The Insiders

"Why?" His voice sounded pleasant, but his words stung. "Even if I could, I don't think I'd want to. You forget, there's no mystery left to you, Francie. I know all your secrets now; there's nothing to find. And that sadomasochistic bit can be a drag; it's no new kick for me, anyhow."

"I don't care! Brant—please, please be nice to me! Don't you understand? I really do dig you. Nothing before has been this good for me, this far out. I dig your scene—all this. Let me stay, and I'll do anything you want me to—anything—you know I will. Brant, please?"

He stood looking down at her, still nude, still bored. Annoyed by his indifference, she reached up between his legs, her fingers like claws. But he was quicker than she; his hand slammed into her face, knocking her backward onto the carpet with her head ringing.

"Fucking bastard! You hurt mel"

"But you like to be hurt, baby—remember? And remember, while you're about it, that I don't dig being hurt."

He just stood there watching her, his face unreadable, and she began to sob with her mouth open, bawling like a child—all mouth and screwed-up eyes.

"Oh, shit, what a stupid little cunt you are! Your tears don't affect me one way or the other, Francie, but you are beginning to bug me. What in hell are you looking for?"

"If you won't let me stay, can't I at least see you again? Please, please let me keep coming. I swear I won't bug you, and I'll do anything you tell me to do... ."

"If I let you come back, you bet you will, baby. Heck, who knows, maybe some of my friends might get a kick out of your kind of thing."

He smiled at her, but there was no mirth in his smile.

"Just remember—no complaints or whining afterward. You'll have to act like a big girl and look out for yourself—and you'll have to do as you're told. You on the Pill yet?"

"I've been on the Pill since—since I was a freshman. Oh, Brant—thanks!"

Brant grimaced into his drink. He wondered why he had let her have her way. Sometimes, when the wrong mood hit him, he wondered about everything—his whole way of life. Why did he bother? Always looking for new kicks, new women, new entertainment. What was it his shrink had told him? Something about the rich constantly needing to be entertained? He'd told him something else, too—that he had a subconscious death wish, that he was trying to destroy himself, as well as other people. But then even psychiatrists didn't know everything. No one knew anything. Men kept creating new gods, when the only real power was there already, inside themselves. But what the heck, this was no time to indulge in introspection.

He watched Francie over the rim of his gl

ass. She was sitting up now, rubbing her knuckles childishly into her eyes. She looked like such a kid without all that makeup on and her dark hair falling around her face. . . . But then, there was the surprise of finding out that she wasn't—not by any means. Maybe Francie, too, in her own peculiar way, was hell-bent on self-destruction, just like he was. Maybe that was the common bond between them. Whatever it was. . . . He kept studying her.

And then he told himself with a mental shrug to forget it. What did he care what her hang-ups were or how she had acquired them?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BRANT HAD NEVER BEFORE met a chick who was a complete masochist, who really dug being hurt the way Francie did. Sure, there were plenty of women who went around asking for it, who craved it subconsciously; but then when you gave it to them, they squalled. And then there were those others who'd do it for money. But this one, this chick really enjoyed it; he suspected it was t ho only way she could come, because to her, sex had to be mixed up with pain. And maybe she'd prove a new kind of kick for the crowd, at that.

He walked over to the phone and began to dial.

"Get over here and make it big," he told her harshly.

She crawled over on her hands and knees, her eyes suddenly bright. Just as if he'd offered her some kind of treat to stop her from crying.

"Jerry? About the party tonight. Yeah, I know. But I've got this bird I'm bringing—Frances someone— remember her? Yeah—that's the one "

His voice went on, without a pause in it, a hesitation that would show she was getting to him. But Francie knew she was because she could feel him getting bigger, harder already.

Still talking, he grabbed her by the hair, bringing tears to her eyes, and pushed her mouth onto his cock. 1 le filled her mouth, hurting the soft part at the back of her throat, making her gag. But she could take it! Anything Brant did to her she could take, because she loved him. Yes, she did, she really did! She clasped his body with her hands, feeling the hardness of the muscles in his buttocks under her palms.

He was still talking on the phone to Jerry as if nothing were happening, but she didn't care.

He was happening; he was big for her. No matter what he did or how he acted, he did want her. It reminded her in some weird way of the times when she was litde and Daddy beat her—the times before the accident that had killed him, and mother, too. Her eyes closed, Francie remembered.

First—yes, it had always started with the trip down to the cellar. He'd make her go ahead of him, and he'd be right behind, the belt swinging from his hand, swishing in the air. And she'd be crying harder and harder, begging him not to beat her, to give her one more chance to be good for him, but he wouldn't answer. The stairs going down to the cellar always seemed endless to Francie. And then, when at last they'd reached the bottom, she'd cry even harder and louder, beginning to squirm already.

"You know you've got it coming, Frances," he'd say sometimes, his voice sounding sad and very deep. "I don't understand why you keep doing these things, telling so many lies. After all the promises you've given us, after all we've told you and given you, your mother and I. Why, Frances, why?"

But sometimes he'd be so mad at her he wouldn't even trust himself to speak. He'd just make her bend over the old pickle barrel in the corner and pull her skirt up, and then the belt would come whistling through the air and the pain would explode across her body—making her scream and yell her promises not to be bad anymore, to listen to Mama and her big brother and to stop her stealing and lying. But Daddy wouldn't stop beating her until his arm was tired, she guessed, and her behind felt like it was on fire. All the time he was beating her, she'd have to stay bent over, and she'd rub herself up against the roughness of that old barrel while the belt made her squirm and dance with pain. And then the pain would get mixed up with something else after a while—and when it was over and she was held in Daddy's arms again, sobbing, and he'd tell her how much he loved her and that he only beat her for her own good, because he loved her, why even then, Francie knew she'd go and do something bad again real soon, and it would all start over

After the accident, Dave had been the one. Dave, her big brother, so many years older than she that she'd always been in awe of him. It hadn't been easy at first, making him mad enough so he'd spank her. He'd told her once he'd always been sorry about the way Daddy used to beat her—he thought they should have tried psychology on her, instead. But after the time he'd come home to find she'd deliberately cut up one of Mama's fine linen tablecloths to make herself a sundress, he'd given up on the psychology crap. He'd spanked her on that occasion, and from then on, he'd do the same whenever she did anything he didn't like—sometimes just because her grades were poor.