Naked Came the Stranger

WILLOUGHBY MARTIN

The day was sultry and oppressive. Under the low, thick blanket of clouds, one felt pressed down, glued to the boards of the ferry lollygagging through the Great South Bay. Willoughby Martin uncrossed his legs and lit a cigaret. He held the cigaret daintily between index and middle finger. Darn! The humidity would ruin his make-up.

He brushed a hand over his ash blond hair and wondered how to go about making up with Hank. A weekend at Fire Island with an angry Hank would be intolerable. They'd had a silly lovers' quarrel; Willoughby wasn't even sure what had triggered it. The whole thing was ridiculous because it wasn't as if they were newlyweds. Hank – tall, angular, beaknosed Hank – had been Willoughby's mate for two years, New York's gay set knew them as an ideal couple. And their neighbors in King's Neck had accepted them into the area. They were the community's pet homosexuals.

They had met at Fire Island. Both of them had come to Cherry Grove for a weekend of pleasure and relaxation. It was a grand place for meeting people, and it didn't matter that some of the men were married because the emphasis was on chance sex rather than permanent liaison. Actually married men had never done much for Willoughby: Either they were AC-DC or they were wholly gay but had married hoping to fool the straight world. Willoughby felt sorry for them. His own sexuality was devoid of ambivalence. He couldn't understand any man who preferred women. As far as he was concerned, women simply were not sexy. You might go out with a woman, but you certainly wouldn't want to sleep with one. And all the noise about homosexuality being a sickness absolutely drove Willoughby up the wall. That was just something else the psychiatrists had made up to swell their practices. Willoughby had never been sick a day in his life. He was gay because he preferred it that way. And it was perfectly healthy. After all, you could go back to the Greek philosophers.

In any case, he and Hank had met in a bar where they were doing the Madison, a group dance that had been popular back then. As he remembered, they were doing it with about twenty other men and three dykes. The Madison's major advantage was that it permitted men to dance with each other without risking arrest. That was important because the mainland police who patrolled the area had adopted a live-and-let-live policy toward Cherry Grove. As long as there was no public flouting of the law, they left the inhabitants pretty much alone. Anyway, it had been a marvelous night. Willoughby still remembered the fluffy orange sweater he had worn, and the tight chinos that had bulged with the kapok he had inserted in his jock. Hank had worn a plain white sport shirt and gray slacks; his lank ruggedness had excited Willoughby immediately. It turned out that Willoughby, an interior decorator, and Hank, a computer programmer, had a great deal in common besides their subscriptions to Mattachine Society literature. They both were interested in art, the theater, books, cooking, riding and music. That same night, they went to bed together, and it was beautiful. It had a depth and meaning transcending anything either had ever experienced. It was far above the meaningless physical contact available at the "meat rack" – a clearing at the end of a boardwalk that was used for hit-or-miss, night-shrouded sex encounters. Soon afterward, they began living together. At first, they had shared a Manhattan apartment. Then, like many other young couples, they had decided to move to the suburbs. King's Neck had been especially attractive. It was countrified and yet close-in. Their being gay had never constituted a problem. Hank and Willoughby sometimes joked that their residence in King's Neck represented token integration. In fact, Willoughby believed that many of their neighbors boasted to friends about having a pair of homosexuals domiciled in the area. It gave King's Neck a certain sophistication. They were frequently invited to dinner parties in the community, and Willoughby and Hank had given a few parties of their own in return. Lately, Willoughby had been considering joining the garden club.

As the ferry neared Davis Park, to which they had been invited by some straight friends, Willoughby looked around. Hank was somewhere at the other end of the boat. As for Willoughby, he was surrounded by jauntily dressed young men with dark horn-rimmed glasses and by girls equipped for the weekend with hemp baskets, canvas suitcases, and paper shopping bags. The bags were crammed, for the most part with cornflakes and gin. The girls were mostly career women from East Side apartments; uniformly frantic-faced and dressed in tight white pants or patterned bell-bottoms. As a matter of fact, it was their very uniformity that made him spot Gillian Blake. She stood out. Willoughby knew Gillian on a small-talk basis: She and her husband had attended a few parties both in the city and in King's Neck where he and Hank had also been guests. Blake was an abysmal square, but Willoughby found Gillian likable. For a woman, he thought, Gillian wasn't bad-looking. There was a certain… litheness about her.

Gillian saw him and motioned for him to join her.

"Well," he said. "It's good to see you. I mean, most of these people are so utterly depressing."

"Yes," she said, "Mad Ave. on the make. But what are you doing here?"

"Hank and I are staying with some friends," Willoughby explained. "And we're looking forward to it ever so much. You know, we haven't been to a sixish in such a long time."

"I feel the same way," she said. "Everybody needs a sixish now and then."

Willoughby laughed. Actually, the sixish was a rather charming custom. It was practically a tribal rite for the single people of Fire Island, especially Davis Park. The sixish was an evening cocktail party to which each guest brought his own drink. Some brought mayonnaise jars full of martinis, while others carried measuring cups filled with bourbon, and they all gathered where the noise was. They crowded onto the porch of one of the stilt-supported houses and jammed into one another and made social contacts. Most of the guests only gave their first names and occupations. Frequently they lied about their jobs, saying they were copy writers or television producers when they actually were clerks or stenographers. Eventually they paired for the evening. One of the rules was that you never selected anyone from the house at which you were staying. The people who stayed at a house usually were chipping in to rent it for the summer. They also shared expenses and cooking and housekeeping duties. Sleeping with somebody in your own house could lead to all sorts of complications within the group. The principle of exogamy had a very practical basis, Willoughby reflected.

As a whole, he thought, Fire Island was an anthropologist's delight. Each community was, to some extent, different. There was Ocean Beach, which was solidly built up and even had a small year-round community that necessitated a school. Ocean Beach was famous for summer residents who were prominent in the arts and in the entertainment world. There was Kismet, a middle-class community that included some interestingly built homes, a bar and a tennis court. There was Fire Island Pines, which was beginning to turn gay around the edges, and there was Cherry Grove, which was the loveliest community on Fire Island. Cherry Grove included a good hotel, gourmet-level restaurants, and a cornucopia of artistically decorated and beautifully kept summer homes. There was also Davis Park, which once had been a quiet beach for young marrieds in search of low rentals and solitude, and which now was a popular meeting ground for singles – most of them weekend refugees from such East Side hangouts as Friday's and Maxwell's Plum. They ranged in age from their early twenties into their late thirties, and there were a few men in their early forties. On weekends, they thundered herdlike off the Long Island Railroad trains at Bay Shore and Sayville and piled into taxis for mad dashes to the ferry docks. Willoughby smiled at Gillian. "You'll have to look us up," he said.

"Without fail," said Gillian. "But where's Hank?"

"Oh, we're having a silly quarrel," Willoughby said.

"How about you? Where's your husband?"

"He's not here," Gillian said. She added a tone of mock melodrama to her voice. "I'm on my own."

"Marvelous," said Willoughby. "That should be some sixish."

"Which one?"

"Whichever one you're at."

"Willy," said Gillian, "you're a real doll."

"I try to be," he said, simpering, and they both laughed. The ferry backed into the slip with a jolt, and the weekenders scrambled for their cargoes of liquor, food and clever hats. From now until they got on the 7:00 p.m. ferry Sunday, they would be carefree vacationers. At least they would try to think of themselves that way. They would do their best to make merry and each other. And each of them would feel – or at least he'd pretend he felt that way – that he was really living. Heterosexuals, thought Willoughby, you had to feel sorry for them.

Gillian said she would look up him and Hank later on, and joined a, group of friends waiting on the dock for her. Willoughby waited for Hank. When he saw him, Willoughby felt as if he were choking. There was a stab of pain in his very heart. Hank was with a young man – a slim, dark-haired young man in his early twenties. The young man was obviously gay, and he was looking adoringly at Hank.

Willoughby fought for control of himself. He tried to strike a casual note. "Hi there," he said.

"Hello, Willoughby." Hank's voice was cold, impersonal. He could have been talking to a stranger. Then he turned to the young man. "See you later, Vince," he said. The note of anticipation was obvious in his voice, and Willoughby knew they had already made an arrangement to meet that night.

"You bet, Hank," the young man answered. He grinned impudently at Willoughby.

A few minutes later, Willoughby and Hank were arguing in their room. "See you later, Vince," Willoughby mimicked.

"Don't kid me," Hank said. "You only wish you saw him first."

"You bitch!" said Willoughby.

"You ought to know," Hank said. "When it comes to bitches, you wrote the book."

"And to think I loved you," said Willoughby.

Hank laughed derisively. "Oh come off it, Willoughby. You don't know what love is."

"Do you think Vince or whatever his name is knows?"

"You know something, Willoughby? You're getting to be an absolute bore."

"l suppose you're meeting him some place."

"As a matter of fact, we're going to take a beach buggy to Cherry Grove."

"You bitch!" Willoughby screamed. "You dirty bitch!" He threw a shoe at Hank's departing figure. Then he fell sobbing on the bed. How could Hank do a thing like that? He was giving Hank the best years of his life. The bitch! Willoughby thought his heart would break. By sixish time, Willoughby was feeling considerably better. He couldn't believe that Hank would remain angry at him. After all, that Vince was just a boy. And he was cheap and flashy; you might sleep with him but you wouldn't want to live with him. Besides, Hank had been faithful to Willoughby for a long time. Perhaps a little fling would be good for him. And Willoughby had his own secret. He had once cheated on Hank. There was a hairdresser whom he had met at a gay bar in the city. It had been just a single incident and it had really meant nothing. He had never told Hank about it.

Also, the sixish had set up Willoughby. It had been ages since he had been to a party on Fire Island. Davis Park was a pretty straight community, but then you never knew whom you might meet. Maybe he just might have an adventure of his own. More and more people were going gay these days. Maybe some day they would outnumber the straights. Then heterosexuality would be the deviation.

Willoughby checked his make-up, and put on sandals, tight blue slacks and a pink sweater. He filled a peanut butter jar, provided by his hosts, with martinis, and he was ready. Sixish, he thought, here I come! He wondered what Hank was doing. Oh tush, he thought, the hell with Hank. Willoughby looked in the mirror and ran a comb through his hair. He stood there preening for a moment. He wasn't over the hill yet, he thought. He wiggled his behind and walked out into the sea-rustled evening.

Gillian Blake was at the second place he tried; a weathered pine cottage with a crowd milling on the porch. There were noise and bustle and the informal flux and color that went with the seaside. Most of the guests were groupers – the word for people sharing summer rentals – and they all seemed to be straight. That was perfectly all right with Willoughby because most of the men seemed singularly unattractive – at least there was no one for whom he sensed instant chemistry. He decided that he might as well talk to Gillian, whose pantherish quality was enhanced by black pants and a black-ribbed sleeveless sweater.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said.

"Yes, isn't it a coincidence?" said Gillian, her tongue running across the roof of her mouth as she gave him a quick catlike grin. Her eyes were sparkling, and her hair was soft and lustrous as it caressed her shoulders. She actually was quite attractive. For a girl, that is.

"You look charming," he said.

"Thanks," said Gillian. "You look very nice, too. I just love your sweater."

"I bought it in the Village," Willoughby said, and he gave her the name of the shop. They sipped at their jars, and talked clothes and decorating. Finally, Gillian mentioned Hank's absence.

"I'm not his keeper," Willoughby said.

"That's very wise," said Gillian. "It's a sensible way to look at it. It's awful when somebody tries to push you, to put you in a box."

Willoughby looked at her with new respect. "You know, you really are very sensitive."

"You have no idea," she said.

"I'm beginning to," Willoughby said, and he thought that he had never enjoyed a woman's company so much before. She was an exceptional person, he thought. They sipped some more and looked around them. The aura was one of noise and nervousness. Couples were beginning to link arms and walk off to the beach and the embrace of the night.

"They're too much, aren't they?" said Gillian.

"Yes, they're so utterly frantic."

"Don't be hard on them," she said, laughing. "They're not as sophisticated as you are. They're just simple heterosexuals."

Willoughby grinned. "I know. It's just too terrible the way they carry on. They do such awful things to each other."

"Yes," said Gillian. "You have to pity them, the poor things. I mean, it's a sickness."

Willoughby giggled. She was absolutely charming, he thought. It was really too bad she wasn't a man.

"Well, so long as they don't try to pervert me," said Willoughby. "It's okay as long as they stick to their own kind."

"They are terrible."

"Frightful," said Willoughby. "I think it's perfectly scandalous the way they carry on."

Gillian's eyes suddenly bored into his. "Do you really, Willoughby?"

"Not really," he said. "But it's not my cup of tea."

"Honestly?"

"Absolutely not."

"Yes, but don't you ever think about it? About having sex with a woman?"

"Not ever."

"Why?"

"Come now, Gillian. I told you. It's not My cup of tea."

"That's hard to believe."

"Your ego's showing, dear."

"No, I mean it. Haven't you ever done it with a woman?"

"No."

"Not even as a kid?"

"No. Not even then."

"Well then, I don't see how you can criticize it."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what they say," said Gillian, and her eyes were laughing at him. "Don't knock it until you've tried it."

Willoughby felt flustered. He tried for a joking answer.

"Oh you! If Hank were here, you wouldn't dare talk to me that way. You heterosexual, you!"

Gillian chuckled, and moved nearer. Her perfume was enchanting. "But after all, Willoughby," she said, "you are a man."

"Let's just say I'm a better man," said Willoughby.

"Tell me," she said, "don't you feel, oh I don't know – don't you feel like a disenfranchised Negro sometimes?"

"No. I feel more like an emancipated one."

"My, my," said Gillian, "such a sense of freedom. And I wouldn't have been surprised if you'd said a castrated one."

"You're being vulgar, sweetie."

"I am sorry," she said. She moved her face closer. Then, staring right at him the whole while, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

For a moment, Willoughby stood stock-still. His face wore a quizzical look. It hadn't been unpleasant at all, he thought. As a matter of fact – and the realization almost dizzied him – it had been rather pleasurable.

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" said Gillian.

"No," Willoughby conceded with characteristic honesty.

"I'll admit it. It wasn't bad."

"You'll have to tell Hank," she said.

"I love Hank," he said.

"Sure you do," she said. She moved forward again, and this time – oh my God, thought Willoughby – this time her tongue met his, circling it teasingly and then sucking deep. Willoughby was breathless as he pushed her away. "My God!" he said. He couldn't believe his excitement.

"Face up to it, Willoughby," she said. "You're more straight than you thought you were."

"No," he said. "That's ridiculous."

"You just never met the right woman before, that's all."

"It's the liquor," he said.

"Oh, come off it, Willoughby."

"But Hank…."

"What about Hank? Like what do you think he's doing right now?"

Hank, thought Willoughby. Damn him. Damn him to hell, the bitch. "Forget about Hank," he said.

"Yes, " she said, "let's forget about him." And their tongues were touching once again.

Gillian moved back and smiled. The peanut butter jars were empty, and Gillian and Willoughby stared at each other. Gillian's expression was omniscient; Willoughby looked confused.

"Yes," she said.

"No," he said. "No."

"Don't look so sad, Willy. You'll love it."

"It's crazy," he said. "The whole idea is crazy."

"It's a perfectly marvelous idea."

"I can't. I just can't."

"You can, you can."

The martinis sloshed about inside Willoughby's head. He couldn't understand what was happening. No woman had ever attracted him before. Yet he couldn't lie to himself. Gillian Blake had a certain… well, a certain excitement. Only he loved Hank. Still, there had been the hairdresser. And Hank. With that stupid Vince. The bitch!

Gillian reached out and took his hand. Her fingers played with the hairs on the back of his wrist. Then she was tugging gently at him.

"Come on, Willy," she said. "When in Rome, do as the groupers do. Or something. Let's take a walk."

Double damn Hank, Willoughby thought. "Yes," he said. "Let's. I mean, why the hell not?" But he knew nothing would happen. Not with a woman. He simply couldn't.

They walked alongside the dunes, Willoughby sometimes hesitating, and then moving on. Gillian kept pace – not leading, not following. They came to a hollow in the dunes just beyond the cluster of houses, and they stopped.

"This really is nonsensical, Gillian," Willoughby said.

"You don't really believe that, do you, Willoughby?" She snuggled against him.

"Yes, I do. Look, Gillian, I'm a homosexual because I want to be. Women make me sick."

"But I don't make you sick, do I, Willoughby?" she said, and she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.

"No," he said. "I guess you don't. But I couldn't. I just couldn't."

"Sure you could." Now she was nibbling on his ear.

"No."

"Yes." Now she was kissing him with her tongue.

"Ummm," she murmured. "You do that very well." Willoughby was beginning to feel good. "It's my specialty," he said.

"What's Hank's specialty?"

"Can you guess?" said Willoughby.

Her hand was inside his trousers now, and Willoughby sat as if he was riveted to the sand. An incredible thing was happening. Something that had never happened before in his entire life. He was experiencing a physical reaction to a woman! A physical reaction!

Now Gillian was at him with her mouth – with her soft lips and her skilled tongue. Willoughby lay back with closed eyes. He was being transported out of himself. Christ, but she was good. She was better than Hank! Oh my God! Oh! Oh! Oh my God!

Gillian sat up. "Well," she said. "Do you still think Hank has a corner on the market?"

"Gillian," he said. "Oh, Gillian."

"I know," she said, and they reached for each other and found pleasure in gentle caresses.

They spent perhaps an hour touching each other, exploring each other; Willoughby making new discoveries all the time. Why, a woman's body was interesting! They were both naked now; lying in the cool sand near the breaking sea. Gillian cupped her breasts with her hands and offered them to him. The nipples were firm and erect. Willoughby stared at the proud breasts blossoming in the shadows. Breasts, he thought, breasts. There was something he should do. Breasts. He fastened his eyes on them, and then, with primeval instinct, he leaned forward. He sucked.

A little while later, Gillian gently pushed him away. Her hands were on him again, eliciting stiffness. He tried to push her mouth down to him.

"No," she said. "This time we do it my way."

"But I can't. I never have."

"Come to Gilly," she crooned, caressing him.

"I want to," he said. "I want to." And it was as if the confession gave him strength. He mounted her as she fell back on the sand.

Slowly, gently. Slowly, gently. Slowly, nicely. Oh lovely, lovely. Then faster, quicker, faster, needful. Willoughby was lost in immense, billowy softness and riotous colors and roaring winds; he was the sand and the sea and the star-pierced sky. Faster, faster, faster. Oh, oh, oh…… ahhhhhhh. From far off he heard a faint cry that turned into a moan; it was Gillian, and then Willoughby realized he had been moaning, too. Afterward, they smoked and talked.

"Was I really good?" he asked.

"One of the all-time greats," she said.

"I'll be a son of a bitch," said Willoughby. He got up and strode to the water. He felt manful as hell. He urinated. Then he dipped his hands into the cold surf.

He reached up and washed the make-up from his face. He strode back to Gillian.

"What about Hank?" she said.

Willoughby Martin breathed in the night air. "If that son of a bitch ever bothers me again," he said, "I'll knock him on his ass."

They laughed. Willoughby thought his voice sounded deeper. By God, he was a man.

They spent the night on the beach. That Gillian. He couldn't get enough of her. And imagine all the women who were out there in the world waiting for him. Just wait till Hank tried to come crawling back. Hank! thought Willoughby, and he snorted to himself. That damn queer.

A few weeks later, King's Neck lost its pet homosexuals. They moved out shortly after neighbors reported hearing a terrible row. The day after the fight, someone saw Hank in town with a bandaged nose and blackened eyes. A month after that, one of the garden club officers reported meeting Willoughby in the city. She said she had hardly recognized him; he was wearing a sweatshirt, and he had gotten a crew-cut. And believe it or not, she said, he had tried to proposition her. Someone told Gillian about it. "Well," she said. "It's like they say. Don't knock it until you've tried it."



EXCERPT FROM "THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW," JULY 2ND

Billy: The man says he doesn't want any publicity, that's what the man says. And, speaking personally, I find that attitude a refreshing change from most of the authors we manage to lure onto the show.

Gilly: You'd think that out of sheer neighborliness….

Billy: Neighborliness? That fellow moves about in much the way an astronaut does – except, from what I hear, at a lower level. And I have to admit I've always felt he was overrated as a writer, strictly a one-book author. Gilly: You mean The Hard and the Moist?

Billy: What else?

Gilly: Well, how about Mountaintop?

Billy: Same book, different title. Look at him, honey. What is he – forty-four years old? – the world's oldest flower child.

Gilly: But still, still he's Caradoc.