Excerpts: Sloane Hall by Libby Sternberg

Posted October 1, 2010 by Holly in Promotions | 0 Comments

TWO BRIEF EXCERPTS FROM SLOANE HALL

______

In this scene, John recalls the incident that led to being kicked out of his lodgings before the novel begins:

I’d been in a fight that morning with Clyde, one of the other boys rooming at Jake’s Coach Service and Tip Top Garage. The little shit had left a wrench out and I’d tripped over it. Then the runt wouldn’t pick up the tool when I told him to. They never heeded, the little rats. So I’d made him heed. I’d punched him. Thirty seconds into the fight and I had begun to see him not as Clyde but as Brice Clement from the Canfield Home for Wayward Boys, as evil incarnate, as something the world was better rid of. I’d been an avenging angel in the City of the Queen of Angels. Stay out of my way. I was doing God’s work.

Jake, the owner of the garage and rooming house, hadn’t seen it that way. He’d told me I didn’t fit in and suggested I find another place to live.

_____________

In this scene, Pauline Sloane hosts a grand party at her Hollywood estate to celebrate the start of her first talking picture shoot. She insists John come into the party and even dance with her:

All right. If this is what she wanted…

I moved my body closer to hers, digging my fingers into her tender waist and up until the edges of my hand felt the underside of her breast. She did not pull away. I nudged the hair away from her face and kissed her cheek. She didn’t stop me. I placed my head next to hers and breathed into her ear profanities about what I could do if she were a willing partner, things the other boys had talked about, and what I expected her to do for me. She did not recoil.

And then the joke turned sour. The room, it swirled, it danced, it rotated so that my feet no longer had to move. The things I’d said—I wanted them. They were no joke—I really wanted them! I wanted them more than anything in the world. Give them to me!

Desire swamped me, pushing me under until I could barely breathe. I was a drowning man, gasping for air and finding only the waves of longing that broke over my body, cresting and falling with my thudding heartbeat and ragged breaths. I wanted to…I had to…Please, let me…The warmth of her body penetrated to my own, her scent filled my nostrils, strands of hair brushed my cheek.

“I…” Please, please, let me…

“I…love you.”

Had I shouted it? Whispered it? Had I said it at all? I shook my head.