It Stings So Sweet (25 page)

His eyes are half-lidded and lazy with
lust. “Remember, your story about the man who takes the woman on the floor. Fast and hard and abrupt
 . . .”

I hear myself swallow. What would it feel like to do it? To lose my virginity right
here and now to a man I barely know? I can think of a thousand reasons not to—not least of which is
my own promise to myself that I’d stop this before it went too far. But we O’Briens have always had
more courage than good sense. If I say no, it’ll all stop and I may never again feel the way I do right
now. I may never know this sexual creature inside me that I’ve only ever let out to write on a page.
“Do you have . . . would you take . . . precautionary—”

He takes a French letter from his pocket
and it stuns me that he has it at the ready. “You know what this is, don’t you?”

Only from
the pictures in the pamphlets do I recognize it, but I affect nonchalance. “Of course I do.”

He uses two fingers to lift my chin so that I’m forced to look into his eyes, which burn with fierce
desire. “Then you know how I’m going to use it. I’m going to slide it on my prick and then I’m going
to push inside you and thrust hard, with very little regard for your pleasure. I’ll work myself
in your pussy, all to spill into this sheath. So you won’t have my seed in you; you’ll know it isn’t
about love or children or anything but
fucking
. The second time . . . that will be for you. I’ll
make sure you enjoy every moment of it and beg for more. But not the first time.”

His words
are casually crude and they steal the breath from me, not only because they are so unexpected, but
because they’re so familiar. They’re my own words, rearranged and rephrased, but somehow more wicked
and sinful coming from his lips than from the tip of my pen. Only now does he show the slightest doubt.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
, I’m going to do it. I’m going to
do it because with other boys, it was always about how much they wanted me. How much they wanted to
satisfy
their
hunger. But this time, this man, is torturing me with
my
blueprint for seduction .
 . .

I’m not as foolish as Gertrude. I’ve no expectations of this moment beyond my own hungers.
And all of it is my idea, my choice, my needs, my desire. “Yes,” I gasp. “It’s what I want.”

He doesn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. He drags me down to the floor where a sheepskin rug cushions
our fall. He’s on me like a madman, biting at my shoulder while my hands tear at the buttons of his
waistcoat. When I have them undone, I yank the vest down his arms and run my hands up under his shirt.
Meanwhile, he works at the fastenings of his trousers, pulling them just far enough down his hips
to free his erection.

I get only a glimpse of it, thick and pale and slightly curved towards
his belly. It’s far more impressive than anything I’ve seen in a pamphlet, and it’s difficult to believe
it’s meant to fit inside a woman. He slides the sheath on. Then he works his legs between mine
so swiftly, there’s no going back. He pillows my head on his forearm and, with deep ragged breaths,
encourages me to lift my hips for him.

He guides himself, then, all at once, thrusts and breaks
my maidenhead. Amidst a wash of pleasure comes a wave of pure agony, and I bite the inside of my
cheek to keep from crying out. I’d known it would hurt a little, but not quite so much, and I have
to fight the tears that threaten to spill over.

Oh, it’s
very
bad. Much worse than the little
pinch I’d been told to expect. I tell myself that it can’t hurt for much longer. But my bravery does
no good; he notices. He blinks, long eyelashes sweeping against my cheek. “Sophie . . .”

“Please
don’t stop,” I cry, because pleasure is my only bulwark against the pain. I batter at his shoulders.
“Don’t you dare stop now!”

Maybe he knows the way a woman looks at the edge. Maybe he knows
just how to push her all the way. Because he strokes into me, deep into me, the hairs of his groin
tangling with mine. The wickedness of being taken on the floor this way, the buttons of his shirt scraping
against my breast and belly, it all builds inside me. This is how dirty girls get taken, I think.
Sluts and harlots and whores do it on their backs, on the floor under any rich man who can pay
for it, under rich men just like him. That’s all I can think about as he fills me in long smooth strokes;
the sharp pain fades to an insistent throb of pleasure that grows more intense until I’m clinging
to him.

“Are you going to come for me, Sophie?” he asks, low and husky.

And then I don’t
care what kind of girl I am.

The shuddering orgasm forces throaty cries from me as all my insides
collapse around his cock. My body milks him and the feeling of fullness makes the pleasure stronger.
I’m in the grips of it, overwhelmed. I dig my nails into his hips, which thrust faster and faster
as he finds his own release. He grunts, his face slightly reddened with his exertion, collapsing
down onto me with three or four more thrusts before he stills.

Then there we are, a sweating,
panting heap of limbs and half-removed clothing sprawled on the floor. In spite of the pain, the
experience was vastly more exciting than I imagined. How was I to know that something so sudden could
leave me filled with tiny quakes of delight? The lingering joy of it makes me laugh when I can breathe
again. “If that’s how it feels when you show very little regard for my pleasure, I’m looking forward
to the second time.”

But Mr. Aster isn’t at all amused. Rolling onto his side, his eyes are
stormy. “You lied to me.”

He’s got no right to be sore. No right at all. “And you read my journal
without permission, so that makes us even.”

“But why? Why would you lie about this being your
first time?”

For so many reasons, not least of which is that I didn’t want him to think he
was so much better and more experienced than I am. And just as important, “Because I was afraid you’d
stop.”

“Of course I’d have stopped. Gentlemen don’t despoil virgins!”

“I thought you said
you were trying to be less of a gentleman.”

Under the force of his anger, I reach for my discarded
undergarments, but they prove too little to shield me from his anger. “See here, Miss O’Brien.
When the newspapers call you the most eligible bachelor in the country, you learn to avoid husband
chasers; I don’t intend to be forced into marriage.”

The fact that he says it with such a note
of accusation, makes me want to laugh in his face. Curling one lip with contempt, I say, “I can
see how that’d be a hazard. I bet women force you to steal their diaries and ravish them all the time
 . . .”

His frosty expression melts under his chagrin.

“Touché, mademoiselle.”

“I
didn’t do it to trap you. I did it just to enjoy the look on your face right now.”

His embarrassment
seems to deepen, and he strokes me, almost apologetically. “You’re a very odd girl.”

“I’ll
take that as a compliment. You needn’t worry, Mr. Aster. I don’t want to get married. Marriage isn’t
fair to women. It isn’t to our advantage. We’ve had the vote for less than ten years and we’re still
making medieval contracts where all the terms disfavor the wife. I let you take my virginity because
I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.”

“Now you think you know?” he asks with a smirk.
“You don’t. I promise you, that wasn’t
remotely
the best I have to offer.”

This makes my body
roar awake again. He tempts me. Is it possible that this gets better? Because I can’t imagine how,
once anyone discovers this, they want to do anything else. “I never knew it would feel so different
from when I touch myself.”

He groans. “Do you touch yourself often?”

“Only in the bath,”
I admit, too exposed to be embarrassed anymore. “But it was so lovely and different today when I
found my climax . . . and you were inside me . . .”

He groans again, turning to me, so that
I can feel him stiffening against my side. “I like knowing that I’m the first man to have you. That
my cock is the first to ever make you come. That when your insides gripped me and you cried out, that
was the first time you’d ever felt that . . .”

“Why?” I ask, my breath catching.

“Because
it makes me feel extraordinarily possessive.”

“I’m not a possession,” I say, though I’m far
too pleased with myself to put true fury behind my rebuke.

“Then why do I feel so proprietary?
In fact, at the moment, I feel rather free to do with you as I like.”

I give him a seductive
grin. “And what are you going to do with me?”

“I’m going to send you back to work,” he says,
shocking me into silence.

As I sputter, he removes the used sheath from his member, then begins
to fasten his clothes.

“You’re
finished
with me?” I ask, appalled.

“The very opposite
of that, Miss O’Brien,” he says, tucking himself back into his pants. “When you first came into this
office, I was hoping you’d prove to be a diversion, but now I feel a responsibility to take this game
quite a bit more seriously.”

That I can see he’s still aroused only confuses me more. “What
does that mean?”

“It means I’m going to take you as a mistress and see to it that you understand
what all the fuss is about
.”

A
mistress
. I can’t quite fathom the word. And while it clangs
about between my ears, in all its bewildering implications, he gets up then offers me a hand. I take
it and rise shakily to my feet.

“I also intend to keep my word to you that the second time
will be for your pleasure,” he says. “You
will
beg for it, but given what I know now, that will
take time to arrange properly.”

He takes another envelope but instead of giving it to me to
open, he pulls the card out himself.

I see what’s written on it:
Come back tomorrow afternoon.

Now he takes a fountain pen and adds more words.
Come back tomorrow afternoon . . . for a spanking.

The sexual heat in my body kindles into anger. My temper must show because he says, “Don’t you
think you need a spanking, Sophie? Haven’t you been a very bad girl today?”

I’m not sure if
I’m more upset by the fantasy that he’s chosen to play out next, or by the fact that he’s dismissing
me. He takes the lingerie from its package and holds it for me to step into. “I wouldn’t want you
to have to explain the box.”

It’s a courteous gesture, but it makes me feel patronized. I decide
to let him dress me in it anyway, because I want a token of remembrance. Then I yank my own dress
back on, glaring at him all the while.

So, he has it figured out, does he?

He seems sure
I’ll return, but maybe I won’t. Would he care? He probably is the kind of man who has stolen encounters
like this one every day. For all I know, there’s another woman ready to climb into his bed tonight.
The idea of it makes me wonder if it isn’t better if we pretend that none of this ever happened.
“What if I don’t come back tomorrow?”

“You’ll come back,” he says, brushing a tiny kiss over
my lips.

It’s strangely sweet, gentle, and not at all in keeping with what’s just happened
here.

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because, if you do, I’ll listen to some of the grievances
you’ve so helpfully gathered from my staff.”

My mouth falls all the way open at the casual
way he mixes business with pleasure.

“Also, I’m keeping your journal.”

Now my hands ball
into fists at my side. “You told me you’d give the journal back.”

His features light with amusement.
“And you told me that you weren’t a virgin.”

CHAPTER

Three

There’s not a lick of privacy to be had in the room
I share with Ethel and Irene—which is why I kept my diary in my locker at work to begin with. It’s
a nice boardinghouse and our flat has a view of the city from the fire escape where Irene grows a
flow
erpot garden every spring. It’s also across the street from the Civics League where we’re sometimes
invited to listen to talks from progressive leaders in science, economics, and politics—real
visionaries who want to modernize the country.

Given the wages we make, none of us could afford
to live in the neighborhood on our own, but with three beds crowded in, we make do.

It’s just
that when anything happens to one of us, the rest of us know about it. So it seems odd that they
don’t notice anything different about me. I’ve finally
done it
; or at least let a man do it to me.
I still catch the scent of him on my skin from this afternoon. But the girls haven’t suspected a
thing.

“Mrs. Mortimer turned you in? That old bluenosed prune,” Ethel says with disgust, throwing
her purse onto the bed. “Well, we’ll all just know better than to keep anything at the boutique,
won’t we?”

“And how!” Irene cries, taking off her earbobs and hopping out of her heels. “It’s
a good thing you left your petition with Hamilton. When they called you upstairs to see the Big Cheese,
we thought you were finished, Sophie.”

“But he knows we’re organizing and he didn’t fire you,”
Ethel muses. “That’s something . . . what’s he like, anyway?”

I hesitate. “He isn’t . . . what
you’d expect . . .”

Given all the time in the world, I don’t know that I could find the words
to describe Robert Aster, and I’m afraid to try, lest I slip up and spill something I don’t want
either of them to know. I can’t very well tell them about the diary, can I? I can’t tell them about
the lingerie, either, which even now slides sinuously beneath my clothes. And if I tell them what I
let him to do to me, they’ll be scandalized.

Well, Irene will be scandalized.

Ethel’s
a wild flapper. She isn’t scandalized by anything. She’ll want to know every salacious detail. In fact,
she’s already changing into an evening gown, slinky and short. “Come on girls, let’s get a wiggle
on. My guy is going to take us to the new juice joint on Forty-ninth Street and he’s bringing friends.”

Irene rubs her toes. “They’d better be buying dinner
and
cocktails, because I’ve been on my
feet all day and my dogs are barking.”

Ethel finishes changing, then purses her lips in front
of the mirror, dabbing on lipstick to make a perfect cupid’s bow. “If we play our cards right, they’ll
even take us to the Clara Cartwright movie afterwards. When are you gonna learn, Irene? Give ’em
a few kisses and they’ll buy you whatever you want.”

Irene swats at Ethel in mock outrage,
but even she can’t resist a Clara Cartwright film. In the movies, Miss Cartwright always plays girls
like us, shopgirls and secretaries and factory workers, and
boy
does she do it with panache. We
all love her. Ethel even stole a movie poster from the nickelodeon to hang on the back of the door.

“Should we check on Gertrude before we go?” Irene asks.

“Poor Gertie,” Ethel says with
a sentimental sigh. “I guess there’s no use boohooing about it again. We’ll get her job back for her,
won’t we, Sophie?”

“Mr. Aster seems willing to hear our grievances,” I admit, reluctant to
tell them the price he put on that willingness. Even more reluctant to tell them I’m eager to pay. “And
if he won’t, then we strike.”

Ethel puts the finishing touches on her lips, then glances at
me. “Sophie, you’re not wearing that out, are you? You haven’t even powdered your nose!”

“You
two go on without me. My nerves are shot and all I want is a hot bath.” It’s all true. Of course,
there’s also the fact that if I undress in front of them, I won’t be able to hide—or explain—the lingerie.

“Oh, don’t be a flat tire!” Ethel cries. “There’ll be too many fellas without you.”

But
Irene tugs on Ethel’s arm. “You know this one. If she wants to spend all night with a book instead
of a boy, let her. One of us has to be smart enough to negotiate with fat cats and tycoons.”

When they’re gone, I cross the hall, slip into the lavatory and lock the door behind me. Removing
my dress, I look at myself in the full-length mirror and bite my lip at the vision. I’ve never seen
myself like this—not even in my own imagination. I like the sight of me in this suggestive lingerie.
I really do. The fabric is so sheer I can see the dark pubic mound between my legs and the wide nipples
of small, upturned breasts . . . and yet, I present a far more scandalous picture than if I were
entirely naked.

I doubt reformers like Mrs. Sanger and Mrs. Garvey and other women I admire
would be caught wearing such a thing. But wearing this makes my blood fizz in my veins like soda at
the fountain . . .

A little stain of blood on the fabric reminds me of why.

Of what I
am now.

A bad girl, that’s what.

I let a man undress me, pull me down to the floor, and
make love to me—no, that’s not what he did. He
fucked
me with such little fanfare it might as well
have been a handshake. He just did it. Hard and fast and seemingly without regard for my pleasure
 . . . even though it gave me quite a bit of pleasure after all.

And now he wants to spank me.

That’s all I can think about as I fill the tub with hot water and give myself a good soak, hoping
none of the other boardinghouse tenants knocks to interrupt my bath.

He’ll want to spank me
and then he’ll want to fuck me again. He’ll expect that he can do it any time he likes now. And what
if he’s right?

The parish priest back home would call me a fallen woman. Mrs. Mortimer would
say I’m ruined for marriage, not that I care about
that
. But she’d also say I’m one step away from
working in the brothel. And that’s to say nothing of how I’ve disgraced the memory of the boy back
home.

That does sting.

It’s perfectly humiliating to think about what I’ve done and even
more humiliating to admit how much I want to do it again. So much so, that I can’t stop clenching
my thighs together and touching myself in the bath.

I
am
ashamed, but I don’t think it’s going
to stop me . . .

The next morning, Mrs. Mortimer’s pinched
face is decidedly pale.

“Sophie, I’d like to apologize,” she says.

Never in all the time
we’ve worked in the boutique has Mrs. Mortimer apologized for anything. But if this is a prank, she’s
not in on it, for there’s not a tickle of mischief in that woman’s bones. I peek past her out the
glass doors of the boutique into the luxurious lobby where white-gloved bellh
ops rush past with
parcels and luggage. Even in the summer, the Aster Hotel is buzzing with ritzy guests, men dressed in
straw Panama hats and three-piece linen suits, women in long strands of pearls and sleeveless pastel
dresses designed by Coco Chanel. With ostrich feather fans in hand, they mingle on the red carpet
beneath the murals and potted palms and none of them pays even a wee bit of attention to the dragon
lady of the boutique humbling herself before me.

At Mrs. Mortimer’s apology, however, Ethel
coughs from behind the perfume counter and Irene nearly stumbles off the ladder she’s climbed to retrieve
a hatbox. I find myself quite speechless and when I don’t make a reply, Mrs. Mortimer clenches
her teeth to say, “Mr. Aster has informed me that I had no business going through your belongings.
It won’t happen again.”

So he’s bawled her out, then. I ought to find it gratifying, but it
reminds me just how much power he has over everyone who works in this hotel, including me. “Thank you,
Mrs. Mortimer. I appreciate the sentiment.”

Her spine rigid, she begins to walk away then stops.
“I wouldn’t be too smug, Sophie. Mr. Aster assures me he’ll be taking private disciplinary action
against you; it won’t help matters when he finds out that you have a suitor.”

Private disciplinary
action
. I swallow at this. And I worry, too, that maybe she’s peeked into my journal. Then I hear
the rest of what she’s said. “A suitor?”

I see there’s a long-stemmed red rose clutched in
her talons. She lays it on my counter. “So it seems. Someone sent this for you by messenger without
a name or a card. Inform your uncouth suitor—whoever he is—that you’re not to receive gifts in the workplace;
it’s gauche. It’s unacceptable. This isn’t a bordello, my girl. No matter how standards may
have fallen lately, this is
still
the Aster Hotel.”

Irene nearly leaps to my defense, curiosity
shining in her eyes. “A rose? Well, I think it’s sweet!”

“Diamonds are sweeter,” Ethel chirps.

“I’ll have no lip from you girls,” Mrs. Mortimer says in a tone of disapproval one normally
reserves for criminals, bums, or lawyers. “Men in this city prey on young ladies and if you let your
head be turned with gifts, you’ll be ruined like Gertrude.”

This is entirely too much for Ethel,
who says, “We coulda clammed up about Gertie. Let her wear a ring on her finger and none would
be the wiser.”

Mrs. Mortimer stares down her nose. “It is against the policy of the Aster Hotel
to employ girls of ill-repute. And even if the father of Gertrude’s child decided to make an honest
woman of her, customers shopping for elegant evening gowns don’t like to see bloated broodmares
behind the counter. Remember this: Young ladies who spend more time thinking about beaus than work
end up in a bad way.”

She’s right, because by lunchtime, I’m in a bad way indeed.

When I take the elevator up to Mr. Aster’s office, I don’t expect
to find him sitting facing the door, leaning forward with both hands on his knees in a keen posture.
I stand in the doorway, fiddling with the stem of the rose, and he launches to his feet.

I
drink him in, convinced that a pale blue linen suit never looked better on any other man. Being near
him again makes me wobbly on my heels and I’m grateful when he ushers me i
nside, a steadying hand
at the small of my back.

“How are you feeling, Miss O’Brien?”

Yesterday he was all smiles;
today his serious countenance makes me even more nervous, but I manage to hide it. “Just swell,
thanks. I’m looking forward to talking to you about the grievances you promised to hear.”

“Pleasure before business. I trust you received an apology from Mrs. Mortimer?”

“And a warning,
too . . . about men who give gifts to women and ruin them for marriage.”

“Yet, here you are.”

“Well, I’m already ruined, aren’t I?”

He pales. “I’m not a rake. You tricked me yesterday,
you know that . . .”

I’m charmed by his use of such an old-fashioned word. “I tricked
you
and
you romanced me this morning with a rose. So maybe that makes
me
the rake, sir.”

I hope he’ll
be amused, but his expression gets more serious still. “My father was an ambassador, Miss O’Brien.
He’s learned a thousand clever ways to lie. He’d like for me to follow him into politics, but I don’t
have much stomach for deception. In fact, the only good relationship I’ve ever seen between a man
and a woman is one based on a scandalous abundance of honesty and openness. So if we’re going to play
games, they’re going to be honest ones from now on.”

Why, he’s giving me a stern lecture! It
should move me to anger or remorse. Instead, all I can think about is what his voice does to me when
he takes that tone. All that bossy talk makes me throb in the naughtiest places. Emboldened by my
own arousal, I ask, “You’re still sore at me then, Mr. Aster? Maybe you should give me the punishment
I deserve.”

There’s a shake of his head and
finally
the hint of a smile. “I’ve been imagining
all morning how you’ll look draped over my knees.”

He still wants to spank me.
The confirmation
of it makes me weak—all my joints rubbery. And as I watch him pull the chair from behind his desk
to make room for me, the throbbing of my body drowns out all other thoughts. “You’re not really going
to do it, are you?”