Peter ordered. “And don’t you eye me like that, you brute.”