It Stings So Sweet (27 page)

It makes me want to taunt him. “So you’re a
cynic, through with love for good?”

“Oh, no. I’m a romantic at heart.”

“And what does
the happy future look like for a romantic like you?”

“I imagine I’ll eventually fool a woman
into thinking I’m worth a damn. She’ll reform me of my playboy ways and I’ll become a respectable
businessman in my father’s mold. Then I’ll move back into the family mansion and make some little Asters
to inherit the family fortune.”

“How bourgeois,” I say, taking another bite of lamb. “How will
you know she’s the one?”

“I’ll know when I can say I’ve been in love
two
and a half times in
my life.”

“You and your half!”

“I’ve always been good with numbers,” he grins. “How many
times have
you
been in love?”

My smile fades, never having expected he’d turn the question
back at me. “Just once. I was very young.”

“You’re
still
very young. Tell me about this lad
who stole your heart.”

I won’t say his name, I promise myself that much. “He was a coal miner,
like my father and most of my brothers. He didn’t have anything to offer as a groom, but he was
sweet and proposed marriage to me on my seventeenth birthday.”

Robert leans forward, his interest
piqued. “I didn’t know you came from a mining town. So didn’t you marry him, then?”

“He died
before I could.”

Robert frowns. “I’m so sorry. Was it an accident in the mine?”

“You’d
think so, wouldn’t you? Rough conditions, long hours, dangerous work. But that’s not how it happened
at all. He went on strike with the other miners and was murdered by a Pinkerton goon squad.”

He winces, setting his fork down.

This is a genteel dining room and I’m having lunch with a
genteel man. But even if he isn’t the sort to hire goons to bust a union, he comes from the kind of
people who do. So I won’t spare him. I can’t spare him or myself now. “It was a hot summer, like this
one. They came in with rifles and herded the strikers into cattle cars. Locked ’em in and rolled ’em
into the heat to bake. Our union boys went more than sixteen hours without water before they broke
their way out, but it was too late for the one I meant to marry.”

Robert silently digests what
I’ve told him, then asks, “You’ve had a hard life, haven’t you?”

“I’m not the one who died
in a cattle car.”

I don’t look at him when I say this because I feel myself hardening. He’s
a beautiful man and this is a beautiful lunch in a beautiful hotel with a beautiful view. But I know
what’s behind the veneer, all the ugly parts of this hotel that visitors never see. The way supervisors
cheat workers out of their pay, the backbreaking workload of the maids and the poor treatment
of the Negro workers . . . I must assume there’s an ugly underside to the man who oversees it all, too.
Taking my list from my pocketbook, I say, “I’d rather not wait for dessert to discuss the grievances.”

“And here I meant for us to have such a relaxing afternoon . . .” He smoothes his napkin over
his legs. “But I am a man of my word, so I’m willing to listen to a complaint.”

“I’ve an entire
list of them,” I protest.

“Traditionally, I have a very short attention span, so why don’t
we start with one complaint.”

“Very well. We’d like you to change hotel policy so that pregnant
women aren’t summarily fired. So long as a woman can continue doing her job—”

“Any good husband
should provide—”

“Not all of them have husbands,” I insist.

I tell him about Gertrude’s
plight without exposing Mr. Underwood, much as I’d like to blacken
his
name. Robert listens patiently
as the waiter clears our plates, then takes up his spoon when the Venetian ice cream arrives in
delicate crystal cups. He finally asks, “And who is the villain in this story?”

“Robert Aster,”
I insist.

He snorts. “I meant the name of the man who took advantage of the girl.”

“I
can’t tell you that. You might take action against him.”

“Wouldn’t he deserve it?”

I straighten
my spine. “He deserves whatever the good Lord has to dole out to him, but what he does with
women is his own business and I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise.”

Robert sighs. “If you don’t
tell me his name, I might doubt the veracity of your story.”

“Give your word that there won’t
be retaliation.”

“Done.”

I tell him. He listens. When I’m finished, he says, “Please tell
the hapless girl to report to the front desk tomorrow morning. I’ll have a bank note waiting for
her.”

I think I’ve misheard him. “A bank note?”

Nodding as he shovels a bit of ice cream
onto his spoon, he makes a gesture of dismissal. “I’m prepared to be quite generous. It was a man
in my employ who gave her false hopes of marriage and that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m happy to pay
her rent for the next year or two.”

His Victorian attitude and casual assumption of such a
large debt staggers me, but also misses the point entirely. “She wants her job back so she can earn
her own living.”

“Sophie, I can’t very well go around rehiring people that my supervisors let
go, can I?”

“But you can afford to leave obscenely large bank notes for every girl who gets
in trouble in your hotel?”

“This is just one girl.”

“I didn’t tell you the story so that
you’d help Gertie—well, not only her. This is only one story in twenty. I can tell you about a bellboy—”

“One grievance at a time.” He looks at me pointedly. “Your ice cream is melting.”

Prompted
by him, I take a bite. It melts on my tongue, thick and silky—the way I imagine he might taste.
And when I think thoughts like that one, it’s more difficult to argue with him. “So you’d rather give
Gertrude money than deal with the systemic problem.”

“
Systemic problem
,” he says, mimicking
me, his eyes dancing with merriment. “That doesn’t sound like anything a mere mortal can remedy. But
a girl with a baby I can manage.”

“You don’t even
know
Gertrude.”

“No, but you obviously
care about her. There are certain advantages to being my mistress and I’m certain that you’ll find
a way of repaying me for my generosity.”

“I haven’t agreed to be your kept woman,” I reply,
offended.

“You agreed the moment you let me take your clothes off.”

This rattles me. And
I can’t help but think this is not how labor negotiations are conducted; I’m used to men dismissing
me because I’m a young woman, but I fear he knows I’m so drawn to him that the idea of exchanging
sex for favors seems like I’m getting the better part of the deal. “How many mistresses do you have,
anyway?”

He smirks. “You said before that the idea of sexual recreation doesn’t offend you
 . . . and yet, I detect a note of disapproval, Sophie.”

“It’s a bit intimidating, that’s all.
The way the tabloids talk about you and all those beauties.”

“Yet, I’ve never spanked any of
them. But I
have
spanked you. What’s more, I’d like to do it again.”

The chill of the ice cream
is no help against the heat of my cheeks. “You would?”

“Yes, I would. Tomorrow evening, after
the end of your workday, come up to my office. You can tell Mrs. Mortimer that as part of that private
disciplinary action, you must stay late and help my secretary file papers.”

CHAPTER

Five

At the front desk the next day, there’s a bank note
with more zeroes than I expected, all strung together like pearls. “Oh, Sophie!” Gertie cries, throwing
her arms around my neck, her belly bulgin
g against mine. “Well, ain’t this the berries? Ethel told
me you were the one to go to for help, but how did you do it?”

“Never mind that,” I say. “But
you don’t have to take it. Wouldn’t you rather have your job back?”

Gertie bites her lower
lip. “How can I turn down this kind of dough? I can’t very well bring the baby to work with me can I?”

She makes a good point, but she wouldn’t have the money if Robert Aster weren’t trying to impress
me, and that vexes me. “We’re still organizing, Gertie. And if Mr. Aster won’t take our complaints
seriously, we’ll take steps to see that he does.”

“Go easy on him, Sophie,” she says, clutching
the bank note. “The ambassador wouldn’t have given me a red cent, but his son seems like a swell
fella.”

“He just might be,” I say, unable to deny the little glow of warmth I feel when I think
about Robert Aster. “But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t deal with him on an even footing.”

Seeing how he’s made Gertie’s life easier softens me, even though I suspect half the good things he
does are nothing more than spite against his father. Robert Aster is not a saint and I’m not a sucker,
but given how eager I am to be stretched over his knees, I worry I’m going jingle-brained for the
man.

Gertie hugs me again, this time so hard my hatpin comes loose. “You know best, Sophie.
You always do. And I know you can’t stand here bumping gums all day, so I’d better scram.”

As I watch her disappear into the crowd near the hotel florist shop, Hamilton looks up from the bellhop
stand to give me a little wave. He’s wearing a posy, just like the one I tucked into his lapel the
other day. That’s when I notice all the bellboys are wearing them—a sign of solidarity.

I get a spanking every night for the rest of the week. Each
night, Robert is bolder. Sometimes yanking me over his knee before I’m ready. Sometimes spanking me
harder, longer, faster. Sometimes he makes me thank him for each one.

I reach climax every t
ime.

The first time took us by surprise, but now he expects it. And when it doesn’t happen on
its own, he makes it happen, grinding himself against me or rubbing between my legs.

He also
teaches me to take him in my mouth, to slip my tongue over the thick, turgid flesh, satisfying him
as he’s satisfied me.

When he’s done, I rush out to catch the trolley home, then run up the
stairs to the lavatory, lift my dress, and look at the redness before it fades away. Sometimes I can
see the outlines of his hand on my cheeks, and the sight of it is so exciting that I lean back against
the door and touch myself.

It’s shameful and I wish I hated it, but it feels like freedom.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. Every day in the boutique, all I want is to step into the
elevator and take it upstairs. All I can think about is the depthless sexual hunger that this man
has brought out in me. It’s a craving. A madness. An addiction.

I’m shaking with it by Friday
evening, when I slip into his office.

One look at me and his smile fades to concern. “What’s
the matter? What’s wrong?”

Everything is wrong. I can’t imagine that a person ought to feel
like this. Like she’s under some kind of spell. I think I should tell him that this has to stop. That
I’m not sure I know myself anymore. These are all the things I ought to say so I’m stunned by what
comes out instead. “Why haven’t you given me another card?”

His eyebrows raise. “Because I
didn’t know that you were a virgin when I wrote them.”

“Don’t you still want me?” I ask plaintively.

He gives an incredulous snort. “Don’t I
want
you? Can’t you tell?”

“I can’t tell anything
about you. I don’t
know
anything about you. You know
everything
I want because you read it in my
journal, but how am I to guess—”

My words are cut off abruptly by the warmth of his mouth,
closing over mine. I moan, first in protest, then in surrender as he sucks my bottom lip between his
teeth and teases it with his tongue. A puff of breath stirs between us, warm and sensual. His hands
lace into my hair, drawing me deeper into the kiss and my hand cups his smoothly shaved cheek. Though
his lips are soft and velvety, there’s a firmness beneath them. He uses them to tease, to tempt,
and to plunder. Nudging my lips apart, his tongue touches mine and tangles with it. It feels as if we’re
alone, at the top of the city, locked together far apart from the rest of the world. This kiss
is the only thing that matters. And it does matter. It really does.

When we finally break apart,
he traces the residual moistness on my lips with his thumb. “Does that tell you anything you need
to know, Sophie?”

Dazed, I blink up at him. “I’m afraid it raises a host of new questions.”

He puts my hand over his heart where I can feel it beating hard beneath his shirt. “Do you feel
that? That’s how much I want you. And if you put your hand lower, you’d find even better proof.”

“You said you’d go as far as I’d let you. Well, I want to let you . . .”

“I’m not sure
you’re ready, Sophie. And I don’t want this to end.”

“I am ready. I’m more than ready.”

Robert slowly withdraws to the desk, takes out a card, and hands it to me. “There’s no hiding this
one.”

I open it.

Stay the night with me.

If I say yes, I’ll have to tell Ethel and
Irene, who are driving me to madness with their curiosity about my mysterious beau. And if there were
any question about whether or not I was to be Robert’s mistress, staying the night with him would
erase all doubt. If Ethel or Irene let any gossip slip, it’ll ruin my reputation, but as a champion
of several causes that garner social censure, I’ve no business caring about ruined reputations.

When I was a teenaged girl bringing lunch to miners on the picket line, company men shouted
lewd things at me, but it never stopped me. After attending one of Mrs. Sanger’s talks on birth control,
a policeman on the street corner outside the lecture hall called me a prostitute. That didn’t deter
me, either. If anything, it made me believe even more firmly in equality for the sexes and the
right of women to live as freely as men. I’ve been called a Communist, an agitator, and a radical. I
don’t care a bit for societal convention, so why should I care what anyone thinks about my choice to
take a lover? “Yes, I’ll stay the night with you.”

Robert lets out a breath. Only then do I
realize how anxious he was for my answer. He was prepared to end it, here and now, should I refuse
him. I’m not sure why this comforts me, but it does. He’s a man who means what he says and in spite
of my fears that I’m slipping into an abyss, he seems like a firm thing to hold on to. Now, knowing
that we’re both on solid ground, his shoulders relax and he beams with boyish glee. “You’ll spend the
whole
night with me?”

My lips draw together playfully. “Will you
need
all night, Mr. Aster?”

“You’ll wish I didn’t,” he says, his eyes burning into mine.

We have dinner in his suite. He calls for it and the wait staff delivers our meal served on
silver trays. Striped bass with a cucumber salad, cheese soufflé, and lemon custard pie. I’m dazzled
by the sparkle of the chandelier overhead with its blue crystal teardrops, the gilt-edged furniture,
and the two giant windows, each framed with blue damask curtain
s that cascade regally to the floor.

But even the opulence of my surroundings doesn’t let me forget that I want him. I want him now.
I’m
hot
for him. The glass in my hand feels so deliciously cool that I want to press it to my cheek
in the hopes it will offer some relief.

I glance at the open door to the bedroom, and Robert
grins. “Finish your dinner, Sophie. You’re going to need your strength.”

Defiantly, I shove
the last bit of pie into my mouth, and it makes him laugh. He grabs me up into his arms and I yelp
with surprise at my sudden weightlessness. He carries me into the bedroom, then sets me down on a slate
blue velvet coverlet atop a carved oak bed so large it dominates the room.

My whole body tingles
from the traces of his touch. I want him to crawl on top of me so that I can pillow his bulk as
I did the first time, but I realize now how out of character it was for him to descend upon me in
a frenzy like he did then. He was playing a character from my own imagination; I wonder what new stranger
he’ll turn into tonight.

The answer comes to me in the form of a black silk tie that he pulls
from the nightstand and tugs between his fists. I know this fantasy and our eyes meet in recognition.

“Will you trust me?” he asks, his voice soft and intimate even in such a large and ornate room.

Ethel would tell me there’s no reason whatsoever to trust any man, especially not this one.
But I’m far beyond reason. “Yes. Do it. Yes, yes, yes.”

He fastens the blindfold over my eyes
and I’m plunged into darkness. But every other sense comes vividly to life. My breath seems louder.
The dark scent of tobacco wafts up from the coverlet. I feel the dampness in the air—or perhaps that
is only my own perspiration, because the more excited I become, the more I sweat.

He undresses
me, peeling away my clothes, kissing my dewy skin wherever it is exposed. My dress comes off. My
shoes. My stockings. My chemise. My drawers. Everything is stripped from me until I’m naked and quivering.
I feel his lips in the palm of my hand and I tremble, because I know exactly what comes next
and it excites me as much as it frightens me.

Perhaps my fear rouses him, because I feel the
brush of his erection against my body as he uses his silken ties to secure me to the bed. First a
wrist, then an ankle, then another wrist . . .

I can’t say why I must test the bonds, but I
must. I pull to the point of pain, to the point of reassurance. It’s what I wanted. To feel that I
can’t get away. And the rush of knowing that I’m open to him, helpless to stop him, is worth the bite
of the silk into my wrists.

“You can’t slip those knots, Sophie. If you want to be freed, you’ll
have to rely upon me to untie you.”

I wish I could see his expression. Wetting my lips, I ask,
“Will you? Untie me, if I ask you to?”

“I’ll untie you if you beg me to, but that isn’t what
I want to make you beg for.”

In the darkness beneath the blindfold, I’m surprised when his
weight shifts and his warm mouth envelopes my nipple. He sucks at one, then the other, making me arch
up to meet him, both breasts aching for his attention. The tug of his suckling pulls deep in my womb.
His kisses drift lower, tickling my belly, his hands caressing my sides. “Do you feel helpless?”

My answer is a moan, because I can see nothing and feel nothing but what he allows. My whole
world has become the sensation of his skin to mine. The intimacy of his fingertips skimming down my
body. Of the wetness between my legs, a fathomless hunger for him that I can’t hide. “Yes, I do feel
helpless.”

“And yet, you have me utterly enraptured. I wish you could see yourself now, tied
to my bed, at my mercy. I don’t think I could stop now even if the Kaiser was at the door.”

There is a swish of fabric, a clatter of a belt buckle, and a sound of unfastening. He must be undressing.
And I’m distressed by the blindfold that prevents me from feasting my eyes on him. “I don’t
think I like this fantasy anymore!”

This doesn’t stop him. He uses a finger to splay my nether
lips, then murmurs, “I bet you taste just as good here as you do everywhere else.”

A wet tongue
draws shapes on my hip, then laps at the downy curls between my thighs. Liquid heat melts inside
me, forcing me to gasp with desire. Then it gets hotter. He licks me, his tongue swirling in maddening
little circles that drive me to arch my head back, overwhelmed by sensation. “Oh god, stop or I
think, I think . . .”