The Boy

I reckon I was as much of a surprise to Vi as Vi was to me. I had got into the habit of entering through a door that opened directly onto the sun porch. Since Charlotte was ready to work at the stroke of eight o’clock in the morning, today, like always, I took off my clothes so I’d be ready for her.

As I turned around from folding my pants neatly in a chair, I saw the girl lying full length in a long chair. I stood buck naked, gazing at her whilst she started back at me.

Finally she said, “So you’re him,” with a jerk of her head toward the statue.

“Part of him, at least,” I said.

She got up out of the chair, laughing. “Yes. I can see which part.”

She had long hands, and a colorless face in which the large eyes were also pale. There was length to her body, the waist willowy, her neck curved like the neck of swan. She was wearing a denim skirt and a halter top, and her thin feet were bare.

I say “girl” because she was much younger than Miss Charlotte; no more than thirty, I would say, though I’m not much to tell the age of a woman. Even the way she walked, as she circled me inspecting my body front and rear, was lazy, as though she were so tired she wasn’t sure she could take the next step.

“I can see what Charlotte was talking about,” she said, coming before me to look into my face. A worry crease showed between her pale, corner-tilted eyes. “But I don’t understand why she felt it necessary to have me on the scene.”

“Maybe she just wanted to see you,” I said politely.

She gave me a look out of the edge of her eyes. “Oh, yes, she wanted to see me, all right. We’re lovers, you know.”

She wasn’t English, like Miss Charlotte. I couldn’t tell much about her accent. She wasn’t from around Pass Robin, though.

“Yes’m,” I said. “I know.”

“Isn’t the idea shocking to a Gulf Coast redneck like you?”

“No’m,” I said politely. “I reckon not.”

“We’ve been together for a long time,” she said in a secure sort of voice. “Five years, almost.” She stopped talking. Her eyes were on Him, where He hung waiting to take His pose when Miss Charlotte came. “Do you know how women make love to each other?”

“Yes’m,” I said. “Miss Charlotte told me all about it.”

Her pale eyes having caught a deep glow, suddenly she was prettier. “We were home from the airport by eight o’clock last night, and we didn’t get to sleep until three this morning. It was . . .lovely.” She kept watching me for some sort of reaction to the ideas she was planting in my head. “What do you think about that?”

“It must be nice,” I said.

“Is that all you’ve got to say?” She laughed, sort of nastily. “Don’t you think it’s a terrible waste, for two lovely women to deny men the abuse of their bodies?”

“I reckon people do whatever it is they like the best,” I said, calmly refusing to get into an argument. I moved my shoulders. “If it’s what turns you on, who am I to say you nay?”

She sneered at me. “But, like any man, you secretly believe I’d a lot rather have you. Isn’t that it? Let me tell you, Johnny Stud, a man doesn’t know what love can be.”

“I ain’t no stud,” I said, wishing Charlotte would come on. For the first time, she was running late.

To my relief, here she came. “Well, hello,” she said. “Are you two getting acquainted?”

“Yes’m,” I said. “I reckon so,” watching while Miss Charlotte went to put her arms around Vi and kiss her on the mouth. They stood holding each other, smiling, their bodies so close you couldn’t tell where the one left off and the other began.

“Did you get enough sleep?” Charlotte said tenderly.

Vi yawned. “Oh, I’ll take a nap after a while, while you’re working.”

Charlotte turned toward me. “Well, what do you think, Vi? Isn’t he all I said he was?”

The two lesbian women were studying me with cool eyes. It didn’t bother me; by now I had got used to Miss Charlotte’s ways.

Vi shrugged. “It’s a fine cock, if you care for that sort of thing.” I wanted to tell her He wasn’t an It, but I didn’t.

Charlotte got intense. “Oh, better than that, Vi. He’s the immortal cock of the world. At least, He will be when I get through with Him.”

She came close, put the flat of her hand on my hip, stroking down my flank to grip His head in a tender hand. “But to do such a great work, Vi, I must know Him inside and out, be able to sketch Him in my sleep. I thought it would be simple, but it isn’t, Vi, there are terrible complexities, it’s Thing and Idea, and physical and spiritual, all very simple and yet so terribly complex. I’m still learning Him, Vi. The deeper I go, the deeper I have to go.”

She was still stirred up by the talking, she had taken away her hand and was pacing back and forth, one fist clenched in her effort to make Vi understand.

“That’s why I had to have you, Vi. You must help me understand, help me see, help me to create the great thing I shall create out of Him. Do you understand, Vi?”

“Oh, Charlotte, you always get so carried away with your work,” Vi said in her lazy voice. She looked at me. She looked back at Charlotte. “You know I’ve always admired what you do. But I’ve never been able to help you with it.”

“This time, though, you can help.” Miss Charlotte paused. “You’re going to fuck this cock for me, Vi. Understand? You will take Him into your body, you will know Him, you will use Him like He was meant to be used.”

“For God’s sake, Charlotte!” The girl was truly shocked. “If I’d know that was what you had in mind, I wouldn’t have got on that plane. You know I hate the very idea of a man.”

“Vi, you’re bi, and don’t deny it,” Charlotte said.

“I used to be,” Vi said deeply. “Before I met you. But now . . .” She put her arms around Charlotte, holding her fiercely. “I can’t even think about a man now. The very idea makes me ill . .” Her whole body shuddered with disgust, while she clung to her lover like a little lost girl.

Charlotte hugged her. “If you love me, you’ll do it for me,” she begged. “I must have your help. Not just to know Him, understand Him, feel Him . . . there’s also the physical problem of keeping Him on His toes. I can’t work with anything less than a full erection, you see, and, like the boy says, He’s got a mind of His own. I’ve done everything I can think of to keep Him interested. But it gets more difficult every day.”

“No,” Vi said, stubbornness edging her voice. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me.”

Charlotte caught her by the waist, turned her facing her, looked deeply into her eyes. “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” Vi said slowly. “You know I do.”

“Then you’ll do it. For me.” She took a deep breath. “You will sit quietly and watch while we work. While you watch, you will hold in your mind what it will feel like to have Him plunging into you. You will desire it deeply, you will feel it truly. And then . . . when we’re through posing for the day, you will fuck Him, you will suck Him, you will do all the things a man and a woman do together. While I observe, while I learn . . and it will also be a reward for Him . . .”

She paused triumphantly, looking now at me. “See? Look, Vi. He’s already up and ready, just hearing what’s going to happen. I didn’t even have to touch Him.”

I looked down. It was true. His head was red and throbbing. He was jerking impatiently, thrusting toward the pale girl with that mind of His own.

Charlotte, forgetting the talk, hurried to her work place and began slapping the clay, shaping it, building it, her eyes so greedy on Him I could practically feel their burning.

“Oh, that’s lovely, that’s the best yet,” she breathed. “That’s what I needed, oh, yes!” She glanced at her friend. “Just sit down over there, Vi, and do like I said. Look at this wonderful cock, think about Him, know you’re going to use Him . . . Oh, yes, lovely, wonderful, marvelous . . .” Her hands were building the best modeling of Him she had done yet; even I could tell that.

Vi went obediently to sit on the edge of the long chair. I reckoned she must know, by now, how important it was to her friend to make her great work of art, for she did what she had been told to do. While I stood looking at her, her long hands and her long feet, and all the body in between, thinking that I hadn’t ever had nothing to do with a woman who didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I kept wondering how it would turn out to be.

Charlotte knew what she was doing, all right, when she had called Vi into the picture. He kept His stand longer than ever before, without her having to stop work to keep Him that way. I wondered why it was He could stay so damned ready for something that didn’t want Him in the first place. But that’s just how contrary He could be; the more I thought about it, the warmer I got, because it would just have to be different from anything me and Him had ever experienced. My old ladies, one and all, they was so greedy He hardly had time to get ready before they had jumped Him like a mad dog on a bone. Oh, she would be cold and slow, I knew it as well as anything, and she would make up her mind to hate every minute of it. But He had the confidence in Himself, you see; just let Him get in there and root around, He’d make a place for Himself, all right.

After the longest time, of course, He finally eased off the peak of expectation; you can’t expect a fellow to live on hope alone. The minute she noticed, Miss Charlotte stopped in her feverish work and stepped back, tired but happy.

“It’s the best yet,” she muttered. “Can’t quit now, I’ve got to finish it, got to be able to look at it whole, visualize how it will go with the statue.” She raised her head. “Vi, take off your clothes.”

“Charlotte!”

“Please. You must! Please.”

With such raggedness of begging in her voice, Vi could do aught else but what Miss Charlotte asked. Standing, she began slowly unfastening the halter. She showed me small breasts, with very large nipples, shaped like a pear is shaped, and well separated one from the other. Her rib cage was bony, so think I could see her breathing. He began to perk up again.

She unfastened the belt of her denim wrap-around, let it fall to the floor. Didn’t have on anything under it, which was a nice surprise; He sprang to attention at the very idea that she had been sitting there all this time as naked as a jaybird under her dress.

Her body was a surprise, too. Though I had viewed her as thin and bony, her belly and hips showed a surprising lushness. Her flanks were wide though thin, with nice shadings down into the bush of hair. And that was just the finest surprise of all; black and very thick, like a mat between her legs, square across the top like a woman is but running down the insides of her thighs because it hadn’t been trimmed in the longest time.