Trophy for Eagles (14 page)

"Damn," Charlotte yelled.

"What's the matter?"

She walked across the room, sucking her finger.

"I stuck myself with the ice pick."

She brought some pieces of ice for his glass. He glanced at her appreciatively. She was mothering him, trying to ease his dis
appointment.

She dropped the ice into his glass as if she were a bombardier, splashing the scotch, and asked, "Are you feeling better? There's a
party at the country club tonight. Do you want to go?"

"I'm feeling better. We'll see about the party." His arm slid a wave of heat around her as he pointed down into the yard, where Murray was working on his car, a two-tone blue Rickenbacker speedster. "Did you ever notice his hands?"

"How could I help it? He follows me around like a cocker spaniel."

Hafner said, "Murray's got hands like a surgeon. I've seen him fix
a little lady's watch, no bigger than a dime. He sticks that little glass
in his eye and his fingers fly."

"Well, he's getting on my nerves. Every time I look around, he's staring at me."

He turned her to him, pressed his body against her. "He's bother
ing you, eh? Well, you're bothering me." He took her hand, kissed the little wound from the ice pick, slid her finger into his mouth, and sucked on it.

The foreplay was as choreographed as her old dance routines, and
the results were as predictable. Her attention slammed tight as a camera's shutter to concentrate on his scent, his bulky presence, and he seemed to spread around her, surrounding her with his will and his need. He slipped his right hand inside her blouse, cupping her breast, then squeezing it, gently at first, then harder.

The effect was immediate, the same as it had been those long
years ago when they had first met, when she was just intrigued with
finding yet another flyer, even a German one. As Hafner's hand closed tighter, she felt the wonderful mindless drift to sensual
surrender; she shuddered and pressed her pelvis to him, raising her
face to be kissed. The familiar hot electric current surged through her, a great molten gush that rushed like a torrent from her nipples
to the glowing volcano between her legs, a hard yearning that had to
be fulfilled.

They kissed and he eased her backward, ruffling her dress up, pulling her underclothes down. She fumbled with his pants, ripping
the belt open and tugging at the buttons, and they stumbled eagerly to the couch, undressed only enough to come together in a blinding surge of passion.

Climaxing almost instantly, they lay together gasping, then laughing.

"Are you all right? Is your head bothering you?"

"No, it's not my head that's bothering me."

They undressed slowly and matter-of-factly; he never took his
eyes off her as she carefully folded her clothes and laid them on the
desk, appreciating how little her body had changed since they had met. He had taken a particular pleasure in seducing the widow of a French ace; now he realized that she had seduced him as she had so
many others.

He did not mind. He was not a constant lover, and saw no reason
why she should be. Life was too short to worry about such things. In
other matters—business, raising her child—she was superb.

He disrobed as he watched her, carelessly tossing his clothes to
the floor; the mess would ordinarily have bothered her, but she liked
it as part of the loving ritual. He extended his hands to her, and they lay together on their sides on the couch. She slipped her hand down
between them to caress him.

"Are you up to a little more?" she whispered.

"Not yet—but help me along."

She rolled off the couch and knelt beside him, earnestly applying
herself and bringing him quickly erect. Then she said, "You take it
easy, just lie on your back—I'll do the work."

She rose over him, awkwardly clinging to the top of the couch
until she caught her balance, then rocking back and forth on the springs until she mounted him. She positioned herself in a crouch, her feet flat on the leather cushions of the couch, moving with a steady beat, her eyes closed, head tossing from side to side. He reached up and held her jiggling breasts in his hands, and she
responded, as she always did, by reaching back to cup his scrotum in
her hand.

Hafner watched her. She was good, but she needed his sex more
than he needed hers. Charlotte moved steadily faster, breathing harder, chest heaving. He knew that he would not have another orgasm, but enjoyed watching her, lost in that deep absorbing
pursuit of endless sex that kept them together. In many ways, he
enjoyed the comparatively placid second lovemaking better than the first. Always on their first time he was in a blinding fury, wanting to
crawl up inside her, wishing his penis had a mouth on it, the better
to ravage her, trying to grind himself into a melting, melding union
with her. The second time he could enjoy her more fully; it was afterplay that was better than the foreplay, an afterplay that could lead to yet another round.

With a wild convulsive heave, muttering little cries, she climaxed, collapsing in a heap on his chest.

"They call that 'riding to St. Ives.' Did you like it?"

He wondered who "they" were. "I like it as long as it took you where you needed to go."

She rested for a while with her head on his shoulder, as they joked back and forth. "What would Elsie say if she came in?"

Elsie was Bruno's young secretary, no more than eighteen. She was sure he was sleeping with her.

"Ach, she'd be jealous, seeing me with such a fine-figured woman. She's just a stick, that Elsie."

A stick, but a young stick. It didn't matter. There was plenty for them both. She fixed him another drink, poured a short one for herself, then pulled out the gray journals that detailed the operations for the last month.

"As long as we're here, we might as well go over the books."

Hafner smiled at her, appreciating the quick transition from
heated, almost violent sex to cool and calculating business. She sat naked at the table, pencil in hand, already absorbed in the figures. They were a strange combination; no one else would understand
them. He didn't understand them himself, but he knew that they were a good mix. At least for the time being. He had found that certain people were necessary at certain times—his parents, early on, then his squadron mates, Goering and Loerzer during the war, Nungesser after, now Charlotte. Each person in his or her own time.

*

Manhattan/May 21, 1927

No one would believe it. He didn't believe it himself. While Slim
Lindbergh was flying across the ocean, battling weather and fatigue
on his way to fame and fortune, he'd spent two days and nights in a
six-dollar room at the Hotel Montclair with Millie. He knew she was protecting him, first from his reaction to the fire, then to the depressing news of Lindbergh's departure. Millie had insisted on being with him, afraid that he'd do something rash. She had called Frances Winter to explain that she would be gone for a while, somehow disarming her objections by telling her the exact truth,
that she would be with Bandy. What was unbelievable was that they
had stumbled through his depression, her consolation, and their passion—and still hadn't made love.

But they had come so very close. At first Millie had been unrealistic, arranging the blankets in an S shape that let them hold each other tightly, yet be insulated from flesh-to-flesh contact. "They used to call it bundling in the colonial days. It was the only way people could court and keep warm."

"It's keeping me warm, all right, Millie. I'm hot as a pistol. I don't think I can take much of this."

"Just you wait and see. Love doesn't have to be all sex—we can be
in love and just be tender."

There was no blanket between their faces, and the deep kisses soon overtook the tenderness. He hooked his finger around the
blanket and edged it down. She closed her eyes and moved away, to
give him room. Each time he moved the blanket an inch he would lean down and kiss the newly exposed flesh.

Millie shuddered with excitement. Her eyes were closed, her right hand clenched so tight that the nails dug into her palm. Her left hand patted the back of his neck, giving him assurance she could not put in words.

He had kissed her belly and moved the blanket down past her
thighs in a single motion. He buried his lips in the edge of the sweet
brown triangle of hair, and she spoke.

"I'm really sorry, but I promised my mother I'd be a virgin when I
got married. It is very difficult for me to change my way of thinking,
no matter how I feel, how excited you make me."

He put his finger to her lips. "Don't say any more. This is wonderful. How could I ever have been so lucky as to be here?"

They pressed together tightly, nude. She raised herself and said,
"I think I know how I can help." She tenderly took him in her hand,
moving him gently, then more rapidly.

When he came they were both embarrassed.

She giggled. "I didn't realize sex was so messy. In the books, it's
all just sighs and asterisks."

They played some more, and a little later, her own excitement undiminished, she asked hurriedly, running the words together, "Do you have anything the menuse?"

He sat on his elbow, staring at her. "What on earth are you talking about? Asterisks? Menus? I don't know what you mean."

She blushed. "You know, the things the men use, safes, French letters, I don't know what you call them."

Bandfield laughed and put his head between her breasts, letting the passion mount again.

"Millie, you don't know how embarrassing it is to get those
things. I don't even know where to go. Besides, you really want to
wait until we're married, and I'm glad to wait."

As if to reassure herself, she martialed her arguments for technical virginity again. He agreed with her philosophically, at least from the waist up. From the waist down it was torture. Yet it was
worth it; he felt he was building up a bank account of passion, one that would stand them both in good stead when they finally got married.

"Do you want me to go to Green Bay and get your father's permission?"

"Sure. Just tell him we spent two days together in a hotel in New York, and you'll get the full Wisconsin white shotgun wedding
treatment." She took his hand. "Don't rush things. You're upset
because of the fire, and because of Lindbergh. Let's see how things
are in a few months."

He shook his head yes, told himself no.

His attitude swung with his hormone levels, which ranged from high to stratospheric. Intellectually, he knew she was wrong, that they couldn't be more intimate if they actually made love than they were now, yet he understood what she was trying to do and was proud of her for it. She became adept at manipulating him, but he
was unable to satisfy her with his hands, was unsure if he could kiss
her to a climax, and didn't dare suggest it anyway.

"Don't worry about it—women are different than men. Or so they tell me. It takes longer to get adjusted."

"But it's not fair."

"No, and it's not fair for me to be here with you like this and not
make love. So let me worry about me, and you worry about you."

Eventually he accommodated himself to it, so much so that the
relief she gave him was soon supplanted by a deadening depression
when he thought about not making the flight. When he saw the
headlines about Lindbergh's arrival in Paris, he was engulfed in a
missed-coital tristfulness. One hundred million other Americans
went mad for joy with Slim's success, but Bandfield burned with
personal disappointment. He wondered how Hafner and Byrd were
taking it. There might be faster New York-Paris flights—it had taken Lindbergh more than thirty-three hours—but there would never be another first flight.

Determined to get his mind off Lindbergh's triumph, Millie, starving as usual, finally dragged him out of the hotel. Winter had given him a two-week advance, and Millie insisted going dutch on
everything, so there was plenty of money.

"We might as well see New York City! Who knows when we'll be
back?"

They mixed education, eating, and sightseeing in equal measure
as Bandfield tried to get life after Lindbergh back into perspective.
She seemed to know everything without ever looking at a pamphlet or guidebook and worked hard to draw his attention away from his
troubles. They went to the Aquarium by subway. The fleet was in
and sailors crowded the streets like seabirds on a rock, eyeing Millie,
whistling. She ignored them, concentrating on teaching Bandy. It was an old fort, she said, converted first to an immigration center, then to an aquarium. In his mind he immediately transposed the
fish swimming forlornly in the cool green aquarium cells of water to
the ocean, where, if things had gone differently, other fish might have been staring at him.