In mere moments there was a knock on his office door. At his invitation, Declan brought Minnie in, his brow furrowed in unspoken confusion, then he left.
Jack leaned back against his desk, his head tilted and hands clasped low in front of him. He looked casual. Uncaring. Even amused.
“Once again, Minnie, I find that you are late.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he put a finger up. “Specifically, not where you are supposed to be. Do you have some impression that I like playing games? That I’m easy like that? Because I’m not.”
A flash of lust and challenge ignited in her eyes as she stared at him for a long moment. “I appreciate this opportunity, Mr. Drazen, but I don’t think it’s going to work out for me to work here at the Canary Lounge. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any trouble.” She turned toward the door. “I will find a way to pay you back for the piano, a repair or something.”
He crossed the room in long strides and caged her in at the door, his front to her back, his arms on either side. “Just what do you think you’re doing, love?” His voice was low and hard as it rasped into her ear.
“If you’re going to make a game of my needs, then I mean to win.”
“Oh?” He pressed his arousal to her, pinning her to the door, his lips skating across her nape. “Just how do you propose to do that?”
“I can walk away.”
He chuckled, playfully at first, then in earnest. “You can’t walk away from me. Couldn’t if you tried. Just like I can’t walk away from you.”
“I’m stronger than you know,” she said.
“I don’t doubt that for a moment. But here’s your weakness.” He snaked a hand around her waist, lifted the skirt of her dress, and dipped into her panties, a finger plunging into her wetness. “There.” He dripped the word like the honey on his finger. “Good girl. Go on and pretend you’re not mad for me. Act your way out of this office.”
She gripped his hand at her sex.
“No.” His voice again punishing and light, a tease, a chastisement. “You see, I am directing this show, darling.” He snapped the fingers of his other hand in her face. “Snap to.” Surprised, she did jolt, just perceptibly so. “Ah, good. My thoroughbred at the gate.” He pulled her roughly to his couch and laid her down, then threw off his suit coat and loosed his sex.
Six years of fear and loss and a day of preamble and play, he thrust forcefully inside her. “Oh, God, you’re tight, sweetheart.” She cried out and wrapped her arms around him, her grip hard and desperate, urging him on. He pistoned hard and fast. He couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to. He needed to remind her, remind himself that she was his. A day of jagged arousal eating away at her, she came first and hard and he followed immediately after with a low groan. Then he collapsed on top of her.
After long moments punctuated by their gathering breaths, he pulled up and looked at her. “Are you all right?”
She brought a hand up, brushing it forcefully across her forehead. “No,” she croaked out.
“No?”
“I don’t know what I feel exactly but it’s definitely not all right.”
He cupped her face. “What do you mean? Did I hurt you?”
“No.” She took her hand from her forehead and caressed his cheek. “Never.” She shook her head. “It’s just…I have a bad feeling that this feels too good. That it can’t last. That it won’t.”
He chuckled sadly. “Is that all?” He kissed her sweetly, smoothing her hair back from her face. “You’re here now. We’re together, aren’t we?”
After a pause, she ventured a timid smile and nodded tentatively.
Again he kissed her lightly. “Nothing to fear.”
Chapter 11
Finally on firm ground, they dated properly, learning of one another over dinners and holding hands through Saturday matinees. The sex was a revelation. Hot and hard and fast and slow and peculiar and interesting and frustrating. Yet always blissful in the end.
Then one waning day in early November, his secretary called.
“Mr. Drazen, Miss Ward is here.”
“Send her in, Gretchen.”
He sat back, elbows on the chair arms, hands clasped, as Minnie walked in, shrugging out of her trench to reveal a black swing dress with tiny ivory polka dots.
“Hello, darling,” he said.
“When are you going to remove your man?”
He sat forward, smirking. “It’s good to see you, too, love.”
“I could understand it at first. I didn’t like it,” she approached the desk, a gloved finger wagging, “but I could understand it. Yet now, it seems overbearing and completely unnecessary. I would like you to dismiss your man, whomever he is, before I start inviting him in for tea and feeding him like a stray.”
He raised his brows as he stood and came around the desk to kiss her. “Inviting him in? I wouldn’t want you to do that.”
“No? Well, you see my frustration, then. He’s like a bad penny that keeps turning up.”
Smiling like a simpleton, he wrapped his arms around her even as she squirmed half-heartedly.
“Are you ignoring me? This is important.”
He kissed her again, a touch meant to disarm. “It seems to me, doll, that when someone says this is important that, in fact, it’s not.”
“Is that some Jack Drazen wisdom? Because I happen to disagree.”
“You are perfectly within your rights, love. But I don’t care.” Her mouth gaped wide and he pecked a corner. “Close that mouth. You’re tempting me to put something in it.”
She slammed it shut, then squirmed from his grasp and grabbed her coat. “I’ll dismiss him myself,” she said walking to the door.
“Go on and try, why don’t you. Gregory is my man and he answers to me.”
She wrenched open the door and looked back. “You’re smothering me, Jack. I’m either safe or I’m not, but I won’t be kept under lock and key. Not anymore and never again.”
Jack got to the Claridge around 9pm. He hadn’t any plans to see Minnie that night, a dinner meeting with Ford and Preston Sturges scheduled. They tended to get long and boozy, but he managed to slip out early. He didn’t like his girl discontent, making threats, even idle ones.
As a matter of habit, he looked to catch Gregory’s eye. She didn’t like a watchdog on her heels and he understood that in an abstract sense. But here was the truth: he didn’t give a fuck. If he needed to soothe her womanly hysteria, he would. As long as she insisted on staying in her shitty apartment in the Hills he would keep a man on her. She would give in to him eventually; his estate on Aberdeen needed her.
But Gregory wasn’t there. His gaze narrowed on the car he was almost certain was his. It was dark, yet still, he didn’t seem to be inside, nor anywhere near it. That little minx. She’d done it. He didn’t know what he preferred, whether she dismissed him or invited him in. Both would mean he would be fired. Then he would need another Gregory. A better one.
As a courtesy, he knocked. He had the key. Had helped himself to that as he’d helped himself to her. Funny; no answer. He thought she had plans to make it an early evening, no doubt shampooing her hair and whatever else women did.
He turned the key in the lock and opened the door, still knocking. “Darling?”
“Sweetheart,” came a voice that was not supposed to be there.
Frank strolled out of Minnie’s bedroom, dragging her by the arm, a gun pointed at her. She wore a petal pink chenille robe, her hair damp and her face scrubbed clean. Her expression was flat, but her eyes bounced and lips trembled.
He swallowed, his mind racing. “What do you have there, Frank?” he asked almost casually as if he held an interesting bauble and not a gun to his girl.
“Just retrieving what’s mine, Jack. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Jack caught a glimpse of Gregory. He was thrown on the floor like trash, tied, out cold, his forehead bleeding.
“I believe your man was getting complacent,” Frank said, noting Jack’s rega
rd for Gregory. “I strolled right up to his window and knocked on it, asking for directions with the butt of my revolver, you see.”
“I see that. Would you mind terribly letting go of Minnie? She looks a bit frightened.” He looked into her eyes. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”
She swallowed. “Fine,” she issued so small as to be barely heard.
Jack nodded. “Not…harmed in any way?”
She shook her head as if afraid to make even the slightest movement.
“Now why would I harm her?” asked Frank, his body language instantly tight as if offended. “I love this girl.”
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Perhaps it’s the gun you have on her.”
“This?” He waved the gun loosely in the air. “This is meant merely to secure your cooperation.”
“And what is it you’d like my cooperation on?”
Frank smiled widely, menacing and sure. “So many things. Only where to begin?”
“Can we cut to the chase?”
Frank wagged a finger at Jack. “See there? That. That’s what I’m talking about. Your large Hollywood life. Your girl. Your lingo, even. That’s gold. I’d like that. ‘Cut to the chase.’” He nodded as if ruminating.
“You see, Minnie is supposed to be married to me,” he continued. “A gaggle of kids strapped to your leg, right, pet?” She didn’t respond, looking straight ahead as if the wall in front of her were the most interesting thing in the world. “But I’m, of course, already married. And my spies tell me you’ve fucked her so soundly that there’s probably already a little O’Drassen, excuse me Drazen, baby in her belly. So that is no longer an option for me. Sadly.” He looked at her and pet her hair, her eyes glassy and blinking.
“I could fuck her, of course.” He pulled her robe off to reveal a plain white cotton shift, a thin bow tied at the bodice. Though long and loose, it was so thin as to be nearly sheer and it gently hugged her curves.
Jack stepped towards her instinctively and Frank put the gun in his face. “Ah-ah. Stay right where you are. I don’t need your help. I’m well aware of what goes where and whatnot.”
Jack put his hands out. “Frank, you don’t want to do that.”
“I don’t want to do that? Believe me I do. I’ve wanted inside this girl from the first time I laid eyes on her seven years ago. She was so sweet at seventeen. Untouched. Vulnerable. I loved that. I could take her, make her into anything I wanted. A simpering wife. A begging slut.”
“But you’re not going to, are you? You would have done it already.”
“Oh? Well, you interrupted us, now didn’t you?” He looked at Minnie. “Didn’t he, pet?”
Still holding the gun to Jack, Frank wrapped his other arm around Minnie’s waist and began fondling her roughly. One breast and then the other. Then he looked at Jack with a sly smile as he groped. “She looks almost virginal in this, doesn’t she? A bride on her wedding night.”
“You can’t fuck her and hold a gun to my head,” said Jack, “and believe me when I say, you would have to. I would sooner have my brains blown out than watch you rape her.”
Frank smiled, pointing the gun to the dead center of Jack’s face. “I would be happy to oblige you, then.”
“No!” screamed Minnie. She snapped out of her frozen fear, wrenching out of Frank’s grasp. “Stop this! This isn’t even about me, is it?”
Frank cupped her cheek almost tenderly. “Of course it is. Do you think so little of yourself that you would think that I could forget? I’ve missed you, pet.”
“What do you want, Frank?” asked Jack.
Frank put the gun to Minnie’s head and kissed her punishingly as he pinched a nipple hard until she whimpered. Then he threw her away. “You’re right,” he said to Jack. “When you’re right, you’re right. I do want something of yours. And if it can’t be Minnie—”
“It won’t be Minnie,” said Jack.
Smiling tightly, Frank withdrew a folded piece of paper from inside his suit coat and handed it to Jack. “I want the Canary Lounge,” he said, directing the gun more forcefully onto Minnie.
“He will never give you that!” exclaimed Minnie angrily. “I won’t let him.” She looked at Jack. “I won’t let you. Do you hear me? You won’t.”
Jack stared at Frank for the longest moment of his life. How do you peel all the wants of a large, bold, and unfettered life down to a single need in a single instant? He knew what his choice would be. There wasn’t any question. But he had never had to make such a choice. Didn’t want to. And he felt so inadequate to the moment because of it, so afraid because of the inadequacy, and so fucking angry because of the fear.
He studied the paper: a legally binding agreement for Jonathan Seamus O’Drassen, Jr. to hand over complete and total ownership of the Canary Lounge to Francis Donato Fiore, Jr. for the sum total of $1 US dollar. It was plain and simple, appeared official but for signatures, and would likely hold up in a court of law despite protests that he was coerced.
“What if I don’t sign this?”
Frank cocked the hammer of his gun and Minnie flinched. And just like that, all the noise of fear and uncertainty shrunk down to a pinprick and fell away. He didn’t feel inadequate to the moment; he felt made for it.
Jack put a hand out towards her. “No. I’ll sign it, but I have two stipulations before I do.”
“You can’t,” cried Minnie. “It’s your life’s work.”
Jack glanced at her. “It’s my work. But it’s not my life. You’re my life.”
Minnie shook her head as Jack nodded his.
“Now that’s touching,” said Frank, pointing an arrogant finger in the air. “You two kids are in love. What are your stipulations?”
“Do you have a pen?”
Frank handed Jack a pen and he bent to write on the paper as Minnie went to him. “Please don’t do this for me. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“I’m doing it for me,” Jack said as he wrote. “I’m a very selfish man when it comes to my heart.” Then he peered into her eyes as he held out the paper to Frank. “Before you came back, the Canary Lounge was what I loved the most.” He took her in his arms. “But only because it reminded me of you, sweetheart. And now I have you, I don’t need it. I don’t. Need it. I only need one thing. One person. And that’s you.”
“I can agree to these,” said Frank, signing the paper and handing it back to Jack who quickly signed it. Frank threw him a dollar.
“You’ll see that the piano is delivered to my home,” said Jack.
“I will,” said Frank.
Chapter 12
Jack Drazen Residence, Los Angeles, CA
December 7, 1941
Jack walked into his bedroom to see his favorite site: late morning sun shining on his tossed bed, his girl, lazy and sexed, curled up reading the paper. He set a tray of croissants, coffee, and tea beside the bed.
“Anything interesting?” he asked as he lifted the blankets and crawled in the foot of the bed.
“Mmm,” Minnie said, a noncommittal murmur about the LA Times.
He crept under the covers, spreading her legs, his lips leaving a wet trail up the inside of one leg while a hand caressed up the other. “I brought you something to eat, darling,” he said as he kissed the inside of her knee.
“Thank you,” she said as she squirmed a little at his touch.
At her sex, he kissed her lips lightly, then peeked up at her, a sly smile on his face. “Put that newspaper away, will you.” He gave her sex another small peck. “Could there be anything more important than this?”
She pulled the paper aside and peered down at him rolling her eyes, a fingertip between her teeth.
“Why don’t you eat something,” he said. “You need your strength for the day ahead.”
She reached over and grabbed a croissant, tearing off a piece and giving it to him before taking a bite. “You should, too.”
He chewed with exaggerated delight, then yanked her down and bent over
her sex. “And now for the dessert.”
“Um,” she purred, arching her back as he worked her sex with his mouth and fingers until she was close. Then he climbed up her body, pulled her hands to wrap around the headboard, and thrust inside, fucking her hard until they climaxed.
After sleeping, Jack went to the kitchen to find heartier fare. He was just thinking he should find his chef Michelle when he heard the distant but distinct blaring of the radio. He walked to the den and saw Michelle standing, arms crossed, in front of the radio, his face angry and determined.
“What’s the matter?”
The tinny radio broadcast answered for him.
“The president has just announced that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air…”
He wandered back to his bedroom, his mind a blur of what he needed to do immediately. Minnie lay on her side, elbow propped on the bed and her head resting in her hand as she sipped cold tea and read more from the spread paper. She glanced up at him, her brow furrowing.
“Are you all right?”
“Will you marry me?”
Her brows shot to her hair and she sat up. “Well, if this is your proposal, Jack Drazen, the answer is no.”
Minnie
Jack and Minnie Drazen Residence, Los Angeles, CA
June 6, 1944
“Minnie. Minnie, wake up.”
“What?” I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “Betsy?” I looked at my bedside clock. Just after 1am. “What are you doing here?”
“You need to get dressed,” Betsy said.
“Why?” I shrugged out of my nightgown. “What’s happening?”
“Your last letter from Jack. Where was he?”
“England.” I pulled on my stockings, then my dress. “Devon, I think he said.” I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Hurried to put up my hair.
“Then he’s sure to be there right now. We need to go. Right. Now.” She grabbed my rosary from the dresser and shoved it into my hands.
“Where are we going?” I asked, following her out the door.
“Our Mother,” she said as we got into her car.
The Drazen World: The California Limited (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 11