Aces

by T. E. Cruise

  The white wine had warmed during its stay in the Jag’s boot, so Greene took the bottle down to the water line and buried it up to its neck in the cool mud to regain its chill. He went behind a sand dune to change into the swim trunks that Suze had brought him, and then they went swimming, laughing, and playing in the waves together like children. Greene adored watching Suze at play. She was a big girl, but she was strong and supple, and her body was as tight as it was blessed with abundant curves. God had clearly intended Suze to be larger than life, and she had fulfilled that promise.

  Greene retreived the wine and they drank some with the lunch that Suze had packed for them. They went swimming again, and then came back to their blanket, to bask in the sun and finish the last of the wine.

  Greene was lying on his back, quite close to Suze, almost touching. He was feeling sleepy in his damp suit, staring into the ruddy crimson that was the sun against his closed eyelids, feeling the gentle breeze eddying feather-light against his salty skin.

  His breath quickened as he felt Suze’s thigh pressing against his. Her toes began tickling the sand from his own foot.

  He felt her breath, wine-scented, on his face, and opened his eyes. She was up on one elbow, gazing down at him. Her sea-damp hair, limply hanging in curls and tendrils, formed a tawny curtain around her face. She had a slight blush of pink sunburn across the bridge of her nose. Her long eyelashes were encrusted with salt. Keeping her sable eyes locked with his, she took his hand and pressed his fingers against her breast. He could feel her nipple, raised and hard, beneath the moist, taut fabric of her swimsuit. Her front teeth seemed startlingly white; they glistened, pearl-like, as her lips parted and she lowered her mouth to his.

  The taste of her overwhelmed him. He thought, oddly, that he’d known all along what her taste would be, and yet, that was quite impossible. They had never before kissed. Not like this. Thinking about it in retrospect, Greene would realize that it was after this first kiss that he was lost…

  Suze drew away. Her eyes again searched his. He said nothing as she studied him, but from the merry glint in her bewitching, dark eyes, he guessed that she’d learned whatever it was she needed to know.

  She kissed him again. Then, slowly, watching him all the while, she slid the straps of her suit off her shoulders, peeling down the bodice to expose her breasts. Feeling as if he were in a dream, Greene reached for her. He pressed his face into her deep cleavage. She shivered and moaned, as goose bumps puckered the large, tan aureoles of her lush breasts. He licked and sucked the salty ocean from her pink, swollen nipples. Gradually she relaxed, becoming warm and fluid in his arms.

  Her hands glided over his bare chest, and then skated down the hard, flat planes of his belly. Her fingers deftly unplucked the knot in the drawstring of his swim trunks, and then her hands were everywhere, and he was the one doing the moaning. He peeled her swimsuit down past her flaring hips, kissing her everywhere: her soft belly, her navel, and the briny, blond fur curling up from below; the silken mounds of her high, sassy bottom, so startlingly white where the sun had never touched. They nestled, facing each other, on the blanket. Suze’s spreading thighs were cool and damp. Her center drew him like a magnet. She was warm and syrupy when he penetrated her. They fit together perfectly, and rocked and kissed, limbs entwined for a long, sweet time, and stayed locked together afterward, until the sound of voices coming up the beach startled them out of their blissful laziness. They pulled apart and hurriedly dressed.

  Only then did the spell that had been cast on Greene vanish. It seemed to disappear the way the glistening, early-morning dew lifts from a spider’s web.

  “Look at me,” Suze said softly. There was lightness in her tone, but also a tinge of panic. “Look at me and tell me what’s wrong?”

  He didn’t know where to start. The guilt and depression were so cold and hard in the pit of his stomach, and inexorably swelling. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you…” he said hoarsely.

  “Are you joking?” Suze asked, sounding astounded. “I seduced you! You’re just confused because I was the virgin and you’re experienced.”

  He glanced at her. “Well, no… I’m not really so awfully experienced, actually…” He sighed. “Actually, I’ve never really done this before.”

  “You… You’ve never?…” Suze abruptly grinned; but just as quickly, her smile vanished. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No, I’m not kidding you, if you must know… I mean, I suppose that in the past I have been presented with what one might refer to as opportunities, but somehow the idea just never seemed…” he paused, pursing his lips, “… apropos…”

  Suze was laughing.

  “Well, what I mean to say is that this sexual business is not really the sort of thing one can easily picture oneself doing,” Greene quickly added.

  The girl was laughing so damnably hard she was in tears.

  “Now, what have I done with my cigarettes?” he muttered, blushing, trying to hide his confusion by patting the blanket, shaking out the towels, and searching beneath the picnic basket.

  “S-stop!” she begged, gasping and holding her belly. “Don’t make me laugh anymore! I c-can’t catch my breath!”

  “You know, I really fail to see the bloody humor…” he began, feeling quite stung.

  She quickly put her hand over his mouth, and then, still chuckling, cuddled against him. “Well, for your first time out, I think you were just wonderful,” she told him. “But then, that’s the sort of performance I’d expect from a test pilot.”

  “Ah, yes, I do see that.” He smiled, hugging her.

  She looked up at him, her dark gaze intent and purposeful. “And, of course, I’m biased because I love you, and you do love me, right?” When he didn’t immediately reply, she pinched him. “Right?”

  Greene laughed, but then his smile turned sad. “Of course you’re right,” he sighed. “I do love you. But what happens next, Suze? I’m leaving, remember?”

  “You’ll come back,” she declared bravely. “I’ll wait.”

  “Who says that I’ll be coming back?” he asked sharply. “I’m going to be a fighter pilot, love. Do you have any inkling of the life expectancy for fighter pilots?”

  “Don’t talk like that!”

  “And there’s something else,” he muttered. “I gave my word to your father—and to myself—that I wouldn’t take advantage of you.”

  “But I was the one that seduced you, remember?”

  He shook his head, frowning. “But I acquiesced, you see. No, it was an unforgivable breach of conduct on my part.”

  “Well…” Suze began, for once in her life seeming at a loss for words. “We don’t have to tell anyone,” she suggested hopefully.

  “My dear girl, I can lie to everyone, but I can’t delude myself. My honor meant everything to me, Suze. It was the only thing I could truly call my own, but now it’s gone.”

  “Now you are making me angry,” Suze warned. “You’re just a person, Blaize. You’re not some knight from King Arthur’s court.”

  He realized that for what was probably the first time since they’d met, she had absolutely no idea what he was trying to tell her. “You can laugh at me if you like,” he said, getting to his feet, “but I think one’s honor is like one’s virginity. You can lose it only once, and then it is gone forever.” He began to walk away, toward the water.

  “Where are you going?” she called after him.

  “For a stroll… By myself,” he added, as she rose to follow. “I—I need to think… Suze… I need to come to terms with what’s happened.”

  (Four)

  Suzy found Blaize withdrawn and distant after he’d returned from his walk. The conversation was painfully polite as they got dressed, packed up their belongings, and trudged back to the car.

  The drive back to Burbank passed in awkward silence. Suzy felt trickling wetness between her legs, and a bother-some throbbing. She wasn’t in any pain, so she guessed that what she was f
eeling was normal. She glanced at Blaize. He was slumped down, cupping a cigarette to protect it from the wind. His mouth was twisted into a scowl, and his gleaming black hair was in his eyes, which were half-closed, like hooded bits of dull jade.

  He looked as if he’d just killed someone, not gotten laid, Suze thought. Oh! She couldn’t bear to look at him, she was so angry!

  She had no regrets about seducing him. She knew all along that she was going to have to be the one to make the first move; that Blaize was just too caught up in his fairy tale moral code. At times like these she felt that the things he worried about were outdated and silly, but she’d fallen in love with him a long time ago. When she learned that he was leaving to go to war, she’d decided that she wanted him to be her first lover. She wasn’t the romantic that Blaize was. She was pragmatic enough to know that someday she would fall in love with someone else, get married, and have a family, but she also knew that she was always going to be at least a little in love with Blaize. She looked forward to that. It was going to be nice to have his sensitive, brooding presence now and again haunting her dreams down through the years…

  It would be nicer still if some miracle occurred to keep him right here in California with her, but Suzy knew that wasn’t going to happen. She certainly wouldn’t do any more weeping over his leaving. She’d promised him she wouldn’t, and, anyway, if she wept now, who knew how he’d take it? Poor Blaize thought he was so sophisticated and mature, but in reality he perceived things with a child’s emotional literalness. If she let him see her tears now he’d probably assume that they were due to her remorse over becoming a fallen woman, and probably throw himself off a cliff…

  “What are you smiling about?” Blaize grumbled.

  “Can’t a girl smile?”

  “Hmph,” he said, and went back to sulking.

  It was close to seven o’clock by the time they got back. The plant’s parking lots were empty, and the night guards were on duty at the main gate. They recognized Suzy’s car, and waved her through. She drove to the main building. Blaize had the door of the car open before she’d come to a full stop.

  “Suze, I—I guess, this is good-bye, then,” he mumbled, not looking at her.

  She watched, dumbstruck, as he got out of the car and walked quickly—almost ran, it seemed—through the entranceway of the building.

  “Dammit!” Suzy swore. “He never even looked back! Dammit!” She put the Jaguar into reverse, backed around in a tire-screeching turn, and then rocketed forward down the drive, toward the main gates.

  He never even looked back! She wasn’t going to let him get away with that!

  “Dammit!” She stepped hard on the brakes, geared down into second, and wrenched the Jag hard left. Her smoking back tires sprayed gravel as she made a U-turn and roared back to the entrance where she’d dropped off Blaize. She skidded to a stop, shut the engine, kicked open the Jag’s door, swung herself out of the car, slammed the door shut, and strode into the building. She took the elevator to the design floor. It was quiet here. Everyone had quit for the day. She hurried down the corridor to Blaize’s office. His door was closed; she opened it without knocking.

  Blaize was seated at his drafting table, his head in his hands. He looked up at her with a bleak expression as she came in.

  “Please, go,” he began.

  “Shut up, and listen to me!” Suzy said, furious. “I’m not going to let you martyr yourself over what happened this afternoon! Or maybe I will let you! I haven’t decided yet! But you’re definitely not going to be rid of me until I’ve given you a good piece of my mind!—”

  “Excuse me…” she heard her father say. He was standing in the doorway behind her. He looked at her, and then at Blaize. “Forgive me for interrupting… Blaize, I could come back?…”

  “No, Herman,” Blaize sighed. “That’s quite all right. Suze was just leaving… Weren’t you, Suze?”

  “You don’t have to go, honey,” Herman quickly told her, coming into the office. “This will take only a minute.” He laughed uneasily. “Actually, Blaize, I think it would be better if my daughter stayed. That way maybe you’ll keep your lid on when you read this.”

  Suzy looked on as her father handed Blaize an envelope. She watched Blaize open it, unfold the official-looking sheet of stationery, and skim its contents.

  Blaize turned white.

  “What is it?” she asked fearfully.

  “It’s from the office of the RAF Air Chief Marshal,” Blaize whispered before her father could reply. “It seems that I’ve been commissioned into RAF active service, as a captain…”

  “Congratulations,” Suzy said dryly.

  “But that’s not all the letter says, Suze,” Blaize continued, glaring at her father as he spoke. “It goes on to say that per the request of Herman Gold, relayed to British Air Staff through Sir Alfred Black, president of Stoat-Black Air Works, I’ve been assigned until further notice to GAT, in order to continue scientific experimental work herewith deemed essential to Britain’s national interest.” He crumbled the letter in his fist. “Goddamn you, Herman! You lied to me!”

  “I did no such thing. I kept the deal I made with you. In exchange for one month’s work I did secure you passage on a diplomatic flight.”

  “But it was all a charade!” Blaize accused. “You tricked me into staying, and used the extra month to push through this nonsense!”

  “That nonsense, as you put it, are your official orders,” Herman replied. “As an officer and a gentlemen you are expected to obey them.”

  “Damn you! You know I have no choice in that matter!” Blaize muttered.

  Suzy turned her face away from Blaize, afraid that she was unable to hide the joy she was feeling over the fact that now they would have more time together. If Blaize saw her expression he might misunderstand, and think that she was taking pleasure in Daddy’s having outmaneuvered him.

  “As for tricking you,” Daddy was saying, “I did what I felt I had to do, for the greater good. I happen to feel that your work here on the turbine takes precedence over your desire to see combat. That letter proves that your RAF superiors agree with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two to whatever it was you were discussing.”

  “So I’m trapped, is that it, Herman?” Blaize demanded.

  Her father paused in the doorway. “I took the liberty of having my secretary cancel your flight for tomorrow,” he said evenly, no hint of triumph on his face, or in his voice. “She also called your landlord, to inform him that you’ve had a change in plans and that you’ll be keeping your apartment. I’ll expect to see you here, bright and early, tomorrow morning. Good night, Blaize.”

  “I guess Herman Gold lets nothing stop him from getting what he wants,” Blaize growled as her father’s footsteps faded down the corridor.

  That goes double for his daughter, Suzy thought, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. She had time.

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  (One)

  GAT

  Burbank, California

  22 September 1940

  Gold was meeting with Teddy Quinn, in Teddy’s office. Between them was a coffee table littered with production sheets and folders containing the paperwork on old and new projects.

  The P-6 BearClaw had passed all of the U.S. Army Air Corps tests and was in production. Meanwhile, GAT’s proposal for the Combat Support One BuzzSaw light attack bomber was in Washington. The dual-engine BuzzSaw would be powered by Rogers and Simpson’s 2000-horsepower radials. Teddy’s people felt confident that she would have a top speed of approximately three hundred and twenty-five miles per hour, and a maximum range of twelve hundred miles, while hauling a ton and a half of high explosives in her bomb bay. The BuzzSaw would have a gun turret up top the fuselage, a tail gun compartment, and a half-dozen ports etched into her nose for forward-firing machine guns.

  Officially, no decision had yet been reached by the government concerning the CS-1 BuzzSaw, but Gold�
�s sources at the Defense Department had informed him that General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, the Air Corps chief, looked favorably on the CS-1, which meant that she was a sure thing to be approved.

  “On to new business,” Gold said. “I’ve received a lengthy correspondence from Stoat-Black. It seems they’ve been given the go-ahead to construct a prototype aircraft for the jet engine being developed by Layten-Reese Motor Works.”

  “No shit.” Teddy’s eyebrows went up. “They get good funding?”

  “For England.” Gold nodded.

  “What else do we know about it?”

  “Quite a bit,” Gold replied. “The letter was transported via diplomatic pouch, so they felt they could be explicit about the details. They say they’re about a year from a prototype. You can read the letter for yourself. The bottom line is they want to know what we’ve come up with so far…”

  “If by that you mean what has Blaize come up with, the answer is not very much,” Teddy said, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It’s hard for a fellow to come up with bright ideas when he’s expending most of his energy sulking.”

  “Come on!” Gold scowled. “It’s been seven months since I had him assigned here. He can’t still be angry about it…”

  Teddy shrugged. “Maybe it’s not so much anger as bitterness. You know as well as I do what’s been going on overseas…”

  Gold nodded. In May, the routed British Expeditionary Force had been more or less successfully evacuated from Dunkirk, thanks to the protective cover flown by the RAF. Less than a month later, France fell to the Germans, who then quickly turned their attention to Britain. German bombers sporadically flew raids over London, and RAF Bomber Command had retaliated with a night raid over Berlin, but the air battle began in earnest on September 7, when the Germans launched a devastating daytime air attack on London. The city burnt for days. Since then, the Luftwaffe had been rolling in on Britain like the fog. Formations of hundreds of German bombers and fighters filled the English sky day after day, while RAF Fighter Command valiantly struggled to defend the country.