Naked Came the Stranger (25 page)

Willoughby giggled. She was absolutely charming, he thought. It
was really too bad she wasn't a man.

"Well, so long as they don't try to pervert me," said Willoughby.
"It's okay as long as they stick to their own kind."

"They are terrible."

"Frightful," said Willoughby. "I think it's perfectly scandalous
the way they carry on."

Gillian's eyes suddenly bored into his. "Do you really,
Willoughby?"

"Not really," he said. "But it's not my cup of tea."

"Honestly?"

"Absolutely not."

"Yes, but don't you ever think about it? About having sex with a
woman?"

"Not ever."

"Why?"

"Come now, Gillian. I told you. It's not My cup of tea."

"That's hard to believe."

"Your ego's showing, dear."

"No, I mean it. Haven't you ever done it with a woman?"

"No."

"Not even as a kid?"

"No. Not even then."

"Well then, I don't see how you can criticize it."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what they say," said Gillian, and her eyes were laughing
at him. "Don't knock it until you've tried it."

Willoughby felt flustered. He tried for a joking answer.

"Oh
you!
If Hank were here, you wouldn't dare talk to me
that way. You heterosexual, you!"

Gillian chuckled, and moved nearer. Her perfume was enchanting.
"But after all, Willoughby," she said, "you are a man."

"Let's just say I'm a better man," said Willoughby.

"Tell me," she said, "don't you feel, oh I don't know –
don't you feel like a disenfranchised Negro sometimes?"

"No. I feel more like an emancipated one."

"My, my," said Gillian, "such a sense of freedom. And I wouldn't
have been surprised if you'd said a castrated one."

"You're being vulgar, sweetie."

"I am sorry," she said. She moved her face closer. Then, staring
right at him the whole while, she leaned forward and kissed him on
the lips.

For a moment, Willoughby stood stock-still. His face wore a
quizzical look. It hadn't been unpleasant at all, he thought. As a
matter of fact – and the realization almost dizzied him –
it had been rather pleasurable.

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" said Gillian.

"No," Willoughby conceded with characteristic honesty.

"I'll admit it. It wasn't bad."

"You'll have to tell Hank," she said.

"I love Hank," he said.

"Sure you do," she said. She moved forward again, and this time
– oh my God, thought Willoughby – this time her tongue
met his, circling it teasingly and then sucking deep. Willoughby was
breathless as he pushed her away. "My God!" he said. He couldn't
believe his excitement.

"Face up to it, Willoughby," she said. "You're more straight than
you thought you were."

"No," he said. "That's ridiculous."

"You just never met the right woman before, that's all."

"It's the liquor," he said.

"Oh, come off it, Willoughby."

"But Hank…."

"What about Hank? Like what do you think he's doing right
now?"

Hank, thought Willoughby. Damn him. Damn him to hell, the bitch.
"Forget about Hank," he said.

"Yes, " she said, "let's forget about him." And their tongues were
touching once again.

Gillian moved back and smiled. The peanut butter jars were empty,
and Gillian and Willoughby stared at each other. Gillian's expression
was omniscient; Willoughby looked confused.

"Yes," she said.

"No," he said. "No."

"Don't look so sad, Willy. You'll love it."

"It's crazy," he said. "The whole idea is crazy."

"It's a perfectly marvelous idea."

"I can't. I just can't."

"You can, you can."

The martinis sloshed about inside Willoughby's head. He couldn't
understand what was happening. No woman had ever attracted him
before. Yet he couldn't lie to himself. Gillian Blake had a
certain… well, a certain excitement. Only he loved Hank.
Still, there had been the hairdresser. And Hank. With that stupid
Vince. The bitch!

Gillian reached out and took his hand. Her fingers played with the
hairs on the back of his wrist. Then she was tugging gently at
him.

"Come on, Willy," she said. "When in Rome, do as the groupers do.
Or something. Let's take a walk."

Double damn Hank, Willoughby thought. "Yes," he said. "Let's. I
mean, why the hell not?" But he knew nothing would happen. Not with a
woman. He simply couldn't.

They walked alongside the dunes, Willoughby sometimes hesitating,
and then moving on. Gillian kept pace – not leading, not
following. They came to a hollow in the dunes just beyond the cluster
of houses, and they stopped.

"This really is nonsensical, Gillian," Willoughby said.

"You don't really believe that, do you, Willoughby?" She snuggled
against him.

"Yes, I do. Look, Gillian, I'm a homosexual because I want to be.
Women make me sick."

"But I don't make you sick, do I, Willoughby?" she said, and she
leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.

"No," he said. "I guess you don't. But I couldn't. I just
couldn't."

"Sure you could." Now she was nibbling on his ear.

"No."

"Yes." Now she was kissing him with her tongue.

"Ummm," she murmured. "You do that very well." Willoughby was
beginning to feel good. "It's my specialty," he said.

"What's Hank's specialty?"

"Can you guess?" said Willoughby.

Her hand was inside his trousers now, and Willoughby sat as if he
was riveted to the sand. An incredible thing was happening. Something
that had never happened before in his entire life. He was
experiencing a physical reaction to a woman! A physical reaction!

Now Gillian was at him with her mouth – with her soft lips
and her skilled tongue. Willoughby lay back with closed eyes. He was
being transported out of himself. Christ, but she was good. She was
better than Hank! Oh my God! Oh! Oh! Oh my
God!

Gillian sat up. "Well," she said. "Do you still think Hank has a
corner on the market?"

"Gillian," he said. "Oh, Gillian."

"I know," she said, and they reached for each other and found
pleasure in gentle caresses.

They spent perhaps an hour touching each other, exploring each
other; Willoughby making new discoveries all the time. Why, a woman's
body was interesting! They were both naked now; lying in the cool
sand near the breaking sea. Gillian cupped her breasts with her hands
and offered them to him. The nipples were firm and erect. Willoughby
stared at the proud breasts blossoming in the shadows. Breasts, he
thought, breasts. There was something he should do. Breasts. He
fastened his eyes on them, and then, with primeval instinct, he
leaned forward. He sucked.

A little while later, Gillian gently pushed him away. Her hands
were on him again, eliciting stiffness. He tried to push her mouth
down to him.

"No," she said. "This time we do it my way."

"But I can't. I never have."

"Come to Gilly," she crooned, caressing him.

"I want to," he said. "I want to." And it was as if the confession
gave him strength. He mounted her as she fell back on the sand.

Slowly, gently. Slowly, gently. Slowly, nicely. Oh lovely, lovely.
Then faster, quicker, faster, needful. Willoughby was lost in
immense, billowy softness and riotous colors and roaring winds; he
was the sand and the sea and the star-pierced sky. Faster, faster,
faster. Oh, oh, oh…… ahhhhhhh. From far off he heard a
faint cry that turned into a moan; it was Gillian, and then
Willoughby realized he had been moaning, too. Afterward, they smoked
and talked.

"Was I really good?" he asked.

"One of the all-time greats," she said.

"I'll be a son of a bitch," said Willoughby. He got up and strode
to the water. He felt manful as hell. He urinated. Then he dipped his
hands into the cold surf.

He reached up and washed the make-up from his face. He strode back
to Gillian.

"What about Hank?" she said.

Willoughby Martin breathed in the night air. "If that son of a
bitch ever bothers me again," he said, "I'll knock him on his
ass."

They laughed. Willoughby thought his voice sounded deeper. By God,
he was a man.

They spent the night on the beach. That Gillian. He couldn't get
enough of her. And imagine all the women who were out there in the
world waiting for him. Just wait till Hank tried to come crawling
back. Hank! thought Willoughby, and he snorted to himself. That damn
queer.

A few weeks later, King's Neck lost its pet homosexuals. They
moved out shortly after neighbors reported hearing a terrible row.
The day after the fight, someone saw Hank in town with a bandaged
nose and blackened eyes. A month after that, one of the garden club
officers reported meeting Willoughby in the city. She said she had
hardly recognized him; he was wearing a sweatshirt, and he had gotten
a crew-cut. And believe it or not, she said, he had tried to
proposition her. Someone told Gillian about it. "Well," she said.
"It's like they say. Don't knock it until you've tried it."

Billy: The man says he doesn't want any publicity,
that's what the man says. And, speaking personally, I find that
attitude a refreshing change from most of the authors we manage to
lure onto the show.

Gilly: You'd think that out of sheer
neighborliness….

Billy: Neighborliness? That fellow moves about in much the way
an astronaut does – except, from what I hear, at a lower level.
And I have to admit I've always felt he was overrated as a writer,
strictly a one-book author. Gilly: You mean
The Hard and the
Moist?

Billy: What else?

Gilly: Well, how about
Mountaintop?

Billy: Same book, different title. Look at him, honey. What is
he – forty-four years old? – the world's oldest flower
child.

Gilly: But still, still he's Caradoc.

Gillian realized there was no legitimate reason to
include Zoltan Caradoc on her list. He had been married four times
– most recently to Paige Marchand, the dancer – but they
were never marriages in the customary sense. It had been several
years since he had allowed a woman to share his bayside castle for
more than a night or two. In fact, for nine months of every year
Caradoc was a virtual hermit, a professional loner, a man who spent
long hours fashioning sentences while studying the sullen winter
waters of Long Island Sound.

These were his working months, his caged-in months. Caradoc spent
the time roaming from one room to another, one glass-fronted cubicle
to another, always within sight of the water and always surrounded by
the tape recorders and stereo sets and color television consoles and
electric typewriters. He lived three-fourths of his life in an
ultra-modern electronic womb. Cable umbilicals carried him regular
progress reports from the outside world; sensitive microphones were
always handy to transmit and preserve his thoughts and memories for
posterity. And though only forty-four years old, Zoltan Caradoc had
already strung together enough words to more than equal the lifetime
output of Proust.

And every year, as the cold season came to an end, Caradoc once
again ventured into the real world. Ventured… no, say rather,
exploded. He would, in that three-month interval, be photographed
stalking chamois in Bhutan, hunting wild boar in Bulgaria, pursuing
teenyboppers in San Francisco.

Gillian, like most of the cognoscenti, kept up with the ever
growing legend that was Zoltan Caradoc. She recalled the news account
of his bloody encounter with a killer shark off Tanzania; Caradoc had
lost three fingers of his left hand but had saved the life of a
native oarsman. And she recalled another hair-raising adventure
– his being arrested in his suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel in
the company of three blonde call girls, an ancient Negro sculptress
and a Shetland pony. Gillian had first met Caradoc in early winter
– midway between Morton Earbrow and Joshua Turnbull, as she now
measured time. It was during the power failure, the electric blackout
of King's Neck that lasted twenty-seven hours. Caradoc had endured
the power failure as long as he could and then had deserted his
suddenly lifeless machinery for the candlelit warmth of Morarity's
Shamrock Bar & Grill. Gillian, too, had stopped in for a moment's
warmth. She stood, her back to an open fire, and she instantly
recognized his face – the face she had seen on the jacket of a
book called
Mountaintop.

The photo, however, was no more than a sterile reproduction of the
original. Never before had she seen a man with such piercing blue
eyes, diamonds blazing out of a square face beneath a mop of
coal-blue hair that curled and roamed over head and neck. The nose
had been broken more than once, the jaw was firm, the total effect
was softened slightly by the full and sensual lips. The author was
still in his working garb – jeans with ragged cuffs, a faded
denim shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His forearms were thick,
powerful, corded with veins and bristling with hair. Gillian noticed
the absence of three fingers from his left hand.

The stool beside Caradoc was empty and Gillian walked to it.

"Martini," she said. "On the dry side."

The bartender looked momentarily bewildered and Caradoc roared
with laughter.

"Not here," he said. 'Here, Mrs. Blake, you better settle for a
beer."

"A beer then," she said to the bartender before turning to
Caradoc. "My mistake. I didn't mean to be so radical. How did you
know my name?"

"The same way you know mine," Caradoc said. "I read the papers,
same as you do."

"You've got me there," Gillian said, smoothing her sweater.

"You didn't have to do that."