By the time he was fourteen, he rode like he’d been born in the saddle, handled a sailboat with the confidence of an old Yankee schooner captain, and drove a sports car over the roads of the Jones estate in Texas with the aplomb of an Indianapolis Speedway racing driver. Nor were the more usual sports of adolescence neglected. As quarterback of his prep school football team, he led his eleven to a regional championship at the age of fifteen. The following spring he batted .320 for the second highest average on the baseball team. Also, he ran the mile, played on the ice hockey team, and made the second team in basketball.
Having both superior athletic ability and a brilliant mind, Archie was obviously far from an average kid. Yet such is the nature of adolescence that he was careful to create and maintain a facade in keeping with the non-conformist ultra-conformity of his fellows. Part of this was an expression of the natural rebellion of the teen greats. He grew his hair long, mastered the guitar, wrote his own protest lyrics, and sang his own protest songs loud and long. And when J. P. and Carlotta responded with bemused tolerance, he gritted his teeth and sang louder and longer and denounced finance and art as equally phony. He almost gave up when they imported a guru to instruct him in mysticism as a sixteenth birthday present, but his rebelliousness was too strong, and so he arranged to have himself arrested in an anti-Vietnam rally instead. J. P. bailed him out and congratulated him on having the courage of his convictions, and Archie gritted his teeth some more — and sought still other methods of rebellion.
However, rebellion wasn’t the only reason for his stereotyped facade of exploding adolescence. One of the worlds he moved in was the teenage world, and Archie wished to be accepted there as he was in the worlds of his elders. Thus, although he could speak perfect English— the result of an Oxford tutor—he chose instead to speak the slangy, nasal patois of the would-be hipsters in his age-group. He deliberately traveled down the economic scale to include young people in his friendships who were not attending fancy prep or finishing schools. Existentially, the further toward true poverty he went, the more aliveness he felt he was embracing. He continued to exercise his mind—his brilliance made it unavoidable—but he also began increasingly to appreciate the knack of experiencing without pondering, of living without calculation, of letting things happen as opposed to planning them.
This was the state of flux, this vacillation between intellect and feeling, in which Archie found himself when he graduated prep school—with honors, naturally — shortly after his seventeenth birthday. He informed his parents that he had decided not to go on to college immediately. He wanted a year or so to open himself to the world. Since thy felt that he might be younger than other freshmen if he enrolled immediately, and that this might be a problem to him, they raised no objection. They gave him his year with the usual carte blanche supplied by J.P.
Actually, Archie wasn’t being strictly honest with his parents or with himself. During this year, what he really hoped to do was to solve the one problem which loomed large in his mind. This was the problem of his unwanted chastity. Yes, Archie was a virgin, and that fact did indeed bug him.
In one sense, it was the penalty of the full life he led. It had been an all-boys’ prep school, and Archie had been scrupulous about observing the training restrictions which went along with his athletic activities. The time in which he was away from school had been filled with so many interesting activities that he just hadn’t been able to make room for sex. But he recognized that it was an essential part of life, and he decided to experience it as soon as he could create the opportunity. His psychoanalyst agreed with this decision, and he agreed that it would be problem-producing to have J. P., or any of the other adult males Archie knew, help in this endeavor. It was something Archie had to do all on his own -- or, at least, with just the one other necessary person involved.
But it hadn’t worked out that way. The libido is like a rubber band, and Archie’s was no exception. Stretch it far enough, and it’ll snap at the first opportunity. The first opportunity for Archie came with the arrival in New York of Professor André Beaumarchais.
Yeah, you've probably seen the name in the papers. Just how you‘ve seen it depends on whether you read page four of the Daily News or the science section of The New York Times. If the former, you’ll remember him as the eminent Parisian roué who fought a duel with a deposed Hapsburg count over an Italian opera singer to whom the count happened to be married. Or perhaps you’ll remember him as the gentleman who out-stripped the nudies at the Folies Bergères in a scandal that almost toppled the French cabinet—-some of whom were present and visible in the pictures taken of the event. Then again, maybe it’s the artists’ model who immolated herself in his laboratory with whom you identify him.
On the other hand, if the Times science reports are your meat, you’ll know Professor Beaumarchais as the physicist who developed a technique by which the atomic structure of steel could be strengthened to withstand the stresses of outer space. Or, maybe, as the theoretician behind the development of an electromagnetic field capable of diverting missiles from their targets. Possibly, also, you might remember him as one of the scientists responsible for giving France its very own H-bomb to join in the game of “here-today-gone-tomorrow” with the other atomic powers of the world.
Anyway, Professor André Beaumarchais came to New York and called Archie, with whom he’d been corresponding on scientific matters for a number of years. They’d gone out to dinner together, and then they’d gone back up to the Central Park West apartment provided by a friend who was abroad for Beaumarchais’ use during his New York visit. Here, over some after-dinner cognac, the professor drifted away from the technical topics they’d been discussing and got onto the subject of sex.
“When I walk down Fifth Avenue in New York on a summer day, my friend,” he told Archie, “that is when I most envy you your youth. Such bosoms heaving in the sunlight! Such shapely legs revealed by those skimpy summer dresses! Such hungry hips swinging in the breezes off Rockefeller Center! Ahh, how these things whet my appetite! But at my age one must learn moderation — not as a philosophy, but as a necessity. My eyes are truly bigger than my— Well, you take my meaning, I’m sure. Age prevents my taking advantage of the ripe opportunities which abound. But you, my friend! How lucky you are! Such delectable outlets for the limitless energy of your youth! Ahh, how I envy you that youth an that energy!”
“Fat lot of good it does me,” Archie sighed. “The truth is, Professor, that with all my energy, I still haven’t managed to dig the bedroom scene.”
“Surely you don’t mean—?” Professor Beaumarchais’ eyebrows shot up.
“Yep. That’s the way the sex urge crumbles. I'm as pure as the Arctic snow, as virginal as a barren planetoid, as unlaid as a square egg.”
“But that’s uncanny!"
“Like a hotel without bathrooms. Yeah, I know.”
“I don’t understand. A good-looking young man like you; personable; witty; intelligent; sophisticated. What can be holding you back?"
“I'm not sure. Basic insecurity, I guess.”
“Well, we shall have to do something about that right away,” Professor Beaumarchais said firmly. He took out a little black book and began thumbing through it. “I have some phone numbers here of ladies who would be delighted to relieve you of your distress.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Archie told him. “I can't let you set it up for me.”