Naked Came the Stranger - By Penelope Ashe Page 0,71

week about homosexuality, Billy?

Billy: Yes, I did, dear, and it was shocking to find out how rapidly the number of homosexuals in our country is increasing.

Gilly: It certainly makes you wonder about the way we're bringing up our children. I mean, that's when it starts.

Billy: Well obviously, it's an illness, and it should be treated as such.

Gilly: I think the trouble is they haven't found the right way to treat it, yet.

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