The Lord Won't Mind (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) by Gordon Merrick

I do think you’d better avoid the poor girl in the future.”
    “I should hope so. The whole thing is absolutely nuts.” He looked at her with gratitude, knowing that he needn’t have worried. He could always count on her, no matter what difficulties might arise. Still, he’d feel better when she actually had the apology in her hands.
    As far as C. B. was concerned, the subject was apparently disposed of and she didn’t refer to it again, but Charlie could see that Peter was still brooding about it. When he and Peter returned to their room after lunch, they didn’t pull their clothes off as they might normally have done but wandered about restlessly, ill at ease and constrained.
    “All right, champ,” Peter said finally. The use of the public name in private marked a distance between them. “You might as well tell me. Did you—well, did you fuck her?”
    “Oh, for God’s sake. I might have known it. Now you’re going to grill me. No, I didn’t.”
    “Then what’s it all about?”
    “We were just fooling around the way kids do and she started screaming and I told her to shut up and took her home.”
    “I see. Then you would’ve fucked her if she’d let you?”
    “Sure. Why not? It happens between guys and girls.”
    “I suppose it does.” He knew that there must be more to the story than Charlie was telling, but he didn’t particularly care about details; he believed Charlie’s account of the basic facts. The experience of love was so new to him that he had no fixed convictions about fidelity and related questions. He knew he shouldn’t even think about competing with girls, and yet he was determined to do so; he fiercely wanted Charlie for himself. He had no firmer grasp on the future than Charlie had. He knew simply that as long as life continued as he knew it, he would have to be with Charlie. His own fidelity was an imperative, regardless of what Charlie did, even though in the last few weeks he had become aware of the attractions of other young men.
    “Thanks for lying for me,” Charlie said grudgingly, after a silence.
    “Oh, that.” Peter shrugged. “I loved doing it. If you ever need to be rescued from a sinking ship or anything, just let me know. That’s the sort of thing I dream about.”
    “Crazy. Then what’s the matter, baby?” He came and perched on the arm of the chair where Peter was sprawled and ran a hand over his hair and gave his shoulder an impatient little shake. Now that it was sorting itself out, he wasn’t sorry to have been the subject of a small scandal with a girl; it was the best advertisement of his masculinity. If C. B. had gone to Mr. Munger, there would be gossip—about him and the girl, not about some other thing. He tugged Peter’s hair. “The whole thing with Betty was just stupid.”
    Charlie’s tentative satisfaction came through as smugness; Peter felt helpless against it. “I think it was. I guess it’s obvious I wish it hadn’t happened, not that that matters to anyone.”
    Charlie put his hands on his shoulders and squeezed them. “That shows how much you know about it. I wish it hadn’t, too.”
    Peter looked up quickly. “Do you?” He looked at length, amazed at having won this much of an apology, and then smiled slowly and lifted his hands to Charlie’s. “Then that makes it all right.”
    The events of the night before and this aftermath were solidifying and defining their relationship. To Peter, Betty was a warning. If his idol was flawed, it was all the more important for him to be at his side, to defend him from danger; he sensed instinctively that Charlie’s refusal to accept the nature of their relationship could lead to serious trouble. He hadn’t attempted to analyze his own wholehearted acceptance, but if he had, he would have encountered special circumstances: the taboo on sex in any form at home, so that guilt would have been apportioned equally to all acts he might have committed, an intolerable burden, which in effect