The Good Life (58 page)

By glancing to his right, he could see himself reflected in the full-length closet mirror. This was fun; there were three of him. He could have a threesome. Like the ones he and Bet and Timmy had had, only he'd have to play each part.

Bending to untie his shoes brought his face close to his cock. “Why, hello there,” he said aloud and glanced quickly around behind him. What if somebody caught him doing this outrageous pantomime? They could have him locked up. He squatted to get at his shoes more easily and to get his cock out of his sight.

With shoes off he straightened and slid the trousers slowly down over his hips, moving them slightly with his arms stretched above his head in a parody of a stripper. He kicked the pants away from him.

He didn't know where to look. The mirror held him for a moment, but his attention was drawn again to the painting. Billy had painted him with almost a hard-on. It really was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. He ran his hands over his chest and slowly down over his abdomen, as flat now as it was in the picture, and watched his hands in the mirror. By taking two steps back, he could get both the painting and the mirror in his range of vision, which caused him to take a deep intake of breath, stunned by what he saw.

His hands felt real flesh; his eyes saw hands on real flesh; the canvas became a third mirror, and he thought for a moment that it too had started to move. The hand on his thigh in the picture seemed to move toward his cock, and his painted cock seemed to grow. He could see all three of them at once, and his hands became so uncontrollable, they moved down to his cock, stroking the pubic hair beside it and slowly moving along it until he held it gently with both hands. It filled them and ached for release.

He moved one hand to his balls and cupped them as the other hand started to move with practiced ease on his hardened flesh. His head dropped back, and for a moment he thought he was going to come. He straightened and took a deep breath, filling his vision with the sight of himself — all three magnificent cocks straining beautifully with potency.

What the hell
, he thought,
why not?
Why not make himself come?

His hands started to move on himself more purposefully. His buttocks tightened, and his hips thrust forward. He could see all his muscles, all trained and sleek from recent physical training, rippling in the mirror, taut and defined in a more perfected, mature way than in the portrait.

He looked so cool in the painting — so in charge but virginal. He was just a young man naked on a chaise longue, beautiful but a bit vapid. It wasn't lewd; it was just a study of youth. He felt ancient now by comparison.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw himself again in the mirror and thought he looked perfectly ridiculous. What a silly thing jerking off was. He let out a hoot of laughter at the sight he made pounding at his cock and threw it out of his hand as though it burned him.

He stiffened again with apprehension. Had he heard something? Voices? A door slam? Could it be Bet? Perhaps Nanny and Little Billy? It would probably amuse Nanny to find him in front of a mirror masturbating.

He was blushing like Timmy as he fled to the bathroom, his cock swinging crazily in front of him. He slid the glass door to the shower stall open and jumped into it. He could explain taking a quick shower more easily than he could a narcissistic hand job in front of his portrait, even to Bet.

With the water running, he was cut off from any sounds in the house until the bathroom door was flung open and he heard a scream. It was Bet.

“Jesus Christ!” she called out to him. “You scared the bejesus out of me. What the fuck are you doing in there anyway?”

“Taking a shower,” he called back.

“Well, turn your back, I've got to pee.”

He got a glimpse of her flipping up the back of her heavy mink coat, pulling up her skirt, and squatting on the toilet. In her broad-brimmed hat, smart dress, high heels with panties dangling over them, and jewelry flashing at her ears and throat, she was about as ridiculous-looking as he'd been naked in front of the mirror.

He grabbed a bottle of shampoo and poured out gobs onto his head to blot out the comical sight. They'd never used the bathroom at the same time, and he was as much embarrassed as amused by the intimacy. She reminded him of Tallulah. He had accidentally caught her in the same act, dressed not unlike Bet was now, but Tallulah had made it funny rather than ridiculous.

Perry lathered his head and scrubbed his short hair vigorously with his fingertips, scratching into his scalp. His hair was just growing out after the shearing he'd received on his first day in the Air Force.

With his head under water, he didn't hear the shower door open or know Bet was with him until he felt her hand on his cock. It was still swollen from his idiotic striptease. How in the world did she get out of all those clothes so quickly?

“Hey,” he cried.
“You
just scared the bejesus out of me.” She was pressed up behind him, her arms around him, and now she had both hands on his cock.

“Well, you're no Samson,” Bet said. “Nothing happened to this beautiful thing when they cut off your hair.”

He turned his face toward hers pressed against his back, and he could smell liquor on her breath. Or could it be the beer on him?

She wiggled in against him and kept her hands busy on him. Would his cock work its magic again just when he needed it to get their relationship back on some sort of even keel? He eased around to face her and leaned his head back into the jetting water to rinse out the soap. He could feel her tender, firm breasts — a bit bigger since Billy was born — rub against him and felt the nipples become hard as she slid down to her knees in front of him, her own hair as soaked as his.

“Mmm,” she crooned. “Divine. Even the shampoo tastes divine.” Her words were slurred, and he wondered if that was caused by drink or by the impediment of the hard flesh she was talking around. “Not quite as good as the champagne I've had, but not bad.” It was the drink.

“Where was all the champagne?” he asked.

“Wedding reception. Friend of Mummy's.”

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” he said, stroking the wet hair away from her forehead. “Bad manners.”

She lifted her face up, her eyes closed against the spray, and ran her hands up over his wet buttocks, reaching through his legs to his balls. “I've never understood why all this heavy stuff just doesn't fall off. It seems stuck on. Like some sort of afterthought.”

“Thank God, God didn't forget it altogether.”

“Oh, dear, what a thought.” She circled the base of his cock with her hands and then grabbed around under his balls. “There. See? I can hold on to the whole shebang with one hand. Amazing.” She gave him a painful little tug. “Dingdong,” she sang. “Hey. Shebang. Get it?
She bang.”
She roared with drunken laughter. It was so silly, he joined in.

She held up a hand. “But wait. What's it with boys?
He
bang?” They laughed again. She really was drunk. She gave him another tug. “Dingdong,
bingbang
. She bang. He bang. Ding ding ding.” She was playing with him and making him hard again.

He laughed at her childish examination of him. They were like they were in Saint-Tropez, enthralled with each other's bodies. Hers had filled out but still had its lovely long, lean line. “If you keep that up,” he said, “it really is going to come off.”

“Not yet. Let me play. It feels so good under the water. Everything slick and sexy.” Her hands were all over his body. He wished she would stand up so he could feel hers in the same way. When he reached down to lift her up under her arms, she shrugged his hands off impatiently, fretfully, like a child. “Are they inherited?”

“What inherited?”

“Cocks.” She talked in a singsong, childish voice. “We inherit the color of our eyes, our hair, our general shape. Do you suppose Billy will have a cock like this?”

“Like father, like son, so they say.” Talk of this sort of inheritance was safe. “Where is Billy, by the way?”

She waved vaguely in the direction of downstairs. “He and Nanny came home with me.” She'd brought him to full erection and was teasing it with her tongue. “Was your father's big?”

“I never saw it.” She was getting really silly now. “Come on, honey, let's go put this to proper use.” She slapped his hands away when he reached for her. “Do you want me to come like this?”

“Mmm.”

“That mean yes or no?”

“Just mmm, as in Mummy.” She lifted her head and looked up at him slyly. “Am I as good at this as she was?”

He was stunned. What was she talking about? There was no way she could have heard about him and Arlene except from Arlene, and he knew that secret would go to the grave with her.

“That champagne has really got your brain in a whirl. Come on, baby, let's get out of here. I'm getting waterlogged.” He reached for the tap and turned it off.

“No, seriously,” she insisted, “I want to know. When your husband has slept with your father and had his cock sucked by your mother, a girl would like to know about it. It's all in the family. Was your father's cock big? Did he sleep with you when you were little?”

“Listen, Bet, this is ridiculous. You've had too much to drink. Come on. Move. I can't get out of here. You're blocking the door.” He tried to move, but she held on to his legs. He could hardly kick her through the glass door. He reached toward the door and opened it, hoping to be able to force her out onto the floor.

“Don't push me,” she said belligerently. “I like it here. Oh, look, your cock is going soft. I bet it didn't go soft with Mummy, did it?”

“Goddamn it, Bet. Move. I want out of here.”

“She told me how big it was and that you made her suck it. She said you tried to rape her.” She was a little girl telling a dirty story.

He snapped his head back, fully alert and on-guard, staring down at her. It was a trick. She couldn't know anything. It was a drunken game she was playing. Dealing with drunks was one of the most tiresome chores in the world, and Bet drunk was more tiresome than most. He didn't want this to lead to another knock-down-drag-out, and the only thing to do was humor her.

“Where in the world do you get such ideas? In the first place, what a thing to say about your mother.”

“What's wrong with it? You've done it. Daddy's done it. I've done it. Everybody does it. Why not Mummy? Why should she be denied the joys of life?” She giggled and grabbed his cock again. “And right here is our joy. All the whole fucking family's joy. You didn't marry me, you married my whole family.”

Humoring her was not going to be easy. “Yes, dear, I married the whole family.”

“And fucked the whole family.”

“Yes, and fucked the whole family. Now budge.” He managed to free one leg from her grasp and stretched it over her shoulder — one leg in the shower, one leg on the bathroom floor. Some progress.

“Aha. So now you admit it. You did go to bed with Mummy.”

“You said it; I didn't say it.”

“Yes, but I didn't know for sure. Not till now. Ha, tricked you.” Her voice was turning nasty. “It'll look pretty damned sensational in the headlines when I name both my father
and
mother as corespondents in the divorce case.”

His heart stopped. “What divorce case?”

“Mine.” She had a smug grin on her face.
“Ours
, if you'd rather.”

He jerked his other leg away from her painfully. There was an ugly scratch from her nails all the way down his leg. He turned his back on her and pulled a towel off the rack. He couldn't look at her. She seemed more insane than drunk. The clothes she'd been wearing had been thrown into the bathtub. The fur looked like some dead animal lying there.

He rubbed his head vigorously, trying to think of the right approach. When she was in this sort of mood, anything was dangerous. She was asking for trouble, and he didn't want to be goaded into giving it to her.

His being away hadn't worked the miracle he'd hoped. Nor had his cock. She'd used it to try and trick him into some confession about Arlene. Now she was talking about divorce. He decided he'd better let her continue to do the talking until he could figure out what she was really up to.

He heard the water splash on again in the shower and straightened, lowering the towel to his shoulders, and saw Bet standing with her face lifted to the full blast of the shower. Her hair streamed from her forehead and down her back. She looked as though she were surfacing from a dive in clear water. She didn't move. She stood, taking the punishing spray for a long time before turning her back to it. He could see she was getting gooseflesh. A freezing shower. She needed it.

He turned from her again and moved into the bedroom with the towel. He was bent over drying his legs and dabbing at the bleeding scratch on his thigh when he felt her standing in the bathroom door. She was drying herself thoroughly and methodically.

“I'm not joking, you know,” she said. “I'm getting a divorce.” Her slurred speech had been replaced by a businesslike crispness. The cold shower had done its job.

She bent over, flinging her hair forward, and brought the towel up to the nape of her neck, creating a turban as she straightened up. She looked curiously regal in the white turban as she walked naked across the room and lit a cigarette, turning on the heavy bronze cherub lamp on the table next to the bed.

The cigarette was something new. The lamp, made from a charming candlestick, was old and one of a pair they'd found together in a junk shop on Third Avenue. Everything in the room — in the entire house — they'd found and worked on together, and now she was threatening divorce.

How serious was she? Indeed, how drunk had she been in the shower when she was behaving so strangely? What was she up to? He had to play it cool and let her lead the way.