Innocence Defiled

Chapter Two-2

“Now, Miss Atherton…” Lionel continued, “we’re going to begin shooting the scene…your lover is arriving in a few minutes. Give me a dreamy face, as if you’re thinking of the evening ahead… and when you’re ready, just lift your dress by the hem, pull it over your head and let it fall to the floor.” He stepped behind the camera and the machine began to whir.

Lift your dress by the hem…pull it over your head… The words repeated in her mind until Violet’s closed eyes suddenly shot open and she peered beyond the blinding floodlights into the dark room, looking for Lionel Rains.

“Problem, Miss Atherton?” the director stepped out from behind the camera.

“I-un no…no… just that…”

“Just that what?”

“Just that,” she coyly c****d her head, her face grimacing miserably. “Could I…could I speak with you in private, please?”

The director strode toward her, placing an arm on each of her shoulders and cradling her head in his hands. His piercing eyes stabbed her like arrows. “This is a screen test, you’re an actress…I’ve given you all the instruction you need…” His annoyance was undisguised.

“Yes, yes, I know,” Violet interrupted, whispering quietly, “but my… uh…under things, well, they aren’t very …um… very attractive.” She thought of her frayed and dingy underwear, wincing…nothing could be more embarrassing in her mind.

“Ah, I see.” The man’s grim face was suddenly lit with amusement and he chuckled beneath his breath. He let Violet go and called to one of the women watching, “Clara, dear, would you take Miss Atherton upstairs into the wardrobe and find something suitable for the scene? I think you know what I want.”

“Sure, boss,” a sultry female voice came back.

As the woman passed the director, he whispered, not all that quietly, “And don’t mess this up, Clara, the girl is ripe.”

The whole room seemed to titter as if Violet’s secret had been exposed, but before the scared young actress had a chance to flinch from the embarrassment, a lanky brunette in a bangled red dress stepped from the crowd and took her by the hand. She swiftly led her out the door, across the foyer and up the sweeping staircase to the second floor.

“You know, Ly should have counted on this, the bastard,” she whispered tersely as the two took the stairs. “But don’t you let it bother you. You’re doing just fine.”

The women’s offhand and nonjudgmental style put Violet at ease—at least for the moment.

The pair moved from the upstairs hallway into a breathtaking bedroom that was furnished in a dozen shades of white and cream, with fine brocades and papered walls, and a huge white bear skin rug laid before a black marble fireplace with a carved white mantle. The centerpiece of the room opposite the fireplace was an immense canopy bed hidden behind a curtain of sheer silk fabric that draped from the top of the canopy all the way to the floor. Edging the curtain was a delicate gold trim.

“Oh my!” Violet stepped back in awe, too intimidated to move. “I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

“Ly’s bedroom, where he likes to keep the clothes for his… his special screen tests,” the droll Clara explained. “If he didn’t have me around to help you he’d be in here himself dressing you, I’m sure.”

Getting down to business, Clara stood back and viewed Violet critically for several moments, sizing up her body inside the shapeless print dress, then she moved directly to a bank of closets set flush against the far wall. A world of ornate female clothes seemed to spill from the open door, and after fishing around, Clara pulled out several chic pieces of intimate finery and crossed back to the waiting Violet. “These should do,” she said with some certainty, “the dressing room’s through the double doors, you can try them on there.”

Taking the clothes in hand, Violet padded toward a pair of French doors that opened into a bath and dressing area. The same rich white look of the bedroom continued in these rooms. Thick carpet in the dressing room, marble floors in the bath, and fancy gold fixtures that looked as if they’d been raided from an Italian castle, created a fairytale land in Violet’s mind that seemed more dreamlike than real. She could have spent her entire night inside this pretty palace.

After a moment of stunned silence trying to absorb the enormity of her situation, she finally decided that she was too muddled and too anxious to sort out her emotions on the spot—they would have to wait. Forcing herself beyond her fears, Violet began to undress. She refused to look in the mirrors that lined the dressing room walls where a dozen trembling Violets attempted to turn a pretty pauper into a princess with a few fancy under things. To even pretend that she fit into this affluent atmosphere seemed like a waste of her time, but she could think of no graceful way to extricate herself from the uncomfortable predicament. She spent another hasty minute reminding herself: It’s just a screen test, Violet … just a screen test…

Settling slightly, she turned her attention to her task and gazed down at the lingerie. The knickers and brocade chemise were fashioned from silk and finely made, unlike anything she’d laid her hands on. Making quick work of her own shabby clothes, she carefully pulled the chemise over head, and pulled the knickers up her hips. The soft fabric draped sensuously against her skin, the fit was perfect, Clara’s intuition faultless. Not only did the pale pink color enhance her creamy complexion, the way the material clung to her body revealed subtle hints about the shape and size of her breasts and the delightful curve of her youthful hips. Her long lean thighs were dazzling to the eye—though it would be Violet’s audience that would note that fact, not the nervous actress. One could hardly refer to the lingerie as modest but it was discreet enough not to make her turmoil more troublesome than it already was. In fact, when Violet finally glanced in the mirrors, she looked at herself with a bit of pride, and the self-confidence she’d been striving to maintain all evening seemed to return—at least in part.

When she finally emerged from the dressing room, Clara greeted her with a bright smile, her arched eyebrows raised in admiration. “Oh, my dear, do you look seductive,” she exclaimed in her husky voice. Unlike the other women at the party who appeared like baubles on the Christmas tree, Clara was an earthy female of simple sensibilities, with short, blunt-cut hair, little make-up, and a casual manner that suggested she was slightly bored with the night—though that feeling didn’t appear to extend to Violet. With the innocent novice, Clara played the mother hen with an air of mild amusement. She certainly didn’t take herself or the situation seriously.

“Here, I think you’ll want this,” she said, handing Violet an ivory dressing gown. “And Violet, honey, don’t let Ly or his friends intimidate you.”

“Oh, heavens no!” Violet came right back—with perhaps too much enthusiasm. She was still trying to convince herself that nothing about the night should dissuade her from her larger purpose.

“I mean it, dear. If he tries to shock you, you hold your ground.”

“Shock me?”

“He’ll tell you it adds to the dramatic tension, but sometimes I think the man’s a pure sadist.”

Violet didn’t understand. “But Mister Rains has been nothing but a gentleman to me.”

“Of course. That’s his style. You’d be wise to remember that all that polish and sophistication has its darker side.”

Violet found the comment obscure, alluding to something the woman must have thought would be better left unsaid. But whatever it was Clara wasn’t saying, wasn’t going to be said that night. Before Violet could question the woman further, the director’s roaring voice bolted up the stairs with a booming, “Clara!” interrupting any further conversation.

“We’d better skedaddle,” the sighing female announced and she headed for the door. Violet, in her new underclothes and dressing gown, headed down the stairs on the brunette’s heels, turning heads one more time as she entered the living room.

Lionel, impatient and pacing the room, looked up to appraise the results.

“The robe please,” he ordered, holding out his hand. Violet eyed him for a moment, then grudgingly relinquished her last defense against the onslaught of critical eyes, and judging glances, and lewd stares that came her way. As soon as she loosened the dressing gown and pulled it from her shoulders, the sound of murmuring voices swept the air with a new wave of excitement.

Lionel stared at her, taking so long to comment that Violet wondered what might be the matter. Then a clipped, “All right, that’s good,” from his pursed lips gave rise to a relieved sigh from his actress. The idea that after all she’d been through, the director might reject her once he saw her in the lingerie was almost too much for her to bear without going screaming from the room. Yet none of that drama would take place. Even if he weren’t completely pleased, the screen test would proceed.

As the nubile actress stepped onto the set, she could almost feel the character come to life inside her body. The clothes alone seemed to put her in the mood, and she was grateful for that, since it had become obvious that Lionel Rains could be an impatient man.

The instant she was back on the set, he began to talk again. One more time the mesmerizing words of his direction created the mood and the mindset he desired, taking up the entirety of Violet’s imagination.

“Your lover is about to arrive…you fix your hair… you touch up the make up… yes, yes, go ahead and begin…” he waved her on.

The camera began to whir and Violet in character began to run through the scene the man described, pretending as she often did before her mirror at home. She fussed with her hair, straightened the chemise again, and with a red lipstick she picked up off the set’s small dresser, she ran the rich cream along her lip line. What had been pale pink lips were now a brilliant Chinese red… and Violet’s imagination continued to bloom. When the doorbell rang off stage, the whirring movie camera recorded a moment of surprise on the actress’s face, then a giggling smile like that of a young girl. Violet breathed in, thinking erotic thoughts as she moved to the door and opened it wide.

Something sweet and delicate about the girl’s unsullied response filled the atmosphere with a rush of unexpected expectation. Clara would be proud of her, and the room of strangers was a bit in awe of how she captured the moment so well. And Lionel? He would be genuinely pleased, although he’d never quite get around to saying so specifically.

The handsome pretty boy Wendell Winthrop strode into the room and with an exuberant smile and immediately lifted Violet into his arms. Hardly had she seen this stranger’s face and he was kissing her deeply, his tongue moving aggressively inside her mouth and forcing hers to open wide. His hands were like fires setting flames on her skin. And as he lay a string of kisses along her throat, the heat of them burned her flesh.

Something wild and perverted and viciously wonderful was taking place inside her body. Her insides spasmed, her belly clenched tight, and a series of silent eruptions threw her more passionately into Wendell’s fervent embrace. She backed away from a kiss just to peer into his lovely eyes with a look of wonder and amazement, then she dove back in with a fury that came not so much from her co-star but from within herself.

“Yes, yes, that’s it, Miss Atherton,” Lionel’s voice rose up from the background for encouragement she hardly needed now, “give yourself over to the passion… let him have you… fall down against the bed…” just as Wendell laid her down and began to mount her body, “yes, yes, keep kissing, that’s perfect… on with it…”

The camera whirred on as Wendell’s kisses continued to rain down on Violet’s face.

She hardly needed the direction now; on its own her body succumbed to the actor’s roving hands, and the unfamiliar activity seemed to spur in her something quite familiar to her s****l body. It must have been memories from a past life that impinged on her present reality, that turned a harrowing exhibition of nerves into a feast for her awakening senses. A feeling of déjà vu rose up unbidden, a sense that this passion and the great lust that ruled her body now came from a primal, even Old World, source of which she was only now made aware.