I didn’t want to go to London just to be told we were turning back around to the country again. I thought we’d take in a show, go to a club, roam the streets into the light of dawn and end up back at the flat having sherry. That was what I anticipated, always, with Drew. That was what I wanted but Drew, I knew, had other plans: dinner, an interminable evening at the piano while pretended, badly, to be Noel Coward and Ivor Novello combined, then what he considered a hot roll in the hay. I had reached the point where none of this was really appealing.
With Freddy along it seemed to be an even worse idea spending the evening this way. In the car I thought I’d chat about this with her. To my surprise, she wasn’t the least disturbed by the prospect of a quiet, family evening, even with the sexual encounter afterward which would, naturally, exclude her.
"Don’t be silly, boy," she said. She punched me in the thigh as she said it. "I know you want me and not Drew, but he is the work and he is the man. Do what you must."
"And you don’t mind it?" I wasn’t sure I could believe her words.
"No. I get it. I know what the deal is, Max."
"Well, I wish I did. This wasn’t meant to be my life, you know. It was a single roll in the hay, to thank him for kindnesses and consideration after Paul...."
"Yes, I know. You’ve told me the whole story before."
"Look, Freddy, if I didn’t think we were meant to be together - once all of this work is over - then I wouldn’t be keeping up this front right now."
"Max, if its meant to be, it will be. If I’ve learned nothing else in my life, I’ve learned that much."
I looked carefully at her as she said this, and I watched her eyes, her nostrils and her chin for moments afterward. I was anticipating a tear, a flare, a shudder, but there was none of those things. She was steady and regular, nerves tight and pleasant at the same time. She seemed to be the person she said she was and the "lesson" she’d learned seemed to be at the core of her being.
"I envy you, then," I answered her. "I don’t have such personal knowledge."
"But you do, Max. You’ve known it longer than I have, much longer in fact. I think I first learned all this from you."
"How do you figure that?"
She reminded me of a time I’d forgotten, a period in our early friendship when she and I had banded together to fight off Mikhael who’s urges were getting the better of both of us. We had never explained our motives to one another, but we were very much in agreement about not wanting him to push us around. That was our bond. He was abusing me sexually and abusing her intellectually. It was my senior year in high school and I was very vulnerable. Freddy was already a sophomore at Hunter College and Mikhael, who seemed to feel that education was not something that he would need to support himself in the future, was demanding far too much for us.
"Don’t be a stupid ass, Max," he said to me as he pulled himself up off of me. "Just be my ass, and carry me where and when I want you."
"I’m not stupid, Mikhael," I said to him, letting my exasperation at this attitude show through my words. "And I won’t be your jackass any longer."
"You will be mine for as long as I need you."
"I won’t. I’m tired of this."
"And how do you intend to make this different, Max?" He had that smirk on his face that I always thought was so attractive, until now. "Just what do you intend to do about this?"
"I’m not coming back here," I said. We were, as usual, in his apartment. "And I’m telling Freddy everything."
"You won’t do that." He sounded so calm, so in control, that it frightened me.
"Won’t I?"
"No, Max. I shan’t allow it."
"How do you intend to stop me, then?"
"Like this, naturally." He grabbed me suddenly and pulled me forcefully into an embrace and then he kissed me hard, his tongue grappling with my clenched lips. As he held me I felt myself slowly give up the struggle and in a minute or less we were back at the sexual acts that seemed to please him and to aggravate me.
When it was over, this reprise of our fun, he lay on his side, his hand tickling the seven or eight hairs on my chest. "Was that so difficult to understand, Max?"
"What do you mean?"
"You cannot say no to me. It is impossible for you."
"I will someday."
"Yes, on the day I marry Freddy, you will be free of me, at least as my playmate. But I will still find a place for you, if you want it."
"I won’t be your servant. You’re not my king, Mikhael."
"No, of course not. You are an American boy, free to choose. I am not free. I have no choice in these matters. I must do what the chair demands, what my father would have me do."
"You and that chair, that Skialatum or whatever it is...."
" Lidskialfa, Max."
"Whatever."
"And you won’t say a word about our afternoons to Freddy."
I was frowning hard and it hurt my face. "I won’t."
"What a good boy it is," he said.
Meanwhile Freddy was having her own hard time with him. No suggestion she made about things they might do together hit home with him. He was always calling the shots with her, just as he did with me. It made her mad and it was frustrating. She would want to see a show, and he would refuse to go to something "frivolous" with her. She might want to go dancing or to a party, but refused saying that being in her company was all he needed and she should feel the same way - of course she didn’t know about me at that point, about me and Mikhael and our afternoons.
One day we had ice cream together at Schrafft’s, as she was now reminding me, and Mikhael became the subject of our dialogue. I was shocked to hear about the way he treated her. To me he always spoke of her as his Queen and I thought that meant he adored her enough to do whatever would please her.
"Why does he call you his Queen, then?" I asked her.
"He means ‘consort’ I think," she said. "Just someone to stand on his right side, look nice and obey his every whim."
"Do you do that?" I asked, a bit shocked, thinking of my own relationship with him.
"No. Don’t be stupid."
That, of course, hurt a lot coming as it did so soon after he had called me stupid. They seemed too much in league for that moment.
"What are you going to do, Freddy?"
"I’m going to start going out with other guys."
"Could you ever...?" I stopped, thinking what I was thinking about, being one of those others.
"Ever what?" she said, sounding almost too demanding as she said it.
"Oh, nothing." I took a deep, long sip of my soda, the ice cream clogging up the end of the straw.
"You’re such a baby, sometimes," she said, smiling, "but I love you anyway. You give me something, you know."
"I give you something. What does that mean?"
"Max, you give me hope. And strength. I know you’d never be the dumb one in a friendship. You’d always stand up for yourself."
"I do that?"
"Yes, you do. And you always seem to know that if something is meant to be, it will be. I see that in you."
"Wow!"
I smiled as she told me the story from her point of view, reminding of that time from our childhood. I didn’t tell her about the scene that preceded our ice cream date. I didn’t think she needed to hear about that now.
We were approaching London and Drew was waiting to entertain us. We had to pass through one dark stretch of road and I knew the driver wouldn’t be able to see us for a while. I was counting on those seconds with Freddy, in the dark, in the car, to let us hold each other, not as friends, but as lovers. When the time came, she moved gracefully into my arms and we kissed, not as we had earlier, but in deep, romantic earnest, the way I knew we should. As the lights of the city began to intrude on us we pulled apart again. She took a small compact out of her bag and looked at her reflection in its mirror, adjusting a curl, removing a small smudge from the corner of her mouth.
She snapped it shut and smiled at me. Then she put her hand over mine on the seat between us.
"We’re going to be fine, Max. If I hadn’t known you since childhood I might not think it, but I have and I do."
"I hope you’re right," I said. I smiled, hoping the smile was sincere enough to get me by, but deep in my heart I was dreading this night, dreading its outcome.
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