Robbie followed him to the kitchenette and watched him open a chilled bottle and fill two glasses. He moved in close to him to take his. Toni ran his fingers through his hair and held his neck. Robbie put a hand on his shoulder and looked into his great tranquil green eyes. His curls had smoothed out into waves. He looked more down-to-earth and ordinary, more farmboy than sylvan god. Robbie found the new natural Toni less glamorous and utterly endearing.

  “I talked to Carl about you,” Toni said, looking at him thoughtfully. “Did you tell him anything about us?”

  “I told him I’m in love with you and that you don’t want me to be a pédé.”

  “You’ve been to bed with him?”

  “Yes. He was one of the nine or ten or whatever it is.”

  “I thought so. It puzzles me. Why would he want you when he obviously wants women? I guess some men can make their own rules. He seems to think I should enjoy you while I’ve got you. Why does he think I’d enjoy it? That’s what I don’t understand.”

  Robbie took a long swallow of his wine and hoped he knew how to take advantage of what Carl had tried to do for him. “Because you say you love me. He doesn’t think I should pretend that you’re curing me,” he said slowly. “He accepts the fact that I’m queer. He made love to me as if—well, as if I were a girl, so I guess he knows. At times, when I feel you’re never going to want me, I start thinking about others. I don’t want to but I can’t help it.”

  “Other men?”

  “Yes.”

  “But there haven’t been any others since I’ve been here, have there?”

  “Yes. One. He came with Pic—”

  “You filthy little pig,” Toni cried. “I warned you I’d go if that happened.” He struck him hard across the face with the flat of his hand. Robbie’s ears were still ringing from the blow when his glass was snatched from him and Toni’s arms were around him and he was kissing him where he’d hit him. “No. Please. Oh God. I’m sorry, little brother. I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He continued to murmur incoherently until Robbie kissed him in return. He held him close. “There. I love you so much that I almost wish I were queer. We belong together, I know that. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I get so wildly jealous. I can’t stand thinking of Carl having you, or Edward or anybody else. I won’t let anybody else have you. Come to bed, little brother.” Toni picked up the glasses and the bottle and gave him a little push toward the door. Robbie’s heart was beating with reckless elation. Something had happened. He’d made Toni jealous. Perhaps he’d seduced him.

  Toni put down the wine on the bedside table and quickly pulled off his clothes and turned to Robbie with an erection. Robbie stared at it, thrilled and amazed. Except in the sea, he had never had an erection with him without some preliminary stimulation. Toni saw the direction of his eyes.

  “Yes, I want you with it,” he asserted vehemently. “I want to make you belong to me but I don’t know how. Everything would be wonderful but we can’t change our bodies. I won’t suck your cock. I wish you didn’t want to suck mine. There’s nothing about your body I want.” He approached as Robbie removed the last of his clothes. “I like to look at it and touch it. I want you. I don’t see what I can do about it.”

  “Take me the way I want you to,” Robbie begged. “It won’t be disgusting. Why don’t you take me?”

  “Because you’re not a girl.” It burst out like an accusation. “I won’t treat you like one or let you act like one.” He turned and flung back the bedclothes and pushed Robbie down. He fell beside him and gathered him into his arms. When their mouths met, Toni’s was hungrily passionate in a way it had never been before. Robbie responded with all the love and passion that was in him. Their bodies writhed urgently against each other. Their kiss deepened and endured. Toni slid up on top of him and worked his hips in simulated copulation. Robbie could feel the need in him at last and all of him opened out to meet it. He moved his body and thrust it up to blend with Toni’s. Their erections clashed and strained against each other and their breath grew labored. They were one and together and loved each other.

  Their mouths broke apart with simultaneous cries and they shouted together while their bodies leaped and thrashed about with their orgasms. They remained as they were, Toni lying on Robbie, while their breathing subsided.

  “There,” Toni said finally. He lifted his head and looked into Robbie’s eyes and was stirred by the love that glowed in them. “Is that enough for you, little brother? That’s the only way two guys can make love without turning into perverts. Cocksuckers. Sodomites. We’ve got to stick to the way our bodies are made. Do you feel how much I want you now? Is that enough to make you belong to me?”

  “Oh God, yes. If we can have that, I don’t need anything else. Nobody else will ever have me.”

  “No. We’ll pretend we’re shipwrecked on a desert island. If we were, we’d be doing things like that soon enough. I don’t want you to suck my cock anymore. Is that something you think you need?”

  “No. I want to make love to you everywhere but I won’t there if you don’t want me to. You said you liked it.”

  “I do but I hate for you to like it. Girls do. I want us to love each other like men. You’re not some special third sex. Everybody has some female in him, you maybe more than most, but you’re a man. I love you as a man. If that’s queer, I can’t help it.”

  “You’ll still want girls.”

  “Naturally, but they can wait. I just want you for a little while. Do you understand? I’ll be your lover always if you don’t make me feel like a pervert. I feel so good with you.”

  “Oh God, Toni. You don’t know. When you say things like that I feel as if I’ve got everything I could ever want in life.” His eyes filled with ecstatic tears.

  “It’s true.” He kissed him and rolled away from him and lay on his back. “We better wash up. What a mess. That’s part of it, I suppose—our sperm all mixed up together. I wish it were possible for two guys to fuck a girl at the same time. That’s what I’d really like—you and me in the same girl. What an idea. Come on before I get hard again.”

  Carl and Helene had their first time alone together the next morning on the beach. Stuart had gone into town on some errand and the boys had not yet appeared. She and the German were stretched out side by side on deck chairs wearing swimming things. Helene was alert and slightly on edge, wondering if he would take this opportunity to renew the declarations he had made in Greece. Keeping her eyes off his body required a much greater effort than she remembered; he was a magnificent physical specimen. The sun gave her an excuse to keep her eyes closed.

  “You know why I have come here,” he said after a brief silence.

  “Because we invited you, I should think,” she said lightly while her heart began to beat uncomfortably.

  “I wouldn’t have needed an invitation. I would have come. Life was intolerable without you.”

  She uttered a peal of laughter and all her slightly jangled nerves smoothed out. She didn’t have to fence with him; she could take him or leave him. She would leave him of course, except that it didn’t have to be as simple as that. If life was intolerable without her, she could relax in the pleasure of his company without having to be constantly on her toes to please him. If she wasn’t trying to please him, she would be less conscious of them as male and female. “Really, Carl,” she protested mildly, “what do you expect to gain by saying things like that? Where does it lead?”

  “Into my arms, of course.” His smile was youthful but assured.

  “I should think you’ve already been here long enough to see how impossible it is to conduct an illicit affair. We’re all together all the time. Nobody has any privacy except Robbie up in his little house. One would have to be awfully rash and determined to even consider it. I’m afraid we’re both too old to be either.”

  “I’m not proposing an affair. I’m proposing a life. I would settle for no less.”

  She laughed again. He was making it easier and easier for her. She let her eyes roam over his handsome body. An affair with him might be tempting under favorable circumstances; what he was suggesting was too farfetched to require comment. “No wonder you’re still a happy-go-lucky bachelor if you always insist on your affairs lasting a lifetime.”

  “I’ve bided my time. I have always known I would find the right woman before I was forty. I’ve let it go till the last minute, perhaps, but I am no longer in a hurry.” He sat back and admired her heroic beauty. He had never known a beautiful woman to successfully renounce passion. She was at the height of her ripe maturity, waiting to be plucked. He had no intention of forcing it but would give her a week or two, or perhaps more, to come to him. When her passion had been reawakened, she would fall as completely under his control as Robbie.

  “You mustn’t blame me when you discover you’ve been brought here by an illusion,” she said complacently after another brief silence. “I warned you my life was made. It shouldn’t take you more than a day or two to see it for yourself.”

  “So? This place is a beautiful shell. I’ve seen that already. Robbie is the only life here. Robbie and Toni.”

  “Congratulations. I didn’t think you were capable of saying an unflattering word to a woman. Are they having a love affair?”

  “There is much love between them. I don’t know how far they go in expressing it. Toni isn’t a homosexual.”

  “Good heavens, of course not. Do you think we’d have him here if he were? I wasn’t suggesting anything vile. I meant a platonic love affair of the sort boys have at that age.”

  He listened carefully to her choice of words. It didn’t suit him yet to pursue the subject; there were other aspects of this situation he could exploit to propel her into his arms. He sat forward and looked at her. “Robbie has developed extraordinarily in the two months since I’ve seen him. His physical attraction is quite mesmerizing.”

  “Yes. I might not have put it quite that way but I’ve noticed it too.”

  “Of course. You’re falling in love with him. I have come in time to save you from that.”

  She stared at him for a paralyzed instant. Her hands flew to her ears as if she could block his words. Blood rushed to her cheeks. Why did she think she could relax with him? He was the devil incarnate. Her mouth dropped open and she shook her head dazedly. “You’re evil,” she said barely above a whisper. “How could you dare say such a thing to me?” He looked coolly self-confident. A little smile played around his finely modeled lips.

  “Come, come,” he said. “Do you think it so terrible because you know it’s true? I’m sure it happens quite often and is sternly repressed. It would be the greatest calamity that could befall you. All your hoarded passion would wither and die. You would lose forever your chance for a full life. I won’t let it happen to you.”

  “You must be mad,” she said, recovering her voice and slowly stemming the flood of her horror. “If you mean I’m becoming aware of him physically, how could it be otherwise? I’m sure most mothers are thrown off balance by suddenly facing a young man, after living for years with a child. In Robbie’s case, a strikingly attractive young man, as you’ve just pointed out. To call it falling in love is sheer madness. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for it.”

  “You will, my dear, when you come to realize what I’ve helped you escape.”

  “Really, Carl. I don’t want to continue this conversation.” She gathered up her book and the other odds and ends she had with her and rose. He noticed that her hands were trembling slightly. He admired her elegant carriage as she left. He had planted the seeds. He would nurture them to a fine flowering. He was resigned to the fact that it was impossible to get along in the world without, however inadvertently, trampling on others, but for once he didn’t think anybody was going to get seriously hurt. Even Stuart might end by thanking him.

  Helene felt anything but thankful to Carl. He had set up a train of thought that seemed to have no end. She couldn’t deny that she had felt odd stirrings recently in Robbie’s presence. She had dreamed of seeing him naked in all his thrilling young virility. He was part of her. It was natural to want to know her own creation. The thought of any real physical intimacy with him repelled her. She wouldn’t dream of allowing him to see her naked. How could anybody say she was falling in love with him?

  When she returned to the beach before lunch, Robbie and Toni had joined Carl. As beautifully developed physiques, there was little to choose between them except for a sort of raw power that was distinctively Carl’s. Youth endowed Toni and Robbie with a special shining grace. Since Toni had stopped working, there had been small differences in the way they treated each other that were growing more pronounced. Their constant touching was filled with hidden caresses. When he looked at Robbie, Toni eyes were filled with gloating tenderness.

  She observed them closely now. Robbie was practicing handstands under Toni’s tutelage. Toni placed his hand very near Robbie’s crotch as he supported his legs in the air. His hand moved and they laughed as Robbie dropped down and sprang to his feet. Boys could touch each other there without thinking anything of it. She didn’t need Carl to tell her that Toni wasn’t a homosexual. He hadn’t said it about Robbie, as if there were no need to state the obvious. The boys sparred playfully with each other and jostled each other into the sea. She felt not the slightest trace of jealousy. A woman falling in love with either of them would be automatically jealous of their happiness with each other.

  She turned to her tormentor and resumed her seat beside him. She must face up to him once and for all. If he had talked about her falling in love with Robbie in order to make her question everything she had been and everything she had become, he had succeeded. She had sacrificed passion for peace and contentment. Was her life the poorer for it? He had yet to convince her that it was but she hadn’t wondered for years.

  “Has Stuart come back?” he asked unexpectedly, lying out with his eyes closed.

  “Yes. He’s going over some bills in his study. Did you want to see him?”

  “No, no. I have been wondering about privacy. He has been gone most of the morning. Do you know where he’s been?”

  “As much as I need to know. This house has to be kept running. Are you suggesting that he’s been with a girl?” She said it witheringly but was reminded that that was where he had been once upon a time when he went off on errands.

  “I’m suggesting that people who have been together for many years don’t usually check up on each other every minute of the day and night. If you think of your days, I’m sure you would find many hours when neither of you has the slightest idea what the other is doing.”

  “So you’re thinking of a clandestine affair after all.”

  “No, no, but we must have each other sooner or later so that we will know where we wish to go from there. I’m accustomed to a nap in the afternoon in hot climates. I will be waiting. Half an hour can alter a whole life.”

  She looked at his body again and at his handsome face in repose. With his lively eyes closed, it was curiously peaceful. She allowed herself to imagine being held in his powerful arms and her heart accelerated. She took a quick breath and shook her head to dispel the thought.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to avoid any private conversation with you,” she said, resuming her grandest manner. “I decided to ignore what you said about Robbie. Now this. You have the effrontery to suggest that I’d come sneaking to your room like some common trollop.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her and winked. He threw his head back with full-throated laughter and sprang up and went racing down into the sea after the two boys.

  She was left seething with frustrated indignation. It didn’t matter what she said to him or how she treated him. Everything bounced off his self-confident air of knowing her better than she knew herself. She could at least retain enough poise and dignity to let him make all the moves in whatever game he thought they were playing.

  He had arrived in a racy little convertible that he’d bought in Marseilles. Several times when they went out in the evening she rode with him. It would have been easy for him to take the wrong turning, to stop on a deserted road, to make love to her, not in a real sense but enough to break down her guard. He was always a model of gentlemanly deportment. They always arrived at their destination just ahead, or on the heels, of the others. In spite of herself, she wished increasingly that he would do something that she could come to grips with. Did he really think she was going to fling herself on him?

  When he’d been there a week, he announced to the assembled family that he’d decided to rent a house of his own. There was a chorus of protests.

  “We’re losing our customers,” Stuart commented. “We’d better fire the staff.”

  “I can’t live with you for the rest of my life, my friend. I like it here. I haven’t settled anywhere for quite a long time. A year or so here should be most agreeable. Who knows? It might become permanent.”

  “Well, it’ll be one more house where we’ll be invited to parties,” Robbie said. “Do you know where it’ll be?”

  “Somebody told me last night of a farmhouse that is just remodeled. Not on the sea but close. Furnished, of course. I am not so domesticated that I want to start buying curtains. That may come.” Carl glanced at Helene.

  She remained silent. She saw the move as his answer to the problem of privacy and it alarmed her. Did he know that she would come to him once the danger of discovery had been removed? He had been right about their days. There were many hours when Stuart wouldn’t notice her absence and there were many easy explanations to offer him if he did. She caught herself thinking about Robbie. What if Robbie, with his quick perception, felt a change in her relationship with Carl? Was there something unnatural about not wanting her son to suspect her of an involvement with another man? Must she force herself to give in to Carl in order to prove that her feelings for Robbie were purely maternal?