The Good Life (37 page)

“You're so wonderfully sure about everything,” she murmured. “I love it. I hope I'll be like that when I've had more experience.”

He chuckled. “You mean when you've had a few more men? I don't want to hear about it. I might get violent.”

“I know. I can feel it in you. It's thrilling.”

He released her hand and let Michael and Jeremy and their ducal cousin take over for him while he wandered on to do his duty with other guests. Trevor soon joined him.

“What are you doing after?” Trevor asked. “Wouldn't you like to go out to the beach for a midnight bathe? Perhaps Bet will go with us.”

“Fine. We'll ask her. One of us will be the chaperon. Her father wouldn't let her go with just one of us.”

“Oh, I say, I wouldn't want to go without
you.”

“That's nice.” Perry gave him a friendly smile, carefully devoid of ambiguity. “Several people are about to go. I think the party's over.”

“It's getting late, but nobody pays any attention to time here. I'll ask Bet, shall I?”

“Sure. I think she'll like it.” Perry smiled to himself as the beautiful young man went to look for her. Perry couldn't be accused of standing in Bet's way. Trevor seemed like their junior although he was Perry's age. Sheltered backgrounds. They made Perry feel like a sinful old pervert.

He saw Billy standing at the head of the gangplank with Mado and her friends. He joined them, and they all said effusive good-nights. “If people staying all night means it's a good party, it was a triumph,” Perry congratulated Billy as they turned to the others.

“Plenty of drink never fails. Were you able to enjoy yourself, my dearest?”

“Of course. I've fallen madly in love with Marlene. I think Bet has a bit of a yen for pretty Trevor. He's asked us both to go for a swim in the moonlight. I told him you wouldn't let her go alone.”

“Quite right. We don't want her to start thinking she can come and go as she chooses, not that even Arlene could find fault with Trevor. No title but a vastly distinguished family. Mountains of money. Tastes that aren't unusual in a British aristocrat. You're more at risk than Bet.”

The others slowly drifted off, confirming dates for drinks and dinners as they went. Marlene made a delightful fuss over Perry, making him feel that she could hardly live without him.

“Shall I go home and get my car, or can we go in yours?” Trevor asked as his parents were saying good night.

“My car's right there waiting for us,” Perry assured him. “Did Bet say yes?”

“She loved the idea. She's super.”

Perry asked her if they should take swimming things.

“Heavens no. Nothing at night. Nobody does. Bring towels.”

They all sat in the front seat, and Perry drove them out along the road he knew now, past the brightly lit beach place where they had stopped, and he pulled off the road where he'd parked before.

There were no other cars around. It was very dark. A fragment of moon was sinking in the west. The sky was ruled by a million stars.

They picked their way over the low dunes, holding on to each other and laughing as they careened along, all slightly unsure of their feet after hours of drinking. They reached firm sand, with the hiss and murmur of the sea ahead of them.

“I hope nobody else is around,” Perry said. “We're apt to step on them. Who's this?” He was holding some part of a human body.

Bet giggled. “Who do you think it is?”

“It doesn't feel like Trevor.” He handed her one of the towels he'd brought from the boat. “There. That's for the girls' dormitory. Stay over there so we know where you are. We'll take three discreet paces over here.” He put his hand out for Trevor. “Is that you?”

“I'm here.” Trevor moved in close beside him.

“There,” he said, putting a towel into Trevor's hands and closing them around it. “Spread it out, okay? We know where we are, I think. The sexes are properly segregated. We can now discard the trappings of civilization.”

“Are you going to take off everything?” Trevor's voice was close to Perry's ear.

“Here? Lord yes. I'm just beginning to get a rough idea of where your head is. Bet? Are you getting undressed?”

“I already have. I'm going for a swim.”

“Don't go far. Splash a lot so we can find you.” In a moment he could hear splashing and saw the dark surface of the water disturbed just beyond the line of gentle breakers. He dropped his Jockey shorts at his feet with the rest of his clothes, and Trevor moved beside him. A timid hand moved along his shoulder.

“You promised to kiss me.” It was a hesitant whisper from a voice with the suggestion of a break in it. Perry was touched by it.

“Not exactly, but that doesn't mean I won't.”

He turned and reached for a pleasing naked body and pulled it closer. He felt a hardening cock prodding up alongside his thigh. He leaned closer and found parted lips, and their mouths joined. For a moment the kiss locked their bodies to each other, and then Perry gently pulled back with a pat on a beguiling behind. His cock remained almost blamelessly inert. “Come on. Bet's waiting. The sea will sober us up.”

He ran down to the water's edge and plunged in. He surfaced close to Bet but kept his distance so as not to make a spectacle of themselves in front of Trevor.

“Isn't it heaven?” she called to him. “It's my favorite time to swim. It's a crime to wear anything.”

“It's dark enough. I don't suppose you'll drive our friend mad with desire.”

“You
probably have even in the dark.”

“Oh, honey, isn't it fun to be like this together? We're pretty lucky.”

“Almost too lucky. Trevor's awfully sweet. We mustn't let him feel lonely.”

“I'm sure you won't.”

He felt married, if feeling married gave you a sense of having a new, fixed direction in life and of being with someone who could give you everything you wanted and needed. It was a lot to happen to him so quickly. He wondered if he really was falling in love this time. If she felt the same way he did, they both would have big adjustments to make. His life was nothing but adjustments.

He would never get used to the way everyone here acted as if there were no other way to live, luxuriating in the sun and stuffing themselves with fabulous food with never a worry about money. He supposed they fought and parted like everybody else, but their manners were too good for it to show in public. He didn't have to wait for the good life any longer. This was it.

Trevor swam smoothly out of the night. “Is it you?” he asked. “I daresay it would be jolly easy to end up with total strangers out here.”

“If there were any. It's just us.” Perry swam lazily, drawing Trevor a little farther from Bet. It was very easy for hands to float where they weren't supposed to be. “Don't go out any farther, baby,” he called back. “We don't want to lose you. Call if you decide to go in.” He swam aimlessly, leading Trevor with him.

Trevor shortened the distance between them, and his hands found Perry underwater. They slid amorously over him. Perry couldn't help sort of enjoying it, but he didn't want it. He submerged as a hand reached his cock and swam as far as his breath would take him. When he surfaced, he could see nothing but the night around him and heard only the surge of the sea. His only point of reference was the smudge of light where the beach bar must be. Bet was in that direction.

He started back but stopped, treading water. It wouldn't do any harm to leave her for a little while. If she was going to go after every guy who came along, the sooner he found out, the better. He wasn't a hopeless case yet.

He reversed direction and swam away from her. When he got tired of swimming, he climbed out and walked. He figured he'd been gone fifteen minutes when he turned back. Another fifteen minutes to return. A lot could happen in half an hour. If he got back at an awkward moment, May be it would help him come to his senses. Falling in love with Bet was the silliest thing he could do.

He had walked what he judged to be about the right distance when he made out two dark patches on the pale sand. He slowed and approached cautiously. Nothing stirred in the silence.

“Bet?” he said from a few feet away. There was a flurry of movement, and she was standing in front of him. His hands went out to her. She was naked.

“Darling,” she exclaimed. “Thank heavens. Where've you been?”

“Just wandering. Where's Trevor?” The other dark patch was a pile of clothes.

“Isn't he with you?” He heard something in her voice that made it unconvincing. Something had happened.

“The silly bastard left you here alone? Naked?” he demanded.

“Well, so did you. He was with me when I came out. He said you'd swum away. The next thing I knew, he had gone. I assumed he was looking for you.”

“That would've been pretty pointless in the dark.” He put an arm around her and sat her down on a towel beside him. She nestled against him. “You're sure nothing happened?”

“Like getting raped? Not that I noticed.”

“Where does he live?”

“Right back in there somewhere. I've always been driven, so I've never noticed exactly how to get there. It's very near.”

“He said he had a car at home. May be he went to get it. He doesn't strike me as a kid who would just walk off without going through the ‘Good night and thank you' routine.”

“Quite. He'll be back. He's been gone only about ten minutes.”

“I see.” He disengaged himself from her and jumped up, advancing carefully so as not to step on anything. He found his things but not Trevor's. He was expected to believe that the boy had dressed a few feet away from her without her noticing. She knew that he'd gone and didn't want to tell him why. “I don't think he'll be back.”

He dropped down beside her again and lifted himself over her as her hands drew him to her.

“I probably said something that made him feel he was in the way,” Bet said. “I was in agony wanting you to come back.”

“I stayed away to give you a chance at a fortune.”

“I want you,” she whispered as he began to enter her, her body strained up to him, taut with passion. “I want you so desperately. You've made me need you. When you're in me I have everything. Take me. You can take anything you want. Can you feel it? I'm yours.”

“I like to hear you say it. May be I'll believe you when you've had a chance to prove it.”

“When can we have our baby?”

“Wait till you get to New York. Everything will be different there.”

“Are we going to get married?”

“We can dream.” From meeting to marriage in a day. They weren't wasting any time. She was ridiculous but disarming. May be nothing had happened with Trevor. May be Trevor had been frightened by being alone and naked with her. He thought he would probably hear about it from Trevor.

Perhaps because of Billy's edict about chaperons, nobody emerged as a serious threat to Perry's monopoly of her over the next few days. There was a small group of Monique's friends in the neighborhood who became familiars, but Perry didn't know if any of them were suitors. They all had impeccably formal French manners.

He kept watching for Trevor but didn't run into him. They went to dinner with Michael and Jeremy and Natasha in a charming old farmhouse on the road to the beach. They had dinner with Alexis and Hilda in their little seaside villa near the entrance to town. Billy's bouillabaisse was a miracle of planning and a huge success. He had chosen a spot near a road so that people could come by car, and tables were set up under the trees while a mountain of sea monsters was cooked in a huge cauldron over an open fire on the beach. The stew was sublime. Trevor was conspicuously absent. It was becoming a nagging tease.

Mado gave a spectacular party on July 14, which Bet reminded Perry was Bastille Day, the equivalent of the Fourth of July. There was a band in the garden and fireworks that put to shame anything he had ever seen in the States. Pablo Picasso was there. So was Trevor. Perry made a point of greeting him warmly in passing. He seemed shy and reserved, but Perry saw him dancing with Bet several times and assumed that normal relations had been reestablished.

“Where've you been?” Perry asked when they encountered each other at one of several bars. “I was afraid you were avoiding us. I missed you at the fish fry.”

Trevor's smile for him reflected the same boyish infatuation that Perry had seen in him before. “You're sweet. That was my loss. It won't happen again. I say, Bet's smashing, isn't she?”

“I
think so. Having a good time?”

“I've always loved Mado's parties, ever since I was old enough to be invited to them. She knows everybody. You and Bet make it perfect. She didn't say anything about me the other night?”

“We both wondered why you'd run away. I thought you might disapprove of us.”

“Because of being naked? Nobody thinks anything of it here. That's just it. I had a cock stand after you left. I was so thrilled for it to happen with a girl that I got quite carried away. I can't think what possessed me. Have you ever wanted to show it off? As soon as I'd called it to her attention, as it were, it collapsed utterly. I've never been so embarrassed and ashamed. She was sweet about it, but I owe you an apology.”

“What for?”

“Oh, I say. You were the chaperon. I behaved like a cad. Do forgive.”

“Of course, if you promise not to drop out of sight again.”

“Never. I'd gladly spend the rest of the summer with you — you and Bet. I always think of you two as together. I may have been thinking of you when I lost my head with her.”

“I doubt if you were all that bad. She didn't say a word.” He could understand why. It must be a shock for a girl to discover that guys couldn't always keep it up.
“You and Bet.”
He replayed Trevor's words in his head, and he realized that increasingly people were classifying them as a couple. It made the living arrangements on board seem pointless. People saw them together all day. Why shouldn't they sleep together at night in private?