Seduction of Moxie (19 page)

Moxie nodded and ground her hips against Violet’s hand.

This was certainly not how Violet had envisioned their first time—Moxie draped over some stranger’s luggage in the baggage car—but at this point, she would take whatever opportunity she was given. God knew she doubted her ability to wait much longer.

Violet knelt and began kissing her way up Moxie’s thighs. When her tongue reached their juncture, she couldn’t suppress a smile at the way Moxie tasted, suffused with passion and need.

Moxie was obviously still trying to be silent, though she wasn’t completely successful. As she gyrated against Violet’s mouth her breathing was ragged, punctuated by soft staccato moans.

The sound of the door sliding shut startled them both.

“Hello?”

“Fuck,” Violet mouthed, her frustration blurring with homicidal fantasies surrounding whoever that voice belonged to. She looked at Moxie and held up her index finger as a signal for her to stay still for a moment.

“Is anyone in here?” the male voice asked again.

Clitty barked happily. Violet rolled her eyes that her dog was so damn friendly.

“Well, hey there. Who do you belong to?”

Violet quickly stood as the sound of footsteps approached them, and she helped Moxie pull down her dress.

“Hello?” he asked again.

“So you see, rainbows are simply light refracted by moisture,” Violet said in her best college-professor voice.

Moxie had her chin in her hand as she tried to feign fascination. “Wow.”

“Oh,” Violet said, turning to the train porter holding Clitty, who had appeared around the corner. “Hello. We didn’t hear you.”

“What are you doing in here?”

“We were just going over the basics of hydrometeorology,” Violet replied.

He looked completely confounded. “Um, is this your dog?”

Moxie hopped up and took Clitty from him. “Yes, we came in looking for him. Thank you.”

“You aren’t supposed to be in this area.” He scowled.

“We’re
very
sorry,” Moxie said. “We’ll be going now. Thanks again for finding him for us.”

Violet followed Moxie into the next car, and when she saw no one in the corridor, she backed Moxie against the wall and put her palms flat on the walls on either side of her.

“So you study science in your free time?” Moxie asked, her voice husky.

“Actresses aren’t all fluff and quim, you know.” Their mouths were excruciatingly close.

“Is that so?”

Violet smiled. “Actually, I have a photographic memory. If I read it once, it’s with me forever.”

“Really?”

“How do you think I remember all those lines? Now, would you like to tell me why you aren’t wearing any underpants?”

“Well, since lunch, the crossword puzzle, I’ve been a little distracted.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And honestly, they just kept getting wet. So I took them off. I was hoping to cool off a little.”

“That may be the best fucking reason for anything that I’ve ever heard.”

“I love your mouth,” Moxie said softly.

“And it loves your—”

The door of Moxie’s drawing room flew open, causing them both to jump.

“There you are,” Cotton announced, as he, Wil, and Irene stepped into the hallway. “I’m afraid to ask what you two were doing.”

Moxie grinned weakly. “Hydronumeralzoology.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Wil joked.

“I needed to get something in the baggage car,” Violet explained. And tragically, she
still
needed to get it, and badly.

“Goodness,” Moxie said brightly, “is it already dinnertime?” She placed Clitty on the floor.

Cotton looked nonplussed. “I was only able to secure a table for two tonight. But I’m sure you ladies will fare just fine.” He directed Moxie to head toward the dining car, and as she did so, he turned to glare at the remaining women.

Wil, Irene, and Violet stood with only each other for company as Wil sighed. “I want you to know, Vi, this bet is going to be
very
unpleasant for me.”

“I understand,” Violet said. “But you’d better get hot on it, sister, or I might just implode.”

“Do you two have dinner plans?” Irene asked.

“My dinner plans were rudely interrupted,” Violet answered in irritation.

Will looked pleasantly surprised. “Do tell.”

“The appetizer was incredible.”

Irene looked confused. “There’s food in the baggage car?”

“Finger food?” Wil asked.

“That was just the first course. I was well into the second.”

“You’re making me hungry,” Irene said dejectedly.

“Yes,” Violet replied. “Unfortunately my appetite isn’t sated either.”

*

Cotton sawed his knife through the piece of well-done steak on his plate while Moxie waited—waited for him to start lecturing her.

So far, they had been seated, had ordered, and been served their dinner without anything more than pleasant small talk about menu items and railway amenities. She knew something was brimming under the surface, and Cotton was no doubt biding his time for just the right moment to erupt.

“Moxie, we need to discuss your career.”

Ah, here it was. She tried to stifle a smug smile as she loaded her fork with mashed potatoes. “Do we?”

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to spell all this out for you,” he began quietly. “But obviously my subtlety has been ineffective.”

“You were being subtle?”

He pressed on without responding. “I realize you’re a young, Midwestern, homespun girl.”

“Don’t forget corn-fed.”

“You’ve probably never been exposed to people like this before.”

Moxie arched her eyebrows in curiosity and continued to chew.

“There are women out there, predators, who will want to do things to you.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Sexual things.”

She shifted in her chair, clamping her thighs together in the hope that things down there would stop throbbing and, with any luck, begin to air-dry. Cotton’s mention of women wanting to do sexual things to her was not aiding her in this endeavor.

“I don’t mean to offend or upset you,” he said, apparently interpreting her fidgeting as discomfort with the topic itself.

“I appreciate that, Cotton.” She needed Violet’s mouth on her again. That had been the most incredible and erotic sensation she had experienced in her entire life. How did she
do
those things? It was like some of her body parts were enchanted. Oh, Cotton was still speaking.

“I believe this London woman to be one of these seducers.”

“And what experience do you have with predators and seducers?”

He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I’d rather not say.”

“You’re starting to sound paranoid.”

His jaw tightened, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. “I’m speaking from experience. I know, because that’s what happened to my wife.”

“You never mentioned being married.”

“I like to pretend that I never was.” He continued cutting his meat and did not meet her gaze.

“What happened?”

He didn’t respond right away, and Moxie simply waited.

“We were only married a few years. I traveled quite a bit for my job.”

“Who was it?”

“My brother’s wife.”

“Oh, my. How did you find out?”

“One evening my train was canceled due to snow. I returned home and found them in the act.”

Moxie pressed her legs together tight. She knew it was wrong to find her friend’s heartbreaking story arousing. “What were they doing?” she asked without thinking, in a voice that sounded too husky to be hers.

“What?” He seemed caught off guard by her candid question. “Well, they weren’t playing pinochle. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Perhaps there was an innocent explanation.”

He scowled. “An argument that she tried to make. Cake frosting doesn’t just
fall
into one’s vagina. Such an action defies the laws of physics.” He seemed to notice that he was speaking quite loudly and he shrank into his chair.

“Mmm, that is very tragic.” She could not believe how wet she was. Just when she hoped she’d be able to concentrate on something innocuous, to force herself to think of something other than Violet’s dexterous hands stroking her to wondrous climax, suddenly she heard stories of frosted lesbian muff parties. It was like a cruel conspiracy. If she hadn’t been so incredibly horny, she might even have laughed about it. Her clit thrummed like a plucked bow string. “Shit,” she murmured.

“At any rate, I think I know what I’m talking about.”

“Perhaps they were just sharing a recipe.”

“What they were doing was giving in to insanity.”

“I don’t know that cake frosting is
crazy,
per se. Messy, certainly—”

“I even offered to try and overlook her indiscretion, if she simply promised never to see my sister-in-law again. And of course get psychiatric care for her dementia,” he added almost as an afterthought as he took a sip of tea. “She declined. Can you believe that?”

“Shocking.” She hoped her incredulity had not seeped into the word as it fell from her lips. Moxie was now finding this conversation disturbing in a whole new way. “Cotton, I’m sure that was difficult to bear.”

“Very.”

“So you divorced.”

He nodded.

“Perhaps you should have suggested the cake frosting first.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, then perhaps she needn’t have looked outside her marriage for…baked goods.”

“I’m a good Christian, I’ll have you know.” He appeared horrified. “That’s no way for married people to behave.”

“Yes, you wouldn’t want anyone to enjoy it,” she mumbled into her water glass.

“Moxie, I see you as the daughter I could have had, if my filthy slattern of a wife hadn’t destroyed both our marriage as well as my brother’s, by rutting with my whore of a sister-in-law.”

“Um, thank you?” She supposed there had been a compliment in there somewhere, amid all the bitterness.

“I don’t want to see you led down the primrose path, a path of carnal destruction. Hollywood will never tolerate that kind of sin and depravity.”

She furrowed her brow in confusion. “Which Hollywood are you talking about?”

“The one we’re en route to.”

Moxie started counting on her fingers. “Fatty Arbuckle, William Desmond Taylor, Barbara La Marr, Jeanne Eagels. Any of those ring a bell? It’s probably not because they shared a pew with you at high mass.”

“Exactly. You should learn from their examples.”

“So you think they were all anomalies? Everyone else in Los Angeles is God-fearing and temperate?”

“Look, you’re too green to see how much sense I’m making.”

“Is that the problem?” She took another mouthful of food from her fork.

“Yes. But I’m not going to let you fail.” He seemed to have missed the sarcasm in her voice.

“Cotton, I realize that you see me as naïve. But I’ve been on my own long enough to know the score.”

“Everyone
thinks
they know the score, doll. But only some really do.”

“And you’re one of the ones who does?”

He beamed. “Like the back of my hand.”

*

Violet, Wil, and Irene had decided to retreat to Violet and Wil’s drawing room and order their dinner in, and after the meal Wil had changed into something navy blue and slinky, and was applying her makeup in the large mirror while the other two watched.

“I’m telling you,” Wil asserted as she fussed with her mascara, “I
saw
her do it. I was there.”

Irene looked stunned. “She actually managed to get a note out of a clarinet with her vagina?”

“Granted, it wasn’t the best version I’ve ever heard, but it was discernibly ‘Frère Jacques.’”

“The French are
amazing,
” Irene declared.

“Wait until you hear how she plays the cello,” Violet said.

Wil turned to address them both. “Europeans have a way of making you feel like you have a lazy twat. I mean, I can only do about six things proficiently with mine. Most Europeans are no doubt into double digits.”

“Are you counting predicting the weather in your six?” Violet asked as she tossed a ball for Clitty to retrieve.

“Yes. And I’m also including that it can measure things up to sixteen inches long with reasonable accuracy.” She turned back to the mirror and reviewed her appearance quickly. “Speaking of, I’m off, darlings.”

“Where are you going?” Irene asked.

“Vi and I have a little bet that needs settling.” She turned to Violet. “Give me about five minutes, doll. Then you should be in the clear.”

“I do admire your confidence,” Violet said with a smile.

“Judging by what I’ve seen,” Wil said, “you’ll need to work fast. He doesn’t strike me as a marathon man, if you get my drift.”

“Can’t you try and go slowly?” Violet asked.

Wil rolled her eyes. “We’ve been over this before. What you do and what I do are like apples and oranges, darling.”

“Fair enough. But can’t you take some extra time to peel yours?”

“Sometimes I barely get it off the tree, sister,” Wil said with a wink.

Violet stood. “Maybe it’s how you’re plucking your fruit. At times you need a light touch so you don’t, you know, bruise the goods.”

A wicked expression crossed Wil’s face. “You can’t get the juice without squeezing.”

“Well, you don’t squeeze apples. They’re plenty juicy as is. That’s why they make such tasty pie.”

“You have a bigger sweet tooth than I have, darling. Wish me luck.”

“All I have,” Violet said as Wil stepped into the corridor and shut the door behind her.

“You know,” Irene shook her head, “I never really know what the two of you are talking about.”

Violet smiled. “This should help you. Whenever you’re uncertain, we’re talking about sex.”

“So, most of the time.”

“I’d say anywhere between seventy-five to ninety-eight percent of it, yes.” She sat back down and resumed her game of fetch with Clitty.

“I can see why Moxie has so much fun with you. I don’t mean
fun,
” she amended quickly, stretching the last word out for several seconds. “Though maybe I do. But
I
don’t want any fun, at least not the kind where I wake up somewhere else naked. I mean, what girl doesn’t like to have a little fun? Good, wholesome, clothes-wearing fun. But I like men, and I want to keep it that way, if it’s all the same to you.”