It Stings So Sweet

by Stephanie Draven

  I’ve never let my parents catch me with a man before and Pops has no idea what to do. I have to jerk my head to the side to prompt him.

  Then the two men clasp hands, and Leo gives my father’s a firm shake. “With your permission, sir, I’d like to call on Clara tomorrow afternoon.”

  My jaw drops open at this farce. I positively gape. “I’m a big girl, Leo.”

  But my father huffs. “Let a man be a gentleman if he wants to. God knows none of the rest of them ever bothered.”

  “Oh, dry up, Pops!”

  My father, the drunk who never did a thing with his life, looks the war hero up and down. “What did you say your name was again? Leo Vanderberg? I’ve heard of you. Famous pilot. Like Lucky Lindy, right?”

  Leo nods, managing not to grind his teeth. “You should know, I think quite highly of your daughter. Quite highly indeed.”

  At hearing this, my father’s chest puffs up and his eyes shine. “Clara is a smart girl. Everybody knows she’s pretty, but she’s smart, too. Always was a little scamp, too clever by half. But she’s the best thing her mother and I ever did.”

  The lump that rises in my throat keeps me from hushing them both.

  “I’ll take good care of her, Mr. Flannagan,” Leo says.

  “See that you do.” My father clears his throat. Then Pops ambles down the stairs, leaving us quite alone.

  My eyes sting with tears and I give Leo a shove. “That was quite a performance!”

  “I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, Clara.”

  “Don’t, Leo. Don’t act like this is something different than it is. I don’t want any more games.”

  He moves in, one palm flat to the wall behind my head. “No? What about the game I have planned for you tomorrow? You want that badly, don’t you? I’m going to pick you up and take you to the movie palace. We’re going to meet another man there, and then I’m going bury myself inside you like I’ve wanted to do from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

  I stare at him, breathless. Leo has always told me exactly what to expect. I should know better than to think I can make him deviate from his plan. But I try. “I don’t think I can go through with it …”

  “Why not?”

  I have a thousand reasons, starting with the fact that he’s already got too much over me. More important, he’s starting to make me see myself a different way. I’ve had a few dangerous glimpses at a different reflection that’s going to shatter the moment I give him everything he wants.

  “Are you scared?” he taunts. “Remember that I told you that you would be.”

  “I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted to be with any man, but I don’t think I can do it.”

  He presses his forehead to mine and I feel his breath on my cheeks. “I told you that I wouldn’t let you down, Clara. I’m a man of my word. I’ll be here to pick you up tomorrow afternoon, but you’re the one who has to decide whether or not to answer the door.”

  I hold him against me, hoping to say with my body what I can’t with my words, and we cling together. Then Leo kisses my forehead, slowly pulls away, and turns to go. He gets only two steps before he stops. “Clara … there is something else you need to know. I told you before that I was Dutch. That’s not true. My mother was, but not my father. He came over from Germany before the war.”

  I tilt my head and stare at his back. “You’re the strangest man I’ve ever met.”

  When he turns to face me he’s shamefaced and his head is bowed. “What with the way people are … you know they’d hold it against me. As it is, I always feel like I have to prove my loyalty. Maybe I wouldn’t have killed so many men in the war if I wasn’t afraid that someone might think I was a collaborator. So, I lie about it.”

  He’s grim, his expression touched with an emotion that other people might confuse with aloofness. But I recognize it as fear. He’s squeezing his damp hat in his hands, waiting for me to say something. “Oh, Leo. Were you worried that I’d think you were a Mad German Brute, like the giant ape carrying off the girl in those war propaganda posters?”

  He winces and I realize that it’s no joke to him. One more wrong word can wound him. An answering sharp pain in the middle of my chest tells me that I’m in trouble. Big trouble. I wanna wrap my arms around this man and never let him go. And I know now why they call it a crush. Because it hurts so very much. “I don’t care where your people are from, Ace. I’d want you whether you were German or Dutch or a green man from Mars.”

  He lets out a long breath. “I just don’t want to lie to you, Clara. Not about this or anything else.”

  “Don’t try so hard to be an angel, Leo, when we both know you’re the devil himself.”

  He smiles a little, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’ll be back with the pitchfork and brimstone tomorrow.”

  “I might not open the door when you come knocking,” I say.

  “If you do, make sure you’re not wearing much, because it’s only going to get in the way.”

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  In spite of all my bold talk, there isn’t any possibility that I won’t open the door for him.

  I’ve never been one to turn down an adventure, sexual or otherwise. My body is anxious and eager. It doesn’t matter that I don’t know who the other man is. The truth is, I’d go to bed with a turnip, just as long as Leo was there with me. It doesn’t matter that it’s the foolish thing to do—the one thing I can do that will tarnish the last bit of shiny goodness he may see in me. In the end it all boils down to the fact that I want him so badly I’d sleep with Leo Vanderberg and anybody.

  Something’s happening to me. Something awful. And I’m afraid it’s only getting worse. This man has somehow gotten inside of me, without even taking me to bed. I feel him, just beneath my breastbone, where I breathe in and out. How empty and hollow is that place going to be when we finally part?

  I’ve never been so afraid to lose a man before; certainly not before I’ve even had him.

  I wear the siren red dress again, with the feather headdress. I’ve no illusion it will serve as any defense against Leo’s charms, but I’m sentimental. When Leo shows up at the door, I paint my lipstick on thick then go to meet him.

  He’s wearing an overcoat and a hat that shadows his eyes. His nearness burns a hole through me, but neither of us says a thing. We stand there by the mirrored bureau near the front door, locked in each other’s gaze. He takes a fur from the coatrack and holds it open for me. I step closer and he wraps it around my shoulders, pulling me against him until I inhale his scent and close my eyes.

  He hears my sigh and knows it’s surrender. “Are you scared, Clara?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you needy?”

  “So much that I’m shaking.”

  “Does that embarrass you?”

  My cheeks must be scarlet. “More every time I admit it.”

  “Then I think it’s finally time you get what you want, isn’t it?” he says, stroking me softly, his warm hands carrying the promise of deeper intimacy. “And today, you don’t have to worry about anything … except pleasing me.”

  “I’d like that. I’d like to please you,” I admit.

  “You will,” he says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

  On our way out past the doorman, Charlie gives a tip of his hat, as if this were any normal day and I weren’t filled with a craving for wickedness. I’m silent during the car ride. Leo takes me to the Moroccan Theatre and escorts me past the velvet ropes into a side door before the crowds catch a glimpse of me.

  Then we push through the beaded curtains into the plush anteroom. They used to serve champagne here, before Prohibition, but now the room is reserved for big shots and performers. I don’t know what I’m doing here. The truth is, I love not knowing. I love the idea that any man here might be Leo’s friend who saw my stag film, might be the one he wants to share me with. I love it so much I think I might be the most wicked woman ever born, and
it twists inside me with every step I take.

  Amidst the opulent Eastern decor of the movie palace, we make small talk with a few people who know me. They seem surprised to see me with Leo, especially when he touches me in ways that leave no doubt that he’s taken me as a mistress. Maybe he wants to show me off. If so, I don’t mind, because I feel a thousand stabs of envy from all the women in the room.

  They all lust for the dashing aviator, but he’s mine, at least for one more night.

  After a few minutes, Leo spies a young usher with a mop of blond hair. The two men exchange a knowing glance and I think my heart is going to beat its way out of my chest. Leo squeezes my arm in reassurance while he presses an envelope into the usher’s white-gloved hand. The young man tucks the envelope into his jacket, beneath the shiny metal buttons, then bows smartly. “If you’ll follow me …”

  I begin to sweat at the back of my knees.

  The band’s already playing and the lights are low, so the usher uses his flashlight to guide us up the stairs and through the aisles to the balcony box, shrouded with crimson silk draperies embroidered with gold. The empty chairs are carved, polished wood. Only when the usher leaves with our coats do I dare to show my astonishment. “You rented the whole box?”

  “I think we’ll want the privacy,” Leo says, crossing his legs and smoothing the crease in his pants.

  Apprehension dawns slowly. “Oh, no. Leo, you can’t mean … you can’t mean to make love to me here. A movie palace is about as close to a church as it gets for a girl like me.”

  “Oh, come now, the whole place is a petting pantry. With all that chatter going on down there, they probably wouldn’t even hear you if you screamed.”

  He might be right. Over the balcony, I can’t see individual faces but I hear a sea of voices. People laughing, clapping, engaging with the band. The projectionist has his part to play, too, speeding the movie up and slowing it down for artistic effect. I wonder how it will be when people have to be quiet to understand a movie because they can’t read words on the screen.

  As always, I go with hubris. “So what’s the main feature, Ace? I didn’t even ask the name of the movie.”

  Leo shifts against me and goose bumps race up my arms. His proximity is something that I’m always aware of, but now he seems to loom over me. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, taking a feather from my headdress. “You’re not going to be able to pay much attention.”

  In the darkness, the feather tickles its way down my neck, over my bare shoulder, and down my arm. I react as if he’s singed me with a lit candle, hissing at the trail of heat.

  “You’re so responsive. You say a thousand words with every move you make,” Leo says with admiration, as if it weren’t exactly my talent. “Remember how you said that you’d like to please me?”

  I nod.

  “Then pull up your dress, spread your knees, and touch yourself.”

  It doesn’t even occur to me not to comply, so I slide my hand over my trembling belly, burying my fingers into the heat of my own sex. I’m wet enough to ease the friction, so it doesn’t take but a moment before the sound of the musicians below fades away and I’m slowly pumping my hips in reverie.

  “That’s my girl,” Leo says. “Close your eyes and keep doing that. Don’t stop unless I tell you.”

  With my eyes closed, the sensation of the feather over my skin intensifies. The tickle of it drives me to distraction as I rub myself. I’m vaguely aware of the curtains rustling near the back of the booth and I gasp, but Leo grips me hard by the knee. “Don’t stop and don’t open your eyes until I say.”

  There’s someone else here. Maybe it’s the usher with his flashlight cutting through the darkness. I don’t know. But my desire to please Leo, to do as he wants me to do, is so strong that it overcomes my terror. I tremble from head to toe, but continue to gently stroke myself.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Cartwright,” someone says.

  The breath goes out of me at the sound of a stranger who knows who I am. Of course he does. The shame of my position, with my dress up around my hips and my fingers sticky with my own arousal, turns my blood to liquid fire. I think I’m going to melt into a puddle, just melt away into nothing.

  “You can open your eyes, Clara,” Leo says.

  I do but it’s too dark to see more than shadows as the stranger takes the seat next to me.

  The stranger’s voice is rich, like he hails from some wealthy New England town. “Don’t let me interrupt. You’ve got the body of a goddess. I can’t blame you for wanting to touch it … I know I do.”

  Leo laughs indulgently. “Don’t tease her. She’s had about all the teasing she can handle …”

  “I just want to lend her a hand,” the stranger says, laying his palm on my knee.

  My breathing stutters the way delicate ladies breathe just before they faint dead away.

  “Let him touch you, Clara,” Leo says. “This is what you wanted. And it’s what I want, too.”

  And nothing else matters. Not now. There’s no fight in me. I drift away to a place of such frightful submission, that I don’t even think I remember my own name. This is by design. This is happening exactly the way Leo engineered it to happen and that’s all that I care about. He said he wanted to choose my next lover, and he has. I embrace the idea with an open heart … and widespread legs.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Please touch me.”

  The stranger shifts closer, bringing with him the scent of expensive forbidden liquor, and kisses my neck. In a moment, both men are kissing my neck in perfect symmetry. Leo cups my breast with his right hand, squeezing it, kneading it until I sigh with delight. The stranger reaches between my legs and after a few moments of soft petting, he increases the tempo until he’s rubbing my pussy the way one scrubs a pot.

  I’ve never been touched that way. I shouldn’t like it. The stranger is touching me the way men masturbate themselves. I’ve passed through fear and shame into eagerly embracing the depravity. I moan low in my throat. I’ve allowed my lover give my body over to a man I don’t even know and I’ve never felt so excited by anything.

  It also makes me frantic. I’ve lost my moorings. I need something to anchor me. “I want to touch you, Leo. I need to touch you.”

  “That makes me a very happy man,” he says, alleviating my panic by drawing my hand between his legs where he’s hard as iron. I know how to stroke a man through his trousers, and Leo growls his approval of my technique. “Clara, do you want to stroke him, too? You can if you want. Go on.”

  With only this slight encouragement, I fumble with my other hand, running it up the stranger’s leg. When I find his rigid erection, the stranger groans. I stroke both men, one in each hand, surprised that it comes so naturally. As if I were born knowing how to do it. The harder they get, the harder I fall. I’ve forgotten the music. The audience. The wispy curtains. The whole movie palace could burn down around me and I wouldn’t care because I’m already consumed with the flames of desire.

  Leo’s mouth clamps over my nipple, sucking it through the thin fabric of my dress, and the heat of it shoots straight through my body. The stranger dips his head and catches the other nipple, and then they’re both doing it. Both of them leaving wet spots over each nipple, and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but pleasure.

  I squeeze my eyes closed as the explosion flashes white behind my eyelids. I swallow back a silent scream as the orgasm washes over me, thrashing my head from side to side. I think both men know they’ve brought me off, but how? It must be that I stop breathing. That I go perfectly still everywhere but my sex, which pulses steadily against the stranger’s palm.

  Only when I’m done do I take big gasping drags of air, like I’ve just been born.

  Leo whispers, “That makes one.”

  “Well, isn’t she splendid?” the stranger asks.

  “That’s not all she can do,” Leo says. “Let her put those pouty lips of hers on you and you’ll be a goner …”


  “Not a bad way to go,” the stranger replies.

  Leo pushes gently on the back of my neck, and I know what he wants. It’s the same thing I want, so I slide to the floor. I’m all vamp now, looking up with seductive eyes, ready to perform. I’m kneeling there on the floor of a public theatre, ready to suck off two men. There’s a moment—just a moment—that I hate myself.

  Then I see through the haze of low light and smoke that both men are staring at me like I’m a sex goddess. And I remember that I’m Clara Cartwright. I can make a grown man shake in his shoes. Now I’ve got two grown men. I’m kneeling in front of them, but they’re both mesmerized by what I might do.

  And I’m going to do everything.

  I start with Leo, wrapping my lips around just the swollen head of his cock until it jumps on my tongue. He growls at me and I’m not sure if it’s with pleasure or frustration. Frankly, I don’t care. I wriggle my tongue up the underside while I stroke the stranger with my other hand, and now I have both men squirming.

  Glancing up at the shadowed face of the stranger, I pause to lick my lips and he lets out a quick, sharp gasp of arousal. Unlike Leo’s, the stranger’s erection isn’t a ramrod-straight bar of steel. His manhood curves upward, and I want to taste him so badly that I inch towards him like a jungle cat. I slowly slide my lips over the stranger’s shaft a little bit at a time, taking him so deep that he bumps the back of my throat. I pull up, then do it again, which causes the stranger to grip the arms of his chair.

  Leo slides into my seat so I can take turns licking each cock, savoring the differences in taste and texture and sound. Leo mutters a dark oath that makes me feel like he wants to devour me. And the stranger jolts every time I suck him, like my lips are electric. I could go on like this forever, back and forth, sucking these men, but Leo is just not the kind of man who can let me have my way with him. “I can wait, Clara. Give him your best.”

  He shifts me so that my face angles into the stranger’s lap. Running my hands back to the warm recesses behind the stranger’s hips, I start sucking so hard he mutters a string of whispered curses that would shock a sailor. I’m going to make him come. I’m going to make a stranger come and it turns me on so much that I won’t—I can’t—deny myself.