Perfect Freedom, page 29
Helene was the first to spot the admiral. She waved as she saw him, conspicuous in a saffron shirt and royal blue scarf, making his way through the crowd to the foot of their gangplank.
“We’re waiting for you,” he called expansively. “Come along and have some lunch. All sorts of people wanting to meet you.” He came aboard and Robbie returned to the cockpit to be introduced.
“Have a son about your age. Not so good-looking as you by half. A bit odd but not a bad chap. Daresay you’ll be wanting to tidy up.” He glanced at Robbie’s trunks. “You can come as you are. Young people go about stark naked these days. Extraordinary. No hurry, you understand. Don’t get around to feeding much before teatime. Can’t think why. Deuced unhealthy.”
Mrs. Rawls came tripping up the gangplank after him, vibrating with patronizing goodwill and flashing with jewels.
“Now the season can really begin,” she cried. “I’ve only just arrived myself. You don’t mean to say you’ve been all the way to Greece on this adorable little boat! How mad and adventurous! You’re still children—beautiful, beautiful children! You must come for a cocktail tomorrow. There are so many people I want you to meet. I’ve taken a villa. La Pléiade. You know it? And your enchanting place? I understand it’s quite the most beautiful house on the coast.”
“I should call home and tell them we’re here,” Stuart said when she was gone. “Everybody else knows.”
“What are we going to do about the statue?” Robbie wondered.
“Speak of the devil.” Stuart nodded toward the gangplank. The customs inspector was standing at the foot of it. Stuart expected no difficulties but he was pleasantly surprised by the man’s complete lack of official zeal when he went to greet him.
“I suppose you’re loaded with contraband,” he said.
“Of course, we almost sank,” Stuart said while his heart skipped a beat.
“Well, don’t let me see you taking it off. Send your man around with your papers sometime during the day and I’ll fix them up.”
“Fine. Come aboard and have a contraband drink.”
“Why not, in fact?” The customs inspector came aboard and Stuart had a drink with him. They went ashore together and Stuart returned with Stanley Hilliard at his side.
“Look who I’ve found,” he called as they came aboard. “It’s Stanley. American literature’s great white hope.” Stuart’s first thought when they ran into each other was that his expensive clothes looked as if they belonged to him now. He had become a man of substance.
Hilliard stepped gingerly off the gangplank onto the deck. “Is this yours? I heard you’d struck it rich but I didn’t know you were that rich.”
“I’m not. We rented it.”
“I see. I was passing through about a week ago and they told me you’d gone to Greece or somewhere. My God, this place has sort of changed, hasn’t it? It’s one big goddam party. I couldn’t get away. And you. I understand you’ve got the showplace of the whole damn Côte d’Azur. Swimming pools, marble halls, an authentic neo-colossal DeMille production. Is this Robbie? I can’t believe it. What a magnificent guy you’ve turned into. Whatever you’ve been doing, it agrees with all of you.” He kissed Helene’s cheek.
“How long has it been? Seven years?” Stuart asked. “What about you? You look as if you’ve been doing all right yourself. Where’ve you been?”
“Hollywood. And no cracks. It’s a game and it pays the bills. It has nothing to do with writing. It’s a whole new thing. When you hold your elbows right and get a good grip with your knees you can make it sit up and do tricks.”
“If you like it, what the hell?” Stuart poured drinks.
“I didn’t say I liked it. What goddam fools we were in the old days—except you, of course. You and your spinach. I guess you have the right idea, after all. I thought I’d get rich doing what I wanted to do. You just wanted to lie in the lap of Mother Nature and here you are up to your ass in swimming pools.”
“What is all this about swimming pools? We don’t have a swimming pool, do we Robbie? Maybe somebody put one in while we were gone.”
“They better not. It would ruin everything. Did you call home?”
“Yes. Boldoni and Felix are coming in to get our things off. Everybody sounds fine.”
“Did you arrange anything about you-know-what?”
Stuart told Hilliard about the statue. “I think we’d better wait till tonight, the later the better,” he told Robbie. “We’ll need all the help we can get. How about it, Stanley? Do you want to be an accessory after the fact?”
“If you promise to have champagne and lobster sent into our cell, why not? As a matter of fact, I was going to ask you all to dinner.”
“Not tonight. I’ve promised Boldoni to dine at home. I’ll join you after dinner and then you can come out and stay with us.”
“We can make you more comfortable than last time,” Helene said. She excused herself to dress for the admiral’s lunch.
“As a matter of fact; I’m traveling with my secretary,” Hilliard said, after she had left.
“I don’t think that’ll worry anybody,” Stuart assured him. “We’ll expect her, too.”
They agreed to meet at the boat at eleven that night and Hilliard took himself off. “He’s right, you know,” Stuart said to Robbie, pouring himself more brandy. “You are a magnificent looking guy, Roberto. I suppose it would’ve happened anyway, but the cruise seems to’ve speeded things up. I thought you might turn out to be sort of an ethereal type but you’ve turned into a regular body boy overnight. You’re going to be a big hit with the girls.”
Robbie glowed with pleasure at his father’s flattering attention but it also flustered him. Why harp on girls? Would he have to pretend to take an interest in some girl in order to satisfy him? “What’s all this Roberto business?” he demanded with an unintentional edge of hostility to compensate for his embarrassment.
Taken aback, Stuart attempted a conciliatory chuckle. “I don’t know. Maybe I was pretending to be your Italian boyfriend.”
“If you mean Rico, he calls me Robbie like everybody else.” Robbie was suddenly close to tears as he felt the moment turning sour. He could do without being told that he was magnificent looking if all his father really wanted was to get in a dig about his “boyfriend.” Guilt turned him defensive. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me I’ve been too friendly with him. You started it. You said I should be nice to him.”
“Hey, wait a minute, youngster. I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort.” He looked at his drink and swirled it around in his glass. Was he drunk? He wasn’t used to drinking so early in the day. He’d obviously hit on some sensitive spot but he couldn’t imagine what he’d said wrong. “I’m delighted to see you making friends, the more the merrier. I used to think you were too standoffish. I expect you’ll fall in love in the not too distant future. I was always in love when I wasn’t much older than you. It makes life very interesting. Your mother may not think much of the idea—mothers rarely do—but I’ll be all for you. Just remember that.”
Girls again. Robbie felt threatened by this offer of man-to-man intimacy. He couldn’t allow anybody to encroach on his privacy. “I don’t intend to fall in love for a long time, if ever,” he said coldly. “Right now, all I’m thinking about is getting back to work.”
“Well, you’ve heard about all work and no play. You may not know it yet but your looks are going to get you into lots of hot water. I envy you.” He forced his laughter, aware that he was still flirting with trouble. He could see it in the tense dark beauty of the boy’s face, in the great darting eyes and the slight tremor of his sensitive mouth. He must be drunk if he expected a seventeen-year-old to emerge from adolescence without any kinks or complexes. He retreated as gracefully as he could with a light tap on Robbie’s shoulder. “I promise you one thing. I’ll be careful not to pick any fights with you. You’re getting too big for me to handle.”
Robbie’s spirit was soothed by intimations of friendship but he steeled himself against them. “All this talk about love,” he growled. His throat was constricted and his eyes smarted. He couldn’t be friends with his father. What would he say if he told him that the closest he’d come to understanding the nature of love was with an anonymous naval officer on a changing-room floor?
The admiral was standing in the stern when the Coslings reached the foot of his gangplank. “At last, at last,” he cried. “Party’s quite limp without you. Come knock a bit of life into it.” They found themselves in the midst of a great many people on the afterdeck. Introductions were haphazard. The only note that emerged clearly was “your house.” Everybody seemed to have heard of their house. “I hear,” everyone said. “Utterly enchanting, one of the seven wonders.” While it was going on, a girl who had introduced herself to him as Anne took Robbie’s arm and said breathlessly, “Come along quickly.” She led him forward around the cabin to the forward deck. “This is where the children sit. We’re terribly careful about not being contaminated by the grown-ups.” Robbie followed, displeased by being called a child until he saw that the children included Anne herself, who was certainly over twenty, a long, sleek exquisite boy called Edward, a sturdy young man called John, and a pretty girl called Mellie, who were lounging on cushions under an awning. They weren’t naked but might have looked more presentable if they had been. The girls wore one-piece suits that fitted like a second skin, the boys rather droopy trunks of loose-knit jersey that covered them from navel to upper thigh but provided no snug support in the midsection. Genitalia drifted about conspicuously.
“Don’t try to understand who we all are,” Anne said as she pronounced the others’ names. “We’re all more or less related by marriage—the admiral’s marriages, that is.”
She laughed a light pure laugh. Robbie found her charming. She had a delicate face in which bones predominated and her pale brown hair hung down lank and straight, giving her the look of peering through parted curtains. The others grunted amiably at Robbie and relinquished a few cushions for him to sit on. They had drinks in their hands and there was a pitcher of a pale fruity-looking liquid on the deck. Anne poured a drink for Robbie.
“You’re the Coslings. I understand you’re to be the big event of the season,” John said lazily. He waved his glass toward Robbie. “Cheers.” He rolled over slightly and ran the tip of his tongue up Mellie’s arm from the elbow to the shoulder where he implanted a light popping kiss. When he moved, what appeared to be an erection stuck out jauntily.
“Young love. Isn’t it adorable?” Anne commented. “Edward, you’re missing it.” And then to Robbie, “Edward’s the admiral’s son and I’m the admiral’s daughter. We’re half brothers or half sisters or however you want to put it. We used to have the most marvelous sex when we were practically babies. Now he’s decided he’s a poof. I can’t help feeling that I failed somehow.”
“Maybe it’s just a phase,” Edward said comfortably, prone and motionless on a mattress. Robbie assumed it was some sort of joke. They couldn’t mean it.
“Tell us about your parents’ vices,” Anne said, settling into her cushions. “We’re terribly keen on parents’ vices. That is, they always seem so unimaginative. We keep hoping for something really new and exciting.”
“I don’t think mine have any,” Robbie said, totally out of his depth.
“Perhaps that’s better,” Anne said. “I mean, for instance, Edward’s stepfather smoked opium and shot himself. I mean, if you’re going to smoke opium you shouldn’t have to shoot yourself. Anyway, Edward found him in the nursery of all places. It’s supposed to have given Edward some sort of complex.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, as usual.” Edward propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Robbie. “I’m supposed to’ve got some sort of complex from seeing my mother in bed with the gamekeeper. All very D.H. Lawrence. Is there such a thing as a gamekeeper complex?”
“I think it’s a very common one,” Robbie said. They found this vastly entertaining and whooped with laughter. Robbie was pleased at having scored in such an unfamiliar atmosphere; his satisfaction was short-lived.
“Which do you prefer?” Anne asked with matter-of-fact interest. “Boys or girls?” Robbie felt his tongue turn into sponge but Edward spared him the necessity of a reply.
“You see what I tell you?” he said. “You push things so. Maybe he hasn’t decided yet.”
“Well, if we’re going to see a lot of each other, which is apparently the parents’ intention, it’s something we should know, even if it might not affect us personally. He probably thinks I’m an old hag and he’s a bit young to be your type, isn’t he?”
Edward turned his eyes on Robbie with calm appraisal, leaving no doubt that he was sizing him up as a potential partner. A little shiver of delight ran through Robbie as he realized that the brother and sister weren’t joking. He conducted his own appraisal. The older boy was aristocratically good-looking, blond and blue-eyed with high English coloring, but the most striking thing about him was that he looked so nice. Robbie couldn’t imagine him doing anything gross or improper. His body was elegantly put together, slim and graceful and delicately articulated; it looked as if it could turn a sexual act into a display of artistry.
“I don’t know why you think he’s too young for me,” Edward concluded, addressing Anne. “I have no prejudice against youth when wedded to beauty. He’s extraordinary for such a beardless boy. Such smouldering sensuality. Skin the color of aromatic honey. Look at that throat. What difference does a few years make if we’re both prepared to make allowances? I might even be cured of my obsession.”
“You see,” Anne explained to Robbie without giving the two boys time to make any commitment with their eyes, “Edward is mad about the dancing boy at the Tour Engloutie but Edward isn’t his type. We’re having a terribly fraught summer.” Soft giggles emerged from John and Mellie, who were now looking at each other with their noses touching. Anne pushed her hair back from her face impatiently. “Of course, they don’t help matters in the least.”
“On the contrary,” Edward objected. “They’re a grim reminder of what even I might’ve turned into if I hadn’t developed more elevated tastes. Can you imagine my behaving like that with my divine dancer?”
Robbie exploded with laughter. Edward looked at him with approval and interest. Having survived his appraisal with high marks, Robbie suspected that he was now going to be pursued in a gentlemanly way. He was faced with the challenge. If Edward publicly proclaimed his inclinations, how friendly could he let himself be with him without publicly compromising himself? How much did the admiral know? How much, whether as a warning or inadvertently, would he pass on to his parents? The atmosphere of freedom he sensed with these contemporaries was intoxicating—the chaste slow-motion love affair that John and Mellie were conducting made his body tingle—but he also sensed its danger. His eyes shied away from Edward’s increasingly amused and inviting glances.
He concentrated with difficulty on Anne and heard more about the young dancer who had taken the town by storm. Evidence was accumulating that he was stubbornly addicted to girls. Anne kept refilling their glasses from the pitcher. The fruity drink was intoxicating, too.
Robbie decided that he must be a bit drunk after he found himself in a narrow passage below-decks without quite knowing how he had got there. Edward was at his side, which didn’t surprise him. Had their eyes finally exchanged an imperative summons? Had something been said about a pee? He hoped there was more to it than that. Edward’s hand was lightly, agreeably on his shoulder and he seemed to know what they were doing. He had been impressed by his length on the mattress but they turned out to be of about equal height. He stopped and opened a door and urged Robbie into a cabin that was so small that after Robbie had backed up against the bunk and Edward had closed the door behind them, their bodies were touching tantalizingly here and there.
“You’re absolutely smashing,” Edward burst out with engaging schoolboy enthusiasm, his eyes sparkling. “I had to tell you. Your caramel skin—that’s closer than honey—your throat of course—every bit of you. I imagine you are quite young but you’re such a man if you know what I mean. And how glamorous to come sailing in from Greece. I’m sure you’ve just descended from Mount Olympus.” His hands moved up Robbie’s arms and came to rest on his shoulders. “Oh darling, you do like boys, don’t you?” he asked almost pleadingly.
“God, yes,” Robbie blurted out, throwing discretion to the winds. “I certainly like you.”
“Thank heavens. I couldn’t bear not knowing. I thought you were holding back. Agony. Shall we linger here a wicked moment or would you rather wait for a whole night of love?”
Robbie wasn’t accustomed to courtesy under these circumstances. His rough-and-ready experiences hadn’t taught him how to behave with a boy more or less of his own age and background. His erection was straining for release. He was dying to get his hands on Edward’s, quite visible in his funny trunks. What were they waiting for? “I thought—” he began hesitantly, letting his body ease in closer to Edward’s.
“That I brought you here to make love to you? Of course I did but I don’t want to force myself on you.”
“Oh no, you couldn’t. I want whatever you want.” He caressed the exquisite chest encouragingly while Edward deftly removed his trunks and closed his hands around Robbie’s rigid sex.
“Oh darling, a lovely long one. I knew it. Perfect for piping a lively tune. I’m green with envy.” He dropped down and drew it into his mouth. Robbie cried out and felt as if he had leaped into the air. Somebody wanted him at last as he had wanted alt the others. He barely mastered an instantaneous orgasm. Edward relinquished him and rose, peeling off his own trunks as he did so. Robbie was pleased to see that he almost exceeded the norm. Edward moved around with him and dropped onto the bunk and drew him down. At his prompting, they stretched out in a position that was new to Robbie, with their feet at opposite ends of the bunk, so that their mouths were placed where they could easily give each other pleasure. Robbie almost forgot the ecstasy of reciprocation. He wanted to lie back and let waves of bliss wash over him. They moaned and gasped with their mouths full and arrived at simultaneous orgasms. After a quiet moment, Edward sat up, holding Robbie’s head in his lap against his rapidly dwindling erection.
