“If she stays away from my son, Rinaldo, then yes.”
“I will speak with her,” she said, and then she went inside, locking the door behind her.
She had to wait for the washroom once more, only now she had red slime oozing down her face, and she refused to acknowledge it by wiping it away with her dress that smelled exactly the way a whore’s would.
Chapter 7
William’s face flamed as he took the basket of clean, folded laundry from Pauline’s hands.
“Is everything all right?” she asked.
“No, everything is completely wrong!” He stormed off with the basket before he had to explain to her that after having the most amazing night ever with the creature of his dreams, he woke in his bed—alone.
He got in the motorcar—also alone—and drove to Bial’s.
His sole purpose this morning was to shove this laundry in Clarissa’s face and demand an explanation of why she slunk out the door without saying a word.
As he drove to the theater, his hands shook on the wheel.
What if she was upset because he had hurt her with his rigorous movements? The second time he was much less gentle when his cock was inside her tight cunt.
Oh fuck! What if she really was hurt badly and left to seek medical help?
His mind raced. He had harmed her when he thought for certain he had been tender with her. Or as much as a man like him could be.
“Ahhhhh!” he screamed and drove on, his mind racing faster than his vehicle.
When he arrived at the theater, he ignored everyone that spoke to him, merely giving them a passing, curt nod.
There were wide eyes that followed him as he carried in the full basket of cleaned laundry.
“Where is Miss Stone?” he asked one of the crew members.
“She is in back—in Lenora Cheri’s dressing room.”
He thanked the man, barged right into her dressing room and stared at his cherry girl, then flung his glare at Lenora. “Get out.”
“This is my room! I am back now, and it belongs to me!” Lenora’s chest puffed up.
“You belong back in prison, you wretched woman,” he said, pointing at the door.
“Well, I never!” Lenora marched past him, her head so high he could see through her nasal passage to her empty brain.
She slammed the door shut after she exited.
“Why did you leave me? Did I hurt you beyond repair?” He dropped the basket, moved past it and seized his cherry girl in his arms, hugging her.
“N-no, I . . .”
“I hurt you—just tell me. I need to know. I can take care of it—take care of you.” His voice shook—drat her, making him such a bumbling mess.
She pushed on his chest, freeing herself of his grip.
“I said no, and I meant it. I am fine,” she said, refusing to look him in the eye.
She took a seat nearby in a wobbly chair.
“Then why did you leave? What did I not provide for you? I wanted to hold you until the morning. I wanted to break bread with you in the light and see how your cheeks softly glowed from the aftereffects of our coupling.” What was he saying? He sounded like a besotted, lovesick fool. But this ache in his chest was radiating through his body, making him almost shake before her.
He never spoke this way to anyone, but he could not stop these sentiments from pouring straight out of his chest into her lap.
“I am beneath you. I do not entertain thoughts of love with you—what would the point be of that, Ferrismore,” she began.
He dropped straight down in front of her. “Don’t you say this to me.”
“Why not? I do not belong in your world. I clean off the shit from your motorcar you run over—that is my station in life. I don’t ride around inside it with you. It was one moment—we lost our heads.” She patted his shoulders and gave him a patronizing look.
“Last night meant nothing to you?” His stomach was threatening to drop onto his stones.
“I did not say that, but I will not destroy myself over something that cannot be.” She stroked her hands up his neck, made her way to his jaw and her eyes softened. “It meant something.”
He took both her hands in his, cupped them and kissed her palms. “Do you know how long I searched for you? I have been searching for years on end to find a woman that could handle me and all that I was dying to give, only I did not realize it.”
“Do not say these things. It will only tear at what is left of our insides.” Tears gathered in her eyes.
“Please, come back to my home with me right now. I can set you straight. I can fix this.”
“Like you wanted me to fix you? There is nothing to fix. There is nothing broken because there is no us.”
He licked his lips and sucked in a quick intake of air. His gut was twisting in horrid knots. “I am voracious for all that you are. Please—don’t deny me.”
“William, please, you—”
“You said those words many times last night, and did I not give you every last drop of what you begged for? Did I not beg back? And you gave me more than I could have dreamed I wanted. Please . . . Clarissa. I am telling you—I am yours. You are mine. Come with me now. Leave this place, and I shall see to it you have everything you have ever wanted and more.”
“Such as? You intend to give me a house—set me up as your mistress? No, sir. I am not a whore, though I may have playacted that part for you last night.”
His face fell and drained of all warmth as his nostrils flared. “You are lying. It was not playacting. You felt it. I touched you and got deep inside that bosom and head of yours.”
“You are right. It was not playacting, but it cannot be more than that. I don’t relish being a high-priced call girl that gets rotten fruit flung her way as she strolls down the block toward her home.”
“But that’s just it”—he scooted closer on his knees, then settled his weight back into his calves—“you don’t have to live with anyone other than me. I have space, and you will sleep with me nightly.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Ungh! No!” She stared up at the ceiling. “I have little respect for myself as it is. If I am to sleep in your bed and roll out of your covers, what will any decent folk think of me? Your servants even, and I—”
“Fuck them and the rest of society. Be with me.” He gripped her thighs. “I must have you.”
“You had me already,” she reminded him.
“That is not what I meant.”
His lips twitched. What did she want? Why didn’t she say it?
She fell silent, and her exterior was chilly toward him.
“You want a promise of marriage? I’ll give it.”
Her head dropped, and her eyes went wide. “It is not in me to trap you, and please do not shove words my way and pretend they are mine.”
“Then what do you want, woman? I will give you any damned thing you wish. Just tell me!” God, she still smelled like him. His cock engorged at the thought of her purposefully choosing to keep his scent on her.
She gripped his jaw with both hands. “I want you to be you, and for me to go on being me. I am already a shredded scrap of a woman because I throw myself at your feet like a wanton floozy. No more. I have more self-respect than that.”
“Fine. I will not touch you that way again. Just . . .” He groaned once more and stretched his neck. “Just live with me.”
“As what? A sister? Who would believe that? There would be no plausible explanation for my being there.”
“Cleaning lady, then. Whatever you wish. Only be near me.”
She laughed, but it was dark and made his insides tense up and squeeze the breath right out of his lungs.
The door opened, and Lenora stood there, seething, with two men directly behind her.
“Out!” she yelled.
“You are to come to me tonight. As soon as Bial’s closes, you go home with me,” he told Clarissa, his head bent down so only she could hear his voice as it traveled from the v
icinity of her pussy up to her ears.
She swallowed but gave no verbal answer.
He hopped to his feet, gave her a look that said he was entirely serious and then he departed.
The rest of the day poked by at a sluggish pace.
Clarissa was nowhere in sight.
It was close to lunch time when he saw her, eating by the side of the stage. He was almost done with Lenora.
“No, no, not that again. Sing it once more, only this time lift your shoulders, expand your chest out so you can breathe properly,” he instructed.
Lenora scowled. “I know how to do this!”
“Then do it correctly. Every Cherry knows how to sing this.” He cast a look at Cherry girl, and she blushed, then fidgeted.
When he looked back at Lenora, she was glowing.
Oh dear Christ—Lenora thought he spoke of her with that amorous tone he’d used, since her last name was Cheri. Or at least that was her stage name.
“Again. Expand your voice, expand your throat. Let it open,” he said, once more, glancing over at Cherry girl, since he was using enticing words to secretly scandalize her.
She had already taken him in her mouth once before.
But when Lenora sang, there was a perceptible shift in Clarissa. She went rigid.
He was uncertain why she was suddenly bristling over there, and then he realized why.
Lenora was butchering the song that Cherry girl had presented that one time he’d thrust her onto the stage. It was Clarissa’s own song she’d created.
Before he realized it, Clarissa had snuck out a back entrance and was gone.
Fuck! She knew that he’d wanted to rut inside Lenora before he’d become fixated with the little cherry girl now running from him.
He went after her, but she was off the street.
“Clarissa!” he called out, but no answer came.
Without a word to the crew inside or Lenora or Allen, the director, he raced down the street in search of Clarissa, but she was gone.
He drove up and down every street within a twenty mile radius, coming up with nothing but his hot breath and his aching heart.
Why had he been such a cad for so long?
He had been abominably rude to Cherry girl from the first, but she was so alluring, it incensed him to want someone so lowly.
Now he knew the opposite to be true. He was unworthy of her, and that was what truly stung.
He spent the rest of the afternoon at home, pacing, hoping she would come to him as he sent off anyone he could spare to take out his carriages and motorcars to find her.
She would be returned to him safely, or else he would see to it that all of New York was dismantled.
He got on the phone and called every theater in town—giving them explicit instructions of what to do if she graced their presence with her own.
* * *
It was finally Friday—free women’s wash day.
Clarissa doubled her pace to get a good spot in line. She was tired of sponge bathing.
“Hey, how did you get here before me?” Elizabeth tugged on her ponytail.
“I ran most of the way,” Clarissa said, out of breath.
“Eager to wash? Yeah, me, too. It’s been two weeks since I had a full bath. I smell awful!” Elizabeth poked through Clarissa’s basket filled with soap, shampoo, aromatic lavender and lilac water. She lacked a towel.
“Where is your comb? I forgot mine,” Elizabeth asked.
“Oh . . . I do not have one anymore. I left it with Leo. I figured he needed it more than I. For now, I just use my fingers.”
“Doesn’t that mean your hair is curlier and harder to pin up?”
Clarissa frowned. “Yes, it does.” She shrugged and shuffled forward as the line began to filter in.
“There are a lot of children today,” Elizabeth observed.
“Yes, there are, indeed.” Clarissa smiled. “Do you remember how we met here?”
Elizabeth yanked on Clarissa’s ponytail once more and stepped in front of her. “I cut you off just like this, if you recall,” she said, tossing the words over her shoulder.
“Yes, and I raised a fuss about it.”
“I’ve never seen anyone make such a din about something so silly.” Elizabeth laughed.
“Well, at that time, I had lice, and I wanted to wash it out immediately!” Clarissa laughed, too.
“I know. You made me pick out the nits for you as penance for cutting in line. How old were you again? Oh, yes, twelve years old, and such a bossy little woman.” Elizabeth looped her arms in Clarissa’s.
“You know I had to sneak out of the orphanage to bathe, so I had limited time to deal with such matters. Plus, I had started my monthly course already, and there wasn’t really a good way to wash in the kitchen there without prying eyes. I was not about to lift my skirts with other boys around so I could wash my loins.”
“Such modesty.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Wasn’t Leo there? Didn’t he help you?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t going to ask him to keep watch while I bathed.” Clarissa stuck out her tongue. There were some things she would not do.
“You were always nice to me after that, though. You even taught me how to read and write. Who taught you?”
“My mother did before she passed away. She taught me how to sing, dance and act as well,” Clarissa said, getting choked up.
Elizabeth leaned her head on Clarissa’s shoulder. “I know—I miss me ma, too.”
Clarissa ignored the tears tickling at her lashes.
In some ways, as she stood there with her closest female friend, she wished she was a chameleon like Elizabeth. She could speak like everyone else in the lower east side, sound like she was one of them, and then speak more properly if she really needed to or if she was speaking to Clarissa one-on-one. Elizabeth always adjusted her speech patterns based on who she was conversing with.
What a great skill to possess.
Not Clarissa. She could never speak like the people in the lower east side. Her mother would’ve taken a strap to her behind if she spoke with such slang, so she never could allow herself to do it, even if her mother had been gone for ten years now.
“Oh, yes! We are next,” Clarissa said as they approached the gates.
They both were admitted with a tiny wave inside.
Elizabeth pushed aside some elderly, heavyset woman, found a corner and stripped down without the least degree of shyness.
She jumped into the water, without her soap or anything at all.
Clarissa smiled at her brazen friend.
It was all women in attendance here today, with a few small boys in tow, but still . . .
Clarissa went down to her knickers and undershirt and grabbed her soap.
She stepped to the end of the wooden slatted platform, dipped her toe in and shivered.
It was frightfully cold as usual.
Oh, how she wished for a warm bath.
William probably had those daily.
God—William.
She could feel her cheeks heating, so she dropped her head and then plunged into the water with soap in-hand.
“Ohhhhhh God! This is arctic!” Clarissa swam over to Elizabeth, playing with some little boys in the water.
“Scrub my back, please,” Clarissa said, “and then you can use my soap as I wash my hair since you failed to bring yours.”
“Don’t have none. Couldn’t afford it,” Elizabeth responded.
They swam over to the edge. With one hand holding to the wooden planking, and the other lifting Clarissa’s hair off her neck, Elizabeth scrubbed her neck, her back and shoulders, but then paused when she went to rinse off her neck.
“Did the bed bugs get ya? Dammit! I gave you the newest of the feather beds,” Elizabeth groused.
Oh no! Clarissa dropped her hair quickly.
William had marked her there, hadn’t he?
He spent an inordinate amount of time sucking at the back of her neck, directly below her hairl
ine.
“Yes, well, I shall deal with that today. I’ll take apart the mattress and pick through it thoroughly.” Clarissa used the wooden bars to pull herself out and grab her shampoo.
Elizabeth was busy soaping up her underarms and breasts.
Clarissa created a great lather in her hair. For some reason that part on her body held the most of William’s scent, and it lingered all day long around her face.
God help her—she would die if she had to spend one more day with his haunting scent on her.
When she had suds all over her head, she jumped back in.
“Gaaaah!” she gasped as she came back up for air.
Would this water temperature ever agree with her body?
She shivered and could scarcely breathe. It was worse than wearing a corset.
“Can I borrow your shampoo as well?” Elizabeth asked.
Clarissa nodded and took the soap back.
While Elizabeth was busy washing her hair, Clarissa washed her most private areas thoroughly by reaching inside her knickers.
Most of the tenderness was gone, but the excited feeling she got when she remembered what it felt like having his hands, mouth and cock down there made her tingle.
It was amazing she could differentiate her arousal from the chilliness of the water pricking at her skin.
She soaped up the rest of her body quickly and all but launched herself out of the water.
Elizabeth shouldered her on her way back over to the water. “Tell Leo I said hi next time you see him.” She winked, then jumped back in.
When she came up for air, Clarissa replied, “I figured you’d see him first. I rarely see him now that he is no longer my roommate.”
“No—he likes educated women, and he discovered fairly quickly I am not one of them.” Elizabeth swam away, obviously hiding a deep frown.
“I know how you feel . . .”
Clarissa grabbed her belongings, found a way to get dressed discreetly in a corner behind a large queen palm fanning out across a portion of the deck and then left, allowing her hair to drip dry on her way back home.
* * *
For days Clarissa showed up at auditions, and without fail, she never heard back.
Pearl on Cherry Page 9