Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(6)

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.