Free One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) by Gordon Merrick

hostess and went out to the car. Peter couldn’t think how to begin without immediately adding substance to Charlie’s displeasure.
    “You’re not going to like this,” he said when Charlie had the car in motion. “I don’t either, as far as that goes. I beg of you not to make more of it than it’s worth.”
    “You really have me guessing. You go home in the middle of a party to put on a new outfit. Go ahead and tell me about it.”
    “I want to. It all has to do with Jean-Claude, of course.”
    “I see.” Charlie felt as if he had been hit in the stomach but he didn’t show it. “Then I think you’d better be very careful to tell me the truth. I’ll find out if you’re lying.”
    “You don’t have to use that tone, but never mind. After what you’d said, I decided just to ignore him this evening. He cornered me eventually and said he wanted to talk to me. I refused but he began insisting, and I decided it was as good a time as any to tell him to lay off, to stop running after me. Besides, he was drunk and sort of wild and I was afraid of what he might say in front of others. We were beside the pool so I went with him a little beyond it where there’re trees and a sort of clearing and steps going down to the sea. That’s were it happened.”
    Charlie’s grip tightened on the wheel as Peter went on. He was intent on every word, weighing it, subjecting it to lightning scrutiny for hidden implications, waiting to pounce on a discrepancy. His chest and stomach were aching with the conflict of doubt and outrage, trust and despair. The thought of anybody handling Peter, above all of harming him, aroused in him a passion of protest. If Peter were telling it as it really happened, he would gladly kill Jean-Claude. Could he believe it? Was it really convincing?
    “All I could think of was to go on reasoning with him so he would leave me.” Peter quickly concluded his account, suggesting that Jean-Claude had only looked at him rather than touched him after ripping his clothes. “I had to get away and change. There was no way of letting you know:”
    “And you expect me to believe that he did this without your having encouraged him in any way?”
    “How could I encourage anybody to do a thing like that?”
    “I don’t mean tonight. I mean the last few weeks. You’ve let him hold hands with you. What else have you let him do? Have you let him kiss you, for instance?”
    Peter’s instinct for truth made him hesitate for a fatal instant. Would it be so bad to admit to a kiss? “You know I don’t go around letting people kiss me,” he protested a beat too late.
    “Is that supposed to be a straight answer? I think all the rest of it might be a bit more believable if you’d said yes.”
    “I agree it’s unbelievable. I was stunned. Wait till you see my clothes.”
    “Clothes are apt to look a bit the worse for wear if you’ve been out fucking under the trees. Why did he look so tidy? Had he taken his clothes off, perhaps?”
    “He was ripping and tearing at me, I tell you. I didn’t touch him.”
    “That’s odd, too. If anybody tried to rip open my fly, I’d really bash him. Unless I wanted him to, of course.” His breath caught in something like a sob as he said it. He was turning the knife in his own wound. He couldn’t believe the worst, but he had caught Peter’s hesitation and he was sure now that he had led Jean-Claude on in some way. If Peter were really lying, he would have made up a better story, but he was surely editing the facts in some way. That such a thing could have happened, even seeing Peter’s part in it in its most innocent light, made him sick.
    “I wanted to hit him, God knows,” Peter asserted with persuasive passion. “I was afraid once might not be enough. He’s stronger than you’d expect. If it had turned into a free-for-all, I was afraid everybody would find out. You’d have hated that as much as I would.”
    “Yes. Well, let’s restudy the whole scene. For