The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (73 page)

 

 

Blushing, Yale stood up. Both of the girls laughed at his rampant
condition. "Wash my back," Anne said, "that will clear your mind."

 

 

Soaping Anne's back, Yale continued the discussion. "You know I disagree
completely with the idea that nudity is something to be ashamed of
. . . or that the half-nude is more sexually stimulating to a man. The
whole false premise starts with our educational and religious systems.
It seems to me that if men and women were taught to really see the human
body, and to appreciate the vast wonder of it -- whatever condition it
might be in -- in sickness or in health or in performing its functions
-- that the amazing, inexhaustible beauty of the human body would
always be exciting. I look at Cindar with her swollen belly and I am
delighted. She is a woman. As a man I am awed by her fertility. I am
proud of the transformation of her face and her breasts, firm and proud,
ready for the milk that will come. Did you ever see Picasso's painting
The Embrace? It's a gentle thing: a naked pregnant woman with her arms
around her man's shoulders. Her face buried in his shoulders. You don't
see reproductions of it very often -- most people think it's repulsive
or dirty or something -- but to me it's the consummation of the idea
that Rodin tried to embody in his statue 'The Kiss.' . . ."

 

 

"And you, Anne," Yale laughed as he cupped her breasts and gave her
neck a fleeting kiss, "are soapy and delightful . . . with an impish
grin. . . ." Barefoot, Yale paced the hearth, oblivious to the warmth
and affection that shone on both Anne's and Cynthia's faces. "I can't
seem to corner the thought, but I believe that if each man and woman
were indoctrinated from childhood into an atmosphere of human idealism
-- to appreciate the essential wonder of each other . . . the miracle
of man and woman eating, sleeping, copulating, thinking -- even the
miracle of defecating and urinating -- eventually hatred and fear
would disappear. . . ." Yale stopped. He suddenly realized that he was
declaiming like an orator. He had been waving his hands to emphasize
his feelings.

 

 

"Hear! Hear!" Cynthia cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
"Yale Marratt's Utopia . . . and he's his own press agent!"

 

 

Anne got out of the tub. She ran close to the huge fire, and started to
dry herself vigorously with a towel. "You know it's kind of chilly in
here despite the fire. After all, it's only March. Too early for a nudist
convention." She shivered. "Okay, since neither of you seems to wish
to face facts, I'll be the blunt one. I'm going to bed upstairs. Yale,
you sleep down here with Cynthia."

 

 

Cynthia shook her head worriedly.

 

 

Anne said, "Look, you know we've discussed it, Cindar . . . there's only
one other solution. Yale could sleep alone. That would be silly. I was
with him last. It's your turn, Cindar . . . and . . ." Anne said, with
mock fierceness, "you better be nice to him, because I love him, too."

 

 

Anne picked up her clothes. "I'm going upstairs to bed. Yale, you can carry
Ricky up." She looked at the clock. "Good God, it's two o'clock, he'll be
awake by five." Grinning at Cynthia, she picked up a flashlight. "You've
got three hours before I'll be poking around down here -- warming
a bottle."

 

 

Yale followed, on her heels, carrying the baby who was snuggled in his
crib blankets. Stepping into the corridor was like stepping into a freezer.
The damp cold air chilled their naked bodies.

 

 

"I feel like a nude Eskimo," Yale muttered. Ahead of him he could hear
Anne's teeth chattering as she probed the darkness with her flashlight. He
was suddenly aware of her swaying behind as she mounted the stairs ahead
of him. He leaned forward and bit her lightly. She yelled.

 

 

"Couldn't help it." Yale chuckled. "Your fanny was so tantalizing I just
had to."

 

 

Yale held the flashlight while Anne tucked the baby into his rocker crib.
Before Anne could get in bed he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
She snuggled against him for a moment, thinking: Yale, this is crazy,
I want you, too! I won't share you! But she didn't say it. Instead she
smacked him lightly on his buttocks in a farewell gesture. "Okay, lover,
your other woman is waiting. You are going to have to be a demon lover
to keep us both satisfied."

 

 

As he left the bedroom, he heard her whisper, "I love you, darling.
Good night." Poking his way slowly down the stairs, shivering a little,
he wondered how long it would take Bob Coleman to get the place rebuilt.

 

 

He had forgotten to look at the plans. They must be in the kitchen.
He decided to look at them with Cynthia. As he opened the kitchen door
he realized that the rapid-fire thoughts he was thinking were simply a
cover-up for his real feelings. He tasted the salt from Anne's tears
that had brushed off on his own cheek when he kissed her. She had
been crying silently in the dark . . . wanting him . . . trying to be
generous . . . against every natural female impulse. He felt strangely
torn . . . wanting to be with Anne and wanting to be with Cindar.

 

 

Cynthia was in the tin tub. She grinned at him. "If I am always going
to be last, I'm going to make sure that you and Anne keep good and clean."

 

 

Yale poked the fire. He threw another huge log on it. The heat was so
intense on the hearth, he drew away quickly. He liked the sounds of
the sputtering fire, and the quiet intimacy of the shadows flickering
on the ceiling and walls. A kerosene lamp glowed dully on the kitchen
table. The stinging odors of kerosene mixed with the heady odor of a
batch of liquor that Weeks was fermenting in a corner of the room.

 

 

Yale sat on the bed. It responded with a noisy squeak to his weight.
He watched Cynthia dry herself, enjoying the movement of her breasts.
They arched as she dried her back, and then hung in ripe fullness as she
bent over to dry her legs. When she finished Yale pushed her gently back
on the bed. Taking the towel from her, he dried between her legs. Smiling
at her embarrassment, he bent over and kissed her on the lower curve
of her belly. He felt the baby shift in her womb. He looked at her with
amazement. "It moved! I felt it."

 

 

She nodded. "I wish it were ours," she said quietly.

 

 

Yale lay down next to her. He pulled the covers over them. "Honey, it
is ours. This child is ours." She kissed him on his face with hundreds
of little kisses. She told him of her love for him and the loneliness
and fears of the past weeks.

 

 

Her fingers reached for him and guided him. Gently, he pressed against
her, liking the fullness of her stomach. She gasped, held him hard,
and they were joined.

 

 

As one -- they talked. She told him about the days with Anne, and the
joy of planning the house. "It is going to be a lovely house, Yale.
We told Bob Coleman to bring it up to date, but not to lose its early
New England charm." Yale liked the way that she included Anne in her
thinking. Her conversation was studded with "Anne and I wanted this"
or "We thought this would be best."

 

 

He mentioned it. "You and Anne seem to be getting along all right.
No conflict, no jealousies."

 

 

Cynthia wiggled against him. "Only jealousies over you," she breathed
in his ear. "Right now I'll bet she is feeling very sad and neglected."

 

 

Yale looked at her, surprised. "How do you know?"

 

 

"Because, my hungry love-bug friend, she loves you, too. No woman in
her right mind would share her man with another woman."

 

 

"But she is doing it and so will you."

 

 

"Oh, God, Yale, stop talking for a minute!" Cynthia grasped him with an
abandoned passion. For a long time they were lost in the ecstasy of each
other's desire. Then they lay quiet, breathing heavily. Cynthia kissed
him tenderly.

 

 

"To love you like that, darling," she said, "I have had to learn to love
Anne, too. No, dopey. Not like a lesbian -- but with a real affection
that people say is not possible between women." She was silent. "People
are wrong. That's a false idea. Actually two women really in love with
the same men are sharing the ultimate physical intimacy. If they make an
effort they can share the even deeper emotional intimacy. I have come to
care for Anne very much, Yale. I think she feels the same way about me."

 

 

They lay together enjoying the temporary surfeit of their love and their
return to individuality.

 

 

She let her fingers trickle over his belly, tugging lightly at his hairs.
"No man is an island. Yet we are, all -- each of us -- wrapped in our
covering of flesh, blood, muscles, nerves," she said. "I can only try to
be you or Anne, and you can only try to be me or Anne . . . the trying
. . . that is the important thing, isn't it? The thing that most people
neglect?" She took his hand. "Come on. The bed upstairs is big enough
for the three of us. This first night I can't sleep here alone with you
because I am too able to be Anne, alone up there."

 

 

Anne grumbled when they got into the bed with her. "Who does Yale Marratt
think he is?" she demanded sleepily. "Even sultans don't have it this good
. . . sleeping between two women."

 

 

Her voice was gruff but Yale knew she was pleased. "We couldn't go to
sleep without you," he said.

 

 

As he drifted into sleep, aware of each of them; Anne on his right,
Cynthia on his left, their legs crossing his, he prayed that their
strange marriage would be a happy one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8

 

 

Summer came to Midhaven, as it often did in New England, without
preliminaries. After days of rain and cold, and spring dampness that
extended into late June, suddenly the sun burned through the clouds. The
easterly wind shifted to the south. The temperature shot up to ninety
and stayed there.

 

 

Sitting on the veranda of the Midhaven Country Club with Liz, sipping a
planter's punch, Barbara Marratt watched her father tee up for his first
drive. He was with a foursome made up of club members Alfred and Jim
Latham . . . and Paul Downing, to whom Barbara had just been introduced.

 

 

Downing, a handsome man in his fifties, heavily tanned, with an intent
appraising stare, had examined her carefully. Barbara guessed that Pat
or Liz had probably mentioned to him that her divorce from Tom Eames
would be finalized this week.

 

 

Pat's swing was hard and graceful. His ball soared out on the fairway.
Paul Downing followed Pat, and his drive was even more expert. They saw
Pat congratulate Downing. A few minutes later the four men walked toward
the first hole.

 

 

"I'm bored," Barbara said. "I'm sick of hanging around a country club
slopping up hooch. Are you going to stay here all afternoon?"

 

 

Liz looked at her. "Bobby, you asked for this. You had another life . . .
you had found friends. Why did you throw it all away? I've watched you
for a month, now . . . coming in at all hours, so drunk half the time
it's shameful . . . staying in bed all day because you don't know what to
do with yourself. Pat and I are pretty worried. I still can't understand
why you would insist on going through with the divorce."

 

 

"You wouldn't care if Pat were fucking hell out of your best girl friend,
and then told you it was nothing to get alarmed about?"

 

 

Liz looked at her, shocked. "Barbara, I wish you wouldn't use such language.
It's cheap and vulgar. As for your father, I imagine that he hasn't been
entirely faithful."

 

 

"But you didn't know about it, did you?" Barbara asked sourly. "You see,
there's a considerable difference."

 

 

Liz tried to change the subject. "Why don't you play bridge with us this
afternoon? You were pretty good once. When Pat comes back we're having
dinner on Paul's schooner. It's quite nice. A seventy-footer with a crew
of six.

 

 

"And at least as many bedrooms," Barbara said sarcastically. "He's between
wives. Evidently, I look as if I need to be serviced."

 

 

"You mean he propositioned you?" Liz demanded. She didn't know what to say
or how to handle Barbara either as a daughter or as a divorcée.

 

 

"Of course not. Not yet. I just met him, but he was asking me just the
same . . . in a very cool self-contained way. If I go with you tonight,
I'll get the details later. So crap on that. I've met his kind by the
dozens in Texas. Down there they are in oil or cattle. What does he do?"

 

 

"He's president of Downing, Wiswell and Curtin. It's an investment house.
We met him in Florida. He's trying to convince Pat to sell stock in the
Marratt Corporation. Pat would be listed on the stock exchange. He is
really a very brilliant man. He's supposed to have a tremendous art
collection."

 

 

"I'll bet! . . . etchings and everything."

 

 

Liz ignored her. "He told Pat a very strange thing about Yale. I think
it kept Pat awake most of the night."

 

 

Barbara perked up. Interested, she lighted a cigarette. "No! What's
my kid brother done now? Got himself a third wife?" Barbara had been
home the night Doctor Tangle described to Pat and Liz the shocking
treatment he had received from a young woman who, Doctor Tangle claimed,
had introduced herself as Yale's "other wife." Pat and Liz had tried to
treat the incident as just the kind of perverted joke that a friend of
Yale's would indulge in.