It Stings So Sweet

by Stephanie Draven

  Good god, how many people did Leo tell about his proposal? “I think you have the wrong idea, Teddy.”

  “My daughter was in the jewelry shop the other morning when Leo Vanderberg went ring shopping.”

  With all the talent I’ve ever mustered for any film, I force myself to shrug. “You know I’m not the marrying kind … actually, I’m not much for exhibitions, either. The wind is awfully strong and I’m not feeling well. I don’t think I can stay.”

  I have the crew pack up my camera. Leo will expect me to be here when he lands. He’ll be furious if I’m not, and maybe that’s what needs to happen.

  “Miss Cartwright!”

  Someone is calling my name, but I don’t look back to see who it is. I keep walking from the airfield.

  “Miss Cartwright, wait!”

  I walk faster. I shouldn’t have come. Reporters are here. Ex-lovers are here. All the people who know my shame. And the wind is howling like it was the morning my mother tried to slit my throat.

  Someone grabs me and I whirl around, shocked to come face-to-face with Robert Aster. One look into his boyish face, and I think I’m going to cry. He is a reminder of everything in the world I should be ashamed of. A photographer snaps our picture and the flashbulb makes me see spots. No doubt the scandal sheets will spill a load of ink speculating on how many lovers I have and whether Robert Aster is one of them.

  For the first time in my life, I actually mind.

  “Miss Cartwright, it’s good to see you,” Robert says, his touch entirely too familiar.

  Ignoring the absurdity of being called Miss Cartwright by a man who has taken every pleasure available from my body, I hold my hat against the wind and say, “You’re being rather unchivalrous.”

  This seems to take him aback. “I haven’t said anything out of line.”

  “You’re thinking plenty!”

  “I’m only thinking that I’ve acquired a passion for billiards …” When I don’t smile at his joke, his grin fades away. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “I can’t stay. Please give Leo my regrets.”

  “You can’t go. He’s about to get into that plane …” The thought of it only makes it worse. To think of how many checklists Leo is going through now in preparation of climbing into that cockpit. “Is this about the proposal, Miss Cartwright?”

  Apparently, Leo’s told everyone. “It’s a mistake. Better off forgotten.”

  I’ve wondered all along what kind of friend Robert Aster really was to Leo. Now I’m about to find out. “Why won’t you marry him?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “Is it the money? He’s got more squirreled away than you think.”

  “It isn’t the money. Truth is, I have plenty of money. It’s just that when you’re a poor kid, you think you can never have enough.” It’s time I grew up. Glancing back over my shoulder at the gaggle of reporters watching us, I say, “Mr. Aster, it doesn’t trouble me when newspapers write about my affairs. I’m a vamp. It’s my reputation. I fostered it. And it doesn’t hurt Leo as long as everyone thinks that he’s just the man I’m bedding. It only adds to his mystique. He’s the sexy war hero who seduced the silent screen siren. But if we get married, he’ll be the sucker. The dupe. The cuckold.”

  The ambassador’s son—a young man trained to political realities—understands this in a way that Leo probably never will. “I see … but you must know that Leo doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”

  “Then it’s up to the people who love him to care about it for him.”

  Robert folds his arms over his neatly tailored suit. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’m not much of a hero, Mr. Aster. I’ve never fought in a war. I’m not like other women; I’m selfish and vain and greedy. But I can protect the man I love by saying no. And I’m not very good at saying no, so you can imagine what it costs me. Will you help me convince him to let go of this idea to marry me?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Robert says.

  So it’s done then. I should be relieved, but I’m suddenly so tired. Sapped of all my pep.

  “There’s just one thing you ought to know,” Robert says. “He won’t give up on the idea no matter what I have to say about it.” When I start to protest, Robert shushes me with an affable shake of his head. “I’ve known him a long time. You can tell him that a car won’t go as fast as he thinks it will. You can tell him that a plane won’t get off the ground. You can tell him he’s not going to make it out of a dogfight when he’s outgunned. The only thing he’s going to believe is that he can make the car go that fast. He’ll believe he can get that plane off the ground. He’ll believe he can win that dogfight. He’ll believe whatever he needs to believe to accomplish something no one else can.”

  “So you’re saying if you tell him not to marry me, it will only make him want to do it more.”

  “I’m saying it doesn’t matter what anyone tells him. You say you’re not like other women. Well, he’s not like other men. He doesn’t get up in the morning and worry about catching the morning train or what his boss is going to think about his new suit. He wakes up and thinks about how to strap himself onto an engine and change everything we think we know about the world.”

  Robert Aster is a persuasive man, and I feel myself getting turned inside out. I glance over my shoulder at the plane on the airstrip. That hunk of junk doesn’t look as if it will ever get off the ground, and the reality of it hits me.

  I’ve been fretting about playing pretend, gossip, and scandal. The concerns of Hollywood. I’ve been worrying about all the things my mother, the madwoman, thinks I should be worried about. Maybe I just haven’t wanted to face the truth about how scared I am. There’s a thousand real ways I can lose Leo. He’s going up in a real plane—not some Hollywood invention. He’s climbing into an untried machine with a fuel tank that can kill him. With wings that can fall off. With bolts that can come loose.

  He knows how dangerous it is. He just does it anyway.

  Robert catches my eye. “In the war, he never flew with a parachute, you know. He thought he was better off without.”

  “He told me.”

  “Well, he was wrong. He needs a parachute, Clara. He needs you.”

  The words flatten me and my heart begins to pound. “Oh … oh, my.”

  “He used to volunteer for the hazardous duties. He said he should go, because nobody was waiting back home for him. Don’t you see, Clara? When he asked you to marry him, he was asking you to be the one he comes back for.”

  I go to stone. Then I fracture. For a moment, I even miss my step and Robert has to catch me by the elbow. My hand goes over my mouth and I shake my head. “Oh, have I been a fool?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Robert says. “But I admire it a little.”

  “Leo!” I cry. He’s already got one foot in the cockpit, but he hears me even over the roar of the wind and turns his head. He sees me and gives a little wave. “Leo wait!”

  I run to him. My hat slows me down, so I let the wind take it and it floats up and away. The crowd turns to watch me race down the runway toward the plane and a few of the mechanics even try to stop me, but I’m too fast for them. “Leo!”

  He climbs out and jumps down from the plane, taking a few purposeful strides towards me. I’m running so fast that I crash into his chest and he grabs me by both arms. “Clara, what the devil are you doing?”

  “Marry me!” I shout over the wind.

  “What?”

  “Leo Vanderberg, will you marry me?”

  He pulls the goggles back over his head, looking vexed. “Clara, I’ve already proposed to you. All you have to do is say yes.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this. I never expected to be anyone’s wife. It’s no excuse but I love you so much that I was too afraid to say yes.”

  He gives me a cocky grin. “Are you still afraid?”

  “Of course I am.” But if Leo has taught me anything it’s that you have to take the ris
k to accomplish something wonderful. I want something wonderful. I want him forever. And that certainty stiffens my spine. “I’m terrified, but I’m going to do it anyway. I think it might just be glorious.”

  Leo grins. “It’s already done, Clara, whether you know it or not. The moment I told you that I was keeping your film—that I’d keep it the rest of my life and yours—we made a lifelong commitment. The rest is just a formality.”

  I blink and some of the terror does fade away. It seemed different with him than with anyone else from that moment. Maybe we’ve been married all along, which makes me feel like even more of a fool for saying no. “You told me that you’d always own a little piece of me, Leo. I just didn’t know it was going to be my heart.”

  “Say yes, Clara.”

  The sun on my face feels like God’s blessing, and I find myself beaming up at him. “Yes, Leo. Yes, I’ll marry you. Yes, to anything. Yes, to everything.”

  With a smug smile, he takes off one of his leather gloves, reaching into his jacket for the ring that flashes so brilliant it nearly blinds me.

  I gasp. “You just happened to have an engagement ring in your jacket?”

  Leo laughs. “I knew you were going to say yes eventually, so I wasn’t taking any chances.”

  He slips the golden band over my finger. A perfect fit. It’s a dazzling rock, round and brilliant. Showy as a star. A squeal escapes my lips before I can stop it, and I find myself hopping on my toes with joy. “Is that it? Are we engaged? I’ve never done this before …”

  “I’ve never done it, either.”

  I clasp him against me. “Then how do we know we’re doing it right?”

  “Oh, I think we’re probably doing it right.”

  He dips his head and kisses me hard.

  Leo climbs into the plane, situating himself in the cockpit. He gives a wave to the crowd, then starts the engine. When the plane rolls forward, everyone applauds. The plane rattles when it takes off. It stutters in the air, then glides up and up and away. I hold my breath as Leo takes that plane and pushes it as hard as it will go. He climbs with it, straight up. An impossible angle and as the machine gets tinier in the air, I know what he’s doing. He’s attempting an Immelmann turn and I have to stuff my fist in my mouth to keep from screaming when we all hear the engine cut out.

  The whole world freezes. Then the plane literally falls from the sky.

  I don’t know how he does it; I don’t know how he gets control of it again. But the engine fires again, and we see him hurtle off in a new and unexpected direction. We cheer for him. Grown men jump up and down, while the women throw their hats. I clutch my hand against my heart as Leo changes aviation history.

  And then he comes back to me.

  CHAPTER

  Thirteen

  It isn’t always perfect.

  We argue on set because Leo is always fiddling with the machinery when we’re losing valuable light. Sometimes we argue about foolish things like whether or not engineering plans are suitable artwork for the bedroom. But every morning I wake up next to my husband loving him more than the day before and wondering how that is even possible.

  Every morning, the warmth of his smile lifts my spirits the whole day long. At breakfast, I like the lazy lurid slide of his eyes over my body as I serve his eggs and pour his coffee. Some Sunday afternoons we spend the whole afternoon in bed with the paper. On Sunday evenings, we have dinner with Pops—who has been surprisingly sober since the day he gave me away in marriage at the chapel.

  And though Leo refuses to speak my mother’s name, he saves the crossword puzzles so I can take them on my visits.

  The first time the scandal sheets call him Mr. Cartwright, Leo does fuck me so hard that I do consider changing my stage name. But it feels so good I secretly hope it will happen again.

  He never lets me near the stag film. He never even tells me where he keeps it. We watch it sometimes, together. Sometimes with Robert Aster. Somehow, it always disappears before I can think to destroy it.

  In this, and in everything, Leo keeps his promises to me.

  We fuck, we make love, we play bedroom games the rules of which are known only to us. We’re a couple of fools in love. And we’re happy. We’re madly, deliriously happy.

  My husband, after all, is a man who can change everything we think we know about the world.

  let’s misbehave

  PROLOGUE

  Robert

  My lover coaxes the last shudders of orgasm from me, then rolls off my body into the waiting arms of her husband. Mewling with pleasure, she buries her face in the dark hair of his naked chest while his fingers lovingly trail down the pretty line of her spine. She kisses him with aching tenderness and he strokes her with lusty approval. Meanwhile, I pant from our exertions, my pleasure ebbing, my arms empty.

  It’s always like this afterwards.

  I’m usually aroused by the sight of them together. The rough way he grabs her hips and shoves her back to the mattress as if to reclaim her when I’m finished. It’s as reassuring as it is erotic to watch. His steely arms locked tight around the curves of her voluptuous body. The sheen of perspiration that glistens on the pale insides of her thighs when she spreads them for him in eager welcome.

  These heated visuals often awaken me, stiffening me for an extended performance, but this evening I’m strangely dispirited by the fact that she’s crawled to him and left me covered in cooling sweat.

  The jazz playing on the phonograph has begun to skip. I can just reach the cabinet from my side of the bed, so I fix the needle while wondering what accounts for my lack of satisfaction. Perhaps it’s that despite the many times and the many depraved ways in which I’ve enjoyed the famous movie-star body of Clara Cartwright, we rarely touch.

  By this, I don’t mean to say that I haven’t explored every inch of her velvety skin. I don’t even mean to say that she hasn’t caressed me or scraped her nails up my back, nor dragged her lips down my body to engulf my cock between her lips. We’ve done all those things and she’s given me thrilling pleasure. What I do mean to say is that when Clara touches me, I suspect that she’s really touching her husband.

  I’m an extra arm, leg, or other limb she caresses to heighten the experience.

  For that matter, Leo and I touch only incidentally when sharing her body. I’ve felt him moving inside her when we’ve trapped Clara between us. Sometimes our legs brush or our hands tangle in her hair at the same instant. This is as much contact as either of us would desire. The male form holds no allure for me, but the Great War brought Leo and me together in ways that go beyond flesh. And sharing Clara has only deepened that bond.

  There’s a camaraderie in what we do to her—how we taunt her, tease her, force whimpers from her that are at once desperate and seductive. Given how we are made, sharing his wife is the only way in which Leo and I can enjoy an intimate sexual act together.

  She is the conduit between us and yet, she remains slightly beyond my reach.

  It has never bothered me before, but it does tonight.

  Maybe it’s the way they kiss. Full-mouthed, passionate kisses, laden with secret meanings to which I am not privy. They are staring into each other’s eyes, breathing each other in, and instead of sinking back down into the tangle of sheets to join them in their marital bed, I reach for a deck of cigarettes thrown casually upon the nightstand.

  Normally, I prefer the Gitane brand, with its bite of dark tobacco, but tonight I content myself with Clara’s Lucky Strikes. When Leo sees me light up, he taps Clara’s nose in admonishment. “You’ve tired him out already.”

  She turns to face me, the flush on her neck drawing the eye down to the swell of her magnificent breasts. They seem especially magnificent tonight, and I’m aroused by the way her nipples darken and peak under my gaze. I want her … but then, every man does. She’s a Hollywood legend. It’s half the thrill of bedding her. Unfortunately, my mysterious malaise triumphs over my ardor. “It’s only that I rather feel as if I�
��m intruding.”

  Clara bats her eyelashes at me. “But I enjoy when you intrude, Mr. Aster.”

  She and I play at formality with each other; it intensifies the arousal to pretend we’re strangers, but the game has quite suddenly lost its charm. I suck in a deep lungful of smoke and try not to scowl at the unfamiliar taste. An entire wall of their modest bedroom is dedicated to framed photographs of Leo’s planes—those we flew together in the war and those he’s flown since. I’m present in many of those photographs, but as Clara adds her feminine touches to this room, I assume there will be less and less space for me.

  Clara draws herself up. “Is something wrong?”

  “No, of course not,” I say.

  Unfortunately, Clara is rather an expert at reading emotions. “Liar. Poor Robert. Have I left you feeling debauched and ill used?”

  Leo barks with laughter, and in spite of myself, I laugh, too. Pressing a relatively chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth, I say, “I’m afraid I feel positively defiled.”

  She strokes my cheek. “Come on then, out with it. What’s the matter?”

  “Is it your father again?” Leo asks.

  The thought of my father makes my mood even darker. “No. The ambassador is still harping on me to come home and either campaign for political office or run the family hotel, so there’s nothing new in that regard.”

  “Tell him to go straight to hell,” Leo says, nuzzling his wife’s hair. “If you go back East, you’ll end up drinking yourself into an early grave.”

  “I’m sure my father would prefer that to the alternative of my living a long and colorful life as a dissolute playboy.”

  “If the trouble isn’t your father then it must be a woman,” Clara announces with a note of triumph.

  “It’s nothing,” I insist, unwilling to put a damper on the occasion. It’s clear from the way Leo fondles his wife that his sexual interest hasn’t cooled, and I shouldn’t like to spoil it for them. But Leo is patient. I’ve always been prouder of the athleticism I bring to the bedroom than any careful seductive calculation, but given Leo’s example, I’ve begun to reconsider. As it happens, Leo is older than either of us, and I like to think it’s his age and experience that renders him capable of amazing feats of patience both in the bedroom and out of it.