Glitter Baby

Chapter 3

By the time Belinda met him, Flynn had gone through three wives and several fortunes. He was forty-six but looked twenty years older. The famous mustache was grizzled; the handsome face, with its chiseled bones and sculpted nose, had grown jowly and lined from vodka, drugs, and cynicism. His face formed a road map of his life. In four years he’d be dead, falling victim to a long list of ailments that would have killed other men much earlier. But most men weren’t Flynn.

He’d swashbuckled his way across the screen for two decades, fighting villains, winning wars, and saving damsels. Captain Blood, Robin Hood, Don Juan-Flynn had played them all. Sometimes, if the mood struck him, he’d even played them well.

Long before he came to Hollywood, Errol Flynn had taken part in adventures every bit as dangerous as those he’d played on screen. He’d been an explorer, a sailor, a gold prospector. He’d traded for slaves in New Guinea. The scar on his heel came from a shot fired by a party of headhunters, another scar on his abdomen from a scuffle with a rickshaw driver in India. At least that’s what he said. With Flynn, no one could ever be sure.

Always, there were women. They couldn’t get enough of him, and Flynn felt the same about them. He especially liked them young. The younger the better. Looking into a fresh young face and plunging into a fresh young body gave him the illusion of recovering his lost innocence. It also brought him trouble.

In 1942 he was put on trial for statutory rape. Although the girls were willing, California law made it illegal to have sexual intercourse with anyone under the age of eighteen, willing or not. Nine women served on the jury, however, and Flynn was acquitted. Afterward, he perpetuated the myth of his prowess even as he hated becoming a phallic joke.

The trial didn’t end his fascination with young girls, and even though he was forty-six, alcoholic, and dissipated, they still found him irresistible.

“Come over here, my dear, and sit next to me.”

He touched her arm, and Belinda felt as if the earth had spun out of its orbit. She sank into the chair he led her to just as she thought her knees would give out. Her hand shook as she took the glass he pressed toward her. This wasn’t a dream. It was real. She and Errol Flynn were alone together. He smiled at her, a crooked smile, roguish, urbane, the famous left eyebrow slightly higher than the right. “How old are you, my dear?”

It took her a moment to find her voice. “Eighteen.”

“Eighteen…” His left eyebrow rose a little higher. “I don’t suppose-no, of course not.” He tugged on the corner of his mustache and gave her an apologetic chuckle, both charming and disarming. “You wouldn’t happen to have your birth certificate on you?”

“My birth certificate?” She looked at him quizzically. Such a strange question. And then the old stories about the trial clicked into place, and she laughed. “I’m not carrying my birth certificate, Mr. Flynn, but I truly am eighteen.” Her laughter turned daringly mischievous. “Would it make any difference if I weren’t?”

His response was vintage Flynn. “Of course not.”

For the next hour they observed the amenities. Flynn told her a story about John Barrymore and gossiped about his leading ladies. She confided what had happened with Paramount. He asked her to call him “Baron,” his favorite nickname. She said she would, but she called him “Mr. Flynn” just the same. At the end of the hour, he took her by the hand and led her inside.

With some embarrassment, she asked to use the bathroom. After she had flushed the toilet and washed her hands, she sneaked a peak at the contents of his medicine cabinet. Errol Flynn’s toothbrush. Errol Flynn’s razor. Her eyes skipped over the pills and Errol Flynn’s suppositories. When she shut the cabinet, her face in the mirror was flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. She’d wandered into the presence of a great star.

He waited for her in the bedroom. He wore a burgundy-colored dressing gown and smoked a cigarette in a short amber holder. A fresh bottle of vodka sat on the table at his side. She smiled tentatively, not sure what she should do next. He seemed both amused and pleased. “Contrary to what you may have read, my dear, I am not a ravisher of young women.”

“I didn’t think you were, Mr. Flynn…Baron.”

“Are you absolutely certain you know what you’re doing here?”

“Oh yes.”

“Good.” He took a last drag on the cigarette, then set the holder in the ashtray. “Perhaps you’d like to undress for me.”

She swallowed hard. She’d never been completely naked with a man. She’d had her panties off or her dress unbuttoned, like tonight with Billy, but the boys had always done that. She’d never personally gotten undressed for anybody. Of course, Errol Flynn wasn’t just anybody.

Reaching behind her, she fumbled with the buttons. When she finally had them unfastened, she slipped the dress over her hips. She didn’t dare look at him, so she thought of his wonderful movies: The Dawn Patrol, Objective, Burma!, The Charge of the Light Brigade. She’d seen that one on television. She looked nervously for someplace to put her dress and spotted a closet on the far side of the room. After she’d hung it up, she stepped out of her shoes, then tried to think what she should take off next.

Darting a quick glance at him, she felt a little shiver of pleasure. Her eyes lovingly erased his wrinkles and jowls until he looked the same as he did on-screen. She remembered how handsome he’d been in Against All Flags. He’d played a British naval officer, and Maureen O’Hara had been a pirate named Spitfire. Reaching beneath the lace hem of her slip, Belinda unfastened her garters, drew off her stockings, and folded them neatly. After that, she took off her garter belt. Santa Fe Trail had been on television not long ago. He and Olivia de Havilland were wonderful together. He was so masculine, and Olivia was always such a lady.

Belinda wore only a slip, her bra and panties, and her charm bracelet. She unfastened the small gold clasp. Her hands shook, but she finally got it off and set it next to her stockings. She wished he’d get up and do the rest, but he showed no signs of moving. Slowly she pulled her slip over her head.

She remembered he was married. He’d met Patrice Wymore, his current wife, when they were filming Rocky Mountain. Patrice was so lucky to be married to a man like Errol Flynn, but the rumors of their breakup must be true, or he’d be with Patrice instead of her. It was hard to make a marriage work in Hollywood.

When she was finally naked, she saw by the direction of Flynn’s gaze that he liked what she’d revealed. “Come here, my dear.”

Embarrassed but excited, she walked toward him. He stood and touched her chin. She nearly fainted from excitement. She waited for him to kiss her. His hands slipped to her shoulders. She wanted the same kiss he’d given Olivia de Havilland, and Maureen O’Hara, and all the other beautiful women he’d loved on the screen, but he opened his robe instead. He was naked underneath. Her eyes denied the looseness of his suntanned skin.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to give me a bit of help, my dear,” he said. “Vodka and lovemaking aren’t always the best of companions.”

She looked up into his eyes. It would be her privilege to help him, except she wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted her to do.

Not being a stranger to the minds of young girls, he understood her hesitation and offered a specific suggestion. She was shocked, but at the same time fascinated. So this was the way famous men made love. It was strange, but somehow it seemed appropriate.

She lowered herself to her knees.

It took a long time, and she got tired, but eventually he pulled her up and laid her on the bed. The mattress sagged as he rolled on top of her. Surely he’d kiss her now, but to her disappointment, he didn’t.

He nudged her legs, and she quickly parted them for him. His eyes were closed, but she kept hers open so she could treasure every moment. Errol Flynn was going to do it to her. Errol Flynn. A chorus sang in her heart. She felt a probe. A push. It was really Errol Flynn!

Her body exploded.

Later that night he asked her what her name was and offered her a cigarette. She didn’t really smoke, so she took short drags. Leaning next to him against the headboard with a cigarette thrilled her. For the first time in hours she remembered about Jimmy. Poor Jimmy, to have died so young. Life could be cruel. How lucky she was to be here alive and happy.

Flynn told her about his yacht, the Zaca, and about his recent travels. Belinda didn’t want to pry, but she was curious about his wife. “Patrice is very beautiful.”

“A wonderful woman. I’ve treated her badly.” He drained his glass, then reached across her for a refill from the bottle on the nightstand. As he poured, his shoulder dug into her breast. “It’s a habit I have with women. I don’t mean to hurt them, but I wasn’t made for marriage.”

“Will you get a divorce?” She self-consciously tapped the ash from her cigarette.

“Probably. Although, God knows, I can’t afford it. The IRS wants me for almost a million, and I’m so far behind on alimony I’ve lost track.”

Belinda’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. “It doesn’t seem fair that a man like you should have to worry about such things. Not with all the pleasure you’ve given so many people.”

Flynn patted her knee. “You’re a sweet girl, Belinda. And a beautiful one. There’s something in your eyes that makes me forget how old I’m getting to be.”

She took the liberty of resting her cheek against his shoulder. “You mustn’t talk that way. You’re not old.”

He smiled and kissed the top of her head. “Sweet girl.”

By the end of the week Belinda had moved into Flynn’s bungalow at the Garden of Allah. A month flew by. At the end of October, he gave her a gold charm, a small disk suspended from a wishbone frame with “LUV” engraved in the center of one side and the letters “I” and “U” on the other. When she flicked the charm with the tip of her finger, it spun and the message “I LUV U” came together. She knew he didn’t mean it, but she treasured the charm and wore it with pride as a symbol to the world that she belonged to Errol Flynn.

In the reflected glow of his fame, her old feelings of invisibility vanished. Never had she felt so pretty, so smart, so important. They slept late and spent their days either on the Zaca or alongside the pool. They marked their nights in clubs and restaurants. She learned to smoke and drink, she learned not to stare when she met famous people, no matter how excited she felt inside, and she learned that famous people seemed to like her. An actor who was a friend of Flynn’s told her it was because she offered no judgment, only adoration. The remark puzzled her. How could she judge? It wasn’t up to ordinary people to pass judgment on the stars.

Sometimes at night she and Flynn made love, but more often they talked. It hurt her to see how sad and troubled he was beneath his devil-may-care facade. She devoted herself to making him happy.

She saw Rebel Without a Cause and thought that maybe her dream hadn’t died after all. She was meeting studio executives now instead of lowly assistant casting directors. She needed to take advantage of those contacts and prepare for the inevitable time when Flynn moved on to another woman. She had no delusions about that. She wasn’t important enough to hold him for long.

Flynn bought her a daring lipstick-red French bikini and sat by the side of the pool sipping his vodka while he watched her play. No one else at the Garden was adventurous enough to wear one of the new bikinis, but Belinda didn’t feel embarrassed. She loved watching Flynn watch her. She loved emerging from the water to be wrapped in the towel he held for her. She felt sheltered, protected, and adored.

Late one morning while Flynn was still sleeping, Belinda donned the red bikini and dived into the deserted pool. She swam several easy laps, opening her eyes under water to look at the initials of Alla Nazimova carved into the concrete just below the water line. When she came to the surface, she found herself staring at a pair of highly polished leather shoes.

“Tiens! A mermaid has taken over the pool at the Garden of Allah. A mermaid with eyes bluer than the sky.”

Treading water, Belinda squinted against the morning sun to see the man standing over her. He was distinctly European. His oyster-white suit had the sheen of silk and the immaculate press of a man who kept a valet. He was of medium height, slim and aristocratic, with dark hair that had been skillfully cut to disguise its thinning. Small, slanted eyes sat above a broad nose with a slight hook at the end. He wasn’t handsome, but he was imposing. The smell of money and power clung to him as tenaciously as his expensive cologne. She judged him to be in his mid-to-late thirties, French by his accent, although his features were more exotic. Maybe he was a European filmmaker.

She gave him a saucy grin. “No mermaid, monsieur. Just a very ordinary girl.”

“Ordinaire? I would hardly say so. Três extraordinaire, in fact.”

She accepted his compliment graciously, and in her best accented high school French replied, “Merci beaucoup, monsieur. Vous êtes trop gentil.”

“Tell me, ma petite mermaid. Is there a tail beneath that charmant red bikini?”

Amusement glinted in his eyes, but Belinda sensed something calculated about his audaciousness. This man did nothing, said nothing, by accident. “Mais non, monsieur,” she replied evenly. “Only two ordinary legs.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps, mademoiselle, you will let me be the judge?”

She gazed at him for a moment, then dived under and swam in long, clean strokes for the ladder at the opposite end of the pool. But when she climbed out, he’d disappeared. Half an hour later, she walked into the bungalow and found him talking to Flynn over Bloody Marys.

Mornings weren’t Flynn’s best time, and next to the immaculately groomed stranger he looked rumpled and old. Still, he was by far the more handsome. She sat on the arm of his chair and placed her hand on his shoulder. She wished she had the courage to plant a casual good-morning kiss on his cheek, but the sporadic nighttime intimacies that passed between them didn’t make her feel entitled to that kind of informality. He looped his arm around her waist. “Good morning, my dear. I understand the two of you met by the pool.”

The stranger’s eyes slid down the long suntanned legs extending beneath the terry wrap she’d tossed on over her bikini. “Not a tail after all.” He rose gracefully to his feet. “Alexi Savagar, mademoiselle.”

“He’s being modest, my dear. Our visitor is actually Count Alexi Nikolai Vasily Savagarin. Did I get it right, old sport?”

“My family left the title behind in St. Petersburg, mon ami, as you very well know.” Although Alexi sounded faintly reproachful, Belinda sensed he was pleased by Flynn’s use of his title. “We’re now hopelessly French.”

“And bloody rich. Your family didn’t leave their rubles behind in Mother Russia, did they, old sport? Not by a long shot.” Flynn turned toward Belinda. “Alexi is in California buying a few old cars to ship back to Paris for his collection.”

“What a peasant you are, mon ami. A 1927 Alfa Romeo is hardly just an ‘old car.’ Besides, I’m here on business.”

“Alexi is adding to the family fortune by meddling in electronics. What’s that gadget you were telling me about? Has something to do with vacuum tubes?”

“The transistor. It’s going to replace the vacuum tube.”

“Transistor. That’s it. And if it’ll make money, you can bet Alexi’s sitting on a truckload of the little buggers. You’d think he’d be willing to lend me some of his profits so I could produce my next picture.” Although he was looking at her, Belinda had the feeling he was really talking to Alexi.

Alexi regarded him with amusement. “I haven’t made my fortune by throwing good money after bad. Unless, of course, you’re willing to part with the Zaca. Now that would be quite a different story.”

“You’ll get the Zaca over my dead body,” Flynn replied, an edge to his voice.

“From the looks of things, mon ami, I may not have long to wait.”

“Spare me your lectures. Belinda, fix us two more Bloodys.”

“Of course.” She took their glasses and went into the kitchenette that opened off the living room. Neither man made an effort to lower his voice, and she could hear their conversation as she refilled their glasses from a fresh can of tomato juice. At first they talked about the transistors and Alexi’s business, but before long, the conversation became more personal.

“Belinda is an improvement over the last one, mon ami,” she heard Alexi say. “Those eyes are quite extraordinaire, A little old, though, isn’t she? Past sixteen.”

“Casting stones, Alexi?” Flynn laughed. “Don’t get any ideas of your own about her. You’ll only be wasting your time. Belinda is my joy. Rather like a faithful dog, but housebroken and beautiful. She only gives adoration. No nagging, no lectures about my drinking. She puts up with my moods, and she’s surprisingly intelligent. If more women were like Belinda, there’d be more happy men.”

“Mon Dieu, you sound as if you’re ready for another trip to the altar. Are you sure you can afford it?”

“She’s merely a diversion,” Flynn replied with a trace of belligerence. “And a damned pleasant one.”

Belinda’s cheeks were flushed as she brought their drinks to them. She didn’t like what he’d said about the dog, but the other things he’d said about her were nice.

“There you are, darling. I was just telling Alexi about you.”

She sensed a subtle tension between the two men she hadn’t noticed before.

“You’re a paragon, mademoiselle, if I am to believe the Baron here. Intelligent, adoring, beautiful-although my views of your beauty have been somewhat limited, so he may be lying.”

Flynn took a careful sip from the drink she handed him. “I thought you met her at the pool.”

“She was under water. And now, as you see…” He nodded dismissively toward the terry-cloth wrap.

A long look passed between the men. Was it challenge she saw in Alexi’s eyes? Belinda felt as though she were witnessing an old, familiar game between them, a game she didn’t understand.

“Belinda, darling, take that off, would you?” Flynn crumpled an empty cigarette pack.

“What?”

“Your wrap, my dear. Take it off, there’s a good girl.”

She looked from one man to the other. Flynn was putting a fresh cigarette in the amber holder, but Alexi watched her, a trace of something that might have been sympathy underlying his amusement. “You’ve embarrassed her, mon ami.”

“Nonsense. Belinda doesn’t mind.” Flynn rose and walked over to her. He tilted up her chin just as she’d seen him do so often to Olivia de Havilland. “She’ll do anything I ask. Won’t you, darling?” He leaned down and brushed a kiss over her lips.

She hesitated only a moment before she dropped her fingers to the sash on her wrap. Flynn touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Slowly she loosened the knot and let the sash fall away. Turning her body toward Flynn, she allowed the wrap to drop to the floor.

“Let Alexi see, if you don’t mind, my dear. I want him to have a good view of what his money can’t buy.”

She regarded Flynn unhappily, but his eyes were on Alexi, and his expression seemed vaguely triumphant. Slowly she pivoted toward the Frenchman. The chilly air brushed her skin, and her bikini halter felt clammy against her breasts. She told herself it was childish to feel embarrassed. This was no different from standing at the edge of the pool. But she still couldn’t bring herself to meet the slanted, Russian eyes of Alexi Savagar.

“Her body is lovely, mon ami,” he said. “I congratulate you. But your beauty is wasted on this faded matinee idol. I think I shall steal you away.” His tone was light, but something in his expression told her his words hadn’t been spoken casually.

“I think not.” She tried to sound cool and sophisticated, like Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. Something about him frightened her. Perhaps it was his air of power, the impression of authority he wore every bit as easily as the oyster-white suit. She bent to retrieve her wrap, but as she straightened, Flynn’s hand cupped her bare shoulder, preventing her from covering herself.

“Take no notice of Alexi, Belinda. Our rivalry is an old one.” His hand moved down the length of her arm and splayed possessively across her bare midriff. His little finger slipped in the hollow of her navel. “He can’t abide seeing me with a woman he can’t have. It goes back to our younger days when I stole them all away from him. My friend is still a very bad loser.”

“You didn’t steal all of them away. I remember a few who were more attracted to my money than to your pretty face.”

Belinda sucked in her breath as Flynn’s hand, warm and possessive, dipped lower and settled over the lipstick-red crotch of her tiny bikini. “But they were old. Not our type at all.”

Against her will she looked up and saw Alexi leaning back in his chair, a portrait of aristocratic indolence with one immaculately trousered leg crossed over the other. He lifted his eyes to hers, and for a fraction of a moment, she forgot Flynn was in the room.