WHITE SHORTS

Scene Nice, Promenade des Anglais. Time

by O. F. Simpson

August, 1958. Being English,

I enjoy a stroll along «my» promenade, and on this particular morning had just crossed over onto the shore side when my eye was caught by a pair of dazzling white beach shorts worn by one of the sunbathers on the beach in front of me. As I have good reason to know professionally, all-white beach shorts are not common in Europe most manufacturers have had difficulty in finding a cloth which remains opaque when wet; so in spite of having other things to do, I began to speculate idly about the make of the shorts, the design of which was also new to me. As I looked down on him from above, the exceptionally fine pro portions of the wearer's body also began to impress me.

The shorts were short indeed. Flared open at the lower end where his thigh disappeared inside them, they were stretched tight across the curves of one of the most beautiful athlete's bottoms I had ever seen; above the elastic waistband his bare brown torso seemed to be poured out across the beach, topped by a lean, handsome, red-Indian-style face with thick, stiff, black «penwiper» hair. He asleep, I supposed; only the faintest perceptible movement lay absolutely still-

of his diaphragm as he breathed showed me he wasn't dead.

Two things led me to decide he was probably a countryman of my own the defiant abandon with which he lay head towards the sea unlike everyone else on the beach, and a rather dirty waterproof by his side, which seemed to be his only clothes. I watched him for nearly twenty minutes, enjoying the perfecton of his glorious body in repose; after that, he woke, stretched once or twice slowly and luxuriantly like an animal, got up, put on the waterproof and sat down again on the beach, evidently changing clothes under the mackintosh a procedure which I feel sure is forbidden by the bye-laws of Nice, though this did not appear to worry him. After threshing about a bit he stood up ready to go in for a swim. I was pleased to see him wearing a blue Port-Cros minimum slip, the design I consider the simplest and best of all for those who have the figure to carry it off. Barefoot and completely disregarding the pebbles on the beach from which I inferred he was as tough as he was good-looking walked quickly down to the sea, swam out fast, and was soon lost to my sight among the bathers.

Professional curiosity about those shorts began to nag me. I fought against it for 'several minutes, then decided to go and take a look. I walked down to the beach, crossed to where his clothes lay, picked the shorts up and began to examine them. They were American, from a Hollywood maker, I found. I noticed the clever way in which the frontal jock strap was slung not to the back of the shorts but to the sides, by thick elastic passing under the wearer's buttocks and so slightly lifting them; and I had my hand actually inside his jock strap to feel the quality of the lining, when suddenly a rather surly voice spoke behind me: «Que faites-vous alors? Will you kindly leave my shorts alone?>>

―

I was caught red-handed, by the owner himself who did not however seem to be sure what to make of the situation. Two thoughts struck me at once: one, that the pronunciation of the two sentences left no doubt I had been right in thinking him English; two, and quite irrelevant, that he had none of the mean, bedraggled look that bathers have when they first leave the water mattachine REVIEW

seen close to, even with the water dripping off his chin, he was a more magnificent figure of a young chap than ever. I decided quickly that attack was going to be the best form of defence.

«Well, I'm professionally interested in these things, so I thought I'd take a look.>>

«Oh, are you a tailor or something?»

•

For some reason it always seems faintly insulting to be called a tailor, and being suddenly angry with him on that account I probably spoke much more openly to him than I would otherwise have done. «Certainly not, and anyway that's no business of yours. As it happens, I'm a fashion artist. And as it also happens, while we're talking about it, I don't think I've seen a naked male body as good as yours anywhere in Nice.»

He was considerably taken aback, I could see, but also pleased, there was no doubt of that. I could swear that deep under his sun tan something like a schoolboy's blush came and went. «Oh really, well... I don't know about that. Er thank you,» was all he said, very hesitantly.

>>And that being so,» I carried on, «I think it would be a good thing if you came and earned a pound or two modelling for me, this very afternoon. Will you?»

<<Well, I'm going to sunbathe here all day,» he said after some thought, «<but I could come in the evening if you like.» And so we settled it. I gave him the address and walked quickly away, glad to bring this odd encounter to a fairly dignified close.

—

The flat I rented was in a modern building back in the Old Town, and I was quite prepared for him to get cold it so often happens with models feet and not turn up at all; but he did, and punctually too. He was very simply and smartly dressed in a brick-red T-shirt, close fitting black gabardine trousers and red espadrilles. I could price his clothes to the nearest shilling (though I couldn't price the marvellous catlike body inside them to the nearest thousand pounds!); I even noted the flaw in the weave under one arm of his T-shirt which meant he had bought it cheap in a sale. But he wore these very ordinary. garments like a prince in ermine, bearing out the theory I have always held, that young men with really good figures needn't waste their money on having clothes made to measure they look their best in the plainest, massproduced clothes.

On the spur of the moment I decided to take him out to supper at a restaurant round the corner; he accepted the invitation gladly. Watching a healthy young man satisfying his hunger is for me one of the subtlest of pleasures, and I saw to it that he enjoyed himself in the process. Indeed soupe aux poissons, a truffle omelette and a Chateaubriand steak for the two of us, of which he ate at least three quarters, with some ordinary rough Beaujolais left us both feeling better. He didn't talk much but seemed to be quite at ease that way. I learnt he was a law student in London; but law being a subject I myself find boring and unreal, I couldn't bring myself to listen much to what he said. He'd been holidaying in Nice with a fellow student on a cheap nightflight excursion from London; two nights before, when they were due to return, there had been only one seat left on the plane, and his friend had taken it, leaving him to follow