The Resistance Girl. Jina Bacarr

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СКАЧАТЬ the glint in my eye, the sway of my hips. Things I don’t notice. I hide from him what I am feeling, which not only surprises me, but pleases the female urges I’ve ignored for so long.

      I shall explain…

      First, I tell Emil, I need to close the door to my public life. I need to think, rest, drink tea instead of coffee to find my footing. This is the perfect time to send scripts my way. I ask for privacy and promise him he will never again be disappointed in my performance.

      Then I sleep for two days, allowing my body to heal, my soul filling up with a new understanding that the pleasant tingling between my thighs that makes me tremble, my knees weak, is not something to be denied. That in spite of the pain, the anguish, the humiliation of being bought and sold like a bolt of silk, something wonderful and mysterious happened to me when Jean-Claude forced my legs apart. Before I could protest, I felt his warm breath on my face, hovering there, waiting to see if I was ready for him…

      The odd yet pleasurable note is, I wasn’t ready then… I am now.

       Why is my body betraying me? My belly full and aching, a burning within me that is forbidden. This can’t be happening to me, it can’t!

      A week, then two… I spend sleepless nights wishing I had another chance to be with a man. A good man who would kiss me, hug me… hold me… then I slow down my breathing, relax my body, and let it react in a most natural way as I close my eyes and imagine in my mind I’m with a gorgeous man as he runs his hands over my breasts, cupping my soft flesh. Not like I did with Jean-Claude. I pushed him away and told him to hurry up. Foolish words. Whatever deep desires I possess, they’re getting stronger every day, a growing pleasure between my legs that won’t go away. An intense hunger that becomes so deliciously painful, I can’t deny it any longer. I need a release.

      I rummage through my trunk for pieces of costumes I’ve collected from my films. Wigs, gaudy jewelry, lace-up boots, princess satin slippers. I don a fetching outfit dripping with fringe, a black wig, red satin wedge heels with tie-around straps that wind up my calves… and my lace veil.

      No… not my veil.

      I run my fingers over the veil. Tiny, static shocks prick my fingers as if a sacred aura clings to the only link to my past, a holiness I dare not violate. I return the lace veil to its secret place. It’s not my past I wish to embrace tonight, but the moment of becoming a woman on my own terms denied to me.

      No one recognizes me as Sylvie Martone when I haunt the cabarets in the Place Pigalle. I heard the makeup girl whispering to the wardrobe attendant about the decadent fun found here. This is the first chance I’ve had to see it up close. I brace myself when I slip through a door with etched glass, the smoked-filled building drawing me in, my feelings intensifying when I glance over the crowd of nubile girls in scanty frocks. Tough, muscular men from the underbelly of Paris’s gangs crowded together in the stuffy room. An accordionist pumps out a slow, sensual rhythm that moves my soul to dance… and more.

      I smile pretty when an outrageously handsome man with the rich darkness of a Moorish night sparking in his eyes slides up to me, buys me a cognac. We drink… stare… then drink again before he pulls me out onto the tiny, round dancefloor and we dance… twirling me… tossing me into the crowd… then dragging me back to him… working his jaw as his eyes haunt me… executing the sultry steps of the Apache with a graceful rhythm thumping in my blood as he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

      He carries me down a narrow flight of stairs to a cool, dark cellar reeking of wine and sweat… and hot, sticky passion. With amazing strength in his arms, he slides me down his broad chest in a slow dance, rubbing my breasts against him, and then lays me down onto a soiled and dirty mattress. I arch my back, lift my hips, ignoring the lumpy, hard spots digging into my flesh. I reach out to him and he lowers his muscular body over me, and I wait, my breathing coming so fast, dizziness makes my head spin.

      Strong hands wrap around my waist and when he enters me, this time I moan with pleasure…

      8

      Sylvie

      Sylvie Martone talks!

      Paris

      1935

      Hitler became German Chancellor two years ago, my country is in a political crisis, but the people of France love me.

      My foray into talkies is an astounding success.

      Emil builds a brilliant marketing campaign around my pictures that reflects the desperate decisions Parisians face every day. Not as Ninette. He showcases me as a woman struggling to make a living for herself in these hard times. I become every shop girl, every laundress, and every office matron working hard to bring home her own bacon. I make films about floozies fleecing men, good girls turning to sin, socialites on the run. That doesn’t change the fact I’m still a piece of property to be exploited by Emil and the studio.

      And I’d better look good doing it.

      If I gain a few pounds, they give me pills to kill my appetite.

      They shave my eyebrows and draw on skinny ones.

      If my roots show too much – my hair darkens as I enter my twenties – the crew takes a break while I get a quick bleach touchup.

      I’m whisked off to every film opening on a major publicity campaign, always in a long, sexy gown with a fur stole slung over my shoulder or fluffy feather boa with a handsome actor or producer at my side (Emil hovers in the background, making sure the press shoots plenty of pictures with me in the forefront). Silents are passé, yes, I tell them, and I embrace the chance to continue my career in speaking roles. Thanks to Miss Brimwell and her strict voice lessons, I’ve developed a rich mezzo soprano voice which adapts well to talkies.

      All this partying is in addition to my nights carousing at my secret haunts. I develop not only a taste for champagne, but the white powder offered to me by musicians and artists I meet, eager to share illicit drugs sneaked into Paris from Berlin.

      Sniffing the drug off my long nails, I head out for a night with a handsome gigolo hired by the studio to escort me on a junket down to Cannes. Rich celebrities can’t wait to be seen with me, drink and do drugs with me. When I do press interviews, I sober up quickly. I can’t forget I started out in this business as Ninette.

      I feel like I’m losing myself, what I am.

      And it frightens the hell out of me.

      Emil wants to control my sex life.

      He’s not pleased with my nocturnal jaunts, saying it’s bad for my image.

      I should fire the purveyor of the gossip on set – a script girl I barely know – but it’s my own fault for not being more careful. A jealous fille de joie saw me dancing and cavorting with several men in a seedy club and told her friend who told the script girl. She couldn’t wait to spread the story.

      It didn’t take long for word to reach Emil.

      He insists on soliciting my partners, but I reject the men Emil chooses for me, preferring instead to СКАЧАТЬ