It Stings So Sweet (13 page)

“No more,”
I pant, so spent I just want to die. “Stop.”

“Stopping now would defeat the purpose of the
experiment.”

Breathless, I plead for mercy. “No more. I’m begging you. I’m
begging
you!”

“Oh, you’re
begging
me? Well, then.” He reaches up and unstraps my hands. They sag onto the bed
where I lay like a corpse. He turns me gently onto my side and when I curl into a ball, he wraps
himself around me. “That’s a good girl.”

I muster up
just
enough energy to elbow him in the
ribs.

He grunts in agony, rolling onto his back. “Christ, woman! A sneak attack . . .”

“You deserved it.”

He’s still grimacing when he says, “That was my bad rib.”

“I hope I
broke it!” After all, I’ve heard of people having bad ankles or a trick knee, but never a bad rib.

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he pants, laughing and groaning in pain at the same time. “Maybe
I did deserve it. But it was worth it. Level with me, when was the last time you came that hard?”

“Never.”

“Glad to hear it. I like to know the score.”

I’m pouting. Brooding. But the
blood is pounding through my body with such delicious satisfaction that I can’t remember what I’m
so sore about. “You broke a rib before?”

“Two ribs, one collarbone, and various smaller fractures,”
he says nonchalantly. “I’ve survived a lot of crashes.”

I don’t even know what to say to that.
It
almost
makes me sorry for having elbowed him.

He takes my wrists, which are both red where
his belt cut off the circulation, and gently massages them. “Good god, Clara. You’re a fantasy come
alive.”

“You’re not half bad yourself. That’s was a good opening act, Mr. Vanderberg, but I’m
still waiting for the feature film.”

He grumbles. “Believe me, if I had my way I’d be plowing
you into this bed right now, but I made you a promise to make it feel like the first time, didn’t
I?”

“I release you from that silly obligation—”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

I could
cry. “How long are you going to keep doing this to me?”

His lip curls with amusement. “How
long am I going to keep driving you wild?”

I lower my eyelashes in a way that even he can’t
resist. “When are you going to fuck me properly?”

He swallows and his eyes trail down my body.
“Propriety’s got nothing to do with it.”

He can still taste me, I know. I see temptation written
all over his face. But before I can get his pants off, his self-control rallies. “Not tonight,
Clara.”

“You have no idea how good I can make you feel, Leo . . .”

“Oh, I’ve got a
damn
good idea.”

“Let me show you.” I run my hands down his body, aiming for the erection straining
against his pants.

He rolls out of my grasp. “I told you, Clara, I can’t let you put your pretty
little hands on me. I know myself. Once I give in, there’s no going back. I’m an all-or-nothing
fella and resisting you is more difficult than I thought it would be. Which is why I’ve been staring
at all the photos on your walls in a desperate attempt to keep the blood flowing in my brain. They’re
brilliant, by the way. Who took them?”

“I did,” I say, taking his thumb between my lips and
sucking on the tip.

He growls in appreciation. “Don’t worry. I won’t be able to hold out much
longer. I’ve just got a few more things about you I need to figure out.”

“Like what?” I ask,
propping myself up on one elbow.

“Like how many lovers you’ve had.”

It’s a question I
know better than to answer, so I adopt a flippant tone. “I lost count.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Sure I did. I can’t even remember their names. What about you?”

“Five,” he says with distressingly
little hesitation. “And I can still remember
all
their names.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He begins to count on his fingers. “Sally, the bordello girl who relieved me of my virginity. Marguerite,
the French farm girl. Helen, the army nurse. Pauline, the English socialite. And Susan, the suffragette.”

“I meant I didn’t believe there were only five! I didn’t want you to list them.”

He laughs.
“Well, what do you think of my list?”

Looking away in a state of anxiety, I murmur, “I think
that my list is much longer.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

This shocks me. “
Glad
?”

“I hope your
list numbers in the hundreds . . . this way, when you admit I’m the best you’ve ever had, it’ll
really mean something.”

I shriek with laughter. “Leo!”

Leaning into me, he nips at my
earlobe. “Surely you’ve surmised that your sordid past arouses me.”

“That’s why you want to
know about it? Because it makes you hard?”

“Among other reasons . . . Tell me, Clara. How many
stag films have you starred in? How many threesomes?”

I oughtta make some smart remark. I oughtta
give some sassy, sexy line like the ones Mae West gives whenever anyone challenges her virtue,
but the question actually makes me flush. “Just the one.”

He touches me now like he has the
right, running his hands over my backside. “Have you taken a man in your ass?”

“Once, but I
didn’t like it.”

“You didn’t much like being licked before, either, but I think I just changed
your mind.”

He thinks that if he’s the one doing it to me, I’ll like it.

I think he’s
right.

“You know what I’ve never done, Ace? I’ve never had sex with a man who was blackmailing
me . . .”

His eyes twinkle. “If only I’d known that before. Now it’s too late.”

“Why?
You still have my stag film.”

“Yes, but it’s mine now. You said you liked the idea that I could
show it to anyone, anytime, whenever I wished. Well, I have to tell you, I enjoy it even more than
you do. I wouldn’t give it up now for any price.”

“I’ve created a monster,” I say, then whimper.
“
Are
you going to show someone else?”

He looks like he’s pondering the matter. “Do you know
what I like about how you asked that question, Clara? There’s no doubt in your mind that I’ll do exactly
as I please. And that’s why you let me keep your reel.”

“That’s not the only reason. After
all, if I took it when you offered it to me, I’d have cut it to ribbons.”

“Which is exactly
what you should have done. That would have been the safest thing.”

I creep into the hollow
he makes with his arms, resting my head upon his chest. “Safe for Clara Cartwright, maybe. Not safe
for me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

I’m too tired to lie, so the words come out soft
and sincere. “If I cut up that film, it’d be like slashing myself to pieces. Like killing my own past
and all the things I’ve done. Making it like it never happened is worse than saying it’s a sin. It’d
be like admitting that what I did was
so wrong,
that what I did was just
so bad
that the part of
me who loved doing it can’t even exist.”

His self-satisfaction melts away. His brow furrows.
He struggles for words, and when he finally speaks, he says, “Well, I think this just stopped being
a game.”

“It wasn’t ever a game to me.”

He shifts to get a better look at me. “Clara,
I never want to make you feel like you did anything
wrong
. Shocking. Sordid. Scandalous, sure. But
not wrong.”

“My mother used to pray for me. ‘God, please don’t let the movies turn my daughter
into a whore.’ She never turned away the food I put on the table but she’s so ashamed of me . .
 . and she doesn’t even know I made that stag film. It wouldn’t surprise her, though; it’s just exactly
what she expects from me.”

Leo’s jaw tightens. “If you take me home to meet your parents, I’m
going to find it difficult to be civil to your mother.”

“I don’t take men home to meet my parents
and even if I did you couldn’t see her. She’s in an asylum.”

He tries, but fails, to hide his
shock. “What’s wrong with her?”

I don’t want to tell him this story. I don’t want to tell anyone
this story. And yet, I start telling him.

“It happened after the fifth movie I made, the one
with the camels and all the veils . . .”

“I remember that one,” he says, coaxing me to go on.

“The critics loved it. One of them said that I was a revelation. That I lit up the screen. I
was just starting to make money—real money—so my mother and I were still living in a little apartment
together. One bedroom. We shared the bed, like we always did. And I came in late one night after
work. Rehearsals always sap my pep, so I was so tired I was wobbling on my heels. I’d had a little hooch,
not too much. Forgot to wash the makeup off my face. I just climbed under the covers and closed
my eyes . . .”

He doesn’t rush to fill the silence. Even when I can’t seem to continue with
the story, he just waits. I’ve gotten to the hard part now. “When I woke up the next morning, my mother
was kneeling over me with her dark hair wild. Calling me names that frothed off her lips. I couldn’t
answer back—I couldn’t defend myself because she had a knife against my throat.”

Leo sits up,
all his concentration on me now. If he says anything, I don’t think I’ll be able to go on. But the
only words he speaks are with his eyes, which radiate concern.

“She was going to kill me, Leo.
She was asking God for the strength. She told me that if I just kept still and let her slash my
throat like a lamb to the sacrifice, that I’d be forgiven my sins and allowed into heaven.”

Leo twitches, both hands clenching at his sides. “But you didn’t keep still . . .”

I shake my
head. “I fought her with everything I had. I kicked and punched and elbowed until I knocked the knife
out of her hand.”

“Atta girl,” he says, with soft approval.

“Then I ran out into the hall,
screaming. The neighbors came rushing to help when they saw the blood dripping from where she’d
cut me. Not deep, but it bled a lot. There’s a little scar. That’s why I wear so many scarves. It isn’t
for fashion; I just like to keep the scar covered.”

The concern in his eyes becomes stone cold
anger. “Let me see.”

I hesitate, then tilt my head back, exposing the line where my chin becomes
my neck.

Leo gently brushes the scar with his thumb. “Does it hurt?”

“Not exactly,” I
whisper, closing my eyes.

Then Leo startles me by pressing his lips to the scar.

It’s
not a fevered kiss, not lustful in any way. It’s intimate. Reverent. Almost . . . worshipful. And I
can’t stand it, so I shy away. “See? I’m marked by my sins.”

“You didn’t do anything to deserve
that,” he whispers against my throat.

“I drove my mother mad.”

“She was already mad. No
sane mother can be driven to slit the throat of her own child.”

“Well, I had my revenge, didn’t
I? I locked her away. If I were half the person that Teddy Morgan is, I’d have kept her at home
and hired a nurse. Sadly, I’m too scared to fall asleep in the same house as her . . .”

“You’ve
got every right to be scared. Anyone would be.”

“Maybe I’m just too filled with guilt for my
sins to stand listening to her point them out.”

“You’re not a sinner, Clara.”

I give a
delicate snort. “What do you know about sin, Leo? What’s the worst thing
you’ve
ever done?”

He withdraws from the intimate embrace to look me in the eye. “I killed seventeen men.”

“Oh
 . . . oh, Leo, no. You were at war . . .”

“Yes and I’m not sure I’d do anything differently
if I could. But I took men’s lives then let them be counted up as kills to be celebrated. And I’ve
witnessed what men can do to each other. It’s made me give a lot of thought to right and wrong. I know
what it’s like to hurt people and bear the guilt for that. But all
you’ve
ever done is use what
God gave you to give other people pleasure.”

I want to believe him so badly. Emotion is so
thick in my throat I can barely swallow. Our eyes meet and for just a moment, I think he glimpses past
all the veils and costumes I hide behind.

I’m afraid I’ll cry if I speak, so I don’t.

This time, Leo
does
fill the silence. “Be embarrassed that you’re an oversexed vixen. Maybe you oughtta
be a little ashamed at the way you always need to be the center of attention. But you’re not
a sinner, Clara. You might even be a saint.”

That breaks through my melancholy.

“St. Clara
Cartwright of Hollywood,” I hoot. “I’d rather be dead!”

Leo’s tone is gentle, encouraging.
“Think about it. Most people can only do good deeds for their friends and neighbors. Through movie screens
across the country, you’ve touched
millions
of people.”

“Now that sounds filthy,” I tease,
because I hate to be maudlin.

He just keeps stroking my hair. “I like every wicked, lurid,
wanton thing about you, Clara. I’ll push you, rattle you, and make you do things you never thought you’d
do. Maybe even things that you shouldn’t do. But I won’t let you turn against yourself.”

“I
know.”

“Do you?”

“I figured that much when you accused me of being
wholesome
.”

That
makes him crack a smile.

“Leo, you made me think I could put myself—my film in your hands for
safekeeping. If you give it back to me, I’ll cut it up like my mother tried to cut me.”

He
looks more serious now than I’ve ever seen a man look. “Well, don’t worry about that, because I told
you. I’m never giving it back.”

Something flails inside me. “You say that now, but what about
when the affair is over and we go our separate ways? You’re not going to want to do the decent thing?”

Leo kisses my nose. “I’m not that decent, Clara. I can be ruthless when I want to leave my mark.
And I want to leave my mark on you. So, I’ll level with you. You can leave me. You can hate me.
But you’ll never forget my name in your long list of lovers because from this moment until the day
you die, you’ll know that I own a little piece of you.”