Free Sapphire and Shadow (A Woman's Life) by Marie Ferrarella

younger woman’s chin with her finger tip, “no man is worth brooding over. With the lights out, they’re all the same.”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    Arlene drew her carefully penciled eyebrows together. “You mean you never—?”
    Johanna shook her head. It wasn’t chic to admit it, but Johanna had never cared to be chic. “Never.”
    Arlene stared at her as if she was trying to comprehend this information. Food and gossip were temporarily forgotten. “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “Oh my God, I could be dining with the last of a dying breed. You’re practically extinct, sweetie. A virgin wife.” She giggled, then saw that Johanna was hurt. Arlene hurried her next words. “That’s rather refreshing, actually, considering the jaded world we find ourselves living in.” She leaned closer, scrutinizing Johanna’s face. She knew of several men in their immediate sphere who would have wanted this woman in their beds, whatever the price. “Never even once?”
    Johanna raised her head. “No.”
    “My dear, how do you stand it?”
    “I don’t need ‘it.’” She tried to curb her annoyance. She knew Arlene meant no harm. “I need Harry. I need the way he was. I want love, Arlene, not sex.”
    “Well—“ Arlene drew out the word as she considered Johanna’s statement. “When you can’t get what you want, you take what you can.” She caught their waiter’s eye and lifted her empty glass aloft. The young man nodded and retreated.
    Johanna suddenly felt sober as she shook her head. At least her mind was clear. The rest of her body wasn’t in focus yet. “Sorry, that would be selling out, settling for it. And I don’t do that kind of thing.”
    “No, apparently not. A pity. When you want your sheets warmed, let me know. I know of at least three candidates who would offer you a good size chunk of the moon to be able to nibble on your, um, ear,” Arlene amended when she took stock of who she was talking to. “And other parts thereof,” she couldn’t resist adding.
    Johanna had the last of her drink, then set the glass down. “You take them.”
    “Oh, I would if I could, Johanna, I most certainly would if I could, but with me, they only want the ear, to talk, to complain and to get sympathy. I’d switch with you in a minute.”
    She paused to consider her last statement. She thought of Harry in place of Sam. Sam might not be loving, but he wasn’t unkind. And there was something brutal about Harry. “Well, maybe not.”
    Johanna laughed sadly as she played with her salad. “I didn’t think so.”

Chapter Nine

    There had been a time when she looked forward to attending parties like this one, Johanna thought. Then it had been an experience akin to stepping into Wonderland. She had been fascinated by the glitter, the wealth, the power that churned within these gatherings of the finely dressed chosen few. The beautiful people. But she had found all too soon that they weren’t so beautiful after all, not beneath their carefully made-up faces and their expensive designer clothes. They were greedy, grasping and cruel. Not all of them, but enough.
    Perhaps it was like this everywhere, although she couldn’t remember feeling this way in the little town where she had grown up. Perhaps, she mused, that was the problem. She had been too cocooned, too sheltered, too untrained to be able to handle the sort of life she was living now.
    Maybe these types of goings-on did exist elsewhere, but they seemed more pronounced when they involved Hollywood persona because the people were all larger than life, or so their publicists would have wanted the rest of the world to believe.
    Johanna glanced at her husband as they entered, together for once. She smiled but felt like a hypocrite. Everyone there, she felt, knew that their union was a sham.
    Harry still cut a resplendent figure in his tuxedo. Ten pounds lighter than his sparse frame should actually be carrying and with a haunted look to his eyes, he was still a