Sugar Boy turned his head suddenly and saw her approaching across the broken stalks. He lowered the revolver to reload; he did not need to look down as his nimble fingers slid each shell home. When only a few feet remained between him and Sadie Burke, he turned his head away and spat.
Ignoring this, she drawled, "Hey, Sugar."
He nodded civilly.
"Hot as hell today," Sadie commented, fanning herself with her hat; the slight breeze that this generated stirred the reddish-blonde curls at her cheeks. Her fair skin was flushed in the afternoon sun. Sugar Boy looked back toward the makeshift target he had erected on a stack of hay bales. He squinted at the pockmarks in the paper.
"The happy family doesn't seem to mind." She continued with her remarks as if he had contributed to the conversation. His silences were nothing new to her.
Sugar followed her gaze toward the farmhouse's picnic table, around which, chatting and laughing, he could see the Starks. Of course, in Sugar's mind, there was only one Stark: Governor Willie Stark, whose father, wife, and son were only tiny planetoids that orbited around the star that was the Boss. Sadie and Sugar Boy himself were also planets, though slightly larger ones, since their presence was vital to the governor's administration of the state.
And Jack Burden? Sugar had not yet determined where the reporter fit into this pattern. Burden was leaning against the fence at the edge of the field, observing the target practice. Sugar was almost entirely sure that Sadie had not gone to bed with the reporter, but he would not have laid odds for money. He also did not believe that she had slept with Tiny Duffy, or, at least, he did not like to consider the image of the slim blonde lying underneath that fat cog in the political machine.
Sugar knew for certain, however, that Sadie was fucking the Boss. He knew that for a fact.
Her soft hair swung toward his face as she leaned into him, turning her head to sight down the line. Her hat was now fanning both of them. He could smell her sweat and powder over the crackling, hot odor of the field.
"You wouldn't let me take a shot or two, would you?"
Sugar had realized long ago that Sadie was at her most dangerous when she sounded sweetest. He removed his hat, glaring at her, and swiped a forearm over his sweaty forehead, then settled the fedora firmly back on his head.
"Never told you that my daddy taught me how, did I?" she asked teasingly, smiling at him with those red lips. She poked her slim fingers into the empty holster that hung on his ribcage. He willed himself not to jerk away. "Please, Sugar?"
It's a big gun for a little woman, he thought in Gary Cooper's voice.
Instead of speaking aloud, he shook his head.
"Let me show you I can handle it," Sadie urged in that sensible tone she used on the Boss when he was recalcitrant. There was no arguing with her when she spoke like that; it was the 'Sadie-knows-best' tone, the 'listen-to-me-or-I-will-make-your-life-hell' tone.
Sugar Boy ground his jaw.
Sadie smiled.
Against all better judgment, he handed his .38 Special to the Boss' pretty (/smart/stubborn) secretary. Mothers had abandoned infants on doorsteps with lesser pangs than Sugar Boy felt as Sadie took the weapon from his hand. However, her adept handling of the revolver began to have a decidedly different effect on him. Sugar, in fact, discovered that a significant amount of blood was flowing into his groin while he watched her open the cylinder, examine its contents, and swing it closed with a flick of her wrist.
Sadie cleared her throat pointedly, and he yielded his spot. She stood where he had, setting her feet and squaring her shoulders to the target. The soft click of the hammer under her thumb echoed through Sugar's body like the crashing of a waterfall. Her grasp of the .38 was firm but relaxed. He imagined the feel of the corrugated grip under her small fingers.
He reached out for her wrist. It was thin and smooth. Startled, she turned her vivid brown gaze on him. He guided her left hand up to support her right.
"It'll k-k-k-k-k-kick," he managed, head twitching with the effort.
Her eyes held his for a long moment, and Sugar Boy was glad to see none of the pity or impatience most faces held when he spoke. It occurred to him that Sadie had never reacted to his stutter with either of those emotions.
She looked back toward the target. He watched a bead of sweat tumble down the side of her neck, and his erection evolved from a semi to something more pronounced. Sadie squinted, aiming down the sight, and squeezed off a round. Jack Burden's clapping was slow and sardonic in the wake of the gunshot. She pulled a face at the reporter, sticking out her tongue.
Sugar Boy spotted the fresh hole in the paper target. Not a great shot, but a fair one. He pursed his lips slightly, impressed despite himself. She cocked the .38 again, but he put his hand up to stay her second shot and made a motion up along his chest while breathing in. Sadie inhaled. He exhaled, and she imitated him.
"Then fire?" she confirmed.
He nodded.
Eyes on the target, she took a deep breath in and let it out. At the end of this cycle, when her body was still, Sadie squeezed the trigger. This shot punched a hole much closer to the center of the paper. She crowed with triumph.
"Ya see that, Jack?" she whooped.
"Nice shot, Sadie," Burden replied dryly.
Sugar Boy's eyes roamed beyond the fence, where Jack stood, to the picnic table. The Starks were talking and laughing animatedly, all except for Willie. The Boss was staring down the slope at his mistress and his bodyguard. Sugar could not read the governor's expression. Sadie grinned and waved at the Starks. Willie's father returned the greeting, but Mrs. Lucy Stark merely wiped her mouth with a napkin.
*****
"Helluva gal, ain't she?" Stark muttered as they entered his office.
Sugar Boy knew the Boss was not referring to Sadie, who rose and smiled at the governor, but to the long-legged burlesque dancer whose performance they had just watched. The girl was black Irish, with eyes blue as sapphires and lips red as rubies, and she was probably on her way up to the governor's suite even then.
"Baby, I got a few things I need to take care of here, so I'm gonna have Sugar drive you on home," the Boss said, taking a seat on the couch and adjusting his wide necktie.
Sadie frowned in the midst of pouring him a drink. "What kind of things?"
Stark sniffed and accepted the glass from her, grinning that sparkly grin of his.
"Some fellas are coming over to transact some business, you got me?"
He raised his eyebrows deliberately, telling her silently that this business to be transacted was not exactly on the up-and-up and that he did not want her there as a witness. That was one of the many things Sugar Boy admired about the Boss: he could make everything he did seem like it was for someone else's benefit.
"So you go on with Sugar, darlin'."
Sadie put her hand on her hip and regarded her lover levelly. The governor stared back with equanimity. There was a beat, then she made a face and went to gather up her things. Sugar caught the barest hint of a wink directed at him by the Boss when Sadie's back was turned; he let the corner of his mouth curve slightly upward.
"Lead on, MacDuff," the blonde cried at last, waving a regal hand at Sugar. She ignored Stark completely as they marched out of the suite and rode the elevator down. When the doors opened in the lobby, a raven-haired beauty's mouth popped open, recognizing him. Sugar squinted his eyes, warning the dancer off, and she had the sense to shut her mouth. He put his hand in the small of Sadie's back to scoot her past the taller woman, who stepped into the elevator behind them.
Sugar Boy opened the back door of the Cadillac, but Sadie walked past him to the front door. He blinked: the Boss was the only one who ever rode in the front with him. She turned her head toward him as she bent to sit. Her reddish-blonde hair whipped around her face, and her eyes were like daggers. Chewing on the inside of his cheek, Sugar closed the back door and walked around to the driver's side. She glared at him fixedly while he turned the key in the ignition and shifted into gear. He could practically hear her blood boiling.
"It's that tall gal with the dark hair, isn't it?" she blurted at last. "Outside the elevator."
It is tonight, Sugar thought to himself. As always, he was impressed by Sadie's powers of intuition. She was, like the Boss said, 'one smart cookie'.
"At least he has the decency to cheat on me with attractive women," she grumbled.
Sugar Boy glanced in the rearview and changed lanes.
"Aren't you going to tell me it's Lucy he's cheating on, not me?" Sadie demanded, slumping in the passenger seat. "That's what Jack always says."
I'm not Jack.
"But you're not Jack, are you?"
Sugar inclined his eyebrows in acknowledgment. She stared out the window silently for a time. Her hands fidgeted in her lap. She shifted her legs in the footwell. At last she reached down to unbuckle her high-heeled shoes.
"You just thank the good Lord that He made you a man, Sugar, because He has seen fit to curse women with uncomfortable shoes."
They stopped at a traffic light. Out of the corner of his eye, Sugar saw her cant her hips in the seat and tug her skirt up to mid-thigh. Startled, he looked over. Sadie was unfastening her garters; she made little, if any, effort to screen the activity from Sugar's gaze. His eyes flicked back to the stoplight: it remained resolutely red. Clenching the wheel in his hands, he strove to ignore the fascinating undergarments that rested on the fair skin of her thighs.
Boss' girl Boss' girl Boss' girl...
"There," Sadie muttered, rolling each stocking down and off her foot. Her slim legs were now bare as Eve's in the Garden. She flicked her hair back from her face and settled back into her seat.
The traffic light turned green. Sugar pumped the clutch gratefully.
"I don't want to go home, Sugar," she announced suddenly. "Let's go out in the country a little ways. Whaddya say? Come on. Just a little drive. He won't want you back tonight, will he?"
Her eyes cut toward him. It was a trap, and Sugar did not fall for it. If he said 'no', Sadie would infer that the burlesque dancer was staying the night. In point of fact, the Boss had not asked him to return this evening. After he dropped off Sadie, Sugar would be unencumbered.
He looked over at her. She had scooted toward him, one arm on the back of the seat, her brown eyes large and luminous in the passing streetlights. Her skin was soft and creamy.
Sugar swallowed down the warnings that rose in his gut. "The W-w-w-wisteria?" he suggested. It was a honkytonk not far outside Mason City, a rural jukejoint where they could have a quick drink. It was loud as hell there, too, so he would not have to talk much. Then he could run her back to her place.
Sadie shook her head. "Nah, I just feel like driving. Come on, Sugar. You can't fool me: you'd rather be behind the wheel of this car than just about anywhere else on God's green earth."
He could not help but smile. She had him dead-to-rights there.
Ten minutes later they had left Mason City behind them. They rocketed down a county road that was almost empty at this time of night. Sugar ignored the steadily climbing speedometer, and Sadie seemed unconcerned about their speed. She even laughed and whooped as he swerved smoothly around a truck going eighty. She had not moved back to her side of the bench seat, and now her left hand snaked out to rest itself on his knee. Sugar glanced down at the slim fingers clasping his leg; they would squeeze him when he angled his knee to shift from accelerator to brake. If her hand had been farther up on his thigh, he would have moved it, but, as it was, the gesture was not unpleasant, nor did it impinge on his driving. Deciding to let her hand stay put, he snuck a sugar cube out of his breast pocket and popped it in his mouth; he liked cubes because they crunched so satisfyingly between his teeth.
"Lemme have one of those," Sadie murmured. Leaning into him, she smoothed her right hand across his chest and under his leather jacket to reach his pocket, but her fingers found the butt of his gun first. She stroked it lightly. Her left hand had slipped further up his thigh. Sugar kept his eyes fixedly on the road. At last she abandoned his .38 and plucked one of the cubes from his breast pocket. When she popped it into her mouth, she did not sit back, nor did she withdraw her left hand from its position high up on his thigh. Her breath was sweet and hot on his jaw.
Sugar darted into the left lane to pass the slow-moving Studebaker in front of them. He switched back into the right lane a little too sharply, and the momentum threw Sadie against him. Her hand landed, whether by accident or intent, squarely in his lap. He squeezed the wheel as she gently explored the bulge she found his trousers.
"I knew you liked driving, Sugar, but I didn't know you enjoyed it quite this much," she purred in his ear.
Grinding his jaw, Sugar tromped on the accelerator, then turned hard right, skidding into a little-used farm lane. He downshifted aggressively and watched the Studebaker pass by in the rearview mirror. The Cadillac responded smoothly, as always, to his braking, and they came to a stop fifty yards off the main road. He switched off the ignition and the headlamps. Lights gleamed dully from sharecroppers' shacks perhaps a mile further on down the lane. There was no sign of humanity any closer to them in the dark Southern night.
The fingers of Sadie's right hand were playing with the top button of his shirt, which he always wore fastened. Her left hand slowly caressed his erection through his trousers. Her lips closed around his earlobe.
"You're the Bbbbbbbbboss' girl."
"So you're thinking about the Boss, huh? I'm not." Her cool fingers tugged his shirttails out of his waistband, scooted beneath his undershirt, and smoothed over his bare sternum.
Sugar groaned and flung himself out of the car. Sadie followed him and took a seat on the hood of the Cadillac. He turned to see her fumbling with a book of matches, a slim cigarette dangling from her red lips. More from force of habit than anything else, Sugar Boy found himself taking the matchbook from her hands and striking a light for her. He could see the flame reflected in the brown pools of her eyes as she leaned toward the match. She held his gaze, dragging on the cigarette. At last the flame burned down to his fingers. Startling, he shook the match out and cast it away.
"You are thinking about him, aren't you?" Sadie said coolly. She blew smoke to the side, her lips curving in a tiny smile. Her left hand shot out to grab the lapel of his jacket and draw him closer. "He's the one that makes you hard."
Sugar narrowed his eyes. "I'm not a f-f-f-f-ucking f-f-f-f-fairy," he spat, clenching his hands with the force of his frustration.
"Oh, no?" she challenged airily. She let go of his jacket and, grabbing his hat, popped the fedora onto her own head. "But you like me better like this, don't you?"
Swift and angry, he plucked the cigarette from her mouth and ground it underfoot. When she gasped in surprise, Sugar closed his lips over hers, forcing his tongue inside her mouth. His hand scrabbled at the hem of her blouse. Finding an entrance, he shoved her brassiere up and squeezed the hot flesh of her breast. Sadie moaned. He thrust closer to her, separating her knees with his hips, her skirt dragging up her thighs.
Her small hands pressed on his chest to push him away, and he was enraged by her trickery,
prickteasebut then he realized that she was closing her thighs only to haul down her panties. Her lips were curved in that Mona Lisa smile that he hated.
loved
and all he wanted to do was slap it
screw it
off her face. Sadie unbuckled his belt and undid his pants. The feel of her hand on his erection dragged a groan from deep in his chest. She wrapped her legs around her waist and guided him toward her wet center, and she was smiling that damnable smile until the moment when he thrust into her, and then her mouth flew open, and her head fell back, and she sighed with pleasure.
She leaned back as he slid in and out of her, and Sugar cocked her ankles up onto his shoulders. Sadie writhed ecstatically at the deeper angle of penetration. She looked so beautiful, biting her lower lip, her golden-red hair spread out over the black steel. Sugar doubted that the Boss had ever seen her like this. Did she moan like this for him? Was she so slick and heavenly for him?
"Oh, Sugar," she gasped, lifting her hips to meet his thrusts. "Oh, yes."
Her breathing was fast and shallow. Tiny cries escaped her lips every time he crashed into her. She gripped the edge of the hood like she was hanging from a cliff. Sugar fucked her desperately, with a sort of angry glee. He imagined the Boss watching them in dismay, horrified by the pleasure Sadie was so clearly taking from his bodyguard's virility.
"Sugar, don't stop! Don't..."
A sudden tension possessed Sadie's muscles, and she wailed. Sugar could feel her passage spasming around him. He rammed into her furiously, gripping her thighs in his fingers. She shuddered, moaning, as he continued his assault. His legs were threatening to buckle.
"Sadie," he groaned with no hint of a stammer, pulling out at just the last moment. He rubbed himself against her inner thigh and spilled out over her hot flesh, trembling. He stared down, panting, as his juices flowed off her thigh and down the hood to the car's grille. He leaned down awkwardly and kissed Sadie's kneecap. She favored him with a lazy grin.
"Goddamn, darlin'," she drawled. "You do love this car."
"He's a f-f-f-fool," Sugar Boy stammered. The words surprised him, but he did not regret them.
"Aw, hell. I knew that when I met him."
He stroked her calf contemplatively. "You're going to tell him, aren't you?"
"I thought you wanted him to know," Sadie answered, stretching. She sat up and regarded him seriously, then shook her hair out. "But maybe not just yet. I think I'm developing a sweet tooth."
*****
A/N: Ending line is lame, I know, but I couldn't resist. I was surprised to discover that the film removed Sugar Boy's stutter, so I've reinstated it. JEH stammering is c-c-c-cute. :D